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Manga the week of 10/12

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Hallelujah, hallelujah. Midtown Comcis has finally taken the first step, admitted they had a Kodansha problem, and is getting in 3-4 months worth of titles next week. I won’t list them here as I’ve been listing them here in previous weeks while whining. No more whining! Hooray!

As for non-Kodansha things, there’s a new Vampire Hunter D novel out. It’s the 17th, showing that the difficulty selling Japanese novels here in North America does not particularly extend to novels with Vampire in their names.

And Viz has their typical 2nd week, aka ‘non-Jump or Beat stuff’. We get the 15th Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, which may be the final one depending how the author’s contract reads. He moved from Shueisha to Kodansha, acrimoniously, and is continuing the series there in the magazine Evening. What this means here… we don’t know yet.

Cross Game Vol. 5 gives us Vols. 10 & 11 of the original Japanese release, and introduces a character who’s guaranteed to shake things up… though this being Adachi, that generally means their eyes widen somewhat.

We also have the 40th (!) Volume of Case Closed, The 6th Hyde & Closer, the 28th Kekkaishi, and the 7th Maoh Juvenile Remix (this volume remixed by Frankie Knuckles) from our friends at Shonen Sunday, an imprint which NEEDS MORE LOVE AND SALES. But is, admittedly, probably not getting either anytime soon. Sigh. I don’t get North American readers.

Lastly, we have the new March Story, a manga by a Korean artist that runs in Sunday Gene-X; the 17th volume of Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys (hasn’t Bolan had his car crash by now?), and Yen is putting out the 2nd Twilight graphic novel, hopefully to get more money from readers so they can license other things.

What are you buying so you can read it on your way to Comic-Con next week?

Let’s Get Visual: Celebrating the Pretty

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MICHELLE: The long-awaited return of Sailor Moon has inspired us to devote this month’s column to classic shoujo art, focusing on a celebration of its sheer prettiness. Normally, we try to be astute in these columns—their whole purpose is to provide experience in seriously considering the artistic merits of manga—but it’s possible that this time we’ll be reduced to just sighing happily.

MJ: Yes, it’s quite possible indeed. But honestly, I think that’s valuable in its own way, and maybe we’ll end up learning a little something about why these things make us sigh happily.

MICHELLE: Perhaps so!

So, for my contribution I’ve chosen two memorable moments from the first volume of Naoko Takeuchi’s Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. The first one comes from a chapter in which the protagonist, Usagi Tsukino, has infiltrated a masquerade ball in an effort to determine whether the Legendary Silver Crystal might be found there. Possible foe/possible ally Tuxedo Mask is also on the crystal’s trail, but pauses to give Usagi a twirl on the dance floor.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Volume 1, Chapter 4, Pages 142-143 (Kodansha Comics)

Takeuchi’s art perfectly captures the sheer dreaminess of this encounter for Usagi. In the top panel, the lacy screentone mimics the flare of her skirts, and the way that the smaller panels are framed focuses attention on facial expressions and reinforces the feeling that no one and nothing is capable of intruding upon this perfect moment for them.

And, of course, her dress is purty.

MJ: This sequence truly is dreamy. What particularly pulls me in here is the screentone. Its texture brings a 3D quality into this 2D world, as though the moment was preserved and wrapped up in an elaborate scrapbook that I could reach out and touch—as though it was someone’s real memories of the moment. Even just looking at something that has such a familiar texture stimulates my sense of touch, bringing me more fully into the scene. I think this kind of tangible decoration not only lends a fairy-tale dreaminess to the scene, but also makes it feel more personal for the reader.

MICHELLE: Ooh, you’re right, it does feel like a page from a scrapbook! In that sense, the screentone almost seems like it represents a snippet of the actual material of Usagi’s dress.

In addition, Usagi has used her transformation gadget for this chapter and is supposed to appear a little older than usual. I think her expression on the lower left page captures that subtle distinction nicely.

MJ: I’ll note too, that while this particular brand of big-eyed shoujo tends to get a lot of flack outside shoujo fandom, that it’s Usagi’s big, shining eyes that really let us know how she feels here, and just how dreamy this moment really is for her (and subsequently for us).

MICHELLE: You know, I think I’ve become inured to the big-eyed thing, except with extreme cases, because I don’t even notice it anymore. It just seems like such an obvious way to convey youth and wonder.

My second “memorable moment” is an example of a Sailor Moon action sequence.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Volume 1, Chapter 5, Pages 188-189 (Kodansha Comics)

In its way, this selection is just as pretty as the other one. Luna tosses Makoto her transformation pen, which glows in an appealingly magical girl fashion, transforming the girl—who is somewhat insecure about her physique—into Sailor Jupiter, someone both beautiful and powerful. Meanwhile, the enemy lurks on a nearby rooftop, and I’m impressed how this single panel so effectively establishes setting and atmosphere when one doesn’t have the preceding pages to furnish that information. Makoto’s first attack is simultaneously feminine and effective, giving her the opportunity to vanquish the enemy with her thunder bolt on the next page.

Looking back at some of the adjectives used in the paragraph above, I find that they aptly convey what it is I like about this moment: beauty and power, femininity and effectiveness. Sailor Moon shows that these things need not be mutually exclusive.

MJ: Those are great adjectives, Michelle, and actually this brings up a point I’ve been wanting to make since I listened to the podcast you participated in about Sailor Moon.

When male manga fans are trying to explain why something written for girls might be appealing to them as well, they will often attribute this to what they perceive as male or “shounen” elements in the story, like team-building or action sequences. And while I appreciate their enthusiasm for the work, I’m a bit perplexed as to why these would be considered exclusively “shounen” to begin with. Sure, certain genres of shoujo manga might share these things in common with certain genres of shounen manga, but I honestly don’t see what’s not inherently shoujo about them. Girls enjoy things like action, adventure, teamwork, and battling evil just as much as anyone, and there’s nothing odd or incongruous about these elements standing alongside things like beauty and femininity. These things naturally coexist in the minds of many girls, and when they’re all put together, they are not only exciting and inspiring, but really freaking pretty.

MICHELLE: You’re right, and though I agreed with them that there were some “shounen” elements to Sailor Moon, I didn’t mean to imply that they’re not just as easily shoujo elements, but simply story aspects that are more common to shounen manga. If that makes sense.

MJ: I guess what I’m saying is, though maybe there are more shounen action series than there are shoujo action series, it’s not as if it’s uncommon in shoujo. The entire magical girl genre pretty much exists in that realm, and those series share as much or more in common with fantasy, adventure, or sci-fi shoujo like Basara, X/1999, or They Were Eleven as they do with shounen manga—all of it very shoujo and very pretty.

I don’t mean to derail this discussion with my shoujo manifesto, though, so please forgive me. I’m just happily overwhelmed by the sparkly loveliness of this action sequence.

MICHELLE: No worries; I agree with you. But perhaps we should move on. What pretty shoujo have you chosen?

MJ: Well, it may seem like an odd choice, given the vast pool of classic pretty to choose from, but I’ve chosen an 8-page scene from volume three of Reiko Shimizu’s Moon Child, and there are a number of reasons why.

Moon Child, Volume 3, Pages 146-153 (CMX)

First, of course, there is quite a bit of objectively lovely imagery in the later panels of the scene, including rippling water, a flowing seascape, and a billowy-haired mermaid, all rendered with a perfect balance of simplicity and detail. I’m particularly fond of Shimizu’s style of character design as well, which is very much in step with most of the ’80s and early ’90s manga I’ve read. For whatever reason, this is probably my very favorite period for shoujo character design.

Most of all, though, there is an eerie, vaguely melancholy tone throughout the entire scene, particularly the first two pages, which I will admit are my favorite. I even consider them the prettiest of the whole sequence, though they have none of the flowing seascape that decorates the rest of the scene. They are, however, beautifully strange, and a perfect example of what I personally find prettiest in shoujo manga. This may seem like an odd thing to say, but I find the strangeness—this particular brand of strangeness—to be really, really beautiful. When I look at the first two pages of this sequence, I can feel the smooth surface of the water as the character brings his face near, touching the ends of his hair and the tips of his nose and chin. That smooth pool of water and the way he just falls slowly into it—it’s difficult for me to articulate exactly why I find it beautiful, but I really do.

Yes, I love these character designs, and the pretty page layouts, but sometimes what I find most beautiful about older shoujo manga is its strangeness. It brings to mind a dreamworld, I guess—one that looks like our world but somehow just isn’t in a way that engages the most obscure, most beloved corners of my imagination. These stories make themselves part of my private world, and I find them beautiful for it. If that makes any sense at all.

MICHELLE: It absolutely makes sense. And for what it’s worth, I studied the pages before I read your commentary and also felt that the exquisitely slow descent into the fountain was the loveliest part. I like, too, how Teruto slips into the fountain with such grace and barely a ripple and how this is contrasted off-panel by the little girl who has observed what happened. The inability of an everyday person to access the same magic only reinforces its strangeness.

MJ: Yes, exactly! It seems so clear that he exists in a different state of being from the regular people around him, which is part of what makes it feel so dreamlike, I think. There is a lot of that kind of thing in this series, which is really, exquisitely strange. I think the dreamlike tone makes it easier to suspend disbelief as well.

MICHELLE: From the examples we’ve both chosen, it seems that, to some extent, it’s the dreaminess of pretty scenes that is at least partly responsible for the happy sighing. Of course, we realize that real life is seldom so lovely, but it’s nice to abandon oneself for a while in a reality where that sort of thing really can happen.

MJ: I think where I often find solace in shoujo manga, is that it offers exactly what you describe—a reality that contains the stuff of dreams—but held together by real human feeling, such that even the wildest tale can often shine much-needed light on our real-life emotional turmoil. At the heart of all this strange, sparkly fantasy, there is a solid base of real emotional truth, which is sometimes easier to face when it’s presented in a pretty, dreamlike package.

MICHELLE: Well put! I think that’s one of the major strengths of genre fiction in general, actually, no matter the media.

MJ: Agreed! Of course, nothing does “pretty” quite like classic shoujo.

MICHELLE: Indeed not. That’s just icing on the cake!

The Edge of Darkness, Comic @Bunch

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If you’ve read anything I’ve written about manga magazines, you know I love the obscure and unique. Not AX unique, “look at me, I’m so experimental! Penises!” unique. I like unique when it comes by it honestly. Authentic oddballity, if you will.  Fortuitous circumstance lead me, therefore, to Monthly Comic @Bunch.

Monthly Comic @Bunch is a relative newcomer to the comic scene. Replacing Weekly Comic Bunch, along with Monthly Comic Zenon, Monthly Comic @Bunch began publication in January 2011. There are no circulation numbers available yet, and Weekly Comic Bunch last posted data in 2008, with a monthly circulation of 182,672. At 650 yen ( $8.50 at time of writing) for about 670 pages, you’re getting a page per yen of action, adventure and a fair measure of screaming, for one reason or another.

Compared with other Seinen magazines, Monthly Comic @Bunch  feels very much as if the editorial staff’s main requirement is that the artists draw something they want to draw, as opposed to something that will sell. As a result, there’s no one cohesive thread in Bunch’s choices.  Explosion- and violence-filled “BTOOOM!” by Inoue Junya sits side by side with Mizu Asato’s children-and-animals story “Meina no Fukurou.”

What will probably strike a Western audience first is that few, if any, of the creators or stories’ names are known here. With the exception of some of the “Hokuto no Ken” (Fist of the North Star) stories, and Usamaru Furuya’s manga adaptation of Dazai Osamu’s No Longer Human, both of which ran in Weekly Comic Bunch,  Monthly Comic @Bunch is filled with talented artists and skilled storytelling that we’ll probably never see here in English.

Monthly Comic @Bunch does have a website, Web@Bunch, with samples of manga, both running currently, and website-only. The site includes messages from the creators, a blog, links to published collected volumes and the usual sort of functions on magazine websites.

The standout Monthly Comic @Bunch series for me are Nakajima Michitsune’s fantasy war story, “Gunka no Baltzar” set in a Napoleonic War-style setting, about a young man moving up through the ranks; police action/adventure story “Ouroboros” by Kanzaki Hiroya, and the story that dragged me here in the first place, “Avare Senki” by Nakamura Ching. Let me talk a little bit about this story, because in a world where Bakuman is being talked about so often, there needs to be an “Avare Senki.”

Bakuman is a fictionalized story about two young men trying to make it in the manga world, written and drawn by two men who have made it in the manga world. “Avare Senki” (which translates to something like “Stingy Wars” or maybe the “Battle of Cheeseparing,” or “Miserly Combat,”) is a story about the bone-crushing poverty and exhaustion endured by a manga artist and her assistants when she’s working steadily, but has not “made” it. Wrapped in a plot of working on a fantasy series called Avare Senki, Nakamura-sensei draws a sobering, but not entirely depressing, tale of deadlines, ramen, smoking and recycling materials. For people who want to really see behind the curtain of a manga artist’s life, forget Bakuman, and turn to “Avare Senki.” It will open your eyes, I assure you.

When compared with many Seinen magazines, there’s a refreshing lack of creepy fanservice here. The magazine feels quite manly overall, and there is a sense of edginess to it that pervades most of the pages, even if it eschews the most banal tropes of fanservice. This isn’t to say there is none – but when compared with many of the top Shounen magazines, this magazine is significantly more mature.

For fans of the obscure, the authentically edgy, Monthly Comic @Bunch, is a don’t-miss magazine.

Monthly Comic @Bunch from Shinchosha Publishing: http://www.comicbunch.com/

The Favorites Alphabet: E

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Welcome to another installment of the Favorites Alphabet, where the Manga Bookshelf battle robot cast our loving gaze upon the titles in our respective collections to pick the manga title (or… ahem… titles) from each letter of the alphabet that stands (or… ahem… stand) above the rest, whenever possible. We’re trying to stick with books that have been licensed and published in English, but we recognize that the alphabet is long, so we’re keeping a little wiggle room in reserve.

“E” is for…

Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President | By Kaiji Kawaguchi | VIZ – As we prepare for another presidential election cycle, I find myself wishing, once again, that fictional New York Senator Kenneth Yamaoka would finally run for office. Yamaoka is, of course, the hero of Kaiji Kawaguchi’s Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President, and, unlike most American politicians, Yamaoka is unapologetically liberal, thoroughly persuasive on controversial issues, and seemingly atheist. It’s a swell fantasy for older readers like me, who feel a twinge of nostalgia for the days when a presidential candidate could actually use the “L” word (that’s “liberal,” kids, for those of you who’ve only heard it used in a pejorative fashion) without embarrassment. At the same time, however, it’s a great, pulpy manly-man manga in which an ambitious character uses wit and integrity to defeat his rivals. Eagle is long out of print, but well worth the time and effort to track down. – Katherine Dacey

Emma | By Kaoru Mori | Published by CMX – Okay, okay, I sometimes pick titles that are out of print, but come on. How can I not include Mori’s beautifully subdued tale of a maid who falls in love well out of her class? For those who are just discovering her work through A Bride’s Story (Yen Press), this is the series where many English-language readers discovered Mori’s ability to turn tiny, mundane moments into arias of subtle emotion. To be honest, the plot here is secondary to the meticulous slices of period life that Mori serves up. Of course, those slices would probably have less impact without the acute observations about social constraints, not just between domestics and their employers but between old money and new and country and city and British and everyone else. And, as if that wasn’t enough, Mori does the hands-down funniest, most witheringly self-deprecating autobiographical strips I’ve ever seen in the back of a Japanese comic. – David Welsh

ES: Eternal Sabbath | By Fuyumi Soryo | Published by Del Rey – I have a particular fondness for creators who defy categorical constraints, so when I learned that shôjo manga-ka Fuyumi Soryo had done a sci-fi series for Kodansha’s Morning and that Del Rey was publishing it, I had to read it. I find that this partiality to fence hoppers is almost always rewarding, and that’s certainly the case with ES. It’s about a hot clone with amazing psychic powers who casts off the shackles of his scientist overlords to go see what life is like in the real world. His primary prism in that effort is a brilliant but emotionally remote scientist who senses something unusual in her new acquaintance but can’t quite figure out what it is. At least she can’t until a second, much less benevolent clone surfaces and starts exacting horrible and violent revenge on humanity. ES offers a great combination of thoughtful romance, scientific philosophy, and creepy horror. What more could you want? – David Welsh

Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga | By Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma | VIZ – Profane, raunchy, and thoroughly on the mark, this blistering satire pokes fun at every conceivable niche of mangadom, from ladies’ comics to salaryman manga. Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma gleefully skewer narrative cliches and overused tropes, all while offering solid (if sarcastically delivered) advice on how to produce a commercially successful manga. The highpoint (lowpoint?) of volume one is a table comparing sex scenes in different genres, with helpful suggestions for choosing appropriate sound effects. Yes, it’s rude, but it’s also a virtuoso display of artistic skill; Aihara and Takekuma are equally adept at drawing for mature female audiences and hormonal teenage boys. – Katherine Dacey

Excel Saga | By Rikdo Koshi | VIZ – Oh come on, you can’t pretend to be surprised that this is my pick. My pet series for the last 8 years, ever since Viz started to publish it in North America, Excel Saga has had a rough ride ever since folks realized that the anime it was based off of was telling the truth – Rikdo was giving permission for the anime to do whatever it wanted, while he made the manga into his own thing. After readers realized it wasn’t simply the anime on the page, sales dropped sharply – this is why Volumes 7 and 8 are so hard to find today. But the hardcore fans who stayed with it were rewarded with a satire of sentai shows and the collapse of the economic bubble, and characters who were no less insane than their anime counterparts. They get a deeper backstory, though, and there are touching and dramatic moments sprinkled through this comedic story. Carl Horn’s translation is also a classic example of a loose adaptation that’s handled correctly – it’s not word for word from the Japanese, but conveys the same spirit. And his end notes are the best in the business, bar none. There are only 5 volumes to go till its conclusion now, so maybe Viz can speed it up a bit from its one-per-year schedule – but if not, it makes a rare but delightful treat. – Sean Gaffney

Eyeshield 21 | By Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murata| VIZ Media – As mentioned back on letter C, I love sports manga, even when it’s kind of juvenile like Eyeshield 21. But even though the overuse of bathroom humor makes me sigh heavily, there are still many reasons to recommend Eyeshield 21. For one, it’s delightfully over-the-top, with the (possibly literally) demonic Hiruma, captain of the Deimon Devil Bats football team, doing everything possible to ensure the success of his team, including and not limited to blackmail. Secondly, it’s got some wonderful characters. My personal favorite is Komusubi, a small but fierce defensive lineman who looks like a muppet, but I also have a soft spot for “the Hah?! Brothers,” who started off as juvenile delinquents but have begun to experience what it’s like to actually be good at something and receive positive feedback for it. Growth like that will get me every time. – Michelle Smith

What starts with “E” in your favorites alphabet?

 

Manga the Week of 10/5

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First week of the month, and you know that means it’s time to be punched in the face with the enormity of Viz’s releases. But first, more ‘Midtown doesn’t list Kodansha anymore’ stuff. This means I have to guesstimate when stuff hits comic shops based on my own store’s list. And so sometimes I miss things. Like xxxHOLIC! Did you know it shipped this week? Surprise!

Kodansha should see the rest of September’s releases hit comic shops the first week of October. This includes Vol. 15 of Fairy Tail (just in time for Hiro Mashima at NYCC!), Vol. 26 of The Wallflower, Vol. 7 of Ninja Girls, and the 2nd Negima omnibus, containing Vols. 4-6. This will cover the ‘Kyoto’ arc, which is where most hardcore Negima fans say the story starts to improve.

The Penguin Group is also listing Gandhi: A Manga Biography. The artist is indeed Japanese, but I have to say the advance reviews have not exactly had me panting to pick up a copy.

And thus we come to Viz. The big debut this week is Psyren, the new Shonen Jump series that only SEEMS like it was licensed 8 years ago. It should be a lot of fun. There’s also new Bakuman! New Bleach omnibus of Vols. 7-9! The final Eyeshield 21, which had quite a long run for a sports manga in North America! New Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan! New Slam Dunk! (Well, it’s about 20 years old, but new to us!). And for you Jump Square fans, there are the wildly popular Blue Exorcist and Rosario + Vampire II!

In less exclamatory terms, there’s plenty of shoujo as well. Kamisama Kiss 5 comes out at the same time as Natsume’s Book of Friends 9 and Nura 5 just to overdose EVERYONE with yokai. (And yet, still no Gegege no Kitaro license. Le sigh…) New Sakura Hime from the ever popular Arina Tanemura. The final volume of highly underrated Betsucomi series Seiho Boys High School. Skip Beat has hit 25 volumes! And Vampire Knight 13, with all your broody vampire needs.

Lastly, in non-manga news, Hark! A Vagrant! hits comic shops next week as well, and you should all get copies. And there’s also 2 new Archie HCs (no, no, it only SEEMS like they’re out every week now), with Archie Americana: the 50s, and Best of Harry Lucey.

Anything excite you?

BL Bookrack: September 2011

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Welcome to the September installment of BL Bookrack! This month, MJand Michelle take a look at three offerings from Digital Manga Publishing’s Juné imprint, An Even More Beautiful Lie, Only Serious About You, and Private Teacher.

An Even More Beautiful Lie | By Kei Kanai | Digital Manga Publishing/Juné | Rated YA (16+) – It was an impulsive decision on Kurosu Keiichiro’s part to attend Teio Art University, but he believes that meeting genius painter Yukari Yohito proves that it was the right choice. Kurosu is in awe of Yukari’s works, and when he spots the other boy sleeping on the train and about to miss his station, he wakes him up and makes sure he doesn’t forget his umbrella, at the cost of forgetting his own and getting left behind by the train.

This leads to an offer from enigmatic Yukari to spend the night at his place, after which Kurosu comes around more often, making sure Yukari remembers to eat and bathe. Yukari is so completely obsessed with painting that he doesn’t “have any time to think about today, tomorrow, how to live.” Gradually they grow closer, even though Yukari insists that he’d never be able to care for someone more than he does painting. When his home and studio is randomly invaded by thieves, however, and Kurosu gets seriously hurt while single-handedly subduing the culprits, Yukari is unable to paint at all until his friend is fully recovered and discharged. Once he assures himself that Kurosu is fine and will stay by his side, he is finally able to start creating again. Theirs is a quirky love story, and an interesting one.

On the negative side, the narrative occasionally feels disjointed and self-consciously “artsy,” thanks to some obtuse dialogue (“Excessive bias makes me stop thinking about the essential nature of things”) and abrupt flashbacks which, while they provide useful information about characters’ motivations, also require flipping back a few pages to figure out where and when they’re supposed to occur. This issue pales in comparison to the true head-scratcher of the volume, however—the scene in which one of Yukari’s attackers engages in a brief daydream about raping his victim. It’s tonally dissonant, completely gratuitous, and takes one out of the story. I’d still recommend An Even More Beautiful Lie, but it’s too bad the mangaka (assuming it wasn’t an editorial mandate) found it necessary to include that scene.

– Review by Michelle Smith

onlyseriousOnly Serious About You | By Kai Asou | Digital Manga Publishing/Juné | Rated YA (16+)- Nao Oosawa is a busy guy. Juggling a demanding restaurant job and life as a single dad, he’s barely keeping his head above water. So when his daughter comes down with a fever, Oosawa can’t possibly turn down help, even when the offer comes from an overly-familiar customer, Yoshioka, who never stops flirting. Having observed Yoshioka’s endless stream of boyfriends, Oosawa’s got him pegged as a pretty careless guy, but as Yoshioka becomes more a part of Oosawa’s life, things start to look a bit different.

There’s a lot about this manga that looks like the same-old, same-old—the “straight,” serious uke, the playboy with a heart of gold, the double helping of hurt/comfort—not the worst of the genre’s overused tropes, perhaps, but gratingly familiar (much like Yoshioka). Fortunately, these bits of cliché are fleshed out with a level of warmth and thoughtfulness generally associated with the very best romance.

Both Oosawa and Yoshioka’s characters have been crafted with real care, and from authentic human stuff. They’ve both got baggage, which is neither easy to let go of or the sum of who they are. Oosawa’s holding his little family together, running between home, work, and daycare (fans of Yumi Unita’s Bunny Drop will sigh adoringly), completely devoted to his daughter even as he worries that she might be happier without him. And Yoshioka’s a mess, but the kind of mess that manages to prop up everyone around him when it looks like they might fall.

Asou’s got it right on the romantic front too, even with the straight guy and the somewhat contrived means of throwing the characters together. She builds the relationship slowly on a surprisingly solid foundation, and even by the end of this first volume, all she’s really shown us is the evolution of a friendship. Sure, we’ve yet to see how she handles Oosawa’s realization that he’s fallen for a man, but given the series’ maturity so far, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.

Artwork is the least exciting element of this series, but in some ways that may be for the best. It’s always refreshing to read a BL manga where character design feels unimportant, and that’s certainly the case here. The designs are serviceable and the visual storytelling is competent, but Asou gets the most mileage out of dialogue and a handful of very expressive visual moments.

Overall, Only Serious About You is exactly the kind of BL I hope to see much more of. Now how to get by until the release of volume two?

– Review by MJ

Private Teacher, Vol. 1 | By Yuu Moegi | Digital Manga Publishing/Juné | Rated M (18+) – Rintaro is a high school student being tutored by a college student named Kaede.

That’s the shortest summary I’ve ever written for a manga review, but Private Teacher may have the least interest in its own plot of any manga I’ve ever read. There’s some banter back-and-forth about Rintaro’s test scores and so on, but the entire thing is a stunningly transparent excuse for younger boy/older boy porn, and nothing else is even remotely on the table.

Now, I have no objection to pure pornography, but I’ll admit that it’s not what I was hoping for from this manga (there’s seriously another volume of this?). More importantly, however, it is simply Not For Me. Not only is this manga obsessed with its age gap (this is even more pronounced in the book’s second story, where the characters are younger), but also with obsessive love, which is not at all my cup of tea, at least not when it’s presented with such uncomplicated romanticism.

In each of the three stories in Private Teacher (seriously, the main story only lasts three chapters, and there is still a second volume?) the driving force behind the relationships is jealous obsession. “I get jealous when you laugh and talk with anyone but me.” That’s a frequently expressed sentiment in this manga, and it’s always received with love and gratitude. The message being delivered is loud and clear. Isn’t it wonderful to have someone feel so possessive of you? Aren’t you happy that someone wants to own you?

As I said, this manga is really Not For Me. Your mileage may vary.

– Review by MJ

Review copies provided by the publisher.

Disclosure: MJ is currently under contract with Digital Manga Publishing’s Digital Manga Guild, as necessitated for her ongoing report Inside the DMG. Any compensation earned by MJin her role as an editor with the DMG will be donated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

The Favorites Alphabet: D

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Welcome to another installment of the Favorites Alphabet, where the Manga Bookshelf battle robot ruthlessly assess the titles in our respective collections to pick the manga title from each letter of the alphabet that makes us feel all floaty, whenever possible. We’re trying to stick with books that have been licensed and published in English, but we recognize that the alphabet is long, so we’re keeping a little wiggle room in reserve.

“D” is for…

Dominion | By Masamune Shirow | Published by Dark Horse – Appleseed is the most ambitious, and Ghost in the Shell the most popular, but I have to admit that I find Dominion and its alternate universe sequel Dominion Conflict One to be my favorite Shirow manga, and one I keep going back and rereading.  It’s the funniest of his works, particularly Conflict, and the Puma Sisters were a major influence on “catgirls” in the Western fandom.  The environmental message is also strongest in these works, with the plotting devoted to ecoterrorism, and set in a future so miserable that if you go out without an oxygen mask, you die.  Most of all, though, Dominion revels in its property damage, and it may rival the Dirty Pair in sheer amount of destruction seen in a series.  Leona is a hothead who does not know the meaning of the words “Stand down”, and in Conflict, where her love interest and morality chain Al is missing, she’s even worse.  Dominion is just sheer fun, and a title I hope that Shirow eventually returns and wraps up some day.  – Sean Gaffney

Dororo | By Osamu Tezuka | Published by Vertical, Inc. – I could very easily have given this slot to Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories (Fantagraphics), but if I’m going to be completely honest, the title for this letter that I can read over and over again and take near-complete delight in is this truncated bit of action-fantasy lunacy from Tezuka. It’s about a guy whose greedy father sold all of his body parts to demons to get power, and now the kid has to use his prosthetic body and mad swordsman skills to go get his limbs and organs back. He’s also got a spunky kid thief tagging along, as one does in these circumstances. I could have read about a dozen volumes of this story, but there are unfortunately only three, probably because Tezuka was always doing a million things at once and one must prioritize. It’s hardly Tezuka’s most ambitious work, but, for my money, it’s a prime rendering of his defining qualities: passionate social critique and eye-popping entertainment. – David Welsh

Dororo | By Osamu Tezuka | Published by Vertical, Inc. – Once upon a time, when I was a brand new reader of manga, I was terrified of Osamu Tezuka. I found his status as a master so intimidating, I was actually afraid to read his work lest I be forced to face my own incompetency as a reader. Then, in a moment of madness, I bought Dororo, and less than a chapter in, I realized what it actually meant to be a master. Not only were my fears unfounded—Dororo was a truly thrilling and emotionally affecting manga—but it was Tezuka’s mastery of the craft that made the work so accessible, even today.  Dororo may not be my very favorite of Tezuka’s works, but it will always be special. – MJ

DVD | By Kye Young Chon | Published by DramaQueen – Even though DramaQueen has only managed to release two of DVD’s eight volumes so far, I’ve seen enough to deem this my favorite manga/manhwa starting with the letter “D.”  When Ddam’s boyfriend dumps her, sick of her quirky attributes like the ability to see illusions, her suicidal plans are thwarted by a bizarre pair of fellows, boob fetishist Venu and punk DD, who proceed to attempt to cheer her up in their own inept way. The story is playfully told, with various amusing excursions, and the mystery of Ddam’s gradually solidifying illusions is tantalizing. I continue to buy DramaQueen’s new releases, in hopes that this will help fund more DVD, but really, I am not very hopeful. Thankfully, TOKYOPOP Germany finished the series, so there’s always the Google Translate route. – Michelle Smith

What starts with “D” in your favorites alphabet?

Manga the Week of 9/28

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Our long national nightmare is over: Sailor Moon is hitting comic shops. Not Midtown, of course: they have not had a Kodansha release (bar one or two tiny exceptions) in months. But I have my own shop’s list of what’s coming in for me, and it has Kodansha stuff.

I’m not sure of exactly what’s shipping, as I haven’t ordered every Kodansha title for the month, but you should see Sailor Moon and Sailor V 1, Shugo Chara 12, Arisa 4, Negima 31, and Deltora Quest 2. No, not the releases actually due out in bookstores next week – that would be too logical. Only the stuff that’s running 1-3 weeks late. Still, Sailor Moon! And Negima! And Arisa!

In other release news, Bandai has the second volume of Kannagi, with more wacky antics about the girl who already had a boyfriend before the story started and somehow offended an entire otaku species. Oh, and it’s about supernatural shrine maidens as well. :)

Dark Horse has another volume of Berserk, one of their biggest manga series, and one which has caught up with Japan, so a new volume is a treat. If you like dark, gritty violence. Which, let’s face it, many do. It doesn’t hit NYT bestseller lists, but sells very briskly via Diamond.

NBM has the long-awaited Stargazing Dog, a Futabasha title which is the company’s first manga! It looks adorable. (I note the title is also one of the ones JManga offers, though with a different translation.)

Seven Seas is putting out the second volume of A Certain Spinoff Franchise, and I still wait with bated breath to see if Yen will pick up the original. In the meantime, Misaki is fun, and can zap things.

Vertical has the new Tezuka book. No, not Princess Knight, which is a rather nontraditional Vertical title. This is The Book of Human Insects, which is a VERY traditional Vertical title. Provided you don’t mind dealing with horrible people doing horrible things, this promises to be another hefty slice of seinen masterpiece.

And Viz has a new Pokemon book, which will thrill and delight Pokemon fans everywhere! Or possibly be awful. Dunno, have never sampled the series. But it sells like Pokemon, so it has some people who think it’s great.

So what, aside from Sailor Moon and V of course, is appealing to you?

Don’t Fear the Adaptation: Natsume’s Book of Friends

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Natsume’s Book of Friends | by Yuki Midorikawa | Manga: Hakusensha / Viz | Anime: Brain’s Base / Crunchyroll

Natsume’s Book of Friends is the kind of series that could only be made in Japan. The same plot set-up (young man learns about demons and ghosts, fights some of them and saves others, befriends a supernatural guardian and learns more about his family and himself) when worked over by the United States, well, became Supernatural. Natsume, on the other hand, is a feel-good, low-key series that would gladly eschew demon-slaying for a chance to show an autumn festival in full sway. Less “monster of the week” and more slice-of-life, Natsume’s Book of Friends’ first season tries to bite off more story than it can chew and ultimately left me wavering between dissatisfaction and well-meaning sentimentality.

The eponymous Natsume is a high school boy named Takashi, who has spent his life being ostracized by his family and peers for seeing ayakashi — monsters that are an intersection of mythical beast, ghost, and evil spirit. Takashi’s grandmother Reiko Natsume left him her belongings, among which is the Book of Friends: an old-fashioned notebook filled with names of ayakashi that Reiko had made her followers. The ayakashi whose names were bound in the book were forced to obey Reiko’s commands and, as we discover later in the series, were often Reiko’s only companions.

But Natsume (Takashi)’s connection with the Book of Friends is different. He’s not interested in getting more names; rather, he wants to return the names to the ayakashi. It’s a grueling process that physically and spirtually taxes him. Guided by Nyanko, a dog demon named Madara stuck in the body of fat cat, Natsume finds himself navigating the tricky waters of interpersonal relationships, both with the humans in his life, the ayakashi who won’t leave him alone, and the ayakashi who, surprisingly, need him to guide them through the world of human feelings.

When Natsume’s Book of Friends does its job well, the stories are truly touching. Tsubame, the sparrow ayakashi of episode six, was for me the early standout in this thirteen episode series. Her story arc marks the first time that Natsume gets overly involved in the plight of an ayakashi to his detriment. In his desire to get Tsubame a chance to see the human she loves, Natsume gets trampled on, pushed around, and almost eaten. It’s the kind of dedication that in other anime would result in a love confession. Here, Natsume’s feelings for Tsubame are deliciously kept in the dark, and paired with Tsubame’s unrequited love for a passing human, the whole episode reads bittersweet and touching. Likewise, Hotaru from episode eight has the same melancholy, literary feel to her character arc, much like a short story from Yasunari Kawabata, but animated. At its best, Natsume’s Book of Friends knows when to play the emotional cards close to heart; the most interesting character relationships tended to be the ones that were neither labeled nor even mentioned by anyone in the series.

But other ayakashi who cross Natsume’s path sometimes seemed downright contrived. The kitsune — fox spirit — whose mother is now a pile of rocks (?) had promise as a loner who aims to befriend Natsume, but instead that story fizzled out into a relatively lukewarm conclusion that had me wondering why I was supposed to remember the kitsune kid when he chose to show up in a later episode. Episode three with the dew god was clearly an early foray into the rustic faith of the countryside, but the really interesting religious question (how can you be a god if you have no powers and no followers?) was passed up without any commentary or exploration, while a passable but ultimately silly love story was chosen to cap off the episode. Let’s not even get into the confused emotional climax of episode five, whose musing about friendship between the ayakashi and ill-fated attempt to show us more about Reiko’s personality had me literally falling asleep, despite my best efforts to stay interested. None of the characters in the first season, besides Natsume, get much depth. Sasada, the homeroom president, and Tanuma, one of the few other people who can see ayakashi, had potential to be great foils for Natsume. Instead, Tanuma languishes as a barely realized ally whom Natsume only manages to reach out to in the last episode, and Sasada goes from possibly-no-wait-maybe-not love interest to laughing stock.

In general I found the manga to be more melancholy and on point with the emotional cues. Natsume himself is more gloomy and isolated in the manga, while in the anime, he seems shockingly well-adjusted, making a major sticking point of the story — Natsume’s attempt to build interpersonal relationships — harder to swallow in the anime. Often the anime seemed to be trying too hard for zany or cute or melodramatic or something. I don’t know if it’s because of the switch in medium, but the manga chapters seemed to have an extra air of easy-going softness that was missing from the anime. In many ways, the manga version of Natsume’s life was incredibly fragile. You felt the stories were just like Tanuma’s view of the ayakashi, like if you scrutinized the stories too much they would disappear a little into the background of Natsume’s life. Not so with the anime, where things felt more grounded, more real. Natsume didn’t seem to be the lonely, slightly withdrawn young man he was under Midorikawa’s pen; instead, you felt strongly in the anime that everyone else had had to be wrong to doubt a boy like Natsume. The world of manga Natsume seemed more Japanese, and the ayakashi were everywhere, not just the guest characters they so often were in the anime.

Yet the anime does have its advantages. The ending theme, “Summer Evening Sky”, is a perfect enka-inspired piece that always warms your heart whenever it starts to fade in during the last few minutes of an episode. Kazuhiko Inoue as Madara a.k.a. Nyanko-sensei is a force to behold, easily switching out of Nyanko’s whiny drawl and into Madara’s gruff, no-nonsense bark. And for all my griping that the secondary characters never get development, it’s still refreshing to see a show starring a male character that is neither testosterone-driven nor filled to the brim with ditzy and well-endowed love interests.

Fans of Mushishi and Yumekui Kenbun might consider giving Natsume’s Book of Friends a try (and likewise, those of you who enjoyed Natsume should check out those other two series!). At thirteen episodes, the first season is easy enough to swallow, and the episodic nature of the story arcs makes it easy to start and stop. As for me, I’d put Natsume’s Book of Friends in the box of anime series that neither wow nor disappoint. And, of course, I can only hope the subsequent seasons of the anime learn from Mushishi rather than Supernatural.

Watch it streaming at Crunchyroll

The Favorites Alphabet: C

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Welcome to another installment of the Favorites Alphabet, where the Manga Bookshelf battle robot sift through our towering stacks of dog-eared paperbacks to pick a favorite manga title from each letter of the alphabet, whenever possible. We’re trying to stick with books that have been licensed and published in English, but we recognize that the alphabet is long, so we’re keeping a little wiggle room in reserve.

“C” is for…

City Hunter | By Tsukasa Hojo | Gutsoon — One of the saddest parts of the collapse of Raijin Comics and Gutsoon for me was the loss of one of my favorite Shônen Jump titles, City Hunter, which ran in Shueisha’s flagship magazine from 1985 – 1991. A classic action comedy, it focuses on “sweeper” Ryo Saeba, a handsome gun-for-hire who lives in Shinjuku and acts as a private detective for people (invariably young ladies) who need his services, assisted by his spunky young partner Kaori, who is also his love interest. They aren’t together, though, because Ryo is a complete and utter horndog – he will try to sex up any pretty girl he sees (which are many – Hojo draws beautiful women) and his huge erections are not only a running gag, but almost omnipresent – the term “mokkori” is used by City Hunter fans like “baka” or “hai” by other Japanese anime fans, referring to Ryo’s visible manhood (as well as his term for girl hunting). As for Kaori, her anger at Ryo’s antics, short tomboyish persona and use of huge mallets to flatten Ryo into the ground may sound familiar to some fans of Ranma 1/2 – the series ran in rival magazines. The combination of comedy, action and romance was a huge hit in Japan, but less so here, and no one has been able to restart the series. I believe that Hojo has the rights himself. As he’s currently with Shinchosha, perhaps we could ask them if they want to try it as a JManga title? Or even the semi-sequel, Angel Heart? — Sean Gaffney


Club 9 | By Makoto Kobayashi | Dark Horse — If you told me that one of my favorite manga would focus on a country girl-cum-hostess, my inner feminist would have scoffed at you: how could I possibly enjoy a series that celebrated one of the seamier aspects of Japanese business culture? Yet Club 9 is totally, thoroughly winsome, even if it isn’t very progressive. The story focuses on Haruo, a teenager who leaves her backwoods town to attend college in the big city. Through a series of improbable circumstances, she lands a job at a hostess club, disarming salarymen, tycoons, and manga-ka with her direct, down-home manner. Haruo’s innocence is the source of many comic misunderstandings, but Makoto Kobayashi never makes his heroine the butt of cruel jokes; Haruo always gets the last laugh, no matter how outrageous the circumstances. Fabulous caricatures and an imaginative re-write are the frosting on this very tasty cake. – Kate Dacey

Cross Game | By Mitsuru Adachi | Viz Media – I really love sports manga. I love it when it’s kind of juvenile (Eyeshield 21) and I love it when it’s kind of ridiculous (The Prince of Tennis), but mostly I love it when it’s kind of bittersweet, which is where Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game comes in. The depiction of the baseball games themselves are a lot of fun, but there is also strong character drama, as lead characters Ko Kitamura and Aoba Tsukushima, united in tragedy by the loss of Aoba’s sister some years ago, butt heads due to their similar personalities but gradually grow closer as they mature and develop a greater appreciation of the other’s worth. Reading this series always makes me sniffle (in a good way), and I am grateful that VIZ has licensed it. Not so grateful that I won’t take this opportunity to beg for more Adachi, however. Might I suggest Rough? — Michelle Smith

Cross Game | By Mitsuru Adachi | Viz Media — There’s a Japanese phrase, mono no aware, that I suspect I probably overuse to the point that I end up sounding pretentious. I actually don’t care, because that phrase, which is often translated as “the pity of things,” frequently pops to mind when I’m really, really loving a given manga. It may seem unlikely to link that phrase, defining a wistful awareness that everything ends eventually, to Adachi’s baseball comedy, but Adachi is about as good at embodying this haunting, preemptive kind of nostalgia as just about any of his peers. So, yes, Cross Game is hilarious, and, yes, it’s about baseball, but it’s also about youth in all of its awful glory, from the off-the-diamond losses you never quite figure out how to endure to the grand possibilities the future presents, even though they scare you a little because you’re not sure you’ll be able to realize them. And there’s a really cute cat. I don’t know what else you could reasonably expect. – David Welsh

Crown of Love | Yun Kouga | Viz Media — Unlike the first two letters we’ve explored here, “C” is a tough one for me. While there are a number of “C” manga I’m very fond of (Cardcaptor Sakura, Chi’s Sweet Home, and Children of the Sea all spring immediately to mind), I don’t have a deeply personal favorite–that kind of manga that just really gets me regardless of its more objectively-measurable qualities.  Except that I totally do. I don’t generally believe in “guilty pleasures” (why feel guilty over taking pleasure in storytelling?), but if I did, this would be at the top of the list. It’s a twisted josei love story that isn’t afraid to explore the possibility that its male protagonist may be genuinely creepy–made even more twisted by the fact that he’s got nothing on the people around him. Though its final chapters are a bit too romantic to suit the story as a whole, at four volumes total, it’s an addictive whirlwind of a series. And sometimes, honestly, that’s “favorite” enough for me. – MJ

What starts with “C” in your favorites alphabet?

 

Manga the week of 9/21

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It’s a typical 3rd week of the month at Midtown, which is to say it’s typified by its untypicalness. (And no, no Kodansha titles, and no Sailor Moon, from Diamond again.)

Viz has the most coming out, including a couple of books that many stores have gotten in a while back. The penultimate volume of Fullmetal Alchemist, which no doubt will be the ‘darkest’ part of ‘it’s always darkest before the dawn’; the 7th Arata the Legend from shoujo turned shonen artist Watase Yuu; new Natsume Ono with House of Five Leaves, which will no doubt have more tortured souls; the penultimate volume of Kurozakuro, which if I recall correctly ended rather abruptly (read: got cancelled), so hopefully gets a good run up to an ending anyway; and two “Educational Biographies” from Shogakukan’s education division. Helen Keller has never looked more like Nanami Kiryuu, nor Thomas Edison more bishie. (The Edison cover in particular is a stitch.)

From other publishers, we have the 4th volume of Blood Alone from Seven Seas. I forget, do volumes with ‘blood’ in the title sell as well as volumes with ‘vampire’? And Midtown is also getting Jiro Taniguchi’s A Zoo in Winter from Fanfare, which I had thought came out ages ago. So it’s not just Kodansha getting shafted by Diamond?

And that’s it. Any titles strike a light?

Manga the Week of 9/14

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Given that next week is all about Yen Press, let’s start with them. (Yes, I know Sailor Moon and Sailor V come out 9/13. Did you really expect Diamond to ship it on the same day it hits bookstores? Have you been reading my posts at all this year?) There’s lots of stuff from Yen that deserves mention, but I want to focus on one title in particular first.

With the Light, a manga about a young mother struggling to raise her autistic child, was one of Yen’s first manga series announced, and their most exciting. A josei manga that clearly was intended to be marketed to a much broader audience than anime fans, it was a sign of great things to come. And it turned out to be even better when you read it, heartwarming and inspiring. Sadly, the author passed away before she could finish the series. Yen has worked with Akita Shoten to make the final volume, out next week, as complete as it is possible to be. Everyone who loves manga that goes outside the boundaries of ‘fight, train, laugh’ should pick up this series.

Of course, Yen has other stuff too. There’s Bamboo Blade 10, which is about to start up its next big arc. There’s Bunny Drop 4, which is a big turning point in the series. My Girlfriend’s a Geek 4 will no doubt feature more knowing humor about the fujoshi lifestyle. Zombie Loan… I’ve never read, I admit. I presume it’s about a library where you borrow zombies for things they’d be useful for? And the cute moe librarians who run Zombie Loan? No?

And though I don’t cover manwha, I suspect I would be filleted by my fellow Manga Bookshelf colleagues if I did not mention the new Goong and Raiders manga. And for fans of OEL, there’s Svetlana Chmakova’s new series Witch and Wizard, which is written by some other guy… oh right, James Patterson.

Viz also has titles! Albeit not many. But one is the 18th volume of Hayate the Combat Butler! Yes, it’s down to twice a year, and it seems to only garner bad reviews online these days (that will change when I get a hold of it), but this one resolves the ‘End of the World’ arc in a dramatic way, then kicks back to the comedy. And another final volume, as Detroit Metal City comes to a close. I kind of lost track of the series after the first couple of volumes, but I have a lot of friends who love it.

And Dark Horse is putting out the first volume of Yasuhiro Nightow’s new series, Blood Blockade Battlefront, no doubt meant to appeal to Trigun fans the same way Drifters is clearly designed to appeal to Hellsing fans. Sadly, on advice from my doctor, I can’t actually look at Nightow’s artwork anymore without a 24-hour nurse by my side, so I did not preorder it. But I’m sure hardier people than I will be willing to read it and try to figure out what the hell is happening in the panels.

(Apologies to Dark Horse… if it helps, I’ll be praising Drifters soon.)

So what intrigues you this week?

The Favorites Alphabet: B

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Welcome to another installment of the Favorites Alphabet, where the Manga Bookshelf battle robot gingerly approaches our meticulously organized collections to pick a favorite manga title from each letter of the alphabet, whenever possible. We’re trying to stick with books that have been licensed and published in English, but we recognize that the alphabet is long, so we’re keeping a little wiggle room in reserve. And sometimes you can’t pick just one.

“B” is for…

Banana Fish | By Akimi Yoshida | VIZ Media — Given my frequent posts on the subject, this choice likely comes as no surprise. Yet even after all that verbiage, I think I’ve talked very little about one of the main reasons I so love this series. Yes, it’s got fast-paced action, well-developed characters, and an almost-BL vibe to die for, and watching Yoshida’s artistry develop over the course of 19 volumes is truly a pleasure. But one of the series’ greatest draws for me is very simply its sincerity. I recently described another manga as reading like “a bad teen-penned novel,” and while Banana Fish shares some of the same over-the-top sentimentality and naive fancy that tends to characterize stories written by teens, like S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, Banana Fish reads like a great one. Yoshida offers up genuine intrigue and compelling action sequences, but her most winning quality as a writer is how sincerely she loves her characters, even when she’s putting them through hell.  This is a series I’ve read and re-read, and will likely read many times more before my eyes finally give out on me. Melodrama and all, it’s one of my favorite manga of all time. – MJ

Basara | By Yumi Tamura | VIZ Media — I hardly know where to start in extolling the virtues of Basara, Yumi Tamura’s epic 27-volume shôjo manga about a girl named Sarasa who assumes the identity of her twin brother Tatara (the so-called “child of destiny”) after his death and leads her people in revolt against a tyrannical king. Sarasa is highly competent and inspires the admiration and loyalty of people from all walks of life, but Tamura never lets us forget that this strong leader is also just a girl who experiences feelings she doesn’t understand and who denies herself a lot in order to be who the people need her to be. Just thinking about the reveal that it’s actually Sarasa who’s been the “child of destiny” all along literally gives me goosebumps. I’d urge everyone to read Basara, even though some volumes are notoriously hard to come by. It really is worth the effort. — Michelle Smith


Black Blizzard | By Yoshihiro Tatsumi | Drawn & Quarterly — I’ve found most of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s work too bleak, too macho, or too bleakly macho to appeal to my own sensibilities, but Black Blizzard is a notable exception. Dating from the late 1950s, it’s thoroughly enjoyable pulp: a young murder suspect and a jaded criminal escape from custody into a raging snowstorm, police hot (cold?) on their heels. The story’s weaknesses are easy to catalog: the plot developments can be seen coming from a mile away, the characters are little more than types, and the ending is too compressed to be truly satisfactory. Black Blizzard leaves a fresh impression nonetheless, thanks to Tatsumi’s rough, energetic artwork; with all the slashing lines and images of trains in motion, you’d be forgiven for thinking that an Italian futurist had taken a stab at writing a comic book. — Kate Dacey

Black Jack | Osamu Tezuka | Vertical, Inc. — Part House MD, part globe-trotting adventure, Black Jack is easily Osamu Tezuka’s most accessible work. The stories often flirt with the outrageous: Black Jack performs a brain transplant, treats an extraterrestrial, and operates on himself while fending off dingoes in the outback. Yet the human dimensions of every story are never overwhelmed by the questionable medical diagnoses; at their best, the stories are parables about the importance of humility, responsibility, patience, and loyalty, using illness and injury to show us the best — and worst — of human nature. (Also: to show us that Black Jack is a complete bad-ass with a scalpel.) The series’ popularity meant that Tezuka cranked out more Black Jack tales than he probably should have (see “treats an extraterrestrial,” above), but even the weakest entries in the collection are still a lot of fun. — Kate Dacey

Black Jack | Osamu Tezuka | Vertical, Inc. — I’m going to second Kate’s endorsement of Black Jack for a very specific, possibly irrational reason. Sometimes a title becomes a favorite simply by virtue of the presence of a supporting character. In the case of this series, that character is Pinoko. She’s surly old Black Jack’s adorable kid assistant, except she’s actually a parasitic tumor that gestated for years in her twin sister’s abdomen until the good-bad doctor cut her out and gave her a twee little plastic body and took her in as his ward. Pinoko is wrong on every conceivable level – an 18-year-old woman with no meaningful life experience trapped in the body of an artificial child. On some subliminal level, I think every adorable kid sidekick is creepy, but Tezuka just goes there, and Pinoko’s every appearance is an unsettling, mildly heartbreaking, inappropriately funny treat. There are certainly Tezuka titles I like better than Black Jack, but there’s probably no Tezuka character who haunts me quite like Pinoko. – David Welsh

Bleach | By Tite Kubo | VIZ Media — In general, I enjoy talking about manga because I love it. I love finding underrated series I can promote the hell out of, I love reading the romantic ups and downs of a couple that grow and learn at a snail’s pace because it’s funnier that way, and I enjoy watching big guys hit each other. But sometimes you get obsessed with manga that you like… and hate as well.  It can be so good…  and so frustrating. No title currently being released over here does this to me more than Bleach, the second of Viz’s ‘Big Three’ Shonen Jump titles. Bleach has a fantastic cast of characters… who it abandons for years at a time to focus on other new characters. It has emotional resonance… which can sometimes get incredibly ham-fisted.  And while some manga work better in weekly installments, or in volumes, Bleach is one that works best by reading 5 volumes at a time then ignoring it for 6 months. Oh, and the shipping. God, the shipping. Love it or hate it, folks can’t stop talking about Bleach. Which, honestly, is even more valuable in a manga than a title that’s merely liked by everyone. — Sean Gaffney

What starts with “B” in your Favorites Alphabet?

 

Manga the Week of 9/7

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It’s the first week of the month, and you know what that means. Far, far too much manga. What’s worse, Diamond is finally catching up with Kodansha. (Midtown, not so much). I mentioned most of the titles coming in last week (Bloody Monday, Cage of Eden, Phoenix Wright), but one I did not is the re-release of Gon, the adorable (and fearsome) baby dinosaur manga that is actually getting its third re-release. Kodansha is apparently trying to pitch it for a movie, and I think it could be a big hit with the right company. Naturally, being about the antics of a baby dino, it ran in Kodansha’s magazine for adult salarymen, Weekly Morning.

There is also Dark Horse, which is now releasing the 39th volume of Oh My Goddess. I should note that Dark Horse is worried about how old fans will think the manga is given the high volume number, and so ongoing volumes will also remain Volume 39, in tribute to Jack Benny.

The rest is aaaaaaaaall Viz. From Weekly Shonen Jump: Bleach 36, Death Note omnibus 5, Naruto 7-8-9 omnibus, regular Naruto 52, One Piece 58, and Toriko 6. There’s also Ultimo from Jump Square. All featuring Friendship, Perseverance, and Victory. There’s also Kekkaishi 7-8-9 omnibus as well, which is from Shonen Sunday, so is legally obligated not to have friendship, perseverance, or victory. Sad, really.

On the shoujo end, we have cute Hakusensha mangas! Library Wars 6, La Corda D’Oro 14 (another in Viz’s ‘see, it’s not cancelled, just on a ‘no one buys this at all’ schedule!’ titles), and Oresama Teacher 4. Slightly less cutely, we get Grand Guignol Orchestra 3. We have cute Shueisha manga! It’s another volume of tug-at-your-heartstrings Kimi ni Todoke. We have sexy Shogakukan manga! There’s ‘Who am I to argue with its sales?’ Black Bird 10, as well as techno-thriller shoujo romance Dengeki Daisy 6. And we have one final volume, as not-really-shoujo smutty comedy Butterflies, Flowers ends with Vol. 8. I’m betting on a wedding.

All this and a Pokemon Black and White! Are you prepared for this much manga?

The Favorites Alphabet: A

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Welcome to the first installment of the Favorites Alphabet, where the Manga Bookshelf battle robot glances through our respective libraries to pick a favorite manga title from each letter of the alphabet, whenever possible. We’re trying to stick with books that have been licensed and published in English, but we recognize that the alphabet is long, so we’re keeping a little wiggle room in reserve.

“A” is for…

After School Nightmare | By Setona Mizushiro | Go!Comi — Gender-bending is not unusual in manga, but actual exploration of gender is, and that’s just one of several refreshing aspects of this unfortunately out-of-print manga. It’s also a story about teenagers that uses school-mandated shared nightmares as a way of forcing students to display and face their own worst fears right in front of each other. Is it creepy? Yes. It also serves as a pretty accurate metaphor for my own thankfully-distant teenage hell, and I expect I’m not alone there. Though the series’ dream setting places it soundly in the realm of the surreal, that doesn’t make it any less resonant. After all, where do our own fears feel more real than in our fevered dreams? For more about this series from smarter writers than I, look to Jason Thompson  and (of course) David Welsh. – MJ

Antique Bakery | By Fumi Yoshinaga | Digital Manga Publishing — Ostensibly a slice-of-life tale about four men working together in a bakery, Antique Bakery offers more dramatic surprises than one might expect. Early on, charismatic gay pastry chef Ono and cluelessly lovable Chikage emerge as favorites, but as we learn more about the bakery’s proprietor, Tachibana, the more fascinating he becomes. An ordeal suffered in his past has profoundly informed the man he is in the present, and when readers realize the truth of what’s been going on all along, Yoshinaga’s mastery suddenly becomes even more apparent. Yes, there are lighthearted moments in this series. Yes, there is a fun cast of characters who grow and change from working together. But most of all, there is Tachibana’s unforgettable story. – Michelle Smith


Apocalypse Meow | By Motofumi Kobayashi | ADV Manga — Apocalypse Meow does for the Vietnam War what Maus does for World War II, using animal surrogates to re-enact period conflict. In this case, rabbits stand in for American soldiers, and cats stand in for the Vietnamese, while the Chinese (pandas) and Russians (bears) observe from the sidelines. Author Motofumi Kobayashi is clearly a military enthusiast: every volume is studded with sidebars describing combat tactics and weaponry, as well as lovingly drawn maps of troop movement. Yet Kobayashi doesn’t lose sight of the human cost of war; watching a trio of bunnies caught in a brutal fire fight makes the horror of combat fresh and unsettling, especially for readers who have been desensitized to the conflict through years of watching movies and documentaries about Vietnam. The series is long out of print, but enterprising (and patient) readers can find inexpensive copies on eBay. – Katherine Dacey


Aria (and its prequel Aqua) | By Kozue Amano | ADV Manga/Tokyopop — A cynical person might say that what Aria really shows is that slice-of-life, look at the scenery manga with no moe schoolgirls in it will die a financial death here in North America.  But what we saw of this series just made me love it all the more.  For a science-fiction utopia fantasy world, Aria is so relaxed and sedate.  It’s not afraid to devote 30 pages to simply walking to a store in the rain, or visiting a friend.  And as the series goes on, the cast of characters that form the core group grow and change, some more startlingly than others.  It’s a classic example of the sort of series you read and feel a smile on your face and a warmth in your heart.  It ran for a total of 14 volumes between both series in Japan, of which 8 saw publication here (both of Aqua and 6 of Aria’s 12).  Sadly, if you want more, I suspect you’ll have to learn Japanese.  It’s now failed to sell with two different North American publishers, and its Japanese company, Mag Garden, is the *only* major manga publisher with no digital initiative – even Square Enix is striking out on its own, separate from JManga.  It’s a shame, as I’d love everyone to see the end of this. – Sean Gaffney


Astral Project | By Garon Tsuchiya and Syuji Takeya | CMX — Being able to describe this series as “a slice-of-life supernatural mystery” makes me enormously pleased, even though it isn’t by any means comprehensive. A young man’s sister has committed suicide, and he tries to make sense of her death. Along the way, he learns to project his spirit out of his body and encounters other astral travelers who change his perspective on life. Beyond his emotional trauma, we also learn of a decidedly odd government conspiracy that gives Tsuchiya a platform for all kinds of extremely pointed satire aimed at contemporary culture. Astral Project is really, really odd, though it’s ultimately very involving and likeable. It’s further proof that Enterbrain’s Comic Beam publishes some of the most unusual, interesting comics Japan has to offer. It may be difficult to find copies of this four-volume series, as CMX didn’t exactly flood the market with copies the first time, but it’s worth the hunt. – David Welsh

What starts with “A” in your Favorites Alphabet?