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Moving Day

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Hello readers! I’m going to be moving over the next week, which means updates here may be sporadic until we’re finally all in place (and with working internet service). One point of interest: I hadn’t quite realized just how large my manga collection had grown until I packed it all up this morning. Also, wow were those boxes heavy!

On deck we have the upcoming edition of Manhwa Monday as well as reviews of Ode to Kirihito, One Fine Day, Vol. 2, Hikaru no Go, Vol. 19 and as much more as I can manage in between all the hauling.

In the meantime, check out my blogroll for links to all of my favorite blogs.

More from Manga Bookshelf soon!

Bokurano: Ours, Vol. 1

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Among the most discussed scenes in the new Kick-Ass film is one that pits a tweenage assassin against a roomful of grown men. To the strains of The Banana Splits theme song, thirteen-year-old Hit Girl dispatches a dozen gangsters with a gory zest that has divided critics into two camps: those, like Richard Corliss, who found the scene shocking yet exhilarating, a purposeful, subversive commentary on superhero violence, and those, like Roger Ebert, who found it morally reprehensible, a kind of kiddie porn that exploits the character’s age for cheap thrills. What’s at issue here is not children’s capacity for violence; anyone who’s run the gauntlet of a junior high cafeteria or cranked out an essay on Lord of the Flies is painfully aware that kids can be beastly when the grown-ups aren’t looking. The real issue is that Hit Girl seems to be enjoying herself, raising the far more uncomfortable question of how children understand and wield power.

Mohiro Kitoh, creator of Shadow Star and Bokurano: Ours, likes to muck around in this uncomfortable space. In Shadow Star, for example, Kitoh pairs teens with powerful supernatural allies — in this case, “shadow dragons” — who become instruments not for fighting evil but for exacting revenge on their masters’ peers and asserting their masters’ primacy in the school pecking order. Shadow Star‘s graphic violence and sex scenes clearly made some folks uneasy, as a few of the later chapters were censored here in the US. (Dark Horse dropped the series before completing it.) Bokurano: Ours hasn’t crossed that line — at least not yet — but once again finds Kitoh subverting a familiar manga trope to suggest the darkness of the underage psyche. This time, he takes a stock shonen formula — kids piloting giant robots to save Earth from aliens — and gives it a nasty twist: the pilot of a successful sortie dies after completing his mission.

The first volume of Bokurano: Ours is neatly divided into three acts, the first explaining how Kokopelli, a mysterious computer programmer, dupes fifteen kids into “playing” this lethal game; the second profiling Waku, a brash jock who pilots the first mission; and third profiling Kodama, a ruthless loner who leads the second. In just a handful of pages, Kitoh establishes both boys’ personal histories and personalities with efficiency and nuance. Waku, for example, views his mission in the same light as a soccer match, as something to be won, while Kodama views his sortie with calculated detachment: by stomping flat an entire neighborhood, he hopes to create work for his father’s construction business. (He’s a youthful Donald Trump, minus the comb-over.)

As these first two sorties suggest, Kitoh seems intent on laying bare the unspoken truth about the giant-robot genre, that kids’ power fantasies are seldom as heroic and self-abnegating as we’d like to think; given the opportunity to control an enormous, destructive piece of machinery, many kids would just as soon turn it on others as save the day. His point is well-taken, but is driven home with such grim determination that it feels more punitive than insightful. The same could be said for his fight scenes, in which he meticulously documents the destructive effects of the children’s behavior. Kitoh’s robots look more like flesh-and-blood creatures than machines, making every body blow and puncture as viscerally real as a wound. The fights aren’t exciting; they’re exhausting, grim spectacles with terrible consequences for everyone caught in the crossfire.

Which brings me back to Kick-Ass: if a story’s tone is serious and dour, rather than cheeky and excessive, how are we to process the sight of young children committing terrible acts of violence? I wouldn’t go as far as Ebert and pronounce Bokurano: Ours morally reprehensible, as I think Kitoh recognizes that a child’s capacity for inflicting — and enjoying the sight of — pain comes from a different place than an adult’s, something that’s less self-evident in the Kick-Ass movie. At the same time, however, there’s something undeniably exploitative about Kitoh’s fondness for depicting children in peril; he seems to take pleasure in stomping all over the idea that children are more innocent and pure than adults, even though he’s devised an unfair scenario for testing that hypothesis. (As I note above, the kids are tricked into “playing” what they believe is a game, with no way to renege on their contract.) I’m not sure if his aim is to shock or simply tell unpleasant truths, but either way, his relentlessly pessimistic view of human nature wears thin fast.

BOKURANO: OURS, VOL. 1 • BY MOHIRO KITOH • VIZ • 200 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN

Bokurano: Ours, Vol. 1

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BokuranoOurs_1Among the most discussed scenes in the new Kick-Ass film is one that pits a tweenage assassin against a roomful of grown men. To the strains of The Banana Splits theme song, thirteen-year-old Hit Girl dispatches a dozen gangsters with a gory zest that has divided critics into two camps: those, like Richard Corliss, who found the scene shocking yet exhilarating, a purposeful, subversive commentary on superhero violence, and those, like Roger Ebert, who found it morally reprehensible, a kind of kiddie porn that exploits the character’s age for cheap thrills. What’s at issue here is not children’s capacity for violence; anyone who’s run the gauntlet of a junior high cafeteria or cranked out an essay on Lord of the Flies is painfully aware that kids can be beastly when the grown-ups aren’t looking. The real issue is that Hit Girl seems to be enjoying herself, raising the far more uncomfortable question of how children understand and wield power.

Mohiro Kitoh, creator of Shadow Star and Bokurano: Ours, likes to muck around in this uncomfortable space. In Shadow Star, for example, Kitoh pairs teens with powerful supernatural allies — in this case, “shadow dragons” — who become instruments not for fighting evil but for exacting revenge on their masters’ peers and asserting their masters’ primacy in the school pecking order. Shadow Star‘s graphic violence and sex scenes clearly made some folks uneasy, as a few of the later chapters were censored here in the US. (Dark Horse dropped the series before completing it.) Bokurano: Ours hasn’t crossed that line — at least not yet — but once again finds Kitoh subverting a familiar manga trope to suggest the darkness of the underage psyche. This time, he takes a stock shonen formula — kids piloting giant robots to save Earth from aliens — and gives it a nasty twist: the pilot of a successful sortie dies after completing his mission.

The first volume of Bokurano: Ours is neatly divided into three acts, the first explaining how Kokopelli, a mysterious computer programmer, dupes fifteen kids into “playing” this lethal game; the second profiling Waku, a brash jock who pilots the first mission; and third profiling Kodama, a ruthless loner who leads the second. In just a handful of pages, Kitoh establishes both boys’ personal histories and personalities with efficiency and nuance. Waku, for example, views his mission in the same light as a soccer match, as something to be won, while Kodama views his sortie with calculated detachment: by stomping flat an entire neighborhood, he hopes to create work for his father’s construction business. (He’s a youthful Donald Trump, minus the comb-over.)

As these first two sorties suggest, Kitoh seems intent on laying bare the unspoken truth about the giant-robot genre, that kids’ power fantasies are seldom as heroic and self-abnegating as we’d like to think; given the opportunity to control an enormous, destructive piece of machinery, many kids would just as soon turn it on others as save the day. His point is well-taken, but is driven home with such grim determination that it feels more punitive than insightful. The same could be said for his fight scenes, in which he meticulously documents the destructive effects of the children’s behavior. Kitoh’s robots look more like flesh-and-blood creatures than machines, making every body blow and puncture as viscerally real as a wound. The fights aren’t exciting; they’re exhausting, grim spectacles with terrible consequences for everyone caught in the crossfire.

Which brings me back to Kick-Ass: if a story’s tone is serious and dour, rather than cheeky and excessive, how are we to process the sight of young children committing terrible acts of violence? I wouldn’t go as far as Ebert and pronounce Bokurano: Ours morally reprehensible, as I think Kitoh recognizes that a child’s capacity for inflicting — and enjoying the sight of — pain comes from a different place than an adult’s, something that’s less self-evident in the Kick-Ass movie. At the same time, however, there’s something undeniably exploitative about Kitoh’s fondness for depicting children in peril; he seems to take pleasure in stomping all over the idea that children are more innocent and pure than adults, even though he’s devised an unfair scenario for testing that hypothesis. (As I note above, the kids are tricked into “playing” what they believe is a game, with no way to renege on their contract.) I’m not sure if his aim is to shock or simply tell unpleasant truths, but either way, his relentlessly pessimistic view of human nature wears thin fast.

BOKURANO: OURS, VOL. 1 • BY MOHIRO KITOH • VIZ • 200 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN

Crown of Love, Vol. 2

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Crown of Love, Vol. 2
By Yun Kouga
Published by Viz Media
Rated T+ (Older Teen)

Buy at RightStuf | Buy at Amazon

With Hisayoshi’s help, Rima crams for the Hakuo High entrance exam. Terrified of losing the opportunity to spend time with her, Hisayoshi attempts to suppress his true intentions but is thrown off-guard by unwelcome attention from another idol with whom he’s been cast in a commercial. With the spotlight narrowing decidedly on Hisayoshi, can Rima ever see him as anything but a hated rival?

This series’ hero, Hisayoshi, continues to be both intensely creepy and surprisingly relatable. It’s a combination guaranteed to make most readers uncomfortable, but it’s also one of the series’ greatest strengths. Watching Hisayoshi perilously straddle the line between crushing teenager and bona fide stalker quickly becomes a rather terrifying series of “There, but for the grace of God,” moments for anyone who has experienced unrequited love (in other words, roughly everyone). His inner thoughts echo the kind of late-night self-confessions that rarely see the light of day, tucked firmly away in those dark, hidden corners where shame and denial conveniently coexist.

Meanwhile, Rima remains full of contradiction. Certain at every moment that the entertainment world is poised to chew her up and spit her out, she feels threatened by everyone. She is also desperate for approval, even from those she fears most. Her own obsessive crush reads closer to poignant than creepy, but even there she’s filled with resentment more than anything else.

Kouga’s art really shines in this series, putting her knack for pretty faces to great use, while maintaining a subversive undertone. With the unevenness of the series’ first volume behind her, Kouga continues on with a lot of clean paneling, breaking into more free-form shojo-stylings only in the story’s most dramatic moments.

It’s truly a pleasure to see a new shojo series making good on the promises of its first volume. For teenage romance with a dark, cynical bite, check out Crown of Love.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Kobato, Vol. 1

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Kobato Hanato has a job to do: if she can fill a magic bottle with the pain and suffering of people whose lives she’s improved, she’ll have her dearest wish come true. There’s just one problem: Kobato is completely mystified by urban life, and has no idea how to identify folks in need of her help. Lucky for her, Ioryogi, a blue dog with a foul mouth and fierce temper, has been appointed her sensei and guardian angel, tasked with helping Kobato develop the the street smarts necessary for completing her mission.

It’s perfectly possible to read Kobato as a story about a sweet, clueless girl who teams up with a gruff but lovable animal to collect wounded hearts. That book is beautifully drawn, but isn’t terribly interesting; most of the stories follow the same template so, well, doggedly, that even the most committed fan of cute would find Kobato too repetitive to be much fun. A more productive way to understand Kobato is as a moe parody, a gleeful skewering of an entire genre in which the cute, underage heroine’s primary role is to endear herself to readers with her mixture of enthusiasm, naivete, and sensitivity.

Exhibit A in the case for moe parody: CLAMP has provided Kobato with a name and a mission, but no history that would explain her bizarre behavior. (Is she an amnesiac? An alien? A simpleton?) Nor does CLAMP reveal Kobato’s deeper motivation for collecting wounded souls. “There’s a place I want to go!” she cheerfully tells Ioryogi without elaborating on the why and where. Exhibit B: Kobato’s behavior seldom endears her to anyone. When Ioryogi instructs her to “do the things that are appropriate for Christmas,” for example, Kobato casually asks a stranger to spend the night with her in a hotel, to the consternation of his girlfriend, while an old man interprets her request to “heal his heart” as a solicitation for sex. Exhibit C: Ioryogi has a sadistic streak that far outstrips the basic demands of the plot. Though his comments are shockingly abrasive at first, it doesn’t take long for the reader to realize that Ioryogi’s assessment of Kobato is spot-on; in effect, he gives the audience permission to dislike Kobato, despite her sweet face and Holly Hobbie outfit.

CLAMP has performed this sleight of hand before with Chobits, another series that can be read as a straightforward genre exercise or a parody. In the case of Chobits, CLAMP starts from the basic nebbishy-guy-meets-magical-girl premise, adding some perverse ruffles and flourishes that call attention to the genre’s more unsavory aspects. (Chi, the magical girl/robot/love interest, behaves like a horny frat guy’s idea of the perfect girlfriend, eschewing underwear, hanging on her owner’s every word, and buying him porn magazines as a gift.) The complexity of the story and the size of the cast eventually overwhelm the satire, however, making it hard for the reader to know how, exactly, she’s supposed to react to Chi and Hideki’s relationship. In Kobato, on the other hand, CLAMP strips things down to the bare essentials, putting the focus squarely on the darkly comic hijinks.

Lest I make Kobato sound unbearably mean-spirited, the manga equivalent of kicking a puppy, let me assure you that it’s actually good fun. Ioryogi, the unquestionable star of the series, is a hoot; CLAMP wrings considerable laughs from the cognitive dissonance between his cute, doll-like appearance and his destructive rages, martial arts moves, and unsavory habits. (Like Mokona Modoki, Ioryogi is always jonesing after beer or sake.) Long-time CLAMP fans will enjoy the cameos sprinkled throughout the book, as characters from Chobits, Suki, and xxxHolic cross paths with Kobato in subtle, unexpected ways — think Where’s Waldo for the Card Captor Sakura crowd. (Bonus points if you can identify the characters without consulting the translation notes.) As one might expect, the artwork is clean and elegant, filled with beautiful costumes, lovely title pages, and crisply executed action sequences in the manner of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles.

A quick glance at the Wikipedia entry suggests that future volumes of Kobato may cant more towards romance than satire. So long as Ioryogi is along for the ride, however, I’m confident that Kobato will remain edgy enough for readers, like me, who have a limited tolerance for insipid heroines. Recommended.

Review copy provided by Yen Press. Volumes one and two of Kobato will be released simultaneously on May 18, 2010.

KOBATO, VOL. 1  • CLAMP • YEN PRESS • 160 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

Kobato, Vol. 1

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kobato1Kobato Hanato has a job to do: if she can fill a magic bottle with the pain and suffering of people whose lives she’s improved, she’ll have her dearest wish come true. There’s just one problem: Kobato is completely mystified by urban life, and has no idea how to identify folks in need of her help. Lucky for her, Ioryogi, a blue dog with a foul mouth and fierce temper, has been appointed her sensei and guardian angel, tasked with helping Kobato develop the the street smarts necessary for completing her mission.

It’s perfectly possible to read Kobato as a story about a sweet, clueless girl who teams up with a gruff but lovable animal to collect wounded hearts. That book is beautifully drawn, but isn’t terribly interesting; most of the stories follow the same template so, well, doggedly, that even the most committed fan of cute would find Kobato too repetitive to be much fun. A more productive way to understand Kobato is as a moe parody, a gleeful skewering of an entire genre in which the cute, underage heroine’s primary role is to endear herself to readers with her mixture of enthusiasm, naivete, and sensitivity.

…

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Manhwa Monday: March in October

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Welcome to another Manhwa Monday!

The big news this week comes by way of ANN, who reported on Tuesday that Simon & Schuster lists an October release date for March Story, a series created by Korean manhwa-ga Kyung-Il Yang and Hyung-min Kim for the Japanese magazine Monthly Sunday GX, to be published here by Viz Media.

This news is unconfirmed at the time of this writing, but the prospect of seeing some Korean creators published by Viz is admittedly pretty exciting, even if they are coming to us via Japan. Check out the article from ANN for details about the series and its creators.

With a view towards lightening your pocketbook, RightStuf is having a Bargain Bin Blowout sale, featuring manga and anime up to 95% off. …

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Twin Spica, Vol. 1

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Twin Spica, Vol. 1
By Kou Yaginuma
Published by Vertical, Inc.
Rated 13+


Buy at RightStuf | Buy at Amazon

Fourteen years after a catastrophic space shuttle accident that was responsible for numerous civilian casualties, Japan’s space program is finally getting back on its feet, beginning with the establishment of Tokyo Space School’s Astronaut Training Course. There, fourteen-year-old Asumi competes with other prospective students, hoping to be accepted into the program and perhaps one day join Japan’s first successful manned excursion into space.

Though this series finished its run in seinen magazine Comic Flapper just last year, its simple artwork and wistful tone make its first volume read like an instant classic. Even the volume’s cover art, with its innocent imagery and sepia-like warmth, evokes feelings of nostalgia. Also, though the story’s foundation is set firmly in hard sci-fi, it is its heroine’s poignant and occasionally whimsical inner life that really defines its voice. Asumi provides the heart of this story, and it is a strange and wonderful heart indeed.

With her mother gone and her father often working, Asumi’s only confidante is a self-proclaimed ghost with a lion mask covering his head, whom she refers to as “Lion-san.” Even as Asumi begins her teen years, Lion-san remains a constant in her life, serving as a source of insight into a world she’s never truly felt a part of. He also provides a walking, talking symbol of the disaster that took her mother from her–a memory that she has safely locked away in the depths of her subconscious. That the volume opens with a spirited conversation between Asumi and her ghostly friend establishes the series’ supernatural/psychological focus from the start.

Asumi is both idiosyncratic and relatable. As a child, she is quiet and baffling to others–leaning into her mother’s corpse to find out how it smells and later stealing the ashes in order to give her mother a better view of the sea she so loved. As a teen, her concerns are more typical, focusing on dreams for her future and her ability to make friends, but the lonely little girl is still there, seeking comfort and advice from her supernatural friend.

All that said, Twin Spica is hardly a one-woman show. Supporting characters shine in this volume, from Asumi’s lonely teacher (whose first love was also killed fourteen years ago) to the girls with whom Asumi completes her astronaut exam. Even Asumi’s mother, seen mainly in a coma, bandaged from head to toe, is a compelling figure. One particularly complicated character is Asumi’s father. Though he obviously loves his daughter and supports her dreams, he is somewhat lost as a single parent and too often expresses himself through violence.

Yagimuna’s artwork is utterly charming. Simple, clean, and full of heartfelt emotion, it flows easily from panel to panel. Again here, there is a persistent air of nostalgia to the series, enhanced even by Vertical’s choice of font.

This volume feels short–just 124 pages of main story, followed by two short comics that provide a good chunk of backstory (written by Yagimuna before the series proper)–though that perception could just as easily be attributed to its overall delightfulness. Though the series was published as seinen in Japan, it provides substantial appeal for teen girls as well, especially those with their own dreams of space travel.

Hopeful, charming, and tinged with sadness, Twin Spica leaves us wanting more. Highly recommended.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Mushishi Moveable Feast This Week!

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Manga Bookshelf has been on hiatus this week, thanks to an unexpected hospital stay for a key member of the household. We’ll be back on track starting tomorrow, but in the meantime, check out Ed Sizemore’s introductory post for this month’s Manga Moveable Feast, featuring one of my favorite series, Mushishi.

I have a lot to say about this series, and I admit I’ve already said quite a bit of it. I’ve reviewed two volumes of this series so far, volume six at Comics Should Be Good, and volume seven here at Manga Bookshelf. With my household’s recent turmoil, this may well be my entire contribution to the Feast, but be sure to keep an eye out for what I expect to be an exciting batch of discussion and reviews from around the manga blogosphere this week.

Enjoy!

Your & My Secret, Vols. 1-5

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If you ever wondered what Freaky Friday might have been like if Jodie Foster had switched bodies with Leif Garrett instead of Barbara Harris, well, Ai Morinaga’s Your & My Secret provides a pretty good idea of the gender-bending weirdness that would have ensued. The story focuses on Nanako, a swaggering tomboy who lives with her mad scientist grandfather, and Akira, an effeminate boy who adores her. Though Akira’s classmates find him “cute and delicate,” they declare him a timid bore — “a waste of a man,” one girl snipes — while Nanako’s peers call her “the beast” for her aggressive personality and uncouth behavior, even as the boys concede that Nanako is “hotter than anyone.” Akira becomes the unwitting test subject for the grandfather’s latest invention, a gizmo designed to transfer personalities from one body to another. With the flick of a switch, Akira finds himself trapped in Nanako’s body (and vice versa).

The joke, of course, is that Nanako and Akira have found the ideal vessels for their gender-atypical personalities. Nanako revels in her new-found freedom as a boy, enjoying sudden popularity among classmates, earning the respect of Akira’s contemptuous little sister, and discovering the physical strength to dunk a basketball. Akira, on the other hand, finds his situation a mixed bag: for the first time in his life, his sensitive personality endears him to both male and female peers, but many of the things his maleness had previously exempted him from — housework and cooking, menstrual cycles, unwanted advances from boys — turn out to be much worse than he’d imagined. He struggles to feel comfortable in Nanako’s skin, insulted by the grandfather’s refusal to do chores and bewildered by his old buddy Senbongi’s growing attraction to him.

Much of the humor in Your & My Secret stems from the war between head and hormones. Akira still identifies as a boy, lusting after Nanako’s sweetly feminine friend Shiina and suffering volcanic nosebleeds in the girls’ locker room, yet his body is drawn to Senbongi; after Senbongi makes a pass at him, the flustered Akira wonders how Senbongi “got to be such a good kisser.” Nanako, who is quick to embrace her new male identity, struggles as well; though she asks Shiina out, she’s reluctant to consummate their relationship, and shows an all-too-prurient interest in Senbongi’s, um, equipment. Making things even more complicated for Akira is that he’s trapped in the body of the girl he adores. He’s both disgusted and aroused by the sight of himself, and filled with conflicting emotions about the growing relationship between Nanako and Shiina.

Perhaps the most interesting wrinkle in Your & My Secret is that Nanako’s experiences transform her into a sexist pig. She rebuffs Akira’s pleas to reverse the experiment, belittling his gentle, conciliatory personality and asserting her right to have fun in his body. At the same time, she insists that Akira refrain from dating, having sex, or exploring her body; she repeatedly describes her body as a sacred temple that must remain “unpolluted” before her wedding day, and threatens Akira with humiliation if he acts on his conflicted feelings for Senbongi — or Shiina. (Apparently, Nanako is a bit of a homophobe, too.)

While the gender-swapping hijinks provide most of the comedic fodder for Your & My Secret, Morinaga also has a ball poking fun at manga tropes from incestuous infatuation to cultural festivals. The best of these gags revolves around the school’s manga club: in a sly nod to Tezuka, the group is helmed by a beret-wearing artist who transforms Akira and Senbongi’s friendship into a steamy boys’ love comic in which Akira is the seme and Senbongi is the uke. (“It’s not that I like guys,” Akira’s avatar tells Senbongi’s. “The person I fell in love with just happened to be a guy.”) Morinaga also wrings laughs from her characters’ desperate behavior; the grandfather, for example, thinks nothing of blackmailing Akira to get closer to Shiina (he dreams of having a pretty teenage girl sit in his lap and clean his ears), while Senbongi hatches up a love-hotel scheme to drive a wedge between Akira and Nanako.

Yet for all the black comedy, Morinaga still allows her characters moments of vulnerability and decency, preventing the humor from curdling into pure meanness. She wisely avoids the trap of making her characters too dumb to notice the transformations in Akira and Nanako, allowing her to sustain the body-swapping premise without straining credulity or testing the reader’s patience. Morinaga avoids another trap as well: that of making her leads so repellent the reader wishes for their comeuppance. (Even Nanako — she of the karate chops and withering put-downs — demonstrates a capacity for kindness and selflessness when wooing Shiina.) The artwork supports Morinaga’s characterizations, showing us both their nastier and nicer sides. When Akira assumes ownership of Nanako’s body, for example, there’s a visible softening of Nanako’s features, her lips becoming moistly inviting, her chin turning ever-so-slightly upward, and her eyes shining like a proper shojo heroine’s. If provoked, however, Akira’s body language and gestures revert back to Nanako’s coarse, tomboy persona, right down to the maniacal gleam in his eye; the gap between the two personalities proves smaller than either would like the admit.

No, it isn’t Taming of the Shrew, but Your & My Secret manages to make some worthwhile points about gender roles (and gender norms) while serving up plenty of dopey slapstick and risque jokes. Frankly, I’d take a big helping of Morinaga’s un-PC humor over an earnest, socially responsible “girls’ comic” any day of the week. Highly recommended.

This is an expanded version of a review that originally appeared at PopCultureShock on 3/12/08. The original review can be read by clicking here.