Features

Recommendations for Yen Press Sale!

June 10, 2009 by MJ 10 Comments

For those who don’t know, Right Stuf is having a 33% off sale on all Yen Press books. The sale ends tomorrow, so I thought I’d do my part and recommend some Yen Press titles I’ve enjoyed!

My top recommendation is for One Thousand and One Nights (further reviews/rambles to be found here, here, and here), a loose retelling of the original tales with Scheherazade (“Sehara” in this version) cast as male. Sehara’s tales are taken from a wide range of times and cultures (including modern-day) and though the story has a BL feel to it, similar to stories like Banana Fish, Wild Adapter, or Silver Diamond, it can’t actually be called BL, at least not as of volume seven. From my review of volumes 1-6:

One Thousand and One Nights is a beautiful, compelling series that is pleasurable both to read and to look at. With at least five more volumes coming, it has the potential to become a classic of its kind, as long as it continues with the same strength JinSeok and SeungHee have displayed so far.

Secondly, a new title, Nabari No Ou, the story of a boy reluctantly pulled into his ninja heritage. Though my PCS colleague Grant Goodman did not agree, both Danielle Leigh and I found a lot to love in Nabari No Ou. Notable as the only manga that’s ever made me even remotely interested in ninja (and further proof that my love for shonen manga simply will not die), I’ve become an immediate fan after just one volume. From my review:

Overall, Nabari No Ou is a funny, energetic, visually compelling, nicely dark shonen manga, and a surprising new favorite for me!

Thirdly, Comic, the story of a high school girl who dreams of being a manhwa-ga, and her trials in career and romance. I’ve had some disappointment over how far into romance the story has gone while leaving behind the heroine’s career dreams, but I’m still plenty hooked on Alice and friends and I keep looking forward to future volumes. From my review:

With its energetic, attractive art and idiosyncratic characters, Comic has the potential to be both entertaining and romantic while also offering an enticing glimpse into the world of aspiring young manhwa artists. Hopefully over the next few chapters it can pull itself out of the romantic dregs and restore the balance that made its early volumes so much fun.

Here are a few other reviews of Yen Press books I’ve written over the past six months or so, some of which I’ve really liked, some less so. You’ll note, however, that even when I’ve had issues with a Yen Press book, I’ve never actually disliked one. It’s never hard for me to find something good to say.

11th Cat Special
13th Boy
GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class
Jack Frost
Legend
Pig Bride
Sumomomo, Momomo: The Strongest Bride on Earth

Also, a couple of recommended titles I’ve read but not yet reviewed: Goong and Nightschool.

As someone relatively new to manga/manhwa, I’ve read only a small fraction of Yen Press’ catalogue, so please feel free to list more recommendations in comments! Happy shopping! :D

Why Manga?

June 5, 2009 by MJ 19 Comments

When I was struggling earlier today to begin a post, something that kept coming to me was how much my feelings for music seemed related–or at least similar–to my feelings for manga, both in depth and breadth. This led me to think about why I love both, and then to why I love manga. But to start, I think the question I must begin with is:

Why Fiction?

Something I’ve always had difficulty relating to is the concept of “real life” as being something different than a person’s online life. I mean, I get it kind of, but it’s not like I become imaginary when I sit down at my computer, and every person I deal with online is just as real as I am regardless of whether or not they are being honest about who they are. Just as in “real life,” my words and actions have the power to affect other people, for good or ill. So how is this not a part of my real life? Similarly, I’ve always been at odds with the idea that imagining, writing, reading, or interacting with fiction is somehow less a part of what’s real in this world (and in our lives) than anything else. Fiction is our greatest tool for sharing ideas with each other as a species, in a way that touches and inspires not just our logical minds, but our hearts and even that intangible thing we like to call our “souls.”

Nearly everything important I have learned about life, people, and the world around me has come from one of two places: my own personal experience or fiction; and I have a feeling that if it was possible to sit down and write out every one of those things, fiction would come out on top. After all, the potential human experience available to one forty-year-old woman is miniscule compared to the volume of fictional works written since the dawn of man, or even just since the dawn of modern language.

Fiction is the the place of dreams, yes, but also the foundation of reality–how we perceive it and how we express that to others. Even the most escapist works tell us something about ourselves, both as individuals and as a society, and I can personally vouch for the fact that even these works are capable of inspiring deep thinking and emotion, whether their authors ever intended that or not. Each person’s experience with a fictional work is wholly unique to that person, and yet it is a connection between one person’s ideas and another’s that gives it its power. This, to me, is the most awesome thing in all the world.

My personal devotion to the products of human imagination–for me, fiction and music in particular–has always been what makes me feel most connected to other human beings, and the only thing capable of successfully bridging my very rich inner life with my more troublesome outer life. As such, I feel these things are inextricable from my life and who I am, and I’m very comfortable with that.

Why Comics?

The one particular product of human imagination it took me until recent years to truly connect with and appreciate is visual art. Outside of a childhood obsession with attempting (unsuccessfully) to draw all the characters out of my own imagined fiction and one year at college during which I would repeatedly visit a particular Pierre Bonnard painting at the Carnegie Museum of Art–earnestly seeking the answer as to why it affected me in a strong, emotional way that other art generally did not–I was never a person who connected deeply with visual representations of life.

The simple explanation for this may actually be that, unlike music, prose fiction, or theater, visual art was not something I could successfully experience as a creator (or at least a participant)–something that those who know me well can recognize as an important part of how I interact with art. How it happened to be comics that finally achieved this is somewhat of a mystery to me, though perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the art is acting as part of a narrative, which is something I can personally connect to more easily than an isolated image.

Yet it was not western comics that actually pulled me in, but manga. Which brings me to…

Why Manga?

The fact that comics are part of mainstream popular fiction and therefore serve a much broader audience in Japan than they do here is, I’m sure, largely responsible for many of the elements that draw me most to manga–epic (but finite), single-creator stories in a huge variety of genres and styles, offering me the same variety and breadth of human experience and emotion as I’d find in prose fiction, movies, or television in this country. Whether this is connected to the sudden and profound realization that I could glean something new about the human experience from hand-drawn black lines on white paper, I am not certain, but I do know that my first encounter with manga was life-changing. It’s as though I was experiencing sight for the first time. For years, my imagination had subsisted (and very heartily) on written, and oral (including musical) language, either brought to life entirely by my imagination (as with print) or by other live humans (theater, television, film)–the closest thing to a visual element I was really in touch with. I can say honestly that up to the point I first read a manga, I really had no concept of how powerful and real a drawing could be or how strongly I could connect with such a thing.

It’s possible that a great deal of why I easily connect with manga in this way after failing to do so with western comics, is the tendency of manga to let the art take the lead in telling the story, which I think is less often the case in comics here. Odd that this would be the key, considering my previous attachment to prose; or perhaps not odd at all, since one of my problems with reading western comics had been that I kept feeling that the pictures were in the way as I tried to read the story. This is not a judgement on western comics, but really a suggestion that until I read manga, I was actually kind of impaired, and it took manga to fix that.

I think what is special about manga and why I have immersed myself so deeply in it in such a short time (aside from the fact that this is just how I do things) is that it offers a unique opportunity for the reader’s imagination. Something I used to talk about regarding art song, which was my favorite form of music to work on as a classical voice student, was that it offered an experience for interpretation that was different than anything else. Unlike opera, in which the music and libretto were working together to tell a single story, art song usually began as a poem–a form that invites greater personal interpretation than narrative fiction –to which the composer would add his/her personal interpretation through music–another form that invites great personal interpretation. The singer is then in the position to draw upon both these potentially disparate elements to create a third interpretation–one that is likely to be unique to each singer (ditto with the pianist, lest this be forgotten). By the time the art song reaches the listener–the final collaborator–the possibilities for interpretation are so richly layered that each person will take away with them something not only unique in itself, but uniquely guided by all who touched the piece before it reached them.

Now you’re saying, “Whoooa, crazy music lady, the manga is more like opera,” (unless you’re just saying, “Whoa, crazy lady you lost me three paragraphs back”) and you’d be right. Except not exactly. Plays, movies, and television are like the opera. Manga is something in between. Though the pictures and the words are working together to tell the same story, the fact that it is black-and-white drawn, still images providing the more specific interpretation of the text actually leaves much more for the reader’s imagination to fill in, which to me is closer to the art song, though perhaps close enough to the opera too to provide the best of both worlds. While the skilled mangaka has the power to inject true, specific human emotion into something as small as a single line on a character’s face, it is still up to the reader’s imagination to actually translate that into the face of a real human–a face that will inevitably be a little different one for each person who imagines it. Aside from the element of color, this is true of western comics as well, but it is the combination of all these things at once–the epic, finite works; variety of genres; visual storytelling style; and the crazy music lady stuff–that makes manga special, or at least makes it special for me.

~o~

If you’ve made it this far, you probably deserve a drink. Since I can’t offer that across cyberspace (is this proof of the whole “real life” business??) I will instead thank you for reading and ask for your thoughts. :)

Anime Feature: Natsu no Arashi

June 2, 2009 by MJ 4 Comments

I rarely post about anime here, but there is one new series I’m enjoying so much, I really can’t help myself. So here goes!

Based on the manga by Jin Kobayashi (School Rumble) and available for streaming at Crunchyroll, Natsu no Arashi is about a middle-school student named Hajime Yasaka who moves from the country into a new town where he will live with a relative. Exhausted by the summer heat, he stops in a small cafe to cool off where he meets Sayaka, the owner of the shop who is actually a notorious con artist, Jun, another middle school boy with a secret I will not give away here, and Arashi, a beautiful young waitress with whom Hajime is immediately enamored. When a strange man bursts into the shop and demands to take Arashi back to her “family,” Hajime surprises himself by stepping in to defend her (though it isn’t long before he needs defending himself), but it is when his hand touches Arashi’s that his whole world gets turned upside down.

As it turns out, Arashi is the ghost of a sixteen-year-old girl who died during the US bombings of Japanese cities in WWII. It is unknown exactly why she has remained in this world, but when she meets the right kind of boy, she can “connect” with him and travel backwards in time. After discovering that she connects with Hajime, she pretty much takes over his life (not that he minds in the slightest). She moves into his uncle’s house, and repeatedly takes Hajime back to her own time where she seeks out those she know will die in the bombings to try to save them from their fate. Just a a few episodes in, a second ghost, Kaya, is also introduced. She was Arashi’s school chum during the war and though she is far more aware of the dangers and potential implications of changing the past, her resolve not to do so is broken when she discovers she can connect with Jun.

The anime series starts off a bit confusingly, jumping right into a later point in the story with no explanation, and though I liked it immediately, it took several episodes for me to feel about it the way I do now. I usually give any anime series five episodes before I make up my mind about it, and I’d recommend anyone interested in this series to do the same. The series is definitely a slow burn. Straddling the line between a gag series and a supernatural drama, Natsu no Arashi delivers surprisingly well on both counts. Though it is the time-traveling ghost story that most draws me to the series, I can’t deny the success of the humor, and there is an early episode in which Hajime and Arashi encounter a claw machine at an arcade that had me laughing until I was in pain. Even the standard put-the-boys-in-girls’-clothing and body-switching episodes have an unusual twist in this series, rendering them funny once again, regardless of their overuse. The series starts off showcasing its humor and though I probably would have continued to watch it casually even if that’s all it ever was, the ghost story makes it into something I cannot do without.

Though Kaya is sensitive to the potential disasters of time travel from the start, it is only Hajime’s heavy scientific interest that is able to affect Arashi’s carefree attitude, something which has only really begun with the most recently aired episode (episode nine). Faced a second time with Sayaka’s insistence that they take spoiled food back in time to a point before its expiration date so that she can eat it before it has gone bad (logic that only makes sense in her own head and, interestingly, Arashi’s) Hajime attempts to explain the concept of a paradox to her, which leads to a question of whether or not he and Arashi have been creating multiple parallel worlds every time they change the past. He points out that, because of them, people have lived, been born, and possibly died who otherwise would not have, something that shakes Arashi to the core, though she tries to hide it. What’s most interesting about this, however, is not the plot or the scientific questions themselves (though these things are interesting), but the characters, and even more so their relationships with each other.

I think it’s clear that compatibility is the main component determining whom the ghosts can connect with, and it’s obvious that Hajime and Arashi make a great pair. Whether they can ever be romantically involved as Hajime would wish is certainly in question (what with one of them being a sixtysomething ghost) but they both have good (if impulsive) hearts and a fine adventurous spirit. Something that’s particularly refreshing is that Hajime’s crush on Arashi, while being unavoidably based on lust–he’s a teenaged boy after all–actually manifests itself for the most part in very sweet ways, and at no time is this more evident than in episode nine. Though he requires Sayaka (in an unusual moment of true insight) to let him know that he’s shaken Arashi with his excited scientific musings on time-travel, he actually figures out what to do about it on his own and the result is seriously touching. Kaya and Jun are quite wonderfully compatible as well and though it’s hard to go into that too deeply without giving away some early spoilers, I can say that though their relationship is very different from Hajime and Arashi’s, it is no less touching.

While maintaining its frequent gags, this series continues to become deeper and more interesting as it goes along with its poignant characters and observations on war, which do not shy away from being very specific to WWII and the United States’ firebombing of Japanese civilian areas. Arashi returns to the cafe every summer because it is the only place that escaped the bombings and is therefore unchanged since the time when she was alive, and the effects of the bombings are seen frequently in both Arashi and Kaya’s travels back. The question of how harmful it is for Arashi to indiscriminately raise people from the dead who were indiscriminately killed in the first place is obviously something the series is not going to let go, and it goes a long way towards forming the characters that make the series so intriguing. There is obviously something sinister coming, which has begun to take shape in the most recent episode, and I can’t help but wonder if it is something caused unintentionally by Arashi. Time will tell!

The animated series’ success I think is due to a great extent by the fact that it is produced by Shaft (Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, Ef: A Tale of Memories), a studio known for its gag series but also for its unmistakable style. The series’ ever-shifting opening sequence, its mysterious bookends featuring characters that are finally beginning to be introduced, its stylish handling of both gags and dramatic beauty–these things are all extremely characteristic of the studio and really give the series a consistent, cohesive feel. Though the series does not shy away from being sexy, there is limited fan service, which is definitely refreshing as well, and what is there is handled with good humor and great style.

Though it may not be for everyone, Natsu no Arashi provides a terrific blend of gag humor, drama, romance, and even suspense–a combination I find completely intoxicating. Now if someone would just license the manga!

Future Lovers, Volume 2

May 28, 2009 by MJ 5 Comments

Future Lovers, Vol. 2
By Saika Kunieda
Published by Deux Press

Buy This Book

It’s been a year since the events of volume one and Kento and Akira have become comfortable in their relationship, though there are still a few surprises in store, beginning with a visit from Akira’s mother, a pampering, ostentatious multiple divorcée with a somewhat scandalous past. New revelations about Akira’s background cause some turmoil in his relationship with Kento but as with most everything in this story, the conflict gives each of them a deeper understanding of the other, ultimately strengthening their relationship. As the volume continues, the two of them confront coming out to friends and colleagues, Kento’s jealousy of a former teacher of Akira’s, and the complicated question of same-sex marriage in Japan.

…

Bigotry as bad business

May 28, 2009 by MJ 54 Comments

As I’ve poked around the manga blogosphere over the past few days, I’ve found myself developing a number of Opinions (with a capital “O”). Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen, but it is the kind of thing that compels me to blog and so here I am. Opinion, the first:

This morning I followed a link from Brigid Alverson’s mangablog to an article on the Yaoi Press blog regarding an issue they had experienced recently with a printer, Docucopies, who refused to print their Yaoi Coloring Book due to images they found “disturbing.” …

Awaken Forest

May 25, 2009 by MJ Leave a Comment

By Yuna Aoi
Digital Manga Publishing, 200 pp.
Rating: M (18+)

Awaken Forest is a collection of three boys’ love stories, each featuring men who use lying and manipulation to get what they want. The title story is a tale of two brothers—an author who was injured as a child and his older brother who is bound to serve him for life in order to atone for injuring him. When he realizes that his brother has fallen for a young editor from his publishing house, the author (who has been faking his ongoing injury for quite some time) decides to release him from service, but even then he uses cruelty and manipulation to do so, going so far as to order his brother to molest the editor in front of him.

The most blatantly manipulative character, however, is in the collection’s second story, “Loose Bonds,” which features a man named Ren who hires a former school bully to steal his best friend’s girlfriend, leaving the friend with nowhere else to turn but to him. This story is easily the darkest of the three, as it is the only one in which the victim remains unknowing to the end. “If you don’t want him to go outside, then make him never want to,” Ren says as he pricks his pet bird with a sharp pin to keep it from leaving its cage, providing a deeper glimpse into his true pathology.

This manga provides the beginnings of what could be an interesting exploration of the darker sides of human nature, but its stories’ scenarios are too neatly contrived to be believed, making it impossible for any of them to rise above pure romantic fantasy. Most of the boys’ love staples are present—rape, incest, pretty straight men lured into a web of “forbidden” love—and though the author manages to pull off these fantasies more delicately than some, there is no sense of anything richer lurking below the surface. The art, too, is very typical of the genre, featuring generically pretty, interchangeable men over dull, sparse backgrounds.

Though its stories’ themes suggest the potential for something deeper, in the end, Awaken Forest is just another disposable yaoi title to be consumed and quickly forgotten.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

U Don’t Know Me

May 21, 2009 by MJ 7 Comments

U Don’t Know Me
By Rakun
Published by NETCOMICS

Buy This Book

“I realized that the reason the two of us couldn’t stand forever in the same place wasn’t just because I couldn’t keep up with his height–a height, by the way, which began outgrowing my own little by little.” – Prologue, U Don’t Know Me

Seyun and Yoojin have been close since childhood, raised like brothers by their parents who were best friends–so much so that when Seyun’s father made the decision to take on the debt left by his own father, Yoojin’s parents offered to take Seyun in as their own child to ease his burden. Though Seyun’s father refused the offer and moved his family to a cheaper neighborhood to tough it out, Seyun and Yoojin remained friends, despite the distance and their ever-shifting lives. …

Manhwa 100: Centenary of Korean Comics

May 18, 2009 by MJ 2 Comments

I received an e-mail this morning to let me know about an event I very much wish I could attend– an exhibition entitled “Manhwa 100: Centenary of Korean Comics” presented by London’s Korean Cultural Centre from May 21st through June 24th. If you’re reading this blog from across the pond, take note! From their press release:

…

Age Called Blue

May 17, 2009 by MJ 1 Comment

By est em
Published by NETCOMICS
Rating: Mature (18+)

One of the most intriguing stories in est em’s earlier collection Seduce Me After the Show was “Rockin’ In My Head,” featuring a young guitarist named Billy who drinks himself into a stupor over the death of a personal idol and the sudden disappearance of his bandmate, Nick (who took off with Billy’s cash and guitar). Billy is escorted home by another patron in the bar who turns out to be Joe Coxon, the former guitarist of Billy’s favorite band, The Rebels–the same band whose vocalist, Pete Brian, has just died. With Nick still missing, Billy convinces Joe, now in his fifties and with his last performance far in the past, to step into his band for a single show, reminding Joe what it means to be needed on stage. Age Called Blue expands on this story, focusing on the complicated relationship between Billy and Nick (introduced “onscreen” here for the first time) and how it mirrors the relationship of Pete and Joe, whose chance for reconciliation after years of estrangement is destroyed by Pete’s untimely death.

The story begins just after the events in the original short, with Nick turning up unexpectedly in the supermarket after his disappearance. Billy is initially furious, but isn’t able to hold on to his anger long in the presence of Nick’s badly beaten face. Billy takes Nick back home to get him cleaned up, and becomes enraged again when he finds out that Nick had prostituted himself for cash to their idol, Pete, the day before he died. Nick tries to kiss Billy and is forcefully rejected, but it’s obvious that the emotions between them run deep and the rest of the story explores just what that means for both of them and for the future of their band.

What’s really effective in this story is how est em weaves together the lives of all four men, retracing the days just before and after Pete died and interspersing them with present-day events. Although Joe and Pete ultimately fail to get what they need from each other, thanks to pride and the cruelty of fate, it is their music that brings Billy and Nick together in the first place and their influence that helps the two younger men realize what is most important to them and just how fragile that can be. “I don’t know complicated things well,” Joe says to Billy one night over drinks, “but I suggest you secure the things that you don’t want to lose. Maybe that’s music, or maybe it’s that boy.” Watching Joe coming to terms with his own regret enough to actually try to help someone else avoid the same mistakes is quite moving all on its own, and when Billy finally makes his choice (“Nick is my music.”) the effect is stunning. The fact that, in Joe’s mind, there can only be one choice–music or love–is a heartbreaking example of why he lost what Billy will give everything to keep.

Nothing comes easy in Age Called Blue, which is one of its greatest strengths. Even after Billy makes the decision to stick with Nick, things get harder, though this only further illustrates the truth of Billy’s choice. Though he is eventually forced to give up the band to be with Nick, the question of giving up music never even comes into play, not with Nick still in his life. Nick is a piece of work, that’s certain–childish, unreliable, and self-destructive–but he really is Billy’s music, both its source and its vessel.

With its intense emotional content and bohemian setting, Age Called Blue may be the most overtly romantic story in est em’s catalogue so far, and this is by no means a bad thing. It is beautifully crafted throughout, and though it is made richer by having read “Rockin’ In My Head,” enough of that story is included to allow this volume to stand on its own. Est em’s visual storytelling is exquisite as always, and though the adaptation lacks the clarity of Matt Thorn’s work on Red Blinds the Foolish, the real meaning shines through in the visuals even when the dialogue is somewhat oblique. The art itself is gorgeous–realistically portrayed adult men in est em’s usual style, which makes her work feel so much more real than most of the yaoi manga being published in English. It is important to note, too, that this realism is achieved without the crutch of explicit sex scenes or coy winks to the audience. Though the characters’ sexuality is a significant part of their lives and their relationships to each other, anything that happens between them is for the sake of characterization and moving the story forward which makes this manga a rarity in the genre, much like est em herself.

The volume ends in typical fashion with two unrelated stories, though the first of these, “I Saw Blue,” again hearkens back to a story from Seduce Me After the Show, which is a nice treat. Still, it’s hard not to wish for a full volume’s worth of the featured story, and seeing these characters return from earlier shorts only makes that desire burn more fiercely. Though est em’s quiet, melancholy style is very well suited to short vignettes–and in fact, even her longer arcs are actually series of short pieces that could each stand alone–to see that unique talent applied to something substantial in length would be truly incredible.

All whining about length aside, there is not a justifiable complaint to be made about this manga. Beautiful, gritty, emotionally resonant, and surprisingly romantic, Age Called Blue is a real treasure, both within its genre and in the medium as a whole.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally posted at PopCultureShock.

Age Called Blue & the Drabble

May 17, 2009 by MJ 4 Comments

It’s been a big weekend of reviews for me so far, with three posted at Manga Recon (and one that should appear here sometime tomorrow). First of all, I review volume ten of La Corda d’Oro and volume seven of Wild Ones for the On The Shojo Beat column. The greatest treat for me, however, was reviewing est em’s new manga, Age Called Blue, which is probably my favorite work of hers so far, and that’s saying a lot.

Something that strikes me every time I read est em’s work, is how much it reminds me of a fannish form of writing I was very fond of not so long ago–a form known as the “drabble.” A drabble is a complete story told in exactly 100 words (no more, no less). Something I used to enjoy very much (both writing and reading) was a larger story made up of a series of 100-word drabbles, each complete on its own, yet contributing to the larger work. As I mention in my review, all of est em’s larger story arcs (such as “Red Blinds the Foolish” and “Age Called Blue”) are actually series of smaller stories strung together to make a whole, just like those series of drabbles I used to be so fond of, and there is a very specific feel to this kind of storytelling that is unlike anything else. Each piece feels fragile in its brevity–without a single extraneous word or gesture–remove even the tiniest piece and the entire thing shatters. This extends, too, to the larger structure, which would fall apart without its smaller pieces, for though each of them stands on its own, the series itself relies on these small stories in order to maintain its delicate thread. This is the nature of an est em manga. Every word and every panel are so important, even if you just read too quickly the whole thing crumbles from the loss.

Why do I like this kind of story? I don’t know. I know that I’m drawn to the delicate melancholy of a series of isolated moments, but I don’t know why. I also don’t know how it is that I can claim to love this when I’ve gone on and on about how much I want to read epic, multi-volume stories, and how it is these stories that got me into manga in the first place. This is undeniably true. It is indeed long stories that drew me to manga, and they are what keep me involved in the medium to this extent. Perhaps in the end it is just that the work of est em revives in me an old love–one I thought to be dead–in a form that I am still able to appreciate.

Read Age Called Blue. You won’t regret it.

Live for Love

May 4, 2009 by MJ Leave a Comment

By Itsuki Sato
Digital Manga Publishing, 200 pp.
Rating: M (18+)

Seven years ago, just as his life was falling apart, Yoshiyuki Nomura was approached out of the blue by a small-time private detective, Yasuie, who offered him employment and, more importantly, escape. Yoshiyuki agreed and the two have been working together ever since, though they have more work shampooing cats than anything else. Their relationship with each other is easy and playful and Yoshiyuki has never thought much about Yasuie’s touchy-feely nature and frequent sexual teasing, but when Yoshiyuki’s estranged adoptive parents seek him out to schedule a marriage interview, Yasuie freaks out and rapes Yoshiyuki, claiming afterwards that he’s always loved him and begging him to stay with the agency. Being raped, of course, only makes it easier for Yoshiyuki to leave and he returns to his family, ready to go through with the marriage interview.

It’s really difficult not to become weary of the overabundance of rape in yaoi manga and in this case it really is a shame, because Live for Love is otherwise an extremely charming story. The relationship between Yoshiyuki and Yasuie is frankly adorable and unusually well developed for a yaoi one-shot, filled with playful banter and obvious affection. The humor, too, really hits the mark, as the men resign themselves to the fact that their business has devolved into a cheap cat-grooming salon. Even the art is charming, with attractive character designs and an ease of expression that matches the story’s off-the-cuff feel. What’s saddest is that the rape serves no real purpose other than to hasten Yoshiyuki’s departure from the detective agency, which could have easily been achieved by other means that might have also made his eventual return to Yasuie much easier to believe.

For those who can stomach the nonconsensual sex, Live for Love is smart, engaging, and fun, with good humor and endearing characters who deserve better treatment than they get.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Hey, Sensei?

April 27, 2009 by MJ Leave a Comment

By Yaya Sakuragi
Digital Manga Publishing, 200 pp.
Rating: M (18+)

Isa is a high school math teacher who discovers, not uncommonly, that one of his students has a crush on him. What’s unusual about this student, however, is that he happens to be a boy, Homura, who is also the younger brother of Isa’s ex-girlfriend. At first believing Homura’s advances to be a joke perpetrated in retaliation for his sister’s broken heart, Isa resists, despite recognizing his weakness in the face of Homura’s charms. Homura perseveres, Isa eventually succumbs, and the two of them begin a relationship.

Though this student-teacher relationship is problematic from the outset, putting aside Isa’s blatant irresponsibility as a caretaker of young minds, the story is really quite charming. The mutual history of the two characters gives them a place of intimacy to start from that helps to soothe the worst concerns, and Homura is so self-aware, it’s difficult to feel that he’s being taken advantage of. Both characters are lonely misfits of a sort—even Homura with his good looks and popularity with girls—and it’s gratifying to watch them finding a sense of belonging with each other as the story goes on. Though Homura’s impatience nearly causes him to take Isa by force at one point, thankfully he realizes this is not at all what he wants and does not go very far with it.

Yaya Sakuragi’s art is also a highlight. Her faces are expressive (both in the main feature and in the short extra story, “Unbreakable Bones”) and her lanky character designs help to alleviate worries about the age difference between Isa and Homura as well, as Homura’s body is unambiguously adult.

With its sweet, idiosyncratic characters and warm love story, Hey Sensei? is easy to recommend to any fan of the genre.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Ruminations on Grading

April 27, 2009 by MJ 31 Comments

First things first, I have a review in today’s Manga Minis, for DMP one-shot, Hey Sensei? which is definitely my favorite of their BL offerings I’ve read so far.

Now it’s time to get around to my final topic from the poll! Originally in my head, this was called “The Futility of Grading,” but the more I thought about it, the more I realized what a silly thing that was to say. It’s not that grading is futile, just that it is tricky and subjective. I might not like being asked to assign a grade to something, but as others have pointed out, it does provide a shorthand for letting the reader know if you liked something or not. Or does it? Heh.

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The Guilty, Vols. 2-3

April 25, 2009 by MJ Leave a Comment

By Katsura Izumi, Illustrated by Hinako Takanaga
Published by Digital Manga Publishing

Toya Sakurai is a young editor of mystery novels for a struggling publisher who has just scored a huge success for his company with a new book from best-selling author, Kai Hodoka. What no one else knows is that while working on the project, Hodoka also became Toya’s lover through a bizarre series of pool games in which Toya paid for his losses with his body. Now that the book has been finished, Toya isn’t sure where he stands with Hodoka and is desperate to find out, but his timidity and Hodoka’s incommunicative nature keep getting in the way. Meanwhile, Toya begins work with a new, young author, Amano, whose straightforward manner and obvious feelings for Toya only make things more confusing. As these volumes continue, Toya struggles against his own insecurities to try to understand Hodoka’s feelings, while also battling a rumor about their involvement which forces the question of whether or not they should reveal their relationship publicly.

This series has so much potential to be fun, solid romance, but it is unfortunately dragged down repeatedly by the rather appalling treatment of Toya’s sexuality and his physical relationship with Hodoka. Most of their frequent sexual encounters read like assault, with Toya begging for relief from Hodoka’s sadistic treatment of him. Though it is clear that Toya truly desires Hodoka and even initiates their encounters from time to time, these scenes are irrevocably tainted by Toya’s constant feelings of shame and humiliation, which Hodoka encourages and obviously enjoys. Late in the third book, Hodoka actually rapes Toya outright, purportedly to give Toya a much-needed reason to break up with him. The fact that this ultimately is explained away as an act of kindness is fairly shocking by itself, but what’s most disturbing is that this scene is not appreciably different from most of their other sexual encounters, aside from Toya’s use of the word “rape.”

The most distressing element of all this, however, is the author’s emotional and physical portrayal of Toya. Having discovered his own sexuality after years of simply feeling no real attraction to anyone at all, it is understandable that he would be confused by his own emotions and desires, and perhaps even believe that he should be ashamed of them. What’s appalling is that this point of view seems to be shared by the author, who not only spends a great deal of time describing in detail how Toya’s manhood is degraded by his desire, but actually treats him as though he is equipped with female genitalia and experiences the physical responses that go with it. It is difficult to decide whether this is more demeaning towards Toya or to the series’ female readers, but either way it is deeply unfortunate.

Regrettably, these problems dominate what would otherwise be a nicely engaging romance series. Toya is an immensely relatable character, struggling to balance career success with romance for the first time in his life. As he juggles his shaky affair with Hodoka along with young Amano’s feelings for him, he realizes too late that his fear of conflict and desire to be kind to everyone may actually result in a great deal of hurt for others–an important but painful lesson too often ignored by most people. Hodoka, too, is quite a poignant character, obviously deeply damaged by his past, and though early on it is difficult to understand why Toya would stay with him when sweet, open Amano is right there waiting in the wings, over time it becomes clear how much good Toya and Hodoka might do for each other, if only they stayed out of the bedroom. Near the end of the second volume, Hodoka begs Toya to teach him how he wants to be loved, and for one shining moment it seems possible that he might learn real tenderness and help Toya to shed his shame over his own body, but by the end of the third volume this hope remains sadly unfulfilled.

Ultimately, The Guilty offers some nice characterization and real emotional depth. Unfortunately it is not enough to balance out the uncomfortably humiliating sex scenes or homophobic self-loathing of the series’ protagonist.

Review copies provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Why Twitter?

April 24, 2009 by MJ 20 Comments

This is a bit out of order in terms of the poll, but since my mother is one of the readers who most wanted to see this post, I’m going to let her trump all. :)

Lissa Pattillo recently blogged about manga publishers and bloggers/reviewers she’s found on Twitter, and as one of those I felt a bit inspired to talk about my own experience there, especially since the thing I hear most from non-users is, well, “Why?”

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