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Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Off the Shelf with Melinda & Michelle

Off the Shelf: Still kicking

February 7, 2019 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith Leave a Comment

MICHELLE: Melinda, after we finish this one we will have done as many columns in 2019 as we did for the entirety of 2015-2018! Go us!

MELINDA: *laughs weakly* Yes… “go us.” Um. Wow. When you put it that way, we sound terribly unimpressive.

MICHELLE: Well, the alternative would’ve been to let it disappear, so I think we deserve a bit of credit for resuscitating it! Anyhow, I expect that you’ve been reading some manga!

MELINDA: I suppose you’re right! WE ARE BASICALLY GODS.

…

Okay, maybe not. But yes, I have indeed been reading some manga, or at least rereading, which is to say that I took some time this week to look at the new omnibus edition of CLAMP’s four-volume manga, Wish, originally published in Kadokawa Shoten’s Mystery DX, adapted into English in the early 2000s by TOKYOPOP, and resurrected just a few weeks ago by Dark Horse Comics, with their usual omnibus treatment—larger trim size, very nice-looking print, and a somewhat refreshed translation.

For those who missed Wish the first time around, it’s the story of an angel, Kohaku, who has been sent to Earth to find Hisui, one of the four “Master Angels” (why they don’t just say “Archangel” is a mystery to me, but maybe there’s something I don’t get), who disappeared from Heaven after a visit to the bridge between Heaven and Hell. During their mission, Kohaku—who appears human-sized during the day but reverts to tiny cherub form at night—is rescued from an attacking crow by Shuichiro, a local human doctor. Complications ensue when it turns out that Hisui actually defected to Earth in order to be with Kokuyo, the actual son of Satan, with whom they have fallen in love. Meanwhile, Kohaku becomes confused by their own growing feelings for Shuichiro.

There’s a whole lot packed into this short series, including more angels and demons, time travel, reincarnation, messenger rabbits, cats (some of whom are actually demons), and a tree fairy, but generally speaking it’s all just incredibly CLAMP from start to finish, and if you’re into that, you know what I mean. Someone even sacrifices an eye. This thing honestly couldn’t get any CLAMPier. It’s not my favorite of their series—I could live very happily never reading another manga about angels for the rest of my life—but as most CLAMP fans will know, the big deal about this edition is the translation, which is certainly what caught my attention.

In CLAMP’s original vision, there is no gender in Heaven or Hell, but in early 2000s publishing, it was unthinkable to convey that in English, especially when it came to the angels, who, in Japanese, referred to themselves with genderless pronouns. This led to a decision to choose genders for each of the angels, based on heteronormative standards regarding appearance and romantic entanglement, outraging some fans but satisfying style guides. Fast forward to 2019, when publishing has finally recalled that singular “they” is a thing, and our angels are genderless at last.

I’ve already mentioned that Wish is far from my favorite of CLAMP’s work, so I wasn’t especially eager to reread it, but I was surprised to note just how much more enjoyment I got out of it this time around. As someone who identifies as nonbinary, I realize this may be of greater importance to me than most, but whatever CLAMP’s intention really was when they filled their comic with genderless angels, it feels like representation, and for something originally published in the 1990s, that is kind of a big deal. Freeing the angels from gender expectations breathed new life into them for me, made the story richer, and opened up its universe to the notion that love and attraction might be based on something other than a person’s gender expression or whatever reproductive organs they happen to possess. These are not novel ideas for many of us, but with all the hand-wringing over this series back in 2002, it feels revolutionary. Mostly, though, what I’m struck with as I read this edition, is how easy it would have been to publish it exactly as it is now, then. The sentences are not awkward. There is nothing that feels labored or unnatural in this translation. How has it actually taken publishing this long to figure that out?

MICHELLE: It’s been a long time since I read Wish, and it was also not my favorite, but I definitely feel a greater spark of interest when I imagine a translation that represents the angels as genderless! It makes me want to shake TOKYOPOP and demand, “Would that have been so hard?!?!” (They had other similar issues back in the day, too, and not just with genderless protagonists. I distinctly remember a character in GetBackers being assigned feminine pronouns when, in fact, he is very much a dude and if anyone had actually bothered to learn anything about the series they were translating, they would’ve known that. SIGH.) I can totally see how it would make the whole story richer as a result.

MELINDA: Yeah, nobody could be more surprised than I am to be describing Wish as “rich” in anything other than CLAMP’s beautiful, swirly artwork, but I genuinely enjoyed rereading it, and I’d even recommend it, at least to fans of shoujo manga, and particularly to other enbies. It’s an unusual treasure of representation for the time period. And messenger bunnies! Who doesn’t love messenger bunnies?

There is one jarring panel in the first volume, where one of the demons seems to misgender Kohaku as “she,” but I don’t know if that was an editorial oversight (that’s how it’s translated in TOKYOPOP’s version, too) or if it was actually written that way in Japanese. But in over 800 pages, that one panel wasn’t significant enough to mar my enjoyment overall.

So what did you read this week, Michelle?

MICHELLE: Maybe that demon was intentionally being a jerk.

I checked out the first volume of Hitorijime My Hero by Memeco Arii, one of the first boys’ love manga published in print by Kodansha Comics. (They did release a handful of others digitally in 2018.)

As a kid, Masahiro Setagawa hated tokusatsu shows because he knew that, no matter how miserable his life was, no hero would come to save him. But when he fell in with a group of delinquents in middle school and became their gofer, a hero did come in the form of Kousuke Ohshiba, the so-called “bear killer,” who defeated the thugs and ended up with Setagawa as his new underling. Setagawa befriended Ohshiba’s younger brother, Kensuke, and as the manga begins, some time has passed. He’s dealing with the fact that Kensuke is now in a relationship with another boy named Asaya Hasekura and that Kousuke is a teacher at their high school.

Almost immediately, Kousuke is confronting Setagawa about the feelings he believes Setagawa has for him, saying, “Even if you feel that way I won’t be able to return those feelings.” Setagawa is too dumbstruck to deny it, and then Kousuke (an adult) keeps sending him (a teenager) mixed signals, like suddenly smooching him or calling him “the guy I like.” It turns out that Kousuke is basically trying to make Setagawa realize he is gay. This eventually works. And then they do it. Eyeroll.

Because this series is a spinoff from an earlier series, we’re just kind of thrown into a confusing timeline and a mix of characters without a lot of context. I’ve seen the first couple of episodes of the anime, and they handle all of this material far more clearly. The manga does a little to show why Setagawa likes Kousuke—he’s strong, smart, and capable—but none at all to show why Kousuke likes Setagawa, aside from one page where he talks about how his devotion helped him retain his humanity or something. Really, it’s all pretty disappointing so far. I know it’s a popular series, so I’m hoping it gets better.

MELINDA: I can’t help but roll my eyes along with you. This basically sounds like a collection of my least favorite BL tropes, though maybe (hopefully??) at least without the younger, smaller guy wincing in pain and horror every time they have sex? Please tell me it at least doesn’t have that. Though maybe it doesn’t matter. I know the student/teacher thing is a common trope too, but I really hate it, especially when it’s the main romantic plot line. I know it’s a popular series, but I honestly can’t imagine reading it by choice.

MICHELLE: To its credit, it absolutely does not have that. It’s fully a fade-to-black scenario with some evidence afterwards that Setagawa enjoyed himself tremendously. As for the student-teacher thing, this is a slightly different variation in which the two people concerned knew each other for years before Setagawa came to the school where Kousuke teaches, so the power imbalance between them is not so much that Kousuke is in an official position of authority but that Setagawa has kind of idolized him.

MELINDA: Either way, I’m guessing it’s not for me. I’ll wait to hear what you think of future volumes before taking the risk.

MICHELLE: Okay. I can handle at least one more. Speaking of Kodansha’s advances into the realm of print BL, would you care to do the summary honors for our mutual read this time?

MELINDA: Sure!

This week, we both read the first volume of the much-anticipated series 10 Dance, by Inouesatoh, also from Kodansha Comics, as Michelle mentioned above.

The story involves two ballroom dancers with similar names—Shinya Sugiki, who is an international champion in Standard Ballroom, and Shinya Suzuki, who is the Japanese national champion in Latin Dance. Their relationship with each other is both admiring and rivalrous, and when Sugiki asks Suzuki and his partner to train with with him (and his partner) for the 10-Dance Competition (combining the 5 Standard and 5 Latin dances), Suzuki finds it impossible to refuse.

Over the course of the first volume, the four dancers train together—the men in particular working to be able to lead in each other’s specialty—and that’s literally all that happens in the story, but as we watch the two of them butt heads (and other things) throughout the training, it’s honestly just riveting. This story is all about personality and relationships, and certainly we’re expecting some steamy romance between the two male leads down the line, but even in this preliminary volume, where nothing overtly romantic happens, there’s so much interpersonal entanglement to enjoy.

The two men couldn’t be more different. Suzuki, who grew up in Cuba, has been dancing with his partner since childhood, while Sugiki changes partners constantly, never quite settling in with anyone. Suzuki’s strength is showing passion on the floor, while Sugiki’s is the elegance of his form. And though things are slowly heating up a bit, I honestly believe I would be happy just watching them dance together as I learn new details about Standard and Latin ballroom rules, pretty much forever. It’s that entertaining.

MICHELLE: I enjoyed it tremendously! From the start, the cover art reminded me of est em, and the content within does, too. With est em, I was always struck by the way her characters would talk while engaged in intimate acts, and although Sugiki and Suzuki aren’t having sex, they’re still engaged in physical activity—indeed, they’ve been dancing until dawn together for months—that puts them in close proximity, gettin’ sweaty, maintaining eye contact, et cetera. And they’re talking throughout, gradually becoming closer and revealing details about their personal lives in the process. I love the slow development of their relationship and how this, in turn, makes small moments so pivotal. The one that stands out is when Sugiki has gone to London to defend a championship title. When he succeeds, it’s Suzuki that he calls, and when this reserved man actually smiles when being told “Hurry up and come home,” it has such impact! Of course, they go right back to butting heads after that.

MELINDA: I agree on est em, though I’d go even further and say it feels like an est em/Fumi Yoshinaga hybrid, with the additional warmth of their observations about each other’s habits and idiosyncrasies and the scene where they dance together at a restaurant, because trying to make points about dance while sitting at the table just isn’t working. It’s got all of est em’s sexiness and suave, along with Yoshinaga’s warm goofiness, and the underlying elegance of both.

MICHELLE: “Warm goofiness” is a great way to describe the scene where Sugiki, frustrated by Suzuki’s attempts to lead the waltz, gets Suzuki to adopt the woman’s role and proceeds to very thoroughly make him feel like a princess. “I feel like I could pop out a dozen babies for you right now!” And you’re absolutely right about elegance, too; these dance scenes are drawn so beautifully.

If you’ll forgive somewhat of a non-sequitur, although I don’t know the kanji used for Sugiki and Suzuki’s given names (and, indeed, it might not even be the same), one definition for “shinya” has a meaning that’s very applicable to the story. Check it out.

MELINDA: I believe I read somewhere that the kanji for each of their names is slightly different from the other, but I’m tickled by that meaning all the same. It certainly is appropriate!

Bottom line, I can’t wait to read more of this series, and I’m thrilled that Kodansha brought it over for us!

MICHELLE: I enthusiastically concur!


Thanks for joining us for another installment of Off the Shelf! The winner of last column’s giveaway is Joseph Miller! Joseph, send over an email or drop a message to Melinda on Twitter to collect!

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF

Off the Shelf: Cautiously Optimistic

January 24, 2019 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith 1 Comment

MELINDA: Well, hello, Michelle! Can you believe we’re back again in just two weeks? I hope you’ve had time to come up with a new joke.

MICHELLE: That last one I made was so very bad, I’m starting to feel remorse for inflicting terrible dad jokes on people at the start of these columns. So, you get a reprieve, everybody!

MELINDA: I dunno, I think you may be disappointing more people than you know!

MICHELLE: If you actually miss the terrible jokes, leave a comment and I’ll do better next time. How about that?

MELINDA: Fair enough! Well, if we’re not telling dad jokes, I suppose we’d better talk about some manga. What have you been reading this week, Michelle?

MICHELLE: I finally took the plunge and read the first two volumes of Fruits Basket Another, the three-volume Fruits Basket sequel by Natsuki Takaya. I was wary about this one, but though it has some significant flaws, I liked it more than I expected to.

In volume one, we’re introduced to Sawa Mitoma, an exceptionally meek girl who spends so much time thinking things like “Why do I always irritate others without even realizing it?” and being perhaps the most passive protagonist I’ve ever seen that she actually becomes irritating to the reader. She has just started her first year at Kaibara High School, and soon encounters “an incredibly sparkly boy” when she drops her student ID. This boy looks a lot like Yuki Sohma and, surprise, it’s his and Machi’s son, Mutsuki. Be prepared for a bunch of this sort of thing, because in short order we learn that Hanajima’s little brother is Sawa’s homeroom teacher and that Makoto Takei (remember that overzealous student council guy?) is a teacher whose obsession with Yuki has now transferred to Mutsuki. (He’s really creepy about it, too, and desperately needs to be fired.)

Sawa next meets Hajime, the son of Kyo and Tohru, who is serving as student council president. Mutsuki is the vice-president, and soon Sawa’s been drafted to be the first-year member. Over time, she meets more Sohmas, including Riku and Sora, the twin children of Hatsuharu and Rin. She gains confidence by being useful to the council and Riku helps her realize that by always keeping her head down, she’s missing opportunities available to her, like the nice girls in class who want to ask her to have lunch with them.

By the end of the second volume, Sawa has become a much more sympathetic character. Not just because she finally starts taking the initiative and actually engaging with life, but because readers can finally see what Takaya-sensei was doing. It turns out that all of Sawa’s issues stem from her abusive mother, who doesn’t come home for long periods of time, and when she does deign to appear, demands gratitude and apologies from the daughter she viciously belittles. No wonder Sawa got warped into thinking everything she does is wrong and that she’s a useless lump who causes trouble for others!

In the end, the not-very-subtle premise of the series seems to be “this generation of the Sohmas all love their parents very much, so this time they’re going to be the ones to save and accept a girl cursed with a shitty home life.” The execution is rather clumsy, however, as the Sohma offspring talk about their parents way too much for normal teenagers. I did like that Ayame’s son, Chizuru, struggles because he’s the normal one in his eccentric family, and that Mutsuki’s love for his parents is partly due to realizing not everyone has it so good. There’s one worrisome panel that suggests young Mutsuki witnessed Akito protecting her and Shigure’s son, Shiki, from Ren wielding a butcher knife! I hope that’s explained in the third and final volume, as well as whether Shiki was responsible for getting Mutsuki to help out Sawa in the first place.

In any case, I liked it enough to finish out the story, and that’s more than I expected.

MELINDA: Okay, so I’ll admit that the parade of Sohma children just reminds me how irritated I was by the neat pairing-off of everyone that happened at the end of the original series (Ayame, seriously??) so it’s probably getting off on the wrong foot with me from the start. But more than that, I’m struck by your description of the kids talking soooo much about their parents, like some kind of weird collision of “let’s make more money off of Fruits Basket” and “let’s assume that nobody actually read Fruits Basket and we have so much explaining to do!” Or maybe it’s just “let’s make more money off of Fruits Basket, but in only a few volumes, so DUMP THAT INFO.”

Honestly, the only thing that gives me hope is that butcher knife. Akito with a butcher knife is keeping me alive here. I might read it just for that. Do we have to have the creepy teacher-student obsession, though? I let that stuff go with older manga, but seriously. It’s 2019.

Or wait. Is it Ren with the butcher knife? I think I added a comma in my mind to draw my attention. Without the comma, I’m suddenly less interested.

MICHELLE: Yeah, it was Ren with the knife. She didn’t go away just ‘cos the curse was lifted, so she’s still around being horrible, apparently.

And yes, after everyone paired off neatly at the end of the main series, all of the couples seem to have stayed together for the next twenty years, judging from the age of Hatori’s daughter. At least Hanajima didn’t marry Kazuma! The parent talk isn’t as bad as recapping the events of the original series, at least, but there is a little bit of explanation when introducing new Sohmas to Sawa. Like, no one says Momiji’s name or what particular business he’s doing, but we know he’s extremely successful at it, which is kind of nice.

It’s more like someone saying, “I want to be like them,” which is still more than teenagers generally say, in my experience.

MELINDA: So, okay, you’re enjoying this more than you expected and you’ll likely read to the end. Should I be following your lead, or should I just reread Fruits Basket? I do suddenly have an urge to reread, especially since I recently lent out the first few volumes to one of my teen students!

MICHELLE: I honestly don’t know. I think it might bug you somewhat more than it did me. Maybe wait until volume three comes out and I can give a definitive answer as to whether this series adds anything to the Fruits Basket experience.

What have you been reading this week?

MELINDA: This week, I dug into the debut volume of For the Kid I Saw in my Dreams, a new series from the creator of Erased, Kei Sanbe. Like Erased, it was originally serialized in Kadokawa Shoten’s Young Ace and is being published in English by Yen Press.

Senri Nakajou had a twin brother, Kazuto, with whom his connection was so strong, they experienced shared vision and literally felt each other’s pain when the other was beaten by their abusive, alcoholic father. As the older of the twins, Kazuto was intensely protective of Senri and would manipulate his way into taking the beating for both of them, to spare them “double the pain.” He’d also insert himself between their parents when they were fighting, to spare their mother from the father’s abuse. On those nights, Senri, hidden in the cupboard under the stairs, would experience Kazuto’s pain as he took their mother’s beating on himself, until one night, when the expected beating never came. Instead, Senri emerged from the cupboard to find both his parents murdered and his twin missing. Based on the two brief visions he shared with his twin afterwards, Senri is certain that his brother was kidnapped and murdered as well. Now, Senri is a high school delinquent, still searching for the man who murdered his brother.

It takes a chapter or two for Sanbe-sensei to introduce Senri’s twin into the story—a choice that pays off, I suppose, by denying us full insight into Senri’s state of mind, which makes his morally-gray existence hit a bit harder in the beginning. The first things we find out about him are that he was discovered sitting in a pool of his parents’ blood as a child and that he now helps run an ongoing con in which his partners steal someone’s money and then Senri gets paid to pretend to recover it. He’s so cold and remorseless, we’d wonder if he might have murdered his parents himself if we weren’t also looking at his terrifying childhood drawings in which he repeatedly depicts the murderer (whose head he eventually lops off with a pair of scissors). Then the twin revelation transforms him from typical anti-hero into a scarier but more sympathetic anti-hero, which works much better, at least for me.

While Senri and Kazuto’s extreme twin connection doesn’t so far reach the supernatural heights of the protagonist’s time-traveling in Erased, there is a bit of a similar feel in this series that I admit I’m hoping might pan out into something just as fantastical, because an average tale of vengeance doesn’t much interest me. That said, there’s a lot going on here, and I am not at all sure where it’s leading. There is quite a bit of mystery introduced in this volume, beyond the identity of the murderer, and there are some supporting characters of whom I’m already very fond, including Senri’s grandparents, who raised him after he was orphaned, and his childhood friend, Enan, whose backstory is nearly as tragic as his own.

MICHELLE: Aside from an aborted attempt to read volume one, I haven’t read any of Erased, which I’m hoping to rectify this year. And this certainly sounds a worthy successor! I’m a little concerned I’ll have trouble getting into it, as I generally don’t love narratives that focus on remorseless anti-heroes, but it seems like the mystery of what happened to his parents will compel me forward. I confess that, even with this brief synopsis, I’m already expecting kind of a Loveless outcome with the older brother.

MELINDA: Well, maybe I’m overstating the antihero-ness? Senri’s got a lot of compassion in him (he’s the one who reached out to Enan when they were young and accepted her when nobody else would). He’s just very much intent on being the one to kill his brother’s murderer and it’s what drives his whole narrative at this point. He also tends to inflict physical pain on himself, and I don’t know whether it’s an attempt to recreate the pain he can no longer share with his brother or a survivor’s guilt thing, but he’s definitely a sympathetic character.

You’re not the only one thinking Loveless here, though. I’m also absolutely expecting that the brother is alive.

MICHELLE: Alive and potentially culpable! This really does sound pretty neat, though. I do like a good mystery.

MELINDA: I’m certainly intrigued! So would you like to talk a bit about our mutual read this week?

MICHELLE: Sure!

Ran and the Gray World is a seven-volume seinen series by Aki Irie. In this first volume, we’re introduced to Ran, a headstrong fourth-grader, who lives with her father and older brother, Jin. Ran and Jin’s mother, Shizuka, doesn’t live with them because her presence is required elsewhere to keep a pair of mysterious giant doors from opening. She’s a Grand Sorceress and it soon becomes apparent that Ran, at least, has inherited her mother’s abilities (and impulsivity). I’m assuming Shizuka also gave her the sneakers, currently far too large, which allow her to transform into a teenage version of herself. For his part, Jin has a magic coat that allows him to transform into a wolf, perfect for tracking Ran when she goes off on ill-advised adventures.

Insisting she’s already grown-up, Ran dons the shoes and hitches a ride with strangers to go visit her mother and, inspired by a special lesson from her kindly science teacher, attempts to fly from the school roof. She has some success at the latter and winds up in the garden of a rich guy named Otaro, who doesn’t endear himself to me when he returns to his apartment building naked, exposing himself to a couple of kids in the lobby in the process. Jin rightly pegs him as fishy, and it’s clear by the end of the volume that he’s become obsessed with Ran. Despite declaring he’d never touch a kid—she’s in teenage form for the entirety of their acquaintance—he soon suggests they become more than friends. He’s a creep, and I’m so glad Ran whisks herself off when he embraces her (“I’m outta here!”) but I do worry about what lies ahead.

MELINDA: I love a lot of things about the premise, and the art is freaking gorgeous, which is what drew me to the book in the first place. I’m also pretty into what’s going on with Ran’s family dynamic, MAGIC (always a winner), and wow, her mom and brother are both absolutely fascinating characters with so much going on. But I am super creeped out by Otaro and worried about what’s going to happen there. It’s funny as someone from the Big generation, I suppose, that I’m so disturbed by a story in which a young girl is inhabiting a much older body. But at least in Big (and I suppose also in something like 13 Going On 30), the young character is at least at an age where they are already experiencing sexual attraction and an interest in romance, so it somehow didn’t feel quite so incredibly wrong as this. So I’m worried about where this story is going to take Ran in that regard, but I’m trying to be optimistic, I guess?

MICHELLE: Yeah. At the very least, she’s able to extricate herself from these kinds of situations when they arise, but I can’t say I have any faith that she’s going to get any more savvy any time soon.

Jin is hands-down my favorite character in the series. He’s like a Doumeki type or something. Knows that magic exists, but sensible. Looks dour, but actually kind. And so, I side with him where Shizuka is concerned, finding her to be profligate with her magic when she comes to their house. I mean, it looked like people genuinely had car accidents when she rained giant desserts down upon the town!

MELINDA: You have hit the nail on the head with Jin as the Doumeki type! And that explains why I like him so much, too. I always identify with the Watanuki characters, but I adore and crave a Doumeki for reasons that are probably obvious. Kind of ironic, isn’t it, that the loose canon character here shares her name with him. Shizuka is a terrifying mess and her power lets her get away with it, so I feel that we can count on her to provide plenty of conflict here. We don’t need the creepy dude!

MICHELLE: Definitely not. Perhaps she’ll do us all a favor and turn him into a turnip.

MELINDA: I could get behind that!

Despite my reservations about Otaro and where that storyline might lead, I am probably more excited and intrigued about this series than anything else we’ve discussed here today. It’s whimsical, original, filled with mysterious potential (what’s behind those doors??), and I can’t overstate how beautifully drawn it is. With the artwork alone, I’m besotted.

MICHELLE: I failed to say this the first time you mentioned the art, but I absolutely agree. There’s a certain retro, Moto Hagio-ish quality to it that’s very appealing.

MELINDA: Yes, it’s sort of Heart of Thomas meets Bride of the Water God, art wise—detailed and ornate, but also flowing, always in motion, like Ran’s personality. I’m definitely looking forward to more!


Melinda is running another Off the Shelf giveaway! Comment to this post or on Twitter with the answer to the question, “Are you a Doumeki or a Watanuki?” and enter to win volume one of Ran and the Gray World! Continental US only, we’re so sorry!

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF

Off the Shelf: Shoujoriffic!

January 10, 2019 by Michelle Smith and Melinda Beasi 2 Comments

MICHELLE: Hey, Melinda! You know what time it is. Time for my first really terrible joke of 2019. Are you ready?

MELINDA: Michelle, I was born ready.

MICHELLE: Okay, then. How do you find Will Smith in the snow?

MELINDA: Um. I don’t know, Michelle. How do you find Will Smith in the snow?

MICHELLE: You follow the fresh prints!

MELINDA: Okay, I know that was a terrible joke, but since I’m a pretty big fan of the Fresh Prince, I can’t help but appreciate it.

MICHELLE: It is exceedingly terrible but somehow it makes me happy! Anyways, we’ve once more dusted the cobwebs off the shelf because there’s some new manga we want to talk about. Would you like to go first?

MELINDA: I would! So, I just finished reading Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, which was adapted from the light novel series of the same name and as such, comes with a slew of credits: art by Waco Ioka, original story by Midori Yuma, and character design by Laruha.

Aoi was adopted as a kid by a man named Shiro whom she describes as her grandfather. Shiro was a notorious philanderer, who wandered Japan fathering countless children with his many lovers, so he was hardly wanting for progeny of his own, but he raised Aoi faithfully, even providing for her college tuition after his death. Now alone, Aoi is prepared to make it on her own, but before she can even begin, she’s kidnapped by an ogre named Ōdanna, who whisks her away to the Ayakashi (spirit) world. As it turns out, Ōdanna is the proprietor of a well-respected inn, which Aoi’s grandfather once trashed on a bender. Unable to pay for the damage, Shiro promised Aoi’s hand in marriage as compensation, and Ōdanna’s come to collect. When Aoi refuses, she is offered the opportunity to work off the debt herself, but to do so, she has to find a job somewhere among the Ayakashi, most of whom hate humans, especially her grandfather.

Manga adaptations of light novels are not usually a big draw for me, but they’re also a bit of a rarity for Viz, so I figured it was worth a shot, especially since the supernatural setup is the type of thing I generally enjoy. My immediate reaction was regret. This adaptation begins with pages of narrated exposition that may work perfectly well in the novel but are clunky and awkward in manga form. The setup feels rushed, as though the artist knows that it’s awkward and wants to just push through it to get to the parts of the story that will be easier to tell, which unfortunately renders Aoi as a pretty generic protagonist with no personality in particular outside of a soft spot for Ayakashi and an interest in cooking.

Thankfully, the artist does seem to find their footing about halfway through the volume, and there are some fairly compelling mysteries set up, especially regarding a shape-changing nine-tailed fox named Ginji, who seems to be a friend. Or is he?

MICHELLE: My immediate reaction to your summary is that Shiro sounds like quite the asshole!

I’m sorry to hear that it gets off to a disappointing start. Are the mysteries sufficiently compelling that you think you’ll bother to pick up volume two?

MELINDA: Shiro indeed seems to have been quite the asshole, though certainly there is a lot of mystery surrounding him as well. For instance, he carefully taught Aoi how to avoid being kidnapped by an ogre, which would indicate that he never intended to surrender her as “payment” after all, and I get the sense that there’s more to the story than Aoi’s being told. And yes, I do think I’d give it at least one more volume. As lukewarm as this began, by the end I really did want to know what was going to happen next. Would Aoi find a job? Is Ginji as harmless as he appears? And what’s up with Akatsuki, the inn’s cranky general manager who really hated Shiro, and his adorably tousled hair?

Oh, and lest our shoujo-loving readers fear, despite being an ogre, Ōdanna is a total hottie with red eyes and cute little horns, which honestly is kind of a disappointment for me, but will probably sit well with the intended demographic.

MICHELLE: Probably. I should also note that a 26-episode anime version aired recently and is available on Crunchyroll last I heard.

MELINDA: I suspect that an anime adaptation might be more effective, especially for the exposition sections, so perhaps that’s the way to go. I will stick with the manga a bit longer, though!

So, would you like to share what you’ve been reading, Michelle?

MICHELLE: Continuing with the VIZ shoujo trend, I just finished the first two volumes of Shortcake Cake by a duo creating manga under the name suu Morishita. The series runs in Margaret, which is typically a very good indicator that I’m going to like it.

Ten Serizawa is from a very small town where local schools only go through junior high, so she’s had an extremely long commute for her first month of high school. Her long-time friend Ageha has been trying to persuade her to move into the boardinghouse where she lives and finally, after visiting the place, Ten agrees. Because this is shoujo manga, it turns out that the gorgeous, bookish boy that all the girls are obsessed with turns out to live there, too. His name is Chiaki Kasadera.

By the end of the second volume, it’s clear that Ten likes Chiaki, but how we get there is a pretty interesting and complicated route. One of the other boarders is a flirtatious boy named Riku Mizuhara, and he’s intrigued when Ten shuts down his attempts at flirtation. Soon, he’s developed a crush on her that she finds out about almost immediately. She rejects him and to his profound credit, Riku backs off. “I don’t want to pester her and make her hate me.” Chiaki, however, wants the two of them to be happy, so when Riku’s estranged little brother Rei—a wholly odious and imperious little shit who calls Ten by the name “Ugly”—commands Ten to be his girlfriend (just to make Riku miserable), Chiaki claims that he and Ten are actually dating, hoping that this pretend relationship will convince Rei that Riku is already suffering enough. Then, the kid will back off and maybe Riku and Ten can make it work.

Still with me? I grant that all these boys have feelings for Ten incredibly quickly—well, only Riku has officially admitted that he likes her, but I imagine it’s only a matter of time before Chiaki and Rei are forced to examine their real motivations—but at least she’s not an annoying protagonist. What’s really neat, though, is that we actually see inside the boys’ heads! This is exceedingly rare in shoujo manga, so a little bit of narration from a potential love interest goes a long way. I’m sure that it’ll be Chiaki in the end, but Riku is so thoroughly charming that I really want it to be him.

MELINDA: Okay, so from your summary, I admit that, like you, I’m currently a fan of Riku. I always like the boy who isn’t going to end up with the girl. It’s a lifelong curse. Mostly, though, I’m thinking that this sounds so gloriously shoujo, I must read it right away. I mean, seriously. A boardinghouse. I’m so here for this.

Is there other stuff going on besides the romantic drama? Like, at school?

MICHELLE: Not even a little. Ten’s mother only puts in a brief appearance to consent to the arrangement (though it’s at least suggested that her parents did go have a look around the place and all before she moved in) and school pretty much only exists as a backdrop for Chiaki and Riku to both attempt to walk Ten home so that she doesn’t get menaced by Rei. On the one hand, the protagonist having a well-rounded life is nice, but on the other hand, maybe it means we’ll be spared some of the by now too-familiar shoujo story beats like sports and cultural festivals.

MELINDA: Fair enough. Sounds like a fun read, in any case. I’ll definitely be digging into these volumes myself.

MICHELLE: I look forward to hearing what you think!

So, to conclude our VIZtacular trio, our mutual read this week was the first two volumes of Ao Haru Ride by Io Sakisaka, who also brought us Strobe Edge. Would you like to do the summation honors?

MELINDA: Sure! Here we go.

Futaba Yoshioka was a shy junior high school student with no interest in boys, except for Kou Tanaka, whose quiet sweetness mirrored her own. She thought something might happen between them, but when she turned up to meet Kou for a summer festival at his invitation, he never showed, and then his family moved away. Now, she’s in her first year of high school, and when she discovers that Kou is at the same school, she imagines them starting over. But the truth is, they are both so changed, they might as well be different people. He’s become a prickly underachiever to cope with his broken family life, and she’s become a tomboy to stay on the good side of her catty group of friends.

Then everything goes wrong, and Futaba finds herself friendless and isolated in a new class. But when she makes the rash decision to volunteer as class representative, she begins to find new friendships among a collection of loners, one of whom is Kou.

MICHELLE: Nicely done! This series ran in Bessatsu Margaret so, of course, I like it. There are a number of things about the initial setup that are pretty neat. For one, the action doesn’t start on the first day of Futaba’s first year but rather in the last semester, meaning she’s been at the same school with Kou for a very long time without noticing him. He’s in the honors class, which convenes on a different floor, but has definitely noticed her. Secondly, instead of the heroine starting friendless and gradually acquiring them (like Kimi ni Todoke or Waiting for Spring, to name but two recent examples), she starts with some friends. They’re just not really friends because she’s been duping them about who she really is. It’s true that both of those girls are not very nice, but I also appreciated that the dissolution of their friendship was not accompanied by mean-girl antics. Futaba just has to start over, and we’re shown glimpses of two other isolated girls who seem destined to become her true friends.

MELINDA: I’m struck by the differences between this and my first read here. This series, too, starts off with a lot of narration, but it’s utilized so effectively in Ao Haru Ride. Because Futaba is so shy, most of her thoughts are kept to herself, especially in the beginning, but instead of delivering an exposition dump, this narration is guiding us through Futaba’s realization about her crush on Kou and her interactions with other kids at school. We’re experiencing her thoughts and feelings much the way we would if she were the POV character of a YA novel, but only exactly as much as we need to. We’re shown what’s happened and told how she feels about it. This isn’t something that’s unique about the series at all—it’s exactly what we want to see in shoujo manga, and when it’s done well, it’s kind of invisible. But after reading Kakuriyo, I’m struck by how skillfully Sakisaka utilizes Futaba’s inner monologue.

MICHELLE: And some of the things she thinks are so poignant, too. She spends much of these volumes looking for signs of the old Kou and there’s one moment when she’s looking at him and thinks, “The nape of his neck is familiar but he sounds like a stranger. It makes me feel like crying.” Physically, someone she used to know and love is standing in front of her, but the connection they had has been cut off. I have been there and I thought Sakisaka captured that kind of feeling very well.

And then Kou rightly tells her, “You’re acting like you want to move forward, but you’re holding on to the past,” which I liked, as well. Eventually she decides that only his words are harsh, but that his heart is kind. I was glad she came to that realization in the second volume, because I didn’t want to keep rehashing the contrast to his past self and also, it’ll be nice to see Kou grow, as well.

MELINDA: Things do seem to happen in this series exactly when we most need them to. Just when I was becoming impossibly frustrated about Futaba’s attachment to the friend group that forced her to hide her true self, she broke free of them. And as you say, just as I was done with her mooning over the boy Kou used to be, she finally let that go as well. The pacing in these volumes is somehow exactly right.

Just as I was typing this up, I saw Shōjo Beat mention on Twitter that the third volume will be out next month, and I felt a surge of glee, so Sakisaka is definitely doing something right.

A bit of an odd confession: I admit that I’ve come to a place as a reader where I’m a bit bored by stories that lack queer characters, so from the beginning I found myself personally casting Kou as trans to help me get into it a little better. Queer readers, If you haven’t tried this with Ao Haru Ride, I wholeheartedly recommend it!

MICHELLE: That’s interesting, especially when he comes back with a whole new name and she keeps using the one he doesn’t identify with anymore!

I had a surge of glee when I was researching Sakisaka and read a little about her current series. Now I really want that one to be licensed here, too!

MELINDA: Yeah, I really didn’t expect that, but it did capture something poignant and relatable there.

I’d very much like to see more of Sakisaka’s work make its way here, so I guess we’ll cross our fingers!


To celebrate the return of Off the Shelf, Melinda’s running a Shortcake Cake giveaway on Twitter! Follow the link to enter!

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF

Off the Shelf: Not entirely unanticipated

May 11, 2017 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith 11 Comments

MELINDA: Heeeeey, look at this, it’s been less than two months and we’re already back again. That’s a huge improvement on our recent record, no?

MICHELLE: Considering that there was a two-year gap before our last column, I’d certainly say so!

MELINDA: Heard any good jokes lately?

MICHELLE: Hmm.. Here’s one! Why did the old lady fall in the well?

MELINDA: Wow, I don’t know! Why did the old lady fall in the well?

MICHELLE: She didn’t see that well.

MELINDA: Hey, that was actually pretty funny!

MICHELLE: Your reaction was unanticipated!

MELINDA: Speaking of “unanticipated”… no, wait, this is totally anticipated. Wanna talk about some manga?

MICHELLE: Sure! I’ve just finished the third volume of Hiroaki Samura’s Wave, Listen to Me!, a Kodansha digital exclusive.

It’s the story of Minare Koda, a waitress with a gift of fluency that catches the attention of a local radio producer, Mato. After secretly recording her drunken rant about her thieving ex and playing it over the air, he eventually takes the chance of giving her her own weekly show in a late-night time spot where she has the freedom to do some really kooky things. The first episode, for example, is a surreal audio drama about murdering said ex, Mitsuo. The next week, it’s time to bury the body on Mt. Fuji!

In this volume, Koda finds that going through those crazy plotlines has actually helped her set aside her bitterness about how Mitsuo done her wrong, and she must think about what she wants the show to be going forward. I really like the scenes wherein Mato mentors her about radio and the relationship between host and linstener. “TV viewers are guests. Radio listeners are participants,” he says at one point. This proves to be true when one of her listeners sends a fax that leads ultimately to the discovery of… well, perhaps I’ll play coy about its exact nature, but it definitely proves that reality is sometimes stranger than the occult.

Minare is a fascinating character. Full of energy and charisma, capable of selfish acts that she’s later thoroughly horrified by… She finally found a goal in life and she’s going for it, but doesn’t exactly know what she’s doing. I like her very much.

MELINDA: Okay, I gotta admit this sounds fantastic. It reminds me a little of a time when I played a lot of Quake so that I could imagine I was repeatedly blowing up my ex, only much more creative and generally productive. Is this series as delightful as it sounds?

MICHELLE: It’s delightful, but it’s also really a genius concept, since letting Minare do many things in many genres allows Samura the same liberty. So, on top of watching Minare’s skills and career progress, there are also wacky happenings to enjoy, too. I very heartily recommend it.

MELINDA: It’s hard for me to resist a Michelle recommendation, especially when it is something so obviously up my alley. You especially got me at “reality is sometimes stranger than the occult.” I mean… I have to know more. I just have to.

MICHELLE: Oh, that reminds me of another fun aspect… because Samura has already drawn out a couple of the audio dramas as if they’re actually happening, when strange things start to happen, it made me question whether he might have started another one without telling us. This is the sort of manga that would totally do that.

Anyway! What have you been reading lately?

MELINDA: I’ve been reading the first volume of Gengoroh Tagame’s My Brother’s Husband, just released by Pantheon Books. If, like me, you’re primarily familiar with Tagame’s work as a bara artist, this slice-of-life seinen manga is certainly a departure, but it feels so natural in his hands, you’d never know that it wasn’t a genre he’s always drawn.

Yaichi is a single dad, earnestly raising his young daughter, Kana, whose life is upended by the arrival of Canadian visitor, Mike, husband to Yaichi’s estranged twin brother, Ryoji, who has just passed away. Yaichi greets Mike with awkwardness and not just a little homophobia, but is forced to invite him to stay after Kana, blissfully unaware of her father’s discomfort, insists that he must be welcomed into their home. Mike, stricken with grief, but anxious to connect with Ryoji’s family and childhood, gratefully accepts Yaichi’s grudging hospitality and settles into Ryoji’s old room.

As the manga continues, we watch Yaichi confront his preconceptions about Mike (and gay people in general), with considerable nudging from Kana, who adores their new houseguest. It’s rough going at first, but as Yaichi gets to know the man who so deeply loved his brother, he is increasingly able to see past his prejudices, to the point that, by the end of the volume, he’s defending Mike’s snoring problem to Kana and fighting the desire to rage at a neighbor who declines to let her child visit Kana’s house, fearing “negative influence.”

True to expectation, this is a pretty moving manga, made all the more poignant by its quiet, slice-of-life atmosphere, The artwork and visual storytelling are downright adorable, as somehow Tagame has managed to create something that wouldn’t look out of place on the shelf alongside, say, Yotsuba&!, without sacrificing his own artistic sensibility. But, of course, it’s not the artwork that makes this book so important.

As a westerner, I’m always wary of imposing my own cultural expectations on books like this, and I’m very much aware that queer culture in Japan is as different from what I’m accustomed to here as is Japanese culture in general. And with that in mind, it’s pretty great to know that a series like this was run in Monthly Action, which, despite its “indie” aspirations, is clearly aimed mainly towards straight men (so many boobs, my friends, so many). Perhaps because of that, it was difficult for me to warm to Yaichi, who is obviously intended as the stand-in for the reader, in all his discomfort over the concept of gay people and how he’s supposed to interact with one. Watching Yaichi’s progress is painful and, yes, eventually heartwarming, but what is most striking to me, as a reader, is Mike’s patience, kindness, and general agreeability throughout. Watching this sweet, hulking man smile with gratitude in every moment, even when he’s being treated with barely-concealed suspicion, is just… heart-wrenching. I can only imagine how this must read for someone who has experienced the same.

MICHELLE: Oh, man. I knew the general premise of this but not that Yaichi would be quite so awful at the outset. And it’s bad enough that Mike’s being treated this way, but when he’s grieving and so desperate for any scrap of his beloved that he’ll take it. From how you describe him, it doesn’t sound as if Mike tries to stand up for himself at any point.

MELINDA: I feel like I should rephrase, perhaps… I mean, yes, from my perspective Yaichi is being awful, but that’s where my western perception is failing me, I think. I think we can all agree, however, that what’s astonishing and awesome about Mike (also a westerner) is that he seems to be naturally accounting for differences in culture, and is just ceaselessly kind and giving. And when Yaichi becomes moved by that, it is what really changes his perspective, perhaps even more than Kana’s influence.

There’s obviously a lot more here, too, than just Yaichi overcoming homophobia. We find out a little about his estrangement from his twin brother and also about how his own marriage broke down, and I think in the end he and Mike are going to be strong healing influences for each other, and probably also for Kana, who didn’t even know she had an uncle!

MICHELLE: That does sound reassuring. I’m about to begin reading My Brother’s Husband this evening, in fact, so I’ll do my best not to get too riled up. Especially since I’m so very grateful that Pantheon has brought it to us!

MELINDA: Oh, go ahead and get riled up! But I really think you’ll love it in the end. It’s one of my favorite manga I’ve read so far this year.

So, we also have a mutual read this week… do you want to do the honors?

MICHELLE: Sure!

From Rei Toma, whose Dawn of the Arcana I liked and also featured a protagonist whose unusual red hair is viewed with suspicion, comes The Water Dragon’s Bride.

Asahi is spending a pleasant afternoon with her parents and she’s just about to go in and have some cookies when the backyard pond reaches out and ensares her, transporting her to another world. There, she meets a friendly boy named Subaru who unfortunately has some very ruthless parents, who immediately decide to offer Asahi to the water dragon god to obtain prosperity.

Asahi meets the dragon god who is, of course, a bishounen. He decides she’ll do for entertainment and shows off various tricks, but she’s unimpressed and protests so much that he steals her voice, promising to return it when she becomes his bride. Subaru mounts a valiant rescue, but the villagers prove to be just as crappy the second time around and the god decides to intervene.

How’s that?

MELINDA: That’s about the size of it! So. Okay. Honestly, I’m having a hard time coming up with a lot to say about this series so far. It’s definitely kind of adorable. Asahi is a spunky, likable heroine. Subaru, the obvious love interest, is sweetly earnest, and the bishounen water dragon god is pleasantly crusty. But man… haven’t we read this book before? Like a thousand times? Am I too much of a bitter, old schoolgirl-in-another-land fogey to enjoy this… again?

MICHELLE: It was certainly a very lightweight volume! I do think there’s potential, especially in the character of the water god. He’s cold, distant, and uncaring. At one point he simply watches as she wastes away in starvation. And he only intervenes at the end to preserve his entertainment. I’m sure he’ll feel love eventually, since that sort of thing always happens, but he’s definitely the most interesting character so far. Too, at least with the fish imagery and the pond, I had a little bit of Moon Child feels, and that’s always welcome.

MELINDA: I hadn’t thought about Moon Child, but I can see where you’re coming from, though the artwork isn’t nearly as beautiful as Shimizu’s, nor does it hold up well to what was the obvious comparison for me, Yun Mi-kyung’s Bride of the Water God, which, whatever you think of the series in general, I think is objectively visually stunning. Of course Bride of the Water God is a much more serious take on the sacrificial maiden theme, and Moon Child is weird and darkly whimsical like no other manga I’ve ever read. So it’s not really fair to hold this sweet little volume to either of those standards.

That said, I agree that the bishounen god has some possibilities (even if the long hair and excessive lounging just made me wish we were getting a new volume of Loveless anytime soon), and I expect there will be more substance as we go forward. But I kinda hope it hurries.

MICHELLE: Me, too! I did think of Bride of the Water God, but I although I did collect the volumes for a while, I never actually read them.

MELINDA: Well, perhaps this little manga will fare better on your shelves! I guess time will tell!

MICHELLE: I will least give it a few volumes to see how it fares. But it won’t assuage my sorrow that volume four of Wave, Listen to Me! is not even out in Japan yet.

MELINDA: That is a tragedy, indeed.

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF

Off the Shelf: Battles, ballrooms, & a baffling noise

March 14, 2017 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith Leave a Comment

MICHELLE: Hey, Melinda! What do a plum and an elephant have in common?

MELINDA: Wow, Michelle, I have no idea! What do a plum and an elephant have in common?

MICHELLE: They’re both purple! (Except for the elephant.)

MELINDA: Ahhhhhh, now this feels right. Starting off with a bad joke. That’s the stuff Off the Shelf is made of.

MICHELLE: Quite possibly nobody else enjoys it, but it is tradition, after all!

We’ve dusted off the shelf to discuss a few recent series, including one title that we both read. But would you like to go first with your solo read?

MELINDA: I’d love to!

So, nobody will be surprised to hear this, unless they’re just surprised that it took so long, but I’ve been reading the first two volumes of Platinum End, the latest from one of my favorite manga artists, Takeshi Obata, and his frequent collaborator, Tsugumi Ohba of whom I am historically much less fond. But, y’know, I love Obata and I’ll take what I can get, so here we go.

Mirai is graduating from middle school, but he couldn’t be more miserable. Orphaned at a young age and forced to live with abusive relatives, all he wants is to end it all. But when he tries to do that by jumping off his roof, the intervention of an angel, Nasse, drags him instead into a deadly, Highlander-style tournament in which he is competing with 12 other humans to win the chance to become the next God. Armed with a few special powers—angel’s wings, red arrows that work like a love spell, and white arrows that kill on contact—Mirai must prove that he’s worthy of inheriting the power of God.

Okay, so besides humiliatingly showing my age, the Highlander reference is also somewhat inaccurate, at least in theory. There is no rule in the angels’ truly weird competition that requires the God contestants to kill each other in order to win. But in Ohba’s pessimistic (and probably depressingly accurate) view of humanity, there is inevitably a candidate who immediately decides that the surest path to victory is to kill the other candidates, creating an atmosphere of terror and violence in the competition right from the start. Just as typical of an Ohba manga is the specificity of the powers’ rules—the red arrows only work for 30 days, for instance—and the competition’s built-in inequity. The angels choosing the candidates from among the downtrodden are not all created equal, and their contestants only inherit whatever powers their personal angel can also wield. Mirai, luckily, has a special-rank angel who can give him all three, but he’s a rarity in the bunch.

I’m talking a lot of plot here—also an Ohba trademark, of course—so let’s get down to the business of reviewing this thing. I generally expect to have a love-hate relationship with an Ohba/Obata manga, and my expectations were even lower going into this one, since I tend to be bored by angel stories. Interestingly, I get the sense that Obata might feel the same way, as his angel characters are the least imaginatively drawn in the series so far. But that said, I came away from these first two volumes actually hating very little.

Like most of Obata’s collaborations with Ohba, the story leans very heavily on plotting and strategy, but the real story seems to be about Mirai figuring out the point of living. Though his new wings give him a taste of personal freedom he’s never before enjoyed, his true liberation comes from the destruction of his abusive family, which he unwittingly causes, sending him into a guilt spiral and forcing him to confront questions of morality on a level most middle-schoolers are years away from having to think about outside of YA novels and video games. He’s made immediately aware of the consequences of his anger, and the cost of manipulating others with his new powers. Meanwhile, he’s learning to forgive the manipulation perpetrated by those weaker than he is, starting with his middle-school crush—herself a God candidate—whose weaker angel advises her to take pre-emptive actions against Mirai in order to protect herself.

Obviously I can’t be sure where this series is headed, but getting to read a new Takeshi Obata manga that doesn’t present me with either an utterly hateful protagonist or outrageous sexism right from the get-go feels like a treat.

MICHELLE: I, too, am bored by angel stories and I confess that I expected you were going to say you disliked it. Now my curiosity is piqued!

It seems, too, like there might be some symbolism in Mirai’s name, as “mirai” means future. And that’s really what’s on the line for him.

MELINDA: I think it might help on the angel front that the story is really not about them. Also, they are pretty strange, amoral beings who seem perfectly comfortable advancing a sort of hyper-selfish, Ayn Rand vision of individual happiness over all on behalf of their candidates, one of whom uses his newfound power to make swaths of female idols fall in love with him, so that he can spend his life immersed in a 24-7 orgy. Meanwhile, Mirai’s angel is utterly unable to comprehend why enacting bloody revenge on his horrible relatives, despite their Dickens-level villainy, does not make him happy.

The nature of God is equally ambiguous, especially since we’ve seen that only those who have already given up on humanity are actually eligible for the post. All of this plays into the creative team’s strengths, as it gives them a lot of morally gray material to work with (and lots of shonen-friendly competitiveness), while avoiding some of the things that sometimes makes their work unreadable (for me, anyway) by letting Mirai be our gateway character who is just as weirded out by most of this as we are.

It works for me, at least so far, which is a bit of a relief!

MICHELLE: Yeah, it really does sound pretty interesting! I will have to check it out.

MELINDA: I think the rest of the Battle Robot so far has not enjoyed it as much as I, so ymmv. But for me, this is a win.

So what have you been reading, Michelle? Something less morally ambiguous?

MICHELLE: Oh, indeed. Nothing is ambiguous about Welcome to the Ballroom, after all. It’s all about passion and determination!

Specifically, I’ve been reading volume three, but I’ll give you a short introduction to the series in case you’re not familiar. Fifteen-year-old Tatara Fujita had nothing that he was especially good at. When he is saved from bullies by a champion ballroom dancer named Sengoku, he doesn’t have the courage to tell the other man that he was actually looking at a part-time job advertisement and not a flyer for the dance studio. Once he sees a recording of Sengoku in action, looking confident and self-assured, he vows to change himself by also entering into the world of dancesport. It doesn’t hurt that his lovely classmate, Shizuka Hanaoka, is also one of the top amateurs.

In volume three, Fujita is competing in his first tournament. He’s also got a wager on the line with Shizuka’s bellicose new partner, Gaju, who has tossed aside his sister and longtime partner, Mako. Because he’s a newcomer, he lacks the stamina and repertoire of the others, and his attempts to beat Gaju are not successful. However, once he realizes that his real goal ought to be helping Mako outshine Shizuka (and thus convincing Gaju to partner with her once more), there’s a palpable shift in his performance. He goes from merely leading to becoming the “frame” for the “flower,” executing moves that allow Mako to shine to her best advantage.

I really enjoyed seeing how a ballroom dancing competition works, but what I found especially impressive was that Tomo Takeuchi’s art actually conveys this change in Tatara’s attitude. There was a tension in his earlier performances, when he was essentially taking full responsibility upon himself, and once he internalizes the notion of becoming the “frame,” his whole body language changes. It’s difficult to explain in words, but to be able to depict that difference in a way that even an utterly ignorant-of-dance person like me could pick up on is seriously cool.

MELINDA: For some truly unfathomable reason, I have yet to pick up this series, and I really can’t believe it. Everything you describe just sounds both dramatically exciting and fun. Making a story about dance work with only still drawings is a huge challenge, but when it works, it’s just spectacular. The visual storytelling sounds incredible, from what you describe.

MICHELLE: I think you’d like it quite a bit. Another thing that’s neat is that, unlike a lot of sports manga with a male protagonist, the female characters aren’t cheering on the sidelines or serving as the team manager. They’re co-competitors. And, in fact, it’s by Tatara allowing Mako full agency and achieving nonverbal yet total communication with her that the pair really attracts notice.

MELINDA: That’s definitely a welcome feature in a “sports” manga, and possibly the push I needed to get me to the bookstore!

MICHELLE: I hope you do check it out. And, of course, one generally doesn’t dance without music, which is my not-so-subtle segue into discussing our mutual read for this column. Would you like to do the introductory honors?

MELINDA: I will give it a go, sure! Our mutual read this week was the first volume of Ryoko Fukuyama’s Anonymous Noise, recently released on Viz’s Shojo Beat imprint.

Nino loves to sing with her best friend, neighbor, and habitual punster, Momo, but when his family suddenly moves away, she’s left with the fear of using her voice at all, as all she wants to do is scream. She finds momentary salvation in the company of Yuzu (who nicknames her “Alice” as a shortened version of her surname “Arisugawa”), a kid she finds writing songs on the beach, but he ends up disappearing on her, too, after he realizes he has no shot at living up to her dreamy memory of Momo.

Flash forward a few years, and these three are thrown back together in high school, where Yuzu is the main songwriter for an Alice-in-Wonderland-themed pop band, Nino is destined to become their new lead singer, and Momo is a mysterious dude befriended by Yuzu whom Nino hasn’t yet recognized. Also, the pop band (who sing all their songs while wearing face masks?) is operating incognito as the pop music club at their school, and Yuzu has super-long eyelashes, which is somehow a plot point.

I think that’s the best I can do, here. Michelle?

MICHELLE: That about sums it up! (The repeated eyelash references were especially odd.)

Anyway, I’m not really sure what I expected from Anonymous Noise, but it wasn’t quite this. To me, it reads almost breezy (with dumb jokes and kooky supporting characters) and a bit muddled, though it’s possible the storytelling will calm down some now that everyone is at high school together. Some elements of the story come through clearly, like Nino’s longing to see Momo and Yuzu again and the way that singing eases her pain. But unlike, say, NANA, I’m not getting much sense of what Yuzu’s band sounds like, or what Nino’s singing voice sounds like. We are shown its power to transfix others, but is it high? Is it low? Is it raw? Is it pure? No idea!

Another slightly muddled area for me was Momo’s and Yuzu’s reactions to seeing Nino again. Yuzu, it seems, didn’t want to see her because he has been wanting to escape his obsession with her, but there’s some disembodied narration that I think is Momo, also wishing that he could escape being in Nino’s thrall. Or something? How did you read that part?

MELINDA: I, too, found myself comparing it to NANA, which really isn’t fair at all. And, like you, I couldn’t exactly say what my expectations were for this manga, but whatever they were, I didn’t expect what we got, and what we got was largely disappointing. I’m willing to give it more time to come together, and I think it still could end up being interesting, but so far it’s kind of a vague mess, with a few clear elements as you describe. I feel like I’m the most interested in Yuzu at this point, but it’s really because he’s the character we’ve gotten the clearest read on so far. His needs and desires are fairly transparent, and he ends up being my favorite character just by default. I don’t think that was the author’s intention, though.

As for that section of narration near the end… I read it the same way as you did, but I didn’t really understand it. Is Nino’s voice the cage? And if so, why? Or was that Yuzu’s narration? I was pretty confused by that sequence, I have to admit.

Maybe the expectation that wasn’t met was an idea that somehow this was written for an older audience than it actually was?

MICHELLE: That may be it. I think I was expecting a story about a determined girl who’s serious about her band. And that’s not what this is, at all. Now, maybe Nino will grow into that kind of girl—Fukuyama does make a point of showing how terrible she is singing with others, and maybe that was laying a foundation for growth—but I kind of doubt it at this point. It seems like “music leads to Momo” will always be her true obsession rather than music for its own sake.

MELINDA: I long for that, I admit, and also perhaps a clearer idea of what any of the music sounds like, besides her childhood obsession with “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” In my mind, it’s all kind of “Twinkle, Twinkle” at this point, and that is just not very compelling.

That said, I’ll definitely read the next installment.

MICHELLE: Haha, yes, exactly. I agree on all points.

MELINDA: And so we live in hope. Until next time?

MICHELLE: ‘Til then!

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF

Off the Shelf: Food & Fantasy

January 22, 2015 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith 2 Comments

MICHELLE: Hey, check it out! It hasn’t been a whole year and we’re totally back again!

MELINDA: It’s a Christmas miracle! Or something.

MICHELLE: It must be! This week there’s one debut that we both read—shall we start with that one? Would you like to do the summarizing honors, or shall I?

MELINDA: I’ll give it a try!

yukarismThis week, we both dug into the first volume of Yukarism, the latest from Chika Shiomi, author of Yurara and Rasetsu. The story centers around Yukari, a seventeen-year-old boy who, according to a fortune-teller, was born without forgetting his previous life. The fortune-teller seems to have been on to something, as Yukari has such a strong sense of Japan’s Edo period that he’s been able to write numerous historical novels set in that period without any research at all. But though Yukari is keenly aware that he has this uncanny sense for the past, the details only begin to come together for him when he meets a classmate named Mahoro, whose chance presence in his life awakens his full memories, sending him back in a dreamlike state to his previous life as an oiran in the pleasure district, and even to the scene of his death.

MICHELLE: Nicely done!

As this is a short series—complete in four volumes—we ought to get resolution to the low-key mystery of that death in a fairly straightforward fashion. Already there is a suspect in Takamura, one of Yumurasaki’s (the oiran) customers, who is pretty creepy and known to wield his curse-making talents as an assassin. As the volume concludes, it seems likely we have met his present-day incarnation as well, though I don’t get much sense of our present-day characters in peril.

Initially, I would’ve said I didn’t get much sense of our present-day characters at all, but once the reincarnation of Hitoha, Yumurasaki’s attendant, showed up, Mahoro did start acting a little more lively. It does seem, though, that in this first volume at least, the priority was on establishing the concept.

MELINDA: I’m find that I’m both distressed and pleased to hear that this series is complete in four volumes. On one hand, I applaud succinct storytelling when done well, and I do have a lot of faith in this artist. On the other, if it indeed is done well, I’ll be very sad to see it go. So far, I’m feeling optimistic, though I’ll agree that the present-day characters are less distinct at this point than their past-life counterparts, but as you say, that begins to ramp up a bit near the end of the volume. One exception on that front, however, is Yukari, at least in my opinion. His character is fairly well-established (and nicely linked) in both the past and present, and I do appreciate the way he so easily falls into his former self. He and Yumurasaki are so clearly the same person at the core, and this is only enhanced by Shiomi’s efficient yet expressive art style.

While this volume is mainly setup, it does set things up pretty clearly, at least. I suspect we’ll discover soon just why these people have been brought back together in this time period, and perhaps even why they’re so easily able to reconnect with their past selves. I’m quite looking forward to it.

MICHELLE: I absolutely agree about Yukari and Yumurasaki clearly being the same. It’s Mahoro who seems so different from her past self that it’s puzzling. Maybe Yukari’s wrong about who she really is? That’s an intriguing possibility. In any case, I am definitely on board for the rest of the series!

MELINDA: I suspect there’s a lot more to Mahoro (and her past self) than we yet know! And yes, I’m definitely on board for finding out!

So what else have you been reading lately?

MICHELLE: I actually checked out another Shojo Beat debut from VIZ, Kiss of the Rose Princess by Aya Shouoto!

kiss1This nine-volume series is about a girl called Anise Yamamoto who was given a choker by her father with the warning, “If you ever remove it, a truly terrifying punishment will befall you.” She duly wears it until one day a bat-like creature flies into her. The choker disappears, but in its place is a card. By kissing it, she can summon Kaede, her hot-headed classmate. Turns out she’s some sort of sovereign that has knights at her disposal. Instead of Anise going around collecting the rest of the cards, the bat (Ninufa) just gives them to her, so now she has four bishounen at her beck and call. Anise wisely wonders, “This isn’t punishment, is it?”

In addition to Kaede, there’s the princely student body president, a grumpy goth dude (who is apparently not quite human), and a frail and delicate boy. Supposedly, the power of the cards was sealed until a demon lord resurfaces, only he hasn’t yet, so… What is this story going to be? Is it a comedy? The reveal of the president’s masochistic predilections is played for laughs. Will the demon lord ever show up, or are we in for more stories with plots like “we’ll work together as a team to create a new main gate for the school festival”? I honestly don’t know what to make of this one.

Ultimately, I suppose I will read more in the hope that this will possibly turn out not to be something generic.

MELINDA: Right now, I feel like I’m reading some kind of alternate universe reboot of Cardcaptor Sakura. Am I wrong?

MICHELLE: I can see how you’d think that, and it is true that each knight supposedly has a different specialty (attacks, discovery, alchemy…), but because she isn’t compelled to collect more cards or go up against an enemy, Anise isn’t actually using these cards the same way Sakura does, and it’s much less compelling so far. That said, volume two has just come out, so perhaps that’ll give me a better idea of the direction in which the series is heading.

What else have you been reading?

whatdidyoueatyesterday6MELINDA: I’ve finally now caught up on the latest volumes of one of my favorite series, Fumi Yoshinaga’s What Did You Eat Yesterday?, specifically volumes five and six. I suppose it’s a testament to my harried life that I would have let more than one volume of this series linger in my to-read pile, but it’s also telling that when I have real time to sit down and read, this is the series I choose first.

Something I’m always struck by when I read this manga is just how well Fumi Yoshinaga’s style works with this foodie/slice-of-life mix. Her sense of humor and ability to infuse casual anecdotes with real relationship-building makes the storytelling feel substantial even when so much page time goes to food preparation. With that in mind, there’s quite a bit going on over the course of these two volumes, but perhaps the most significant bits of the storyline have to do with Shiro and Kenji’s new acquaintance with another couple, Mr. Kohinata and his younger boyfriend, Wataru.

Shiro is originally introduced to Mr. Kohinata by Mr. Tominaga, the husband of the woman with whom Shiro often splits groceries. Though both Shiro and Mr. Kohinata recognize the absurdity of the introduction (Mr. Tominaga seems to believe they’ll naturally have lots in common simply because they are both gay), they actually do strike up a friendly acquaintance, and soon the two couples are having dinner together and meeting up to watch Mr. Kohinata’s company baseball game. There’s a lot of humor involved, but the real significance of this new friendship is in the way it influences Shiro to begin feeling more comfortable as part of a gay couple in public. By the end of volume six, he’s even invited Kenji to go grocery shopping with him in their own neighborhood, which may seem like a small thing, but is a pretty big deal for Shiro—a fact that does not elude Kenji in the slightest.

I often see comments here from readers who dislike Shiro, and I admit that I really don’t understand it at all. Yes, he’s emotionally reticent, and yes, his professional life is a complication in terms of how open he feels he can be in his personal life. But he expresses his caring for Kenji in so many ways—and vice-versa. I am pretty deeply in love with their relationship and the ways in which they continuously learn to work around each other’s fears and insecurities in order to continue to support each other, emotionally and otherwise.

Also, the food. THE FOOD. I get so hungry when I read this manga. It’s a good thing I have a cooking-savvy husband of my own. How do I relate to Kenji? Let me count the ways.

MICHELLE: I am with you on being baffled that anyone would dislike Shiro! I would challenge those folks to read through the end of volume six, which not only includes the public grocery-shopping invitation but the real reason for Shiro’s intense frugality, and see how they feel about him then. He may not be demonstrative, but he really does care, and is thinking of Kenji’s long-term health and happiness.

It’s interesting how my reaction to the food works, because if it’s something unfamiliar, I kind of go, “Oh, that looks tasty,” but if it’s something known and delicious, then I will become a slavering craving-beast. Latest trigger? Gyoza!

MELINDA: Yum! Though of course that seems to be my reaction to everything they eat in this series. Now… time for some lunch!

MICHELLE: Suddenly, this Stouffer’s frozen entrée is not looking up to par.

MELINDA: I feel that.

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF

Off the Shelf: The Return

October 27, 2014 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith 2 Comments

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MELINDA: *tap* *tap* Is this thing on?

MICHELLE: What’s this strange noise?

MELINDA: It seems to be the sound of… AWESOMENESS. Or, y’know, typing. One of the two.

MICHELLE: Oh, it’s starting to come back to me now. You’re Belinda, right?

MELINDA: Yes, and you’re… Michael?

MICHELLE: More or less! And I’m feeling the strongest desire to tell a really stupid joke, for some reason…

MELINDA: And I feel the unexpected desire to listen to one. So, shoot!

MICHELLE: Let’s see…. how about… What did one lawyer say to the other lawyer?

MELINDA: I don’t know, what?

MICHELLE: “We are both lawyers.”

MELINDA: That was… actually kind of funny. Wow. And now I’m feeling the strange urge to ask you a question. Is it okay, Michael, if I ask you a question?

Wait, that was a question. Um. Er. Another question?

MICHELLE: Go right ahead, Belinda!

MELINDA: Okay, here goes: Have you been reading any manga lately?

MICHELLE: What a timely query! As a matter of fact, I have!

MELINDA: Do tell!

natsume17MICHELLE: Well, one of the things I read was the latest volume (17) of a much-beloved series, Natsume’s Book of Friends by Yuki Midorikawa. This has really become one of the few series where I have to read the new volume as soon as it comes out. It’s episodic, which is not normally my thing, but with this series, it’s just got such a languid fairy-tale feeling to it that I honestly hope it never ends. I am perfectly okay with the lack of urgency.

Possibly I have made the series sound dull, but it really isn’t. Natsume is eager to learn about yokai and their ways, so it’s more a tone of… respectful discovery? Something like that. Anyway, the first two chapters here involve a yokai who looks like a teenage human and the girl who loves him. It’s a classic case of immortal-guy-teen-girl love wherein the guy knows that it’s not going to end happily, but the girl is insistent upon pursuing it anyway. And Natsume can’t help but cheer them on. A third chapter finds Natsume drafted to join a yokai game of hide and seek while Nyanko-sensei is off getting drunk.

I was a little disappointed at first that there were only three chapters about Natsume and that other two delved into the past of Shuichi Natori, famous actor and exorcist, but I should’ve trusted Midorikawa more, because I ended up liking them quite a lot. It turns out that Natori originally became an exorcist to help assuage humans’ fear, so his intentions were good, but at the same time we know that Natsume will later have cause to question the practice of exorcism.

Sorry for rambling on there, Belinda. In short: I continue to love this series.

MELINDA: Despite the fact that I let this series go a while back, I find that I’m genuinely happy to hear that it is still lovely in the ways that it was always lovely. And maybe a little regretful that I did let it go… but maybe with its episodic nature, it would be possible to still peek in every once in a while. You make that sound very tempting.

MICHELLE: Oh, I’m really sad to hear you let it go. You probably could pop in without missing too much, though Natsume has slowly been growing more confident and social, interacting with his classmates a little more and seeming at peace with his new living situation. Other than that, things are pretty much the same.

What’ve you been reading, if not Natsume?

pandorahearts21MELINDA: Well, I’ve also been spending time with the latest volume of a beloved series, though in my case, the series is Jun Mochizuki’s Pandora Hearts. I’ve loved Pandora Hearts for a long time, for various reasons, particularly its endearing characters and its pretty, pretty artwork. Plotting, as you know, has had its ups and downs, at least in terms of coherence, but the tension has always been there. This has escalated dramatically in the past few volumes, and given everything that ultimately happens in volume 21, it’s kind of hilarious to note that it almost feels like a bit of a rest, at least to start.

After numerous betrayals, revelations, and deadly battles, this volume opens with most of the original gang (Oz, Alice, Gil) regrouping in a relatively secure location without much idea as to how to proceed. This state of affairs doesn’t last long, but it feels oddly peaceful, just for a moment, and even Oz, who has been through so much, seems rather like his childish self again, if irreversibly tinged with sadness.

This sense of quiet is short-lived, and soon the tension and new revelations start piling up again, but it’s to Mochizuki’s credit that this continues to feel fresh and exciting. The story’s many twists at this point read mainly as well-plotted and perfectly paced—and thank goodness, considering how quickly and frequently things change now in this series. Every time it feels like things are finally about to come clear, we discover that everything we thought we knew was wrong.

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that I haven’t even mentioned my favorite character, Xerxes Break. He features heavily in this volume as well, but I think there’s almost nothing I can say that isn’t incredibly spoilerful, so I’ll leave it there for now. Needless to say, his fate holds my heart cruelly in its grip, and that grip is only getting tighter.

You know, I often find myself disoriented when I first start reading a new volume of Pandora Hearts, but even picking up this volume several months late, I was able to just right in, and now I can’t wait for more. Fortunately, the next volume is due out soon!

MICHELLE: I’m a few volume behind with Pandora Hearts, but I do know what you’re talking about with those calm-before-the-storm moments that Mochizuki sprinkles in there. I left off with a very Loveless-style cliffhanger involving Gil’s allegiance, and I thought he was my favorite character, but now you’ve got me worried about Break, so perhaps I was wrong about that. I clearly need to get caught up!

MELINDA: You have so much heartbreak and renewal (rinse, repeat) to come, my dear Michael. So much. And I suspect I do, still, as well.

So what else have you pulled off the shelf of late?

MICHELLE: Hey…. ‘Off the Shelf’… That’s got a nice ring to it.

MELINDA: I thought so!

bloodybrat2MICHELLE: Well, I seem to recall that we both found Yuuki Kodama’s Blood Lad to be an unexpected delight. I’ve also been reading the related Bloody Brat, in which Kanata Yoshino replicates Kodama’s art style with eerie accuracy and basically offers up a series of four-koma comics and silly short stories starring the characters. The second volume has just been released.

I’ve gotta say, these are not fabulous jokes. You’re really not missing anything if you don’t read it, even if you’re a Blood Lad devotee. However, after initially thinking to myself how I wasn’t even being moved to smile, this volume really grew on me. It was just so unrelentingly doofy that I found myself enjoying it somewhat despite myself.

There are no deep themes here. There is absolutely no plot here. There are lots of jokes about crotches and wolfboys who can’t help but fetch sticks and catdudes experiencing the flehmen response in reaction to natto. I probably cannot stress enough how silly it is, but on the whole, it’s actually kind of charming.

MELINDA: You’ve left me feeling rather conflicted here, I admit. I do love Blood Lad with the fire of a thousand suns. But I’m not entirely sure my life is empty without four-koma silliness (which tends not to do well with me, in general). The crotch jokes aren’t helping to convince me. Should I be convinced? Will I actually find it charming?

MICHELLE: I find I cannot answer you with assurance either positively or negatively. I think this is probably one of those things where you just have to see for yourself. For me, it’s worth it to get another nugget of Blood Lad, especially since it’ll be a long time before we get another installment of the main series.

Read anything else this week?

spellofdesireMELINDA: I did indeed! Finally, this week, I caught up with the first two volumes of Tomu Ohmi’s Spell of Desire, the latest in Viz’s line of semi-trashy josei manga rebranded as shoujo for North American readers. To be clear, despite the description I just gave, there’s definitely a level on which I enjoy these series, but with the frequency of these newer releases I’ll admit that the standard tropes are beginning to wear.

In terms of these standard tropes, Spell of Desire is nearly indistinguishable from Ohmi’s earlier series, Midnight Secretary, which just finished its run with Viz earlier this fall. In both series, a supposedly plain, sexually inexperienced heroine is compelled by unexpected supernatural circumstances into a decidedly erotic but nominally utilitarian relationship with a handsome, mysterious, and emotionally unavailable man, whose obvious romantic feelings are apparently invisible to the heroine, who feels she must squash her own growing affection so as not to cause trouble for anyone. Add some varying details (the particulars of the supernatural circumstances, workplace, and clothing preferences) and this is pretty literally the premise of both series.

I can’t deny that I’m tired of this premise. I’m tired of the contrived supernatural relationship, the heroine’s persistent self-denial and low self-esteem, and the level of reverence given to mysterious, controlling men. I really could not be more tired of these things.

Fortunately, there’s still something about Spell of Desire that is keeping me interested. Maybe it’s the morally ambiguous animal familiars. Maybe it’s the ongoing mystery surrounding the heroine, Kaoruko’s, mother. Whatever it is, I’m grateful for it, and I expect I’ll keep going with this series, at least for the time being.

MICHELLE: Whenever mysterious, controlling men are deemed sexy, I always think about Kate Beaton’s Dude Watchin’ with the Brontes.

I haven’t yet read the second volume of Spell of Desire, but I too found something about the first volume that compelled me to recommend it. I especially appreciated that the lead male was at least kind to ailing kittens.

One of the things I liked about Midnight Secretary was that the heroine was extremely proud of her professional competence as a secretary and doesn’t relinquish that, so I have hope that Kaoruko will have a bit more spine than one expects, too.

MELINDA: I have such hopes as well. And as much as I cringe at certain popular josei tropes, I can’t help but be grateful when anything intended for adult female readers is released over here. Even when there are vampires. Or witches. Or anxious virgins in their twenties. (Wow are there a lot of those in josei manga.)

So, Michael… now that we’re wrapping up this column, how does it feel to be back together again? I, for one, am feeling kinda giddy.

MICHELLE: It feels pretty good! We should do it again sometime!

MELINDA: I agree! Until then…

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF

Off the Shelf: Two from Vertical

October 27, 2013 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith 3 Comments

MICHELLE: One of us is sad and one of us is sick, but we’re still putting our woes aside to talk about some new manga this morning. I guess that makes us troopers, huh?

MELINDA: Or masochists, one of the two.

MICHELLE: I… had not thought about that possible interpretation.

MELINDA: That’s what I’m here for!

MICHELLE: Melinda Beasi, dispensing disturbing interpretations since the 1970s!

MELINDA: You know it!

tropic-220x300We’ve been away from this column for a while, for various reasons, and to crank things back up again, we thought we’d take a look at a couple of recent releases from one of our favorite publishers, Vertical, Inc. First on the docket is a rare classic from the late Satoshi Kon, Tropic of the Sea, written while Kon was still a college student, and first published in Japan over twenty years ago.

Yosuke is the teenaged son of a village priest, whose family has long guarded the secret of a mermaid’s egg, which was reportedly entrusted to his forebears in return for the continuing safety and bounty of their small fishing community. According to legend, the egg must be protected and watered regularly for sixty years, at which point it is returned to its home and replaced by a new one. As the next in line to care for the egg, Yosuke is charged with bringing fresh seawater up to the shrine in which it is kept, which he does both out of duty and a lingering fondness for the legend he believed as a child.

When Yosuke discovers that his father has sold out their family secret to land developers seeking to transform the village into a sprawling resort, he is mildly appalled, but not nearly so much as his grandfather, who, enraged by his son’s hubris, risks his life in an attempt to return the egg to the mermaids as promised. Meanwhile, the villagers wage their own battle with the land developers whose promises of luxury and prosperity threaten their way of life. As the volume continues, Yosuke must decide what he believes and what is really important as he watches his community and his family being torn apart over their land and the mysterious egg.

MICHELLE: Usually, stories about families who stop honoring their contracts with supernatural beings never end well, but I was pleased that this story took a slightly different route. That said, I often times found the pacing disjointed. Perhaps Kon was trying to cram as much story as possible into a limited number of chapters, but there were a few transitions that puzzled me. And in the end, it all just seems to zip by so quickly, and I got a much firmer sense of the awesomeness of Yosuke’s dog (Fujimaru) than many of the human characters.

MELINDA: I realize that it might be the decongestants slowing me down, I didn’t have quite the same experience. While some sections did feel a bit zippy—particularly the final confrontation and chase with the land developers, I appreciated way Kon slowly and quietly revealed his characters’ truths, particularly Yosuke’s. For instance, while it’s clear early on that Yosuke has some kind of painful past association with the water that makes him reluctant to swim, Kon avoids the sort of carefully manipulated drama that would normally accompany a hero’s childhood trauma. There’s obviously an issue—one that his close friends are distractedly aware of—but it results in none of the kind of drama I’d expect from most stories.

First of all, Yosuke is uncomfortable with swimming, but he still *does* it when he needs to, without any tortured posturing. Then, later, when we finally figure out what it’s all about, the drama of the reveal is overshadowed by the larger problems at hand. I found this somehow refreshing.

MICHELLE: I’m glad that it read a bit differently for you. I wonder if part of the problem for me is that I am usually a slow reader, but the art style (which I loved) and paneling and everything made it possible for me to read this much more quickly than usual. Whereas you’re used to reading stuff quickly. I dunno.

But I absolutely agree about the low-key approach to Yosuke’s trauma. I also really loved the final page of the volume, which would be an absolutely ordinary image to anyone who hadn’t read the story to learn its full significance.

MELINDA: I love the subtlety of that final image, too, and the way Kon consistently lets his artwork do the storytelling. And while I think that this strong instinct to “show, not tell” is probably part of what made it read so quickly for you, it’s also his greatest strength here. I’m not saying that I think this is a perfect work, by any means, and even as much as I enjoyed it, it very much feels like an artist’s early work. But I found a lot to appreciate in it.

So, would you like to introduce our second selection?

helterskelterMICHELLE: Alrighty!

Helter Skelter is another one-shot from Vertical, and another sort of cautionary tale, as well. Currently popular model Liliko is much talked about but also, as we soon see, a wretched person. She’s obligated to her agency’s president, whom she calls “Mama,” who helped to transform her from an unattractive and overweight girl into a celebrity with a perfect, but nearly entirely fake, body. Liliko sought fame and adulation and made this choice herself, but is soon disillusioned with the life and dissatisfied with the work and yet terrified of the moment that it all ends. “What happens when I stop being sellable?” she wonders. “Everyone who pampers me now will leave me.”

Meanwhile, a prosecutor named Asada and his assistant are investigating the clinic where Liliko’s procedures were performed as well as a string of suicides committed by former patients.

MELINDA: Liliko makes for a troublesome heroine, as her disillusionment and fear has created in her a level of cynicism and raw desire that would ruin even the purest soul (which she is decidedly not). In a frantic bid to keep control of someone, even as she’s (literally) falling to pieces, she calls upon her remaining allure in order to emotionally enslave both an eager assistant and the assistant’s boyfriend. She’s cruel, manipulative, and every bit as terrifying as the technology that led her there. Yet, even as we witness her careful destruction of those around her, it’s impossible not to understand her. And perhaps that’s the most terrifying thing of all.

MICHELLE: I thought Okazaki did a great job at making Liliko sympathetic and understandable even while she’s doing utterly horrible things, like ensnaring/tainting Hada (the assistant) and Okumura (her boyfriend). She interrupts them together right after she learns that “Mama” has never sent money back home to her family as promised, and the narration makes it clear that there’s a direct correlation between the discovery and her subsequent actions. And later, after she has “punished” Hada for wanting to quit, she thinks, “I just want to play with bodies. And have fun wrecking others. How can I help it? Aren’t others making a wreck of me?”

And, of course, her jealousy of newcomer teen model Kozue is completely understandable, especially considering that Kozue has come by all of her beauty naturally and is able to be herself in public in a way that Liliko can never be. (One of the things that intrigues the prosecutor about her, after all, is that her responses in interviews are completely devoid of any hint of her actual personality or upbringing.) We can even understand why she might lash out at the woman who ended up marrying the rich guy Liliko had pegged for her safety net, though it’s less easy to understand why Hada and Okumura might do her bidding in actually carrying out an attack on the woman.

MELINDA: I admit I found them understandable as well, though identifying at all with them may actually be more disturbing than understanding Liliko. Their own relationship is so dysfunctional and lacking, I think harboring mutual shame becomes a sort of sick bonding experience for them. They’ll continue down their road with Liliko, because any attempt to go back only forces them to confront what their relationship has become, which is somehow more uncomfortable than just doing what they’re told. The deeper in they get, the less they resemble themselves, and this is actually a plus for them. That’s my interpretation, anyway.

You know, I was thinking as I read this… I’m always anxious for more josei manga, but I’ll admit that there’s a part of me that bristles at the notion that good stories for adult women must be those that prove that the world is a horrible place filled with horrible people. It’s an ugly, cynical view that doesn’t generally resonate with me at all. But though Helter Skelter is exactly that kind of manga, there’s an honest fury to it that makes me somehow thrilled that it exists. As disillusioned and cynical as Liliko is, Okazaki’s take on her circumstances reads to me as just plain angry. To her, Liliko matters, and as awful as she’s become, Okazaki is still furious on her behalf. Is that a strange thing to say? And my feelings about this were reinforced a million-fold by the way she ends the story.

MICHELLE: No, I think you’re spot-on with that. This isn’t an indictment of Liliko; it’s an indictment of the culture of disposable, commodified celebrity that helped create and destroy her. One of my very favorite pages is quite near the end, where the babble of fans/consumers is now obsessed with obtaining “That.” This just reinforces the idea that Liliko was never a person to them; just a thing to be interested in for a while until the next thing comes along.

And wow, that ending was so unexpected! I wonder whether we’re to take the “to be continued” literally, as in that Okazaki really will pick up the story again later, or if we’re only to take that as a sign that Liliko’s “curious journey of adventure” will continue.

MELINDA: I selfishly hope for the former, but my hopes may be in vain!

MICHELLE: I don’t know whether I want a sequel or not; I kind of like the ambiguous ending as it is. We will, at least, be getting more Okazaki in English soon, as Vertical will be releasing Pink next month!

MELINDA: I’m certainly looking forward to it!

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: helter skelter, tropic of the sea, vertical

Off the Shelf: Josei Romance Edition

September 8, 2013 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith Leave a Comment

MELINDA: Hello, Michelle! Wow, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

MICHELLE: It certainly has! We’ve both had a tremendous amount of stuff going on in our lives lately.

MELINDA: Ooooh yes we have. It’s great to be back here with you, though. I’m dying to talk about some manga! We’ve got two mutual reads to discuss this week. Want to get us started?

midnightsecretary1MICHELLE: Sure! I suppose I’ll just start with the one I read first, which was the debut volume of Midnight Secretary, by Tomu Ohmi. Originally serialized in Petit Comic, this seven-volume josei series is about an uber-efficient young secretary, Kaya Satozuka, who is assigned to Kyohei Tohma, the difficult managing director of the tableware manufacturer they both work for. Tohma’s pretty much a jerk and is inclined to dismiss her at their first meeting for her plain looks, but Satozuka counters that he should wait and see what she’s capable of so he can make an informed decision.

She proceeds to do her job with surpassing competence, and Tohma’s ungrateful remarks gradually give way to compliments, though remarks about her appearance persist. In the process, she discovers that her boss is a vampire, and makes it her mission to protect him dutifully, even giving him her blood at one point when a meeting in an atmosphere of religious faith leaves him weak. Of course, she’s unable to get this incident out of her mind, and before the end of the volume she’s shedding her professional persona and getting gussied up to attend a Christmas function with Tohma, whereupon he feeds on her again, then develops some mad craving that all of his other sexy “meals” aren’t able to provide.

I just don’t know about this one. I didn’t hate it and would probably read more, but I’m kind of annoyed by the “competant woman gets undone by the attentions of amorous soundrel” plotline.

MELINDA: Oddly, I found that this didn’t really bother me all that much, and I’m a bit perplexed as to why. Somehow, though, I found that the over-the-top fantasy premise kept me from needing to take anything about it seriously, and in the end I just had a lot of fun.

It also helps that Kaya really is an incredible secretary, so even as we’re being put through the usual “amorous scoundrel” paces, that’s an area where she isn’t remotely vulnerable. So often, Tohma’s type of controlling hot-shot love interest relies on breaking down the heroine’s self-esteem, but when it comes to the one thing she truly cares about—her abilities at work—he can’t even make a dent. If she falls for him? Well, that’s romance. But nobody can damage Kaya’s belief in herself.

MICHELLE: That’s a very good point about her skills—she doesn’t need him to take care of her, because she’s got an excellent professional reputation already. Probably I’m just taking things too seriously, as is my wont. Also, I feel like a crotchety old lady for saying this, but… I kinda want to know more about the tableware!

MELINDA: Normally, I’d be taking it too seriously, too! I have a very limited sense of humor when it comes to controlling, male love interests. Yet somehow, I’m super-relaxed about it here.

I do have some favorite bits of humor in this volume, too. I particularly enjoyed following Kaya’s early experiments with things like crosses and mirrors, as she tries to determine which vampire legends she needs to pay attention to in order to properly protect her boss.

I admit I don’t remember the tableware. Is the a euphemism? What am I missing here?!

MICHELLE: Oh, it was just a throwaway line about what their company does. Care to introduce our second manga?

happymarriageMELINDA: I would! Our second read this week was the first volume of Maki Enjoji’s Happy Marriage?!.

Like Midnight Secretary (and, previously, Butterflies, Flowers), Happy Marriage?! comes to us from the josei magazine Petit Comic, released here under Viz’s Shojo Beat imprint. And, like both Midnight Secretary and Butterflies, Flowers, the series features an office romance between a young woman and her boss—in this case, office lady Chiwa Takanashi and her company’s president, Hokuto Mamiya.

Chiwa works full-time at the Mamiya Company, but moonlights as a hostess in an effort to pay off her father’s business debts. Unlike her coworkers, she’s fairly uninterested in attracting a boyfriend, let alone anything more serious. But her life is turned upside-down when the company’s Chairman offers to eliminate her family’s financial troubles if she’ll agree to an arranged marriage with his grandson, Hokuto, who also happens to be her boss. Hokuto has his own reasons for agreeing to the marriage (namely, keeping his position as company president), and though Chiwa’s reservations are considerable, she ultimately agrees.

The two move in together (against Chiwa’s wishes) and this leads to a number of embarrassing moments as well as the disappointing revelation that Chiwa’s new husband is a complete slob. He’s also a devastatingly handsome, predictably controlling romantic lead, who taunts her with a sexy secretary while improbably pledging sexual fidelity to his wife of convenience. Misunderstandings and wackiness ensue.

There’s nothing really new in this series, as you may have guessed, but it’s genuinely fun and (so far) less maddening than, say, Butterflies, Flowers, which is a compliment, I suppose.

MICHELLE: After a notably inauspicious start—the scene in which Chiwa conveniently forgets to bring new undies to change into after her bath, and then just so happens to trip over a cushion and expose her goodies to Hokuto is particularly cringe-worthy—I actually kind of enjoyed this one. True, Hokuto can be quite controlling—he arranges for them to get locked in the company archives so they can have time along together—and, like Tohma, makes remarks about Chiwa’s looks and status (“If people found out that I married a woman like you it’d ruin my reputation”), but has some redeeming points, like his intention to take the marriage vows seriously. Chiwa can be irrational—she’s the type to storm out after an argument but forget her purse—but I liked that she will actually ask for help when she needs it as well as express her gratitude.

This arrangement and their personalities reminded me a lot of a manhwa plotline, actually. Something akin to Full House.

MELINDA: It’s funny that you should bring up Full House, Michelle, because I found myself thinking of another manhwa series, So I Married an Anti-Fan, which similarly pushes its heroine and hero into a “fake” relationship that (presumably) becomes a real one. And though Happy Marriage?! lacks the outrageous K-drama-esque quality that made Anti-Fan so much fun for me, I really did enjoy this first volume as well.

I think, similarly to the way you reacted to Midnight Secretary, I was bothered that Chiwa falls for Hokuto so quickly, and perhaps that’s where it differs from the manhwa we’ve mentioned, too. I mean, he’s not a monster, and he does sweep in fairly heroically in the last chapter to save face for Chiwa at her class reunion. But I suppose I’d prefer the bickering to last as long as possible in a story like this.

MICHELLE: Oh, yes, Anti-Fan is probably a better comparison! I think I have a much lower bicker tolerance than you do, so was pleased to see scenes wherein Chiwa and Hokuto are actually able to really talk to each other happening as early as volume one.

I can see myself reading the complete run of both these series, but I’m not sure whether I’d reread them.

MELINDA: I’m absolutely certain I’ll enjoy reading both these series all the way through… and that I’m unlikely to re-read them. Which is interesting to note, since I’d absolutely re-read both the manhwa series we’ve brought up in comparison. I’m trying to put my finger on what exactly makes the difference, and the closest I can come is “personality.” Both of those manhwa series feature an excess of individual personality as the primary element of their charm. These josei romances, on the other hand, I think are charming largely for their sense of sameness and familiarity.

Like most high-school romance series, these office romances are compelling in part because we know exactly what’s going to happen and we can just relax and enjoy ourselves as the inevitable plays out. And though they each begin with their own premise, they’re ultimately alike enough that they kinda ran together for me as I read them. In fact, I had to correct myself early on in the discussion of Midnight Secretary as I began to discuss a romantic rival that I later realized was from Happy Marriage?!

MICHELLE: Yeah, in particular the guys are similar, what with the mix of insults and compliments and all of that. Sometimes I was reminded of those Harlequin romance manga adaptations, too, but I’d definitely say these are several steps up in terms of originality, even being as similar as they are. I think the conclusion to Happy Marriage?! is a little more obvious than Midnight Secretary, but I can certainly use some easy, cozy things to read now and then!

MELINDA: Definitely! Honestly, none of this is a complaint. Even if my public pleas for “more josei!” are answered by more of this and not as much meatier fare, such as Vertical’s Helter-Skelter (which we originally planned to include with these as part of a josei column, until we realized just how inappropriate that matchup would be), I can enjoy these for what they are. It’s still gratifying to read stories about adult women, and I can’t deny that I love romance. It’s comfort food, no more, no less.

MICHELLE: Pass the mashed potatoes!

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF

Off the Shelf: Cats, Rats, & First Love

July 27, 2013 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith 10 Comments

MICHELLE: I looked for a dumb joke that was not utterly unfunny, but I couldn’t find one, so you are all spared this week.

MELINDA: … is it weird that I’m kind of disappointed?

MICHELLE: Actually, it’s kind of gratifying!

Anyway, it feels like forever since we’ve done a “normal” column. What’ve you been reading lately?

MELINDA: Well, this will probably come as a surprise to no one, but the truth is, I’ve spent most of this week eagerly, painfully anticipating the launch of Chromatic Press’ new online magazine Sparker Monthly, due out sometime over the next couple of days. And though I’m looking forward to delving into the publication’s promised mix of female-focused comics, illustrated prose, and audio dramas, I’ll admit that the intensity of my anticipation is fueled largely by the long-awaited revival of Off*Beat, Jen Lee Quick’s manga-influenced comic that has been in publishing limbo ever since the demise of Tokyopop’s OEL manga initiative in 2008.

I read the first two volumes of Off*Beat in 2009, when they were already officially out of print, and immediately fell in love, though as the years flew by, it seemed less and less likely that we’d ever get to see its final volume. I’ll admit to having pretty much danced with glee when Chromatic Press announced its Kickstarter campaign to continue the series. I backed that project, of course, and I’ve been fawning over my new print editions of the first two volumes ever since. But, like every fan of Off*Beat, it’s new material I’ve been dying for, so when I was offered the opportunity to review the first new chapter in advance, I leapt at it in the least dignified manner possible.

MICHELLE: I have yet to read Off*Beat, so I am going to imagine your squeeful ecstasy as akin to what happened to me, a Veronica Mars fan since 2005, when the Kickstarter campaign for the movie first started. And also there are books coming! But, I digress.

MELINDA: I think that is probably an apt comparison!

offbeatcoverOff*Beat tells the story of Christopher “Tory” Blake, an exceptionally smart teenager who lives with his divorced mom in Queens. Tory’s a capable kid, but the sense of abandonment brought on by his father’s absence has manifested itself in an odd habit—meticulous record-keeping of every single thing that happens to him and those around him. And when a new kid, Colin, moves onto Tory’s block under potentially mysterious circumstances, Tory’s obsessive attention becomes focused on him, and he goes so far as to get himself transferred to Colin’s private school on Long Island, even though it takes him two hours (by subway, rail, and bus) to get there every day. Tory soon discovers that Colin and his guardian are involved in some sort of top-secret scientific project, and he’s able to convince himself that it’s the project he’s obsessed with, but it clearly all comes around to Colin.

Colin is initially cold and resistant to interaction with pretty much anyone, but thanks to Tory’s persistent (stalkerish?) approach and Colin’s failing grades, the two eventually begin to form a friendship. To the reader, it’s long been obvious that Tory’s falling in love, but just as he’s on the brink of maybe coming to terms with his sexuality (and the possibility that his feelings for Colin may even be reciprocated), his secret diaries are discovered and everything falls apart.

When we last saw Tory, he’d just been punched in the face by Colin … and that’s where Tokyopop left us hanging back in 2007. Fortunately, the new chapter picks up just where we left off, and it suddenly feels as if no time has passed at all. There’s always the danger that anticipation of a thing will turn out to be tragically superior to the thing itself, but I’m happy to report that this is not the case at all with the newest chapter of Off*Beat. The transition is seamless and Quick gratefully gets right into the meat of things, including the nature of Colin’s top-secret project, and the boys’ obvious mutual attraction, both in the same grounded, thoughtful manner in which the comic has conducted itself from the beginning.

I was thinking as I prepared for our column today about the contrast between Off*Beat and something like Loveless, which we lovingly discussed last week. Both series fall somewhere on the boys’ love spectrum (at least as far as their fans are concerned) and both succeed largely on their commitment to emotional truth. But where Loveless expresses that truth by way of the supernatural, Off*Beat feels very much like a celebration of the natural, the endless wonder of the everyday people and things that are just right in front of us, and the epic gloriousness of the most naturally human thing of all—honest connection with other human beings. Despite the whole “top-secret project” thing going on in the background of Off*Beat, the series is so deeply grounded in its environment and in Tory’s teenaged existence, its focus is really on the plain wonder of growing up and being a person. And I love it for that.

Also, there are cats, Michelle. Lots and lots of cats.

OffBeat-Cats1

MICHELLE: That really does sound wonderful. And y’know, for all the praise I’ve heard about Off*Beat over the years, no one has ever focused on the secret project as one of the reasons why it’s so compelling.

Do you know whether there are plans for a print edition of the new material?

MELINDA: Indeed there are! Chromatic Press’ publishing model is based heavily on Japan’s serialization-to-tankoubon process, so once the third volume has been completed in serialization, it will be made available in full, both electronically and in print. The first two volumes are already being sold this way, with print volumes priced at $13.99 apiece (plus some extra options) or downloadable ebooks (epub, mobi, or pdf) for $6.00 each. The ebook deal in particular is pretty unbeatable, I think, when you compare it with other download-to-own manga. I’m tempted to buy them all in both formats, just for the convenience.

So what have you been reading Michelle? And were there any cats involved?

MICHELLE: No cats, but quite a few rats!

number6My solo read this week was the first volume of No. 6, a new shoujo series from Kodansha. Originally a series of novels by Atsuko Asano, the manga adaptation is by Hinoki Kino and ran in Kodansha’s Aria magazine. (I confess that I had to look this up to confirm its shoujo bona fides, because Kino’s art does not have that traditional shoujo look.)

Shion is an elite student in a futuristic city called No. 6, which is lauded for its low crime rate, excellent medical care, etc. In this “ideal” city, everything is managed, from the weather to the people, and testing at the age of two put Shion on his current academic path. He has just been accepted into the advanced ecology program when his world is forever changed when Rat, a prison escapee from the wrong side of the tracks, slips through his open window. Seeing that Rat is wounded (and around his age), Shion stitches him up and shelters him for the night, which costs him his placement in society. But Shion doesn’t seem to mind, because he never held with all the conformist attitudes anyway. He regrets nothing.

Fast forward four years when mysterious insects are draining the life out of human victims. Shion has the bad luck to be nearby a couple of the resulting corpses and the government, attempting to bury the news, attempts to pin it all on him. Rat reappears just in time to repay his debt by rescuing Shion, and urges him to abandon all connection to his former life if he wants to survive.

If this summary seems very plot-driven and light on character, then that’s because No. 6 is the same. Despite attempts to depict a restrictive future society—which succeed about as well as those in Library Wars for a frame of reference—the setting feels generic and the characters flat. I couldn’t connect with any of them at all. There’s a particularly weird scene in which Shion is bidding farewell to his childhood friend Safu as she heads off to study abroad. Out of nowhere, and with barely any interaction between them (that readers have been privy to, at least), she blurts, “I want to have sex with you.”

In the end, I can’t label this “a mess,” because it flows coherently enough, but it’s rather blah. I’ll probably give it another volume to see if it improves, though.

MELINDA: I feel quite disappointed, not so much because I’d eagerly anticipated this release (though I was interested, for sure) but because all the way through your summary here, I was thinking that it really should be interesting. I mean, the story sounds like something I’d enjoy, but in my head, it magically contained awesome characterization, despite the lack of such in your description. I’m so disappointed. I’d rather it be “a mess,” as long as the characters were compelling. So sad. I hope the second volume is an improvement!

MICHELLE: The first volume ends with Shion on the verge of discovering the world that exists beyond No. 6, so hopefully that should be interesting. We shall see.

Anyhoo, want to take a stab at introducing this week’s mutual read?

kare-first-loveMELINDA: Sure! So, we’ve been delving into quite a number of Viz’s digital re-releases of older shoujo series—particularly those from their now-defunct “shōjo” imprint. So far, we’ve been focusing on supernatural and schoolgirl-in-another-world series such as From Far Away, Red River, and Angel Sanctuary, but this week we went for regular ol’ high school romance with the first two volumes of Kaho Miyasaka’s Kare First Love, originally released in North America between 2004 and 2006.

Karin is a quiet, bespectacled high school student who has never had a date with a boy, and whose school friendships revolve around Yuka, a vapid, popular girl who mainly uses Karin to get out of doing her own homework. On the bus to school one day, Karin overhears a group of boys making snide comments about her looks, but when one of them sees that she’s reading a particular photography book, he comes over to talk to her. The encounter ends in embarrassment for both of them, as the boy, Kiriya, accidentally lifts up the back of Karin’s skirt while trying to return the book to her. Kiriya turns up later at Karin’s school, again in an attempt to return her book, and the two are swept up in plans for a group date, spearheaded by Yuka.

In true shoujo manga form, Yuka sets her sights on Kiriya (who only has eyes for Karin), and tries to bully Karin into supporting her efforts. Fortunately, another girl from their class, mature, independent-minded Nanri, sticks up for Karin and even lets Kiriya in on what’s going on so that he can step up and become Karin’s knight in shining armor. Which he does. And they’re in love, whee! First love! Next: the group trip to the beach!

If my summary sounds a little jaded, I suppose it is, as there is truly nothing original to be found in Kare First Love. Its premise, its conflicts, even its artwork are so closely painted by the shoujo manga numbers, it’s maddening, truly. Yet, perhaps more maddening is the fact that, as a reader, I still care. These tropes endure because they mostly work, and they work on me here, despite myself. Even though I know what comes next, I still want to watch it play out. And though that may be sad on a number of levels, it’s undeniably the truth.

MICHELLE: I didn’t like Kare First Love as much as I expected to, either, which was disappointing. I do lay some of the blame for this on the back cover copy, though. Consider this excerpt from volume two:

The age-old dilemma of choosing between your friend and the one you love is the lesson for the day for these bubbly high-schoolers.

Okay, number one, none of them is bubbly. But more importantly, and established immediately… Yuka is not really Karin’s friend!

I was lead to expect exquisitely poignant angst, with Karin knowing how much her friend truly loves Kiriya, but still deciding that she’s not willing to sacrifice a chance at love and happiness for her friend’s sake. Something like Yano and Takeuchi in We Were There, for example. But that’s not what we get. Instead, Yuka is a “shallow skank,” to quote one of Kiriya’s friends, and completely unsympathetic. When things don’t go as she plans, she engages in tiresome mean girl shenanigans for a volume and a half, until Karin finally declares “You were never my friend,” at which point Yuka disappears from the story and we move on to more traditional couple drama.

Now, granted, I thought the story improved from this point, as I liked the increased presence of Nanri (my favorite character) and the depiction of Karin’s pressure to succeed in school, but it’s not really what the blurb originally promised.

MELINDA: Agreed on all points. And honestly, it’s Nanri who will probably keep me going through subsequent volumes, assuming she sticks around. Well, Nanri and the annoying fact that, in spite of everything, I still want to find out what happens. I would bet all my money and meager possessions that they get married. They totally get married in the end. Am I right?

MICHELLE: You’re right. And possibly in a few volumes there’ll be some focus on Nanri and her older (possibly married) boyfriend, and then perhaps she’ll end up forming a couple with Kiriya’s friend, or something.

MELINDA: And don’t forget the inevitable parental disapproval! Surely that is yet to come. Also, what dark secret lurks in Kiriya’s past??

*Sigh* I’ll probably read it all.

MICHELLE: Hee. Me, too. We are shoujo’s bitches.

MELINDA: Amen.

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: kare first love, no. 6, off*beat

Off the Shelf, MMF Edition: Loveless

July 20, 2013 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith 27 Comments


Warning: This column contains SPOILERS for all volumes of Yun Kouga’s Loveless currently available in English.


MELINDA: Hello readers! As you know, Manga Bookshelf is currently hosting the Manga Moveable Feast, a monthly virtual book club in which the manga blogosphere comes together to discuss a single manga, topic, or mangaka. This month’s Feast features the work of Yun Kouga (read my introduction), a versatile artist whose work runs the gamut from RPG-style shounen fantasy, to josei romance, to boys’ love, and more. But in North America, Kouga-sensei is best known by far for her ongoing series Loveless, a shoujo fantasy involving supernatural intrigue, spell battles, and cat ears, but most of all, heartbreak. Lots and lots of heartbreak.

loveless-2006Originally published in Ichijinsha’s action-heavy, BL-tinged shoujo magazine Comic Zero Sum, Loveless was a great fit for Tokyopop’s lineup, alongside titles like Kazuya Minekura’s Saiyuki Reload and Shiho Sugiura’s Silver Diamond, but after the demise of Tokyopop’s North American publishing division, fans of the series were left hanging with no new releases after 2008’s release of volume 8. Fortunately, Viz Media has come to the rescue, not only releasing the series’ subsequent volumes (now standing at 11, both here and in Japan), but also re-releasing its earlier volumes in omnibus format.

As a latecomer to Loveless, all I really knew about it going in is that it featured cat boys and (possibly) some kind of sketchy shota relationship—either of which would have been enough to send me running quickly in the opposite direction—but as Michelle and I delved in to the series’ first two volumes, I quickly discovered that the series has much, much more to offer. Viz’s second omnibus release (encompassing volumes 3-4) inspired me to rave excitedly on camera, and further reading has only increased that excitement. Events of the third omnibus (volumes 5-6) led to this ode, Lovesick over Loveless. I’ll let that post speak for itself.

The truth is, Yun Kouga’s work (and Loveless in particular) hits so many of my personal storytelling kinks in so many instances, it would be prohibitively time-consuming to catalogue them all. But perhaps more significantly, she manages to address several of my usual turn-offs (and at least one known deal-breaker) in a way that makes them somehow palatable, even to me. As a result, my reaction to Loveless has begun to resemble nothing more than a kind of romantic longing, characterized by ever-wandering thoughts and a persistent love-struck haze. in short, I’m lovesick over Loveless.

Now that Viz’s omnibus releases have finally caught up to the newer volumes, I’ve been able to race through what’s available in this series, and though I think the latest volume may have broken my heart beyond repair, I’ve invited Michelle to become broken along with me. I hope she’ll forgive me. Michelle?

MICHELLE: As someone who wishes for more unhappy endings in manga, I certainly don’t object to heartbreak! And Kouga-sensei offers the best kind, as it’s not her style to simply serve up dramatic and/or tragic plot twists, but rather to focus on what these upheavals mean and feel like to the characters. And it’s in the understanding and the relating that lies the heartbreak.

MELINDA: Well said, Michelle! For those who may just be joining us, I’ll briefly go over the story’s premise, and some more recent plot points.

Ritsuka is a 12-year-old who has suffered a couple of major tragedies. First, two years prior, he experienced some sort of massive amnesia which left him with no memory whatsoever of the person he was before that time. This sent his mother into an increasingly unstable condition in which she does not believe that he is her son, and physically abuses him whenever he betrays himself as not “her Ritsuka.” More recently, his older brother, Seimei, to whom he was very close, was found horribly murdered—burned beyond recognition—with no explanation other than a cryptic message left for Ritsuka blaming his murder on an organization called “Septimal Moon.”

As the story begins, Ritsuka is approached by Soubi, an art college student whom Ritsuka has never met or even heard of, though he claims to have known Seimei. Soubi introduces Ritsuka to an underground society in which spell battles are fought by two-person teams made up of one “fighter,” who performs the spells, and one “sacrifice,” who directs the battle and takes all the damage for the team. Ritsuka, he is told, is a sacrifice, like his brother before him. Furthermore, Soubi was his brother’s “fighter” and has been bequeathed to Ritsuka upon his brother’s death.

(read right-to-left)

loveless-soubi-intro2
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This situation is difficult for Ritsuka, as he struggles to get used to the idea of Soubi, who wants (needs?) to be completely dominated by him, but as the two find themselves forced to fight together, they eventually form a meaningful bond. Just as Ritsuka’s starting to get used to his new circumstances, things get even more complicated when, in volume seven, he finally discovers two very painful truths—that Seimei is alive (and had someone else killed in his place) and that Soubi is still bound to him.

Obviously, there’s a lot more to these points (the second one, in particular, becomes absolutely heartbreaking in volume eleven), and much more has happened than what little I’ve stated here, but I expect these things will come to light as the column goes on.

MICHELLE: Yes, there’s so much that I hardly know where to start. I guess I’ll go chronologically, and start with the fact that I’m absolutely fascinated by whatever it was that happened right around Ritsuka’s tenth birthday. It’s not just amnesia, and it’s not just a personality shift—even the subjects he’s good at in school are suddenly different! That might be, to me, the most ominous thing. Where did that ability come from? Was it always latent in Ritsuka? What on earth happened to cause such a psychic break? I have a feeling it has to be something absolutely horrible perpetrated by Seimei, and I wonder how many years it’ll be before readers finally know the answer.

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And, of course, the massive betrayal in learning that someone you loved and thought you knew was never really that person in the first place? And this is exactly what I meant in my response above—the reveal to readers that Seimei is alive is handled with absolutely no fanfare. Kouga-sensei is not attempting to shock the readers, she’s forcing the readers to watch Ritsuka find out, and that’s where the real drama is.

MELINDA: Yes! That whole thing is just brilliantly executed, in my opinion. Some of that realization starts slowly, as Ritsuka finds out, little by little, that the Seimei he thinks he knew doesn’t resemble the one anyone else knew in the slightest, and that even he knew on some level that Seimei was really frightening all that time, but hid those thoughts away, even from himself. Just that is horrifying enough. But then he discovers the truth–that Seimei is alive–in the cruelest way possible, from a third party, as he faces Seimei’s new fighter in battle.

What I love most about all of this, though, is that Ritsuka gets to have real, complicated reactions to all of it. There’s no switch inside him that turns off his love for Seimei or, to a great extent, even his trust in Seimei, despite the genuinely awful truths he’s learned. Seimei isn’t the person Ritsuka thought he was, but Ritsuka’s version of Seimei doesn’t just die. It can’t. It’s too much a part of Ritsuka himself.

There’s a scene in volume 8, where Ritsuka is finally face-to-face with Seimei (who has slaughtered his way through the building to get to him, even writing “Ritsuka, I’m back,” on the walls in blood), and he’s thinking, “The fact that Seimei is here… it’s proof of so many lies.” Yet his first real reaction is gratitude that his brother isn’t dead after all. And that’s not a feeling he can just put aside.

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MICHELLE: It happens a lot of times in Loveless that Ritsuka is allowed to feel two different things simultaneously, which is not something I’ve seen a lot of in manga, come to think of it. In the earlier volumes, this happens most often regarding Soubi, whom Ritsuka simultaneously wants to see and wants to avoid. And just when he decides to believe in Soubi, Seimei comes back and puts everything in turmoil.

Soubi’s reaction to learning Seimei is alive (in volume six) is heartbreaking as well, as you so eloquently (and with perfect visual aids) write about in your Fanservice Friday post. I love how this just really cements the realization that Soubi, despite appearances to the contrary, isn’t some simple creepy seme type. He’s a broken and vulnerable person who feels more Loveless than Beloved. He’s been cast aside with apparent ease by the person who was his “God,” and is desperate for Ritsuka to make their bond stronger. He must know that his bond with Seimei still exists, but would now rather have Ritsuka for his “master.”

MELINDA: I’m glad you brought this up so quickly, Michelle, because it’s Soubi’s place in all this that has broken my heart most gravely, and it’s ultimately a greater source of pain for Ritsuka, I think, than his brother’s betrayal—at least by the time the end of volume eleven rolls around. The danger signs are there early on and, as you say, even when he is first struck with the truth of Seimei’s betrayal, there’s a sense that he already understands the potential ramifications of that in his relationship with Ritsuka. Even before we’re made fully aware of the … inseverable nature of his fighter bond with Seimei, it’s clear that something’s up, and as Ritsuka’s face-off with his brother looms closer, Soubi becomes more and more visibly desperate to belong to Ritsuka, and Ritsuka alone.

The scene in volume seven where Soubi entreats Ritsuka to fully accept him so that he can fight for him against Seimei’s new fighter, Nisei, is one of the most affecting in the series—and in a series like this, that’s saying a lot. “If you accept me, Ritsuka… If you forgive me, Ritsuka… If you want me, Ritsuka…” Soubi says with startling calm, like he was reciting a sutra, as the brand Seimei marked him with bleeds painfully on his neck. It’s a stunning scene, made more so by the fact that Ritsuka’s left to wrestle with his own motivations—his fear that by accepting Soubi he’s simply manipulating him.

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MICHELLE: Ritsuka really does have all the power. More than he wants to have, really, especially when Soubi insists that Ritsuka treat him like an object. It’s rather hard for me to understand wanting so desperately to be dominated, but in Soubi’s case it seems to have some connection to wanting to forget that he is a person and the emotional pain to which people are susceptible.

MELINDA: There are some pretty powerful scenes around this same time-frame on that subject, too. I’m thinking particularly of the beginning of volume seven, which is when Ritsuka finds out that his brother carved his name, “Beloved,” into Soubi’s neck. It’s Soubi’s friend Kio who lets the cat out of the bag, as he opens Ritsuka’s eyes to Seimei’s violent tendencies. The whole scene is pretty powerful, with Ritsuka demanding that Soubi show him the damage Seimei did to his body. But the bit that really strikes me is the conversation afterwards, in which Soubi explains that, from his perspective, Seimei’s brand isn’t violence, but rather a bond—one that he entered into willingly.

It’s complicated for the characters and for us as readers, as we try not only to wrap our heads around the world as Soubi sees it, but also try to reconcile that with the knowledge that Seimei really is violent, and that his bond with Soubi was only forged to serve himself. I really like the fact that Kouga portrays Soubi’s subservience to Ritsuka and Seimei as being both the same (from Soubi’s viewpoint) and totally different (from Ritsuka and Seimei’s viewpoints).

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MICHELLE: I found that whole sequence absolutely chilling, somehow. Perhaps it was seeing normally upbeat Kio delivering a line like, “Oh, I knew him. I hated him.” It just sets the tone for all that follows, as Ritsuka begins to realize all the weird little things that would happen when Seimei was around, like fish mysteriously dying and such. Ritsuka pushed these niggling doubts aside and convinced himself he wasn’t afraid of Seimei and that he loved him, but the truth was, he knew something was off all along. Just more evidence to the support the “Seimei did something awful” theory for the amnesia onset.

MELINDA: Yes, I agree (I can’t wait until we finally get some answers about that), though I wonder, of course, how Seimei is the way he is, too. I mean, is he just a sociopath? That’s the simplest answer, but I don’t necessarily expect things to be simple in a Yun Kouga manga.

I was going back just now to the first omnibus, which I hadn’t read in quite a while, and was struck anew with Soubi’s surprise at discovering that he actually loved Ritsuka. He’d gone to him, because Seimei had ordered him to do it, and had told Ritsuka he loved him, because Seimei said he must. But he somehow hadn’t expected to really feel that kind of love. At the time that just kind of went right by me, but now that we know so much more about Seimei, and especially about his relationship with Soubi, it makes so much sense. He’d only learned to be subservient to these really horrible people—first Ritsu, then Seimei—and had no idea that a master like Ritsuka even existed. It’s heartbreaking, really.

MICHELLE: It is. It makes you wonder what kind of person Soubi could’ve become without these influences. Not that he’s at all a bad person as he is, of course. But he certainly isn’t free; it’s the last thing he wants.

Your comment does bring up the point that there’s tremendous reread potential in Loveless. There are all manner of nuances that the reader puzzles over initially, and perhaps that’s why I’ve seen some reviews describe the series as confusing, but which might make a great deal more sense in retrospect. Even though the series is kind of notorious for the time it’s taking to unfurl, that’s actually due to the publishing schedule and not to any lollygagging about in the story itself. At least, I don’t think so. I get the sense that Kouga knows exactly what she’s doing.

MELINDA: I agree, though I think we’re definitely at an advantage being fed all of it at once. Still, as you say, there is tremendous re-read potential in this series, and I expect I can keep myself busy during the year-long wait between volumes revisiting what’s come before. Just the short time I spent with the first two volumes today made me want to re-read the entire thing from the start—and I’ve barely just finished!

You know, as anxious as I am to find out what happened to Rtisuka’s memories, I feel like it might break my heart to lose the Ritsuka we know now.

notknowsmMICHELLE: I was thinking last night that Ritsuka’s plight reminds me some of Echo in Dollhouse, in that the protagonist has this other/earlier self that s/he’s trying to regain, believing it to be superior to their current self. (Ritsuka even believes that his being who he is now is “a sin for which I deserve to be punished.”) But what will happen to the person s/he is currently? In Dollhouse a melding of sorts happened, if I recall rightly, and I hope that we’ll get something like that in Loveless.

Because Ritsuka really is very endearing and very consistently characterized, too. One of the things that most impresses me about how he’s written is how his most strongly held opinions and desires are clearly the result of the things he has been through, but Kouga just lets readers notice that themselves rather than putting up flashing arrows pointing it out. He’s yearning for someone to love, he jumps at the chance to “make memories” and leave people with photographs of himself so they won’t forget him, he’s utterly opposed to inflicting any kind of violence, and he absolutely hates secrets and lies. When Kio apologizes after bringing up Seimei’s violent tendencies, Ritsuka reacts with, “There isn’t anything that I don’t want to know! Not knowing is the worst!”

He’s an honest, gentle, and caring boy in a way that isn’t cloying at all.

MELINDA: And he’s just willful enough to take charge in the way Soubi needs him to as well, without being a sadist like his brother. There are a number of scenes that spring immediately to mind for me when I think of Ritsuka and the moments that have most defined him for us over the course of the story which I’d love to discuss with you. I’m glad you mentioned Ritsuka’s burning need to “make memories,” with people, because the there was an early scene along those lines that struck me much more profoundly a second time around.

I was startled to recall as I paged through the first omnibus volume again that the very first thing he does with Soubi after meeting him is to drag him off to “make memories.” The guy’s a complete stranger and an adult, but since he identified himself as a friend of Seimei’s (or, well, he let Ritsuka identify him as such—I think that’s an important distinction), that was good enough for Ritsuka. Then, my heart broke to pieces in just one panel, when Ritsuka insists that he’s sure Soubi will forget that Ritsuka was even there with him if he doesn’t take pictures. It’s a tiny thing then that we don’t fully understand until later, but it just shattered me.

MICHELLE: Practically the first thing I thought when Ritsuka immediately buys into the “a friend of Seimei’s” claim is “Nooo, don’t go with him, little boy!” And, y’know, Ritsuka’s not a stupid kid. I’m sure he knows not to go off with strangers, but he was desperate for any kind of link to his beloved (no pun intended) brother, and so he just lights up and his demeanor changes entirely.

His assertion that, without photos, Soubi will just forget he was ever there makes me wonder if something like that has actually happened to him. It doesn’t seem that Misaki, his troubled mother, has forgotten him particularly so much that she doesn’t see the person he is now, unless it’s to accuse him of not being “her” Ritsuka.

MELINDA: I wonder this, too, and it keeps on coming up, over and over again, in various ways. Then later, in the battle with Bloodless—a pair who use their enemies’ worst fears against them—we find out that Ritsuka’s worst fear is not just that he’ll be forgotten, or even that he’ll forget himself again, but that the few memories he actually has will be proven false as well. He’s already lost the memory of most of his own life, and now he’s discovered that his most precious memories of his brother may be nothing but lies as well. So if Seimei is a lie and Ritsuka is also a lie, what does he even have that’s real at all?

I’m thinking it all comes around to the memory loss in one way or another, compounded by the revelation of Seimei’s massive deception. In another scene that comes to mind from early in volume seven, Kio expresses disbelief that anyone could forgive the kind of violence that Seimei perpetrated on Soubi and accuses Soubi of being a “total fool.” Ritsuka responds by calling himself a fool as well. “You’re a fool and a masochist, Soubi, so you’re happy no matter what’s done to you! And Seimei is a sadist, so he can do anything to you, right? And I’m a fool for sticking my nose into this, aren’t I?” Then he thinks to himself, “But… I can’t let go of anybody’s hand.”

His response is very much in character, in that it’s yet another admission that he’s afraid to let go of anyone he loves (and who might love him), but it’s what he does afterwards that I find the most telling. He turns to Soubi and starts buttoning up his shirt so that he won’t catch a cold. For all he’s been through and how much he’s found to be scared of, more and more as the series goes on, his instinct is to become the grownup and take care of other people. (His speech to Soubi late in volume eleven takes this even one step further, but I expect we’ll come back to that later on.) Partly I think he has found, time and again, that he can’t trust adults to take care of themselves, let alone him, but also I think he’s desperately trying to hold things (and people) together on his own, every little bit that he can, lest he lose one more thing.

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MICHELLE: I really love the imagery of the “I can’t let go of anyone’s hand” moment, too. Another thing that strikes me about that shirt-buttoning scene is what Ritsuka says during it: “Y’know… I could never do anything like that for you.” Even though he finds violence abhorrent, it’s still his instinct to give Soubi what he needs/craves, and it saddens him that this is something that he simply cannot do.

MELINDA: Yes, yes! The fact that he words it that way, “for you” rather than “to you” (which is surely the way Kio sees it) acknowledges its importance to Soubi, and makes it clear that, even if Ritsuka can’t quite understand why Soubi would want something like that, he understands that he shouldn’t just dismiss Soubi’s feelings about it. It’s really touching, actually.

MICHELLE: Another scene that really stands out for me happens in volume five. It’s late at night and Nisei has tipped Misaki off that Ritsuka is not at home—he’s at Soubi’s house using the video-game interface to get information on Septimal Moon—and when Ritsuka finally shows up, she tries to contain herself but cannot. The ensuing abuse is incredibly disturbing, and I’m fascinated by Soubi’s reaction to it and his realization about Ritsuka. “Ritsuka is the way he is because of his mother. Ritsuka is searching for someone to love. He wants to find that person so badly. And when he thinks he’s found them, he gives them his all. But that kind of unwavering trust that won’t budge a millimeter… that in itself is madness.”

I think it’s important to note here that Soubi—his own acceptance of Seimei’s violent tendencies aside—knows that the face Seimei showed Ritsuka was not his true one, but isn’t going to be the one to shatter his illusion.

MELINDA: There’s something else that connects these two scenes, actually, and I never would have noticed it had we not discussed them together! I just realized that in the scene you mention in volume five, it’s Soubi who is taking care of Ritsuka, giving him his coat so that he won’t get cold. And it’s somewhere in between these two scenes—I think probably at the point in which Soubi discovers that Seimei is alive and his world gets shattered—Ritsuka becomes the adult and Soubi the child. When I think about it, that’s the turning point. Everything between them is different after that.

MICHELLE: I think you’re right! I think that’s when Ritsuka—and the reader—realizes how much power he truly has over Soubi. I must admit I now have geekbumps because YOU HAVE FOUND THE CRUX OF LOVELESS.

MELINDA: Hee! Well, it may be too early to identify it as the crux of the whole series, but I feel excited by the discovery all the same. I admit that I was surprised to read Sarah Ash’s feelings about Ritsuka’s shifting character, because to me he’s grown up drastically in the past few volumes. And it really does all start just at the moment that Soubi falls apart. As many times as I read it, I’m still blown away by that scene in volume six when Soubi arrives at Ritsuka’s house, broken to pieces and begging Ritsuka to run away with him. It’s the last page of chapter four where it happens. Ritsuka, stunned by Soubi’s sudden earnestness thinks, “If you’re serious… then… I’ll be serious too.” And suddenly he’s the grownup. I mean, he still has his moments of childishness and uncertainty here and there, but that’s really when he takes charge, and we see this build all the way through volume eleven, up to the point when Seimei takes the opportunity to crush him.

And really, that’s significant to me, too. Even after Seimei’s return, he’s held it together pretty well, still taking care of Soubi (that one of the first things he asks Seimei when he confronts him is “Why are you scaring Soubi?” is, to me, indescribably touching). But you know how, no matter how grownup and independent you become, it can be almost impossible not to regress in the company of your family? For instance, I’m senior management at my job, but when my parents come to visit the office, I find myself struggling to maintain that “in charge” version of myself in front of them. It’s so hard not to become the child again in those circumstances. I realize we don’t yet fully understand Seimei’s motivation for destroying Ritsuka, but I almost feel like his part of his objective in volume eleven is to show Ritsuka that he’s still the little brother–as helpless and dependant as ever–and that even growing up is something he can’t do without his older brother’s permission.

MICHELLE: That scene where Soubi arrives and shows Ritsuka his emotional pain reminds me of an earlier time when a wounded Soubi turned up at Ritsuka’s window, but then wondered why he came and decided to go away again and spare Ritsuka the sight of his injury. Now they’re so close that he can show Ritsuka, if not the full truth of what’s happened at least some sign of his despair.

Another moment that really sticks out for me the most in the post-Seimei aftermath is when Ritsuka shows up at Soubi’s place to cook him an omelet. He wants to do something to cheer him, and he’s twelve so he can’t do much, but he can make an omelet with an inspirational ketchup message on it! I like that it was a sort of grown-up thought to be having, but an age-appropriate execution.

loveless-childishcropMELINDA: What a wonderful way of putting it, Michelle! A “grown-up thought to be having, but an age-appropriate execution” is exactly right, and that’s the kind of thing Yun Kouga does really well, too. Even as she’s having Ritsuka take on the adult role with Soubi, it’s not like she turns him into an adult. In fact, ruminating on the ideas of “adult” vs “child” is a major theme in this series, and I love all the ways in which she explores that topic.

I’ve already gone on and on about how brilliant I think the whole cat ears thing is—how she uses a common (and fairly silly) manga trope to both comment on our society’s obsession with the significance (and ramifications of) losing one’s virginity, while also providing silent notes on all her characters—but she’s got a lot of things to say which reveal themselves in other ways.

There are a few scenes in particular that spring immediately to mind, two of which are in volume eleven. First, I thought of Ritsuka’s conversation with Yuiko early on (I adore Yuiko, by the way, in case I haven’t mentioned that). He’s trying to figure out what to do or even think about his brother, the sociopath—something no kid his age should be having to figure out—and though Yuiko has no idea what’s going on, she’s trying to help. Twice in that conversation she mentions the fact that they’re just kids, and that this means that they can do what they want. “Even if we make mistakes, it’s okay because we’re kids!”

And of course, that’s the whole problem. Ritsuka’s just a kid, but he’s being put in this position where his mistakes might have truly dire consequences, both for him and for others. Meanwhile, it’s the adults in the story who are acting like kids—allowing their own issues to get in the way of being the grownups, even when they’re dealing with children. (Maybe even especially when they’re dealing with children?)

“Lately, I’ve met a lot more adults,” Ritsuka tells his psychiatrist, just a few scenes later, “And I think adults are actually pretty childish.”

Well said, Ritsuka. Well said.

MICHELLE: The way adults interact with children seems to be something Kouga is particularly interested in. Earlier this week, I read your post about Crown of Love, and was struck by the dialogue “If you think I can’t lie to you when you look me right in the eyes… then you really are just a kid. If you think adults are always nice to children, you’re making a big mistake.” And then in volume nine of Loveless you’ve got Nagisa saying that Ritsuka “understands all too well that adults are not always kind to children.” That’s a neat insight into how Kouga views the comparative maturity of these two characters.

And, I note, I love Yuiko, too!

MELINDA: But, true to form, even while acknowledging that adults often fail to act as adults and are often unkind to children, she doesn’t straightforwardly vilify them for it. She has a way of writing a character from the point of view of “Wow, you fucked up,” without just abandoning them, much as Ritsuka doesn’t abandon those who have failed him, for better or worse. Meanwhile, she lets the kids show us how it’s done, without making them into perfect saints either.

One of my favorite scenes, post-Seimei, comes immediately after his escape from Seven Moons Academy—an escape ultimately facilitated by Soubi, who is unable to refuse Seimei’s order to essentially break him out. There’s a lot packed into that event, as it’s when both Ritsuka and we are confronted with the true power of Seimei’s bond with Soubi, and the extent to which their shared name, “Beloved,” is able to maintain that bond, even against Soubi’s will. Soubi is devastated by his own betrayal of Ritsuka, and reverts into what Ritsuka calls “toddler mode,” and though Ritsuka is not completely sure how he’s supposed to handle it, handle it he does, basically by ordering Soubi to get over it and go to sleep. Ritsuka’s grumpy and tired, and not as nice as he might like to be, but he’s still taking care of Soubi and keeping him close, rather than letting Soubi distance himself or wallow in his own regret.

MICHELLE: I like that scene, too, ‘cos it’s like Soubi—having been compelled to obey Seimei—is repeating the refusal (“don’t want to”) that he wishes he could have made. And, of course, with Ritsuka he would’ve been allowed to make such a rejoinder without repercussions, but when he rejoins Seimei in volume eleven he’s ordered not to speak until given permission. “I don’t want to hear your voice.” Soubi would be so much happier if he could serve only Ritsuka.

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I wonder… is the bond really a thing that’s compelling him, like supernaturally, or is it just Soubi’s internalization of the bond that renders him incapable of disobeying? And, actually, I wonder why this Fighter/Sacrifice system exists at all, especially with the academy. Why was it established? Surely not for the purpose of all this infighting! Is there a greater threat out there to which we’ve not even been introduced?

MELINDA: There’s definitely a lot we haven’t been told yet, including the entire purpose of Seven Moons Academy and Septimal Moon, and I think whenever we finally find that out, we may understand a lot more about the bond between fighters and sacrifices. But I feel like there are a few scenes that have been intended to let us know that the name itself is a powerful supernatural bond that can’t be broken, especially when the fighter is a “blank” as Soubi is—or certainly Soubi’s been made to believe that this is the case. He’s told repeatedly by both Ritsu, who trained (and abused) him and Seimei who claimed (and abused) him that it’s impossible for him to betray his sacrifice once he’s been marked with his name. That said, I specifically pointed out that both have abused him (both physically, emotionally, and in Ritsu’s case, sexually), because it certainly seems possible that, between them, they’ve brainwashed Soubi into believing something that’s not actually true.

I wonder, though… one of the things I found most heartbreaking about Soubi breaking the window for Seimei to escape, is that I got the impression in the previous volume that Soubi thought it might be possible, if Ritsuka truly wanted him and accepted him as his fighter, that he could actually become his fighter. He’s been told that a blank’s ownership is absolute (yet non-exclusive for the sacrifice, how cruel is that?) but the later flashback to Soubi’s first meeting with Seimei, in which Seimei describes his marking of Soubi as allowing him to be “reborn” as his property, makes me wonder if Soubi though it just might be possible to reborn once more, if only Ritsuka would fully accept him. And I wonder if he is pleading, hoping for the same thing later in the graveyard in volume eleven.

MICHELLE: I got that impression, as well. Soubi wants their bond to be real. I’m not sure Ritsuka fully grasps that, though, because as Soubi is walking away, he thinks, “In the end… all those times… Soubi only ever listened to me as an indulgence.” Perhaps he thinks he was being pitied or humored by Soubi when the latter would “consent to obey” him, but it wasn’t really like that for Soubi.

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MELINDA: I think that’s what I found most painful about that whole sequence of events, actually. I mean, what happens is obviously heartbreaking, with Seimei cruelly taking Soubi from Ritsuka, as if Ritsuka hasn’t lost enough already. But even more awful, in my opinion, is Ritsuka’s misunderstanding of Soubi’s feelings on the matter. That’s what ultimately broke me, and it really did break me, to an extent from which I’ve yet to recover. The fact that this misunderstanding seems to have been Seimei’s intent? I just… wow. He actually waits to remove Soubi from Ritsuka just at the moment when it would hurt Ritsuka the most. And Soubi.

I realize his true objective must be larger than this;there’s no reason for him to need to hurt Soubi, for instance, for whom he feels nothing, unless it serves some other purpose to do so, which means it has to be Ritsuka he’s really trying to hurt. But why? Is it related to the memory loss? Is he trying to punish Ritsuka for something? Is he trying to break him down in order to control him as well? Or is it even bigger than that?

Time will tell, I realize, but in the meantime, I mostly just want to kill Seimei. Possibly with my own bare hands.

MICHELLE: He’s the one that put them together in the first place, with orders for Soubi to love Ritsuka, so he is obviously enjoying getting them to really care about each other and then ripping them apart. Somehow I get the feeling he’s trying to trigger something in Ritsuka. I don’t know. But it’s almost like… Seimei did something that got Ritsuka to the person he is now, and now he’s trying to make him into something else that he can use. I thought it was interesting to see that Seimei’s actually been creepy from day one, as his first thought upon seeing his baby brother was that his mother had created Ritsuka expressly for him.

MELINDA: Heh, yes. Though, it’s so difficult to figure out what Seimei actually enjoys. I mean, it certainly seems like he must enjoy hurting people. Yet he’s so cold about it all.

reason-smallThere are a number of other fighter/sacrifice pairs introduced over these later volumes, and we’ve barely talked about them at all; I’ll the first to admit that I’m too focused on the major players right now to give them the attention they deserve. One of the darker stories, however, comes from Mikado, another sacrifice who felt a kinship with Seimei when they were both training, because of their shared inability to comprehend emotion. Mikado describes them both as “empty inside,” which absolutely jives with what we’ve seen in Seimei. And when Seimei orders his fighter, Nisei, to rape her and cut off her hair, she’s horrified, less by the act itself, and more by the fact that, from her perspective, Seimei broke their “code,” by doing it (in his words) for “no particular reason.” So is it really that he enjoys hurting people? I’d say that’s absolutely true of Nisei, who revels in watching Ritsuka cry. But what’s the deal with Seimei?

MICHELLE: I found the Mikado reveal very shocking. I mean, yes, Seimei has definitely killed at least one person (the guy whose body was used as a Seimei stand-in) and slashed a couple characters with his knife, not to mention inflicting all sorts of mental and emotional anguish, but this just seemed exceptionally horrible, even for him. Ritsuka is sure Soubi would never do such a thing, but if commanded by Seimei… I am not so sure, and that kind of makes me feel ill. I would hope Soubi could break the spell, either literally or figuratively, if it came to that.

This incident did put something else in perspective, storytelling-wise. After the major Seimei drama goes down at the end of volume eight, it’s as if the story takes a step back from the precipice. Our characters go back to their lives, Ritsuka goes back to school, where Youji and Natsuo enroll and act like brats. One starts to wonder where the story’s momentum has gone. But in the midst of that there was a story about Yuiko being bullied and when Ritsuka confronts the girls, they admit they have no reasons for their actions. He’s angry at them, and yet, here is Seimei giving the same answer. What’s it going to take for Ritsuka to stop feeling like he’s “on Seimei’s side” in all this?

MELINDA: That’s a very good question, and… yes. “Yes” to everything you’ve said here. I find myself wondering if Seimei is escalating his most gruesome behavior almost to see how far he can go. How far can he push his fighter? Are there limits to his control? Or maybe even, is there anything he can do that’s awful enough to make him feel regret? What are his own limits?

I admit I kind of don’t even want to think about how far Soubi would go if commanded by Seimei. I love Soubi too much to handle it. Yet, I suspect Kouga will confront me with it sooner or later, anyway. Probably sooner. She’s never been afraid to push her readers into uncomfortable places, of course, which is one of the things I love best about her.

Speaking of which, this is a bit of a shift in topic here, but wow does she push at my boundaries with Ritsuka and Soubi’s relationship. We see this again in volume eleven, when Ritsuka is ordering Soubi to “take action” in a way that looks very much like physical action, because Soubi never believes his words. Obviously, we don’t actually see anything truly inappropriate take place, and she’s been really careful to draw a line there, but it’s absolutely uncomfortable. And part of why it’s uncomfortable is that she makes clear all along that it’s problematic, though we can’t help rooting for them as… something. Something close, but not that close.

(read right-to-left)

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MICHELLE: I honestly don’t know how I feel about that aspect of their relationship. I feel like it’s going to end up getting physical eventually, but probably not before Ritsuka grows up. (Soubi, perhaps, not wishing to do what was done to him?) And that it will be because of who they are and not what their roles are. Like, Soubi has suggested that he’d want to be “taken” in that scenario, which I don’t interpret simply as being the uke, but just in terms of “the ball is in your court, whenever you want me I am here.” But it’d be better if Soubi wanted it because Ritsuka is Ritsuka and not just his master.

Does any of this make sense? It’s a bit rambly.

MELINDA: It does make sense, and I guess I’m there with you. I mean, I can’t help wanting to see them together for the long term, I just don’t know what that really means, or if it’s in the cards. I mean, out of all the mess, Kouga does seem to like giving her characters happy romantic endings of some kind. And there’s no denying that Ritsuka and Soubi’s relationship feels… well, kinda romantic—for the reader, at least. I admit I’ve occasionally wondered if part of the purpose of the cat ears is to constantly reassure us that Ritsuka is still a child, at least in the Loveless universe’s sense of the word.

On a somewhat related note, I find it particularly ironic that Soubi doesn’t trust Ritsuka’s words in a story that is largely about the power of words. All the teams’ battles are fought with words, Seimei’s greatest weapon during his initial confrontation with Ritsuka is the power of his words (and the possibility that he’ll force Ritsuka to use words to somehow subjugate himself). And Ritsuka has this fantastic revelation in volume nine about words and how important they are. Yet Soubi doesn’t believe a single thing he says, at least not as far as his own worth to Ritsuka goes.

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MICHELLE: At first, I found the spell battles kind of silly, but they’re actually depicted rather well, with Kouga showing some subtle differences between fighters at different levels of skill. And even the sacrifices are able to impact the battle by imparting words of encouragement upon their fighters.

About Soubi, he probably just can’t believe that someone would tell the truth to him when they weren’t forced to do so, given all the abuse and manipulation he’s endured.

MELINDA: I agree, I’ve found the spell battles to ultimately be pretty spectacular, not just because they’re extremely well-drawn (they really, really are), but because they’ve offered us both numerous character notes for our leads (and supporting characters, of course) and what feels like a rather fresh take on the idea of the power of words, which is a pretty common theme in manga. I admit that I’ve always been fascinated with stories that include variations on kotodama, and this feels like a modern take on the concept.

loveless-bestMICHELLE: This is a somewhat out-of-the-blue topic shift, but before we conclude I want to make sure to talk at least a little about Yuiko and Kio, who are the closest friends of Ritsuka and Soubi, respectively. We’re privy to Yuiko and Ritsuka’s meeting in volume one, during which she’s persistent and he thinks she’s a ditz, but it’s not until volume nine, during which Kio is being held hostage by Seimei’s group, that we learn that he and Soubi actually became friends under very similar circumstances.

Both characters keep our leads grounded in the world and support them with positive attitudes, which is why hints that they may be involved on a deeper level are kind of.. troubling. There’s a rather random reveal in volume ten regarding Kio, for example, and I also can’t help wondering whether upbeat Yuiko could possibly be the real Loveless fighter. After all, Youji tells Ritsuka that it’s someone he’s probably already met, while Yuiko notes in volume six that, “When I’m with Ritsuka I feel my best… He makes me feel like I can do anything.”

I should clarify that I don’t mean “troubling” in the sense that these characters aren’t absolutely genuine, because I believe they are. But I would like to keep them out of harm’s way, especially Yuiko, who seems to be leading a relatively happy and normal life.

MELINDA: I’ll admit that, deep down, I’d prefer that Yuiko remain the grounded, non-supernatural friend she is to Ritsuka now, because I think she’s really good for him like that (and of course, she’s a lot safer out of the fray), but I’m not sure what the chances are, since we’ve had this rather stunning reveal regarding Kio’s secret life. I really like both characters, though, and I appreciate the fact that they are, in their individual ways, true, devoted friends, even if they can’t completely understand what Ritsuka or Soubi are really about. I’m also glad that both Ritsuka and Soubi have come to value their friends, despite their initial resistance.

I’m not completely sold on Kio’s odd backstory at this point—I rather liked his place in Soubi’s life as it was—but I’m willing to trust that Kouga will win me over to it.

Is it terrible that I harbor an unfounded hope that the name “Loveless” might appear on Soubi, instead of… well, anyone else? I know that, as a blank, that’s supposed to be impossible. But I can’t help wishing it could be true.

MICHELLE: I wish for it, too. And the fact that Ritsuka’s name has yet to appear on his body gives me at least some hope that something special is going to happen for this particular pair.

MELINDA: Of course, it will be a long time before any of our questions or hopes are answered, and after having the opportunity to essentially marathon this series on our first read, I suspect the wait for volume twelve will be difficult to bear. But I’m so very glad that Viz provided us the opportunity to give this series a real chance. It has won my heart completely.

MICHELLE: And mine!


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All images © Yun Kouga. Original Japanese edition published by ICHIJINSHA, INC., Tokyo. English translation rights arranged with ICHIJINSHA, INC., Tokyo. Published by VIZ Media, LLC.


To submit your contributions to the Yun Kouga MMF for inclusion in this month’s archive, please send your links by email to melinda@mangabookshelf.com or via Twitter to @mbeasi between now and Saturday, July 20th. If you would like your contribution(s) to be hosted at Manga Bookshelf, please email them to Melinda, along with any included images. Contributions to the Yun Kouga MMF will be archived here.

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: loveless, Manga Moveable Feast, MMF, Yun Kouga

Off the Shelf: Shoujo Fantasy Catch-Up

July 13, 2013 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith 2 Comments

MELINDA: Good morning, Michelle! It’s been a while since we got together to talk about manga, but we’re certainly going to make up for it this week!

MICHELLE: Indeed we are! I’m excited that the e-publication of older shoujo titles on VIZManga gives us the opportunity to have columns like this one, in which we’re basically gonna check back in with a couple of series we previously discussed and see how they’re faring.

MELINDA: I second your excitement, that’s certain!

Back in March, we took at look at the beginnings of two shoujo fantasy series from the 1990s, Chie Shinohara’s Red River, and Kyoko Hikawa’s From Far Away, both currently in digital re-release. Only two volume in, I think we’d both picked a favorite, but I’m interested to see whether things have changed at all on that front, now that we’ve delved in further.

Michelle, would you like to get us started?

MICHELLE: Sure!

thumb-7141-RED_10_webSo, as a reminder, Red River is about a modern-day Japanese schoolgirl named Yuri who is transported to the Hittite Empire by the scheming queen, who intends to use Yuri in a curse against the other princes so that the queen’s son may ascend to the throne. Very quickly she meets Prince Kail and becomes known as his concubine.

As the story develops, Yuri is eventually hailed as the incarnation of Ishtar, goddess of war. At first, Kail just makes this up in order to have an excuse to keep Yuri with him when he rides off to war, but there are a few suggestions in the story that this might actually be true. The queen cooks up a variety of schemes designed to get rid of Kail and/or Yuri, and so our heroes spend most of their time trying to foil her plots, but have a hard time proving she was ultimately responsible for them. Meanwhile, their romantic feelings for each other grow, but Kail holds back because he believes Yuri really wants to go home, and Yuri holds back because she believes that Kail is going to have to marry a suitable queen someday and that he can never really be hers.

MELINDA: I will be the first to admit that, though I liked Red River from the start, I was less than enthused about its general plotting and its romantic trajectory and certainly held it in somewhat lower regard that I did From Far Away. Now, ten volumes in, things have changed dramatically, at least as far as Red River is concerned.

It’s hard to believe now that I was once dismayed by what felt like too-easy plotting and wearied by Kail’s “rake” persona, as I’ve been swept up completely by both at this point. And I think that Yuri’s characterization deserves credit for both of these things, as it’s her strength and general awesomeness that makes the whole story work for me. She’s transformed from simply “plucky” to “thoughtful and inspiring,” and she’s transformed those who remain near her, including Kail.

MICHELLE: Yuri has definitely changed a lot and become a genuine asset to Kail. Things were still a little problematic in earlier volumes—in which she becomes a sword badass pretty much instantly, or conveniently overhears enemy plotting but then blows her cover by both a) stepping on a twig in the middle of the desert and b) sneezing—and I rolled my eyes a lot, but she does eventually do awesome things, like when she has the presence of mind to prevent anyone from removing an arrow with which she’s been shot because she knows its markings will be crucial evidence. Of course, a bevy of dudes express interest in her, but it’s mostly because she’s bewitched them by doing something impressive. (She still gets on my nerves occasionally, though!)

Another aspect of the story that’s developed a lot is the political scheming. I also really like Ilbani, who is Kail’s… chief-of-staff or something. He originally counseled Kail against marrying a mere concubine, but once he saw how great Yuri would be as queen, he changed his tune, and has actually been conspiring to keep her from returning home to Japan.

MELINDA: I think maybe the political scheming has had a lot to do with my change of heart on the plotting as well, because it keeps the story’s very black-and-white villainess (formerly the queen, now the dowager) from becoming too one-note to be interesting. Yes, she’s only got one real objective—increasing her power by making her son king—but there are a lot of obstacles in her way, and her path isn’t simple by any means. Also, her son is a truly lovely character who, though too young to be an effective king, is at least no Joffery Baratheon. That’s a nice touch.

I have to say, though, that Yuri has never gotten “on my nerves.” I genuinely adore her, and that feeling is only increasing as the story continues. But perhaps my perspective is a little different than yours, because I admit that when you said that she’s become a genuine asset to Kail, I was thinking, “No, it’s that Kail has become a genuine asset to her!” Heh. I especially appreciate the fact that she’s adjusted to her environment enough to understand, from a cultural standpoint, how the results of her actions in this world would differ from those in her old world, and tries hard to make adjustments with that in mind. And her decisions during the Hittites’ war against the Mitanni really show her true colors. Her heart and her bravery ring true even when she’s being handed some unbelievable abilities, and that’s ultimately what’s important to me.

MICHELLE: I suppose the reason why I phrased it that way is because Kail has some clearly defined goals as to what he’s trying to accomplish long-term, and Yuri doesn’t. That said, she does take on and successfully complete various short-term projects, and having his backing is indeed an asset there. And I do assume that she will eventually develop long-term goals of her own.

One random thing I wanted to mention is… isn’t Kail supposed to be some awesome sorcerer? He’s got the capability to send Yuri home again, but we never see him work any magic! You’d think he’d be able to devise something to actually catch the queen in the act!

MELINDA: You know, I admit I hadn’t really thought about it! In a way, though, I’m glad he hasn’t been performing any sorcery, because I feel like that would be just another checkmark on the list of “things that are too easy in Red River,” and watching him deal with things with only the power of politics and personal strategy is much more compelling. After all this time, I think I’d just sort of assumed that he can help Yuri get back because of the magical power in the particular time and place rather than because of his awesome personal power. And maybe I’m not so far off, really. Even the queen is limited to what she can do with what’s at hand. She can create a potion with mind-controlling properties, but it’s not like she can wave her arms and make someone into her slave or turn them into a goat or something.

I think the limited magic makes the story work a whole lot better, even if it means sloppiness in other plotting areas.

MICHELLE: Perhaps we’re back to the one point where we often seem to differ: tolerance of sloppy plotting when there is character goodness at hand. I have some degree of it, but you’ve got more. :)

MELINDA: You speak the truth. As always.

MICHELLE: Heh. So, want to catch us up a bit on From Far Away?

MELINDA: Okay!

ffa8Like Red River, From Far Away sends a Japanese high school student on an epic journey, but one through space/dimension rather than time.

Noriko’s increasingly strange dreams become reality, as a seemingly random act of terror plunges her into another world in which she is identified as “The Awakening,” a supernatural being prophesied to bring forth the Sky Demon—a legendary evil that grants ultimate power to any nation that controls it. True to prophesy, Noriko’s first encounter is with a warrior named Izark, who is soon revealed to be the yet unawakened Sky Demon.

Aware of his destructive potential, Izark’s original intention is to destroy The Awakening before it can transform him into the monster he’s sure to become, but as he gets to know Norkio, he finds himself unable to do so, and decides instead to distance himself from her, in hopes that this will be enough to keep tragedy at bay. But prophecy being what it is, even this is too much to hope for, and he finds himself drawn back to Noriko despite himself.

Further in (we’ve both now read through volume 8), the two, now deeply in love, have finally become resigned to their mutual plight, and have decided to travel together, hoping against hope that they can somehow alter their fate.

MICHELLE: I have to say that From Far Away started off as my favorite of the pair and remains that way. I have a very strong compulsion to compare the series, but probably I should give FFA some praise on its own merits first.

I love the real adventure feeling of From Far Away. By this I don’t mean the various monsters the characters encounter, or the strange beasts, or the political scheming (yes, there’s a bit of that here, as well), or Izark’s supernatural powers. More, I mean the assembly of a hodge-podge group of friends who are traveling together in pursuit of a big, epic goal. In volume three, Izark leaves Noriko in the care of Gaya, someone he befriended two years ago and trusts. It’s revealed later in a bonus story that she was the one who taught Izark to use a sword, and I absolutely LOVE that a plump, unattractive, middle-aged woman gets to be such an unabashed heroic badass. Later, Noriko meets Agol and Geena, a former mercenary and his seven-year-old daughter, whilst Izark initially fights against and later recruits Barago, a hard-faced warrior who soon grows ashamed of his service to a corrupt lord and decides to make amends by aiding Izark.

There are some other supporting characters, too, but these are the ones who particularly stand out for me. In fact, I totally ship Gaya and Barago—Baragaya!—and was kinda dismayed to see on an age chart that he is supposed to be 25 (he looks 45!) and she’s 53. Still, I’m sure that those crazy kids can make it work!

Anyway, by this point in the story, Noriko and Izark have been outed and have distanced themselves from their friends in order to not bring harm upon them. But it’s not like their friends are now lost and aimless—they’re going to be working to find a lot of honorable leaders that have been ousted by corrupt ones in hopes of eventual overthrow.

I’ve got more to say about Noriko and Izark’s relationship, too, but perhaps I should pause here, as this was possibly sufficient gushing.

MELINDA: From Far Away is still my favorite as well, and I think what I particularly love about it (besides the things you already mentioned) is that we aren’t left long in that Twilight-esque “I love you but I can’t be with you” place. Though both Izark and Noriko must individually confront the ramifications of their relationship and they struggle with that in their own ways, they ultimately decide that they are better off together than apart, even if it creates a greater danger in their lives and in the world as a whole. Yes, Izark goes through a phase where he’s deliberately standoffish with Noriko (somehow this is always the way), but he gets over it faster than I’ve become accustomed to in the treacherous waters of YA fiction.

MICHELLE: Another thing that I really love is our degree of access to Izark’s thoughts. He may have great physical prowess, but we get to see that he’s awkward and anxious, and regards himself as not being strong at all in terms of controlling his emotions. I’m sure I can’t be the only one reminded of Kyo and Tohru here, also. The first time Noriko sees the transformed Izark, she’s not concerned with how he looks, but only sorry that she saw something he didn’t want her to see and worried that he’s going to go away again. It eventually becomes clear that harm befalling her has the capacity to awaken the Sky Demon, but, more than that, she’s the person who can heal his emotional wounds and bring him back to himself.

MELINDA: I had, indeed, thought of Kyo and Tohru, and thankfully that’s not a bad thing at all! This moment is expertly written, as well. Though Noriko’s reaction could so easily have played out as an unbelievable mix of selflessness and obliviousness, it truly reads like love, plain and simple. And it makes her role as The Awakening feel all the more important and grounded in emotional truth.

MICHELLE: Definitely. And there’s been such lovely buildup to that moment from Izark’s side—”Am I afraid of the day when The Awakening turns me into a real monster? Or do I fear the day when Noriko will see me as a monster and leave me?”—that the significance of what her acceptance means to him is just about palpable. It is no lie that I have geekbumps right now as I type this.

I love how he begins to change once he accepts her love, and I love their sense of partnership in this. This does bring up a comparison with Red River, where the threats are generally coming from one source (the queen) and which the audience doesn’t really believe will succeed in killing either of the two leads. In From Far Away, danger is everywhere, and it seems a lot more conceivable (though still probably unlikely) that one of the leads could be forced to do something awful because of who they are.

MELINDA: I am in agreement on all points! I really can’t wait to continue with this series (and Red River, too). And I’m sure we’ll take a look at more of these digital re-releases in later columns as well!

MICHELLE: I am on a personal mission to get you to read Kaze Hikaru, so yes, I’d say we will!

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: from far away, red river

Off the Shelf: Kisses & Crosses

June 8, 2013 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith 3 Comments

MICHELLE: Hey, Melinda! What did the water say to the boat?

MELINDA: Um. I got nothin’.

MICHELLE: Nothing. It just waved.

MELINDA: Okay, that actually made me giggle a little bit.

MICHELLE: Victory! While I wallow in this feeling, care to introduce our first selection? (I note this is another week in which Melinda and I have two mutual reads instead of just one.)

kissessighs_vol1_fullMELINDA: Sure! Hmmmm… now the question is, which one? I guess I’ll start with the book I read last, since it’s freshest in my mind, and that would be Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry Blossom Pink, a double-sized volume of yuri short stories from Milk Morinaga, creator of Girl Friends, a five-volume series that we discussed in this column last year. Though Girl Friends was released here first, Kisses predates it, and it’s easy to see how one grew out of the other.

The volume’s opening chapter, “Not Friends Anymore,” begins the story of Nana and Hitomi, long-time best friends who are about to start high school together—or so Nana thinks. When Hitomi abruptly announces that she’s decided to attend a different school, Nana struggles with feelings of hurt and loss, until she finally realizes that it was her own rejection of Hitomi’s stronger feelings that drove her away. Eventually, Nana comes to terms with her own feelings and the two begin to explore a romantic relationship. Initially they are relieved to have ended up at different high schools, since they’d have a harder time concealing their romance as classmates, but over time they become dissatisfied with living in secrecy and find themselves longing for friends with whom they can share the truth about their relationship.

Though the book is a series of short stories, Morinaga uses Nana and Hitomi’s story to thread the collection together; each story is set at one of the two girls’ schools, utlimately bringing things back to their romance by the end. The stories are lovingly woven together, creating a feeling of real cohesion unusual in the short manga I’ve read. Since short stories aren’t my favorite format for manga, I found this quite gratifying.

MICHELLE: It was that sense of cohesion that kind of threw me, actually, since Sean’s comments about it for the last Pick of the Week column had led me to expect more couples, and more sad stories.

It’s not that I disliked Nana and Hitomi, though I did find them a little dull. More, I liked the stories with ambiguous or less cheery endings, like “Remember This Love Someday,” in which a girl confesses to her boyish friend, only to be kindly rejected by her, or “My True Feelings,” which ends with one girl declaring that she’ll make another like her. It doesn’t really seem likely, in my eyes, so I like it for that, even if it’s played a bit comedically.

MELINDA: I wouldn’t say that I found Nana and Hitomi dull, but the volume as a whole did really make me aware of just how much I crave more grown-up (or at least more complicated) romance. Like Girl Friends, Kisses is nothing if not sweet, but there’s a sameness to even the less overtly happy stories that makes me long for something more. Kisses‘ various romantic protagonists are all nice, pretty girls, carrying on relatively uncomplicated relationships in relatively comfortable environments. Even Hitomi and Nana’s brief stint as runaways is stunningly uncomplicated, as the two shack up in a hot springs resort before heading home to discover that all their problems have magically been resolved. The whole thing is, as I mentioned, unambiguously sweet, and though that’s often enough for me, I couldn’t help wishing for something just a bit meatier.

MICHELLE: “Sweet” is generally enough for me, too, but I think “sameness” aptly describes the aspect that left me feeling a bit blah. Nobody really stands out. None of the background characters is particularly significant. There’s nothing in these girls lives except other girls. It’s like they’re just drifting along, occasionally fancying each other, and not engaging with anything else.

MELINDA: Well said, Michelle. It’s a lovely little collection, don’t get me wrong, just… not much more than that.

So, shall we move on to our second selection?

MICHELLE: Okay!

CrossManage1Cross Manage is a relatively new Weekly Shonen Jump series in Japan, beginning in 2012, but we’ve already got a taste of it here, courtesy of VIZ’s digital manga site. (I have no idea whether there are plans for a print edition of the title.) Given that I generally adore sports manga, I really wanted to like this, and though I was kind of disappointed by its first half, it won me over in the end.

Tsunenori Sakurai used to be the star of the soccer team, but after a knee injury resulted in doctors telling him he’d never play again, Sakurai quit the team and has been adrift ever since, trying multiple clubs in the hopes of finding something that interests him. One day, he comes upon Misora Toyoguchi, who is enthusiastically practicing lacrosse by herself. Eventually, his innate sports sensibilities (or something) enable him to see where she is going wrong, and he is able to coach her through a breakthrough in her technique. When he accidentally touches her chest, Misora decides to exploit the situation and get him to manage the girls’ lacrosse team, of which she is captain, despite her lack of skills. At first, Sakurai resists, but can’t help responding to Misora’s passion for the sport, and ends up unashamedly giving it his all.

I just couldn’t get into Cross Manage at first, and kept seeing it ticking off items on, like, the Hikaru no Go checklist or something. Pro jock who has lost his own chance to play who is now mentoring someone else? Check? Underdog school club that has to undergo last-minute recruitment for a game? Check! First game against the most renowned school, with its super-refined, untouchable ace? Check! Gradually, though, I found myself won over. I like that Sakurai can tell Misora frankly how amazing he thinks she is, and of course the whole “I’ve finally found it” (regarding a place to belong) revelation pushes my buttons in a big way. And though Misora herself is somewhat of a cipher at this point, I like some of her teammates quite a lot, especially chubby, shy Noto, who is actually the most skilled player on the team.

MELINDA: In general, you’re a much bigger fan of sports manga than I, so I’m surprised to report that I had no problem whatsoever getting into Cross Manage from the beginning. Now, I’ve actually been following the series for a while, by way of Derek Bown’s Weekly Shonen Jump Recaps, so it may be that his increasingly positive impressions predisposed me to cut it some slack early on, but I liked both Sakurai and Misora right away and felt invested in their stories from the start. Also, I enjoyed the story’s examination of the difference between Misora’s initial raw enthusiasm for lacrosse and her growing seriousness, and how this progression affects her ability to play without caring about playing well.

Since you’ve brought up Noto, though (who is, indeed, awesome), I’ll take this opportunity to mention my one real issue with the series so far. I’ve complained before about overweight manga characters being portrayed as lacking normal facial features, and while this applies to Noto to a small extent (though even Misora’s facial features are pretty basic, Noto’s are disproportionally tiny in comparison to her over-round face), there is another heavy member of the girls’ lacrosse team whose physical features… well… I can only ask “WTF?”

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I mean… Yeah. I don’t know what to else say.

MICHELLE: I don’t either. I kept being reminded of Kurita and Komusubi from Eyeshield 21, who are also large and fat and small and fat, respectively. Both have very simple facial features compared to the other characters, but they’re male instead of female. (They’re my favorite characters in that series, actually.)

I guess we could look on the bright side and note that (in both cases) they’re portrayed positively, and their characterization is not based on weight at all.

MELINDA: I guess so? It really bothered me, though, I’ll admit. Not enough to keep me from continuing with the series, but enough to cause persistent discomfort, which is disappointing considering how much I enjoyed the volume otherwise.

MICHELLE: Possibly One Piece has inoculated me against being too distracted by strange body types, since that series is full of them. Granted, it feels much more out of place for just one character to look so weird. In One Piece, there’s a bevy of folks looking weird.

MELINDA: Yeah, I know that odd-looking manga characters are nothing unusual, but my discomfort in this instance is specifically related to the portrayal of fat people as having less complete or less “real” facial characteristics than other people, which implies that they are less complete or less real themselves. It’s a thing.

That said, Cross Manage has a lot going for it, and I’m likely to stick with it.

MICHELLE: Yeah, me too!

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: Cross Manage, kisses sighs and cherry blossom pink, milk morinaga, yuri

Off the Shelf: Sunny, Lone Wolf & Cub

June 2, 2013 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith 5 Comments

MELINDA: Good morning, Michelle! It’s been a while since we met here, just the two of us. I miss it!

MICHELLE: Me, too! I really enjoy talking about manga with you.

MELINDA: So, with a whole slew of debut volumes to catch up on, we’ve decided to spend the next few columns on mutual reads only, so we can give these books the attention they deserve. Michelle, would you like to introduce our first selection for this week?

sunny1MICHELLE: Sure!

Sunny is the latest series by Taiyo Matsumoto (Tekkonkinkreet, GoGo Monster) to be released in North America. Serialized in Shogakukan’s IKKI magazine, Sunny is a slice-of-life story about kids living together in a group facility. Their circumstances vary—some might be orphans, but it seems that most have parents who are unable to care for them for some reason—but one thing they have in common is the use of an old, broken-down Nissan Sunny as a kind of playhouse.

Junsuke is a snotty-nosed kid with a penchant for shiny things. Haruo is a white-haired boy whose play-time daydreams always involve being a cool, grown-up version of himself. Sei is the new kid, taciturn and utterly opposed to thinking of the facility as his new home. Episodic chapters ensue, and somehow Matsumoto uses quick, short scenes in such a way that the pace feels frenetic and leisurely at the same time. Hyper, but with that “we’ve got a few hours ’til dinnertime” quality, if that makes sense.

MELINDA: Oh, what a wonderful way to describe the general feel of this book! The book’s structure and pacing seem so in tune with a child’s sense of time—that feeling of impatience on top of the endless landscape of imagination. These kids have more reasons than most to escape into their fantasy worlds, but they spend just as much time being shuffled along the familiar routines of childhood. Meals, school, sleep, play—their daily lives are similar to most young kids, but with an edge of anxiety most of us were privileged to do without. And it’s these points of anxiety that make Sunny feel moving and real, and not a nostalgia piece in the slightest.

Some anxious moments that stood out for me were things like teenaged Megumu’s instinct to head for the nearby bridge when one of the home’s children goes missing, because being left to die in the river is actually her own worst fear, and young Junsuke’s desperate bouts of kleptomania. I was also very moved by Haruo’s fitful attchement to visiting adult Makio, the one person to whom he’s willing to confess that he dreads seeing his own mother because seeing her only makes not seeing her that much harder.

Also, while the Sunny itself is certainly central to the story, somehow it’s the kids’ time spent out of the Sunny that shows us who they are even more than their stolen moments alone with their imaginations. That’s not what I would have expected, but Matusmoto is so deft at revealing his characters through their actions, everything they do feels significant.

MICHELLE: There were so many things here that I loved. I love that Matsumoto depicts what it is that the kids are imagining, particularly Sei’s fantasy ride back to the place he considers his true home. I love the ridiculous song Junsuke makes up. I love the way Matsumoto’s art—not pretty but still oh-so-charming—delivers some poignant moments, like a subtle establishing shot showing the home as a place of warmth to go to when it gets dark (both literally and figuratively). I love that he never actually says “and this little kid is Junsuke’s brother,” but simply shows it through their physical similarity and interaction. And I love the whole bit at the end where said little kid, Shosuke, is intent on informing everyone he meets that he found some four-leaf clovers when, in fact, this is actually a lie.

You know a manga is exceptional when even the presence of a dead kitty isn’t something that upsets me (because the kitty is treated with the utmost respect).

MELINDA: The scene with Megumu, Haruo, and the kitty reminded me immediately of one of my favorite scenes from one of the later volumes of xxxHolic, in which Doumeki confides to Kohane that he’d decided to help Watanuki after having witnessed him standing alone in the rain, cradling a dead animal and wondering if he’d be left the same way one day. Yet as moving as the xxxHolic scene is, and as strongly as it affected me at the time, with Matsumoto’s straightforward storytelling in place of CLAMP’s self-conscious drama, I found that the scene in Sunny moved me more.

MICHELLE: I must admit that though I own other works by Matsumoto, I haven’t read them yet. I’m thinking that will have to change, and pronto. Because when I finished this volume, what I felt most was “I want more.”

MELINDA: I own no other works by Matsumoto, but I will soon. I felt the same way.

MICHELLE: Luckily, Sunny isn’t a oneshot—it’s up to three volumes in Japan so far—so eventually there will be more.

Speaking of renowned creators whose work we’d not read before, want to introduce our next selection?

MELINDA: Sure!

lwc1Moving swiftly from contemporary to classic, our second read this week was the first omnibus volume of Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima’s Lone Wolf and Cub, just released by Dark Horse Comics. Though this series first ran in Futabasha’s Weekly Manga Action in the early 1970s, and Dark Horse has been publishing its English-language editions since 2000, these new omnibus editions offer new readers a chance to experience Lone Wolf and Cub, and in a larger, easier-to-read format than Dark Horse’s original small-trim editions. This is a series I’d spotted many times in book stores and comic shops over the years, but never picked up, at least in part because of the small size. Now I feel rather silly about it, of course, because I’ve clearly been depriving myself!

The book opens by introducing us to Ogami Itto, a master samurai now traveling as a ronin along with his toddler son, Daigoro, known collectively to most as “Lone Wolf and Cub.” The story’s structure is largely episodic, but though early chapters focus on tales of Itto’s fearlessness and skill (as well as his terrifying reputation across Edo-era Japan), we later discover that he took the “assassin’s road” as a last-ditch attempt to clear his family’s name after being wrongly ousted as the shogun’s executioner. In fact, one of the most oddly chilling scenes in this omnibus is one in which he leaves it to his infant son to decide whether he’ll join his mother in the afterlife or accompany his father on his blood-soaked journey, based on whether the son chooses to crawl towards a bouncy-ball or a knife.

The series is action-packed and very compelling, filled with creative swordplay and expressive artwork that carefully depicts both the beauty and brutality of the era, but its greatest draw for me as a reader is Itto himself, whose sense of honor in combination with his unforgiving career path presents us with a protagonist as complicated and problematic as the era itself.

In a modern series, I think a character like Itto would be written as a sort of “assassin with a heart of gold.” He’d be someone we could root for wholeheartedly even when he killed—a sort of Edo-era Mal Reynolds. But Koike and Kojima’s protagonist is no such thing. He’s reliable, trustworthy, and eminently honorable, but he always gets the job done, no matter who it is he’s been sent to kill; he could never be considered merciful, and only occasionally compassionate. He defends those he believes to be vulnerable or in the right, but only so long as it doesn’t interfere with his mission. And he’s utterly unapologetic at every turn, even when it comes to the plight of his son. I find him fascinating.

MICHELLE: That would’ve been a great introduction even without the Firefly reference!

I’ve never read Golgo 13, but I do have to wonder whether Itto might be a comparable hero to that famously inscrutable lead, in that he is consistently shown to be a major badass. This is a guy who’ll commit a robbery to get himself sent to prison to be nearer to his target, and once he discovers that said target is on death row, he kills a bunch of his fellow prisoners in order to pursue his goal. He’s not just deadly with a sword, he is a brilliant strategist, and not above using Daigoro in his plans. (And he’s also able to satisfy the ladies even when his life is in jeopardy.)

At first, I was intimidated by the sheer size of the omnibus (over 700 pages!), but found that Kojima-sensei’s artistic style boded well for quick reading. The panel layout is simple, but Kojima does especially well with establishing a sense of time and place, and I quite loved the establishing shots we get for each new location Itto finds himself. My only complaint about the art is that a lot of the clients and other characters look like. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to remember seeing anyone in particular before, but usually there are clues in the text that help to dispel confusion.

Daigoro is the most endearing aspect of the story, as one might expect, but his presence for all these gory scenes is kind of disturbing. There’s one panel in particular in which he and his father are watching an opponent slowly topple, and once the guy finally goes down, Diagoro smiles. It made me wonder how warped he is gonna be! Of course, with all this bushido business, probably he’ll just be some hardened warrior who greets the concept of death casually.

MELINDA: Heh, yes, there’s a chapter late in the volume that gives us the beginnings of a look at the man Diagoro might one day be, in which he fearlessly attacks much older characters with a look that one describes as, “eyes that see between life and death… the eyes of a swordsman able to place his heart in the nothingness of mu.” Later, Itto asks his son if he’s going to be able to reap what he’s sown, as Daigoro has thrown an entire household into deadly turmoil. Somehow, I imagine he’ll grow to be an even scarier adult than his father, assuming he lives that long.

I, too, was intimidated by the length of this omnibus when I started, but I was stunned to find myself suddenly at the end, it read so easily. And it’s definitely worth the time! Most of my favorite stories were at the end of the volume.

MICHELLE: Yeah, that part about Daigoro’s eyes was rather creepy. I can’t help but feel bad that he’s been shaped by witnessing all this slaughter, yet cannot deny the appeal of watching his dad dispatch his enemies with such skillful ease. I guess probably the mangaka wanted us to feel this way.

MELINDA: Yes, I’m sure that’s the case. One of the things that I think makes this manga so interesting, is that its sense of morality is so clearly of another time and place. Often, modern storytellers will insert their own sensibilities into a period piece, either viewing it with rosy nostalgia or, perhaps, horror. But Koike and Kojima leave it entirely up to us to figure out how we feel about an era in which the value of a person’s life was viewed so differently than it would be today—and the value of death, for that matter. It can be hard to swallow at times, but it’s never sugar-coated.

I’m really grateful for the opportunity to delve into this series at last! It’s certainly worthy of its classic status.

MICHELLE: Well said! And I, too, am glad we decided to check this one out. As much as I love Takehiko Inoue, I actually enjoyed this more than Inoue’s Vagabond, and will probably keep reading it!

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: lone wolf and cub, sunny

Off the Shelf: Basara, MMF Edition

May 25, 2013 by Anna N, Melinda Beasi, Michelle Smith and Karen Peck 17 Comments


MELINDA: It’s time once again for the Manga Moveable Feast, this month featuring the works of Yumi Tamura and hosted at Tokyo Jupiter. Though three of her manga have been published in English by Viz Media, Tamura-sensei is best known to English-speaking fans for her 27-volume fantasy series Basara, published by Viz in its entirety between 2003 and 2008. The story—about a fifteen-year-old girl in post-apocalyptic Japan who assumes the identity of her murdered twin brother in order to free her people from the tyrannical grip of a corrupt monarchy— offers up a familiar mix of sword-fighting, military strategy, political intrigue, drama, humor, and romance along with themes less common in high fantasy, like feminism and (I’d argue) social anarchism.

Since Michelle has been a vocal fan of Basara for a long, long time, it seemed only natural that we’d dedicate this week’s Off the Shelf to a discussion of the series. We’ve also invited Anna to join in on the festivities, along with Karen Peck, Michelle’s collaborator on The CMX Project. Welcome, Anna and Karen!

Though Basara was one of the very first series recommended to me when I first began reading manga in 2007, I missed the opportunity to buy most of Viz’s editions when they were actually in print, and it took me years to acquire some of the rarer middle volumes. As a result, though I eventually did find them all, I’d only read through the first ten volumes before planning this roundtable. I suspect I’m the only one coming to the discussion as a (mostly) new reader of the series. Can you each tell me a bit about how you were first introduced to Basara?

ANNA: I think I actually stumbled across Basara fairly close to when it was first coming out. I think I picked up the first half-dozen volumes and then started buying each volume as it was released. One thing I remember was that the manga looked a bit different from the other Viz releases at the time, which definitely piqued my interest.

MICHELLE: Honestly, I’m not sure how I first encountered Basara. In my early days of manga enthusiasm, one of my goals was Buy All the Shoujo, so it’s possible I just snagged it because of its imprint. I also, however, have a distinct memory of reading about the Basara anime, thinking it sounded awesome, and acquiring some fansubs of that. I just can’t remember which came first. What I do have documented is that I read the first volume of the Basara manga in September 2004 and the last in 2008. Although merciless upon my wallet, the Buy All the Shoujo approach did save me some anguish, as I bought each volume as it came out and didn’t have to track anything down.

KAREN: I am a latecomer to Basara, having just finished reading it this weekend. I don’t know why I skipped out on it when it first came out, as I was in a similar BUY ALL THE SHOUJO mode as Michelle was. Years later, I kept hearing how awesome it was—but the idea of collecting it was daunting, as some of the volumes were out of print and fetching crazy prices online.

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What really prodded me was reading 7SEEDS, Tamura’s current work, in French, which was one of the best things I’ve ever read. So I decided to go ahead and start buying up all the Basara I could, and import the French-language editions as placeholders, with the hope that prices would one day came down to something reasonable. I was lucky that a generous friend found volumes 19 through 21 for me at a used bookstore and passed them along – thanks Michelle!

MELINDA: So I’m not the only newcomer! That makes me happy, I admit—mainly because I found the series so exciting that I was worried my n00b squee would be so loud and obnoxious as to drown out all reasonable discussion. I mean, this thing pings pretty much everything I’ve ever loved in manga, beginning with its truly awesome heroine all the way to the simple fact of its length. Which is not to say that I love all long-running series, but I absolutely love a long-running series that is so obviously well-planned as this one was. There isn’t a single extraneous scene in Basara—absolutely everything that happens is essential to its plot line and the growth of its characters. That’s my take on it, at least. Is it just me?

scan0003MICHELLE: It isn’t just you. (But first let me express my gladness that you love this series. Maybe this is what you felt like when I was the newcomer to your beloved Fullmetal Alchemist!) Basara is incredibly well planned—though upon this reread I picked up on one subtle, possible mid-story change that I missed the first time, more on this later—and Tamura-sensei juggles the various elements with consummate skill. That’s not to say that there isn’t time for levity, for there surely is, but she’s able to combine some lighter moments with action in a way I really like. Too, there are scenes between supporting characters that are absolutely fascinating. I definitely have more to say about this later, too, but I don’t want to rush ahead before we’ve actually talked about our main characters!

KAREN: I just want to throw in my appreciation of a well-plotted series – she’s juggling a lot of balls, but she keeps the focus primarily on Sarasa and Shuri. There’s room for secondary and tertiary character development, but it never sidetracks the story. Wisely, she leaves longer stories of those characters to the extra chapters – and avoids any of those other characters from taking over in the main story. What is important is how they serve the story and relate to either Sarasa and/or Shuri – they still have their importance but they have their place, too.

I’m glad someone else will be a oh-so-excited newbie over this with me! There’s something about reading these epic series in a compressed amount of time, the drama of the story is more intense because there is no wait – having to go to sleep/work made me downright resentful, I wanted to be back in that world and see what happened.

MELINDA: Yes, yes, exactly, Karen! I’m a big fan of total immersion when it comes to fiction (or anything, really) and my experience with Basara was a perfect illustration of why. I read it all through in just a few days, and during that time, I really lived there. It was an awesome place to live, that’s for sure.

And that is exactly how I felt when you were the newcomer, Michelle, so I figured it would be a point of personal gratification for you! And speaking of our main characters, why don’t we jump right in? I have a lot of highfalutin thoughts regarding the series’ feminism and so on, but to get to that, we have to begin with Sarasa. Michelle, would you like to start us off?

MICHELLE: Sure!

When Sarasa and her twin brother Tatara were born, Nagi, the prophet of Byakko village, proclaimed, “This is the child of destiny.” ** The assumption was made that the prophecy would obviously pertain to the male child, and so Tatara was celebrated and fêted while Sarasa saw herself as unwanted scraps. After the Red Army attacks her village and Tatara is beheaded by General Kazan, the most loyal of the Red King’s soldiers, the people of the village are confusedly milling about. Knowing that something needs to be done to give them hope so that they might make it to safety, Sarasa transforms herself into Tatara.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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She continues to live in that guise most of the time, intent on personal vengeance at first but gradually developing a desire to transform the entire country. She’s only able to be Sarasa in stolen moments with Shuri, a handsome but arrogant fellow whom she believes is a dumpling merchant but who is actually the Red King. (Hello, textbook example of dramatic irony!) Eventually, however, she does come clean about her gender to her followers, who all do not care. “You’re the leader we believe in,” they tell her.

And why believe in her? Because she’s not just idealistic about how the world should be, she acts. It’s this that earns her Shuri’s respect, too. She doesn’t just speak up about injustice, she does something about it. And not something histrionic, but typically something downright clever (though her plans are not immune to failure). One of her followers, Hijiri, puts it this way: “I think I’m starting to understand, Tatara. People don’t come worshipping you as the savior. They don’t come together under you looking for guidance… They can’t bear just to stand back and watch as you run ahead on unsteady feet, bawling your eyes out.”

** Originally, Tamura-sensei depicted Nagi as unaware of which of the children was actually the subject of the prophecy. “Now… I see what I could not,” he says. “Tatara was the sacrifice. Sarasa. You are the one…” Later, though, there’s a very small bit in volume eight where Chigusa, Sarasa’s mother, suggests that Sarasa was specifically the subject and that her parents treated her the way they did for her protection. Which basically means Tatara’s parents were setting him up to be a decoy from the start. I never caught that change the first time around.

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KAREN: What I enjoyed about Sarasa is her growth – and she does make mistakes, as Michelle points out. She’s not some Child of Destiny savant, she has a lot to learn and the reader gets to see this happening. And she has to learn it while secretly coming of age as a young woman – no wonder she opens her heart to the one person who only knows Sarasa.

And as she grows, so does the revolution. Avenge her family. Rescue the sword. Each step leads to another, more challenges, more allies. Which all leads to… making a new Japan. And it turns out, as Michelle noted, the revolution was able to go on, even if it was lead by a woman – maybe it could only happen because it was led by a woman.

ANNA: I think the “Child of Destiny” aspect of Sarasa’s life is handled in a very realistic and nuanced manner. Too often, a protagonist with this type of fate ends up serving as a bit of a narrative crutch for the author. In Sarasa’s case while she is clearly destined for great things, she ends up struggling so much and sometimes being aided by random chance so that her destiny feels like it is earned through time, rather than something that was just handed to her.

Shuri, the other star-crossed lover in this equation, ends up being a great foil for Sarasa simply because he is so very different from her. He starts off as extremely arrogant and entitled, but he still cares for his people. His brutality in battle contrasts with his gentleness with Sarasa, as he doesn’t realize that she’s the leader of the rebellion.

MELINDA: I agree with what all of you have said, and I think what I also really appreciate about the way Sarasa is written is that regardless of whether she’s using her brother’s name or her own, she’s all Sarasa all the time. Though she clearly recognizes that as “Tatara” she has enormous responsibility on her shoulders, it’s not like the Tatara persona gives her anything she doesn’t already possess. When she eventually longs for the opportunity to just be “Sarasa,” it’s not that she isn’t able to be herself or isn’t able to be a woman when she’s calling herself Tatara. It’s that she, like any leader, occasionally longs for the chance to be selfish. She longs to be able to make decisions for her own sake only—just now and then—without having to be responsible for the lives and happiness of everyone else in Japan at the same time. She’s the girl “Sarasa” all the time, but sometimes she wishes to be only that.

Her feelings ring very true to me, and stand in stark contrast to something like Princess Knight, in which the heroine is reduced to a delicate flower anytime her “boy’s heart” is taken away from her. Sarasa couldn’t be anyone else if she tried.

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MICHELLE: Very well put! This puts me in mind of a scene from the Okinawa arc in which Sarasa is dressed like Tatara, carrying his sword, and doing something heroic—trying to keep a presidential candidate from attacking a ship carrying his own brother—but all Shuri sees when he looks her way is Sarasa.

Speaking of Sarasa and her growth, one thing I really liked was that her flaws don’t go away automatically. She has a tendency to keep things from her followers, not because she doesn’t trust them but because she doesn’t want to burden them. This happens several times until Asagi (I assume we’ll have a great deal to say about him!) exploits the situation and creates the first serious discord the group experiences. Later, though, Sarasa becomes more assured when issuing commands and is able to put her comrades to use because she finally understands that contributing is important to them.

MELINDA: I know that Sarasa’s stubborn autonomy is one of her flaws, but I admit that it’s one I find particularly endearing—not so much when it comes to her comrades, who really need her to be willing to share her burdens, but in general as just part of her personality. People’s best and worst traits are usually flip-sides of the same thing, and Sarasa’s instinct to take care of difficult things on her own is, I think, the flip-side of her ability to take care of others when it most counts.

There’s a scene in volume five, when Sarasa and Shuri have been forced into participating in a sick “race” (actually a hunt, where humans—mostly slaves—are the hunted) for the entertainment of the Blue King, in which Shuri offers Sarasa his comfort and protection. “It’s all right. I’m here,” he says, and for a moment Sarasa thinks about how nice it must be to feel protected. “But…” she thinks, “I’m Tatara. If I were alone, I’d have to do something on my own.” At which point, she takes charge of the situation and organizes the group in building what they need to make it to the next part of the race. And y’know, she says, “I’m Tatara,” but that’s the way she is all the time. She puts herself on the front line in any situation, and that includes those that (she thinks) only affect her.

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ANNA: One of the things I like about the series is how leadership is explored throughout the story. As Sarasa travels she encounters a variety of leaders in different locations as she seeks to find allies to aid her rebellion. I’m thinking of the brash style of the Pirate Queen Chacha in particular, as she provides an example of what it is like for a female to lead without disguising her gender.

MELINDA: Oh, I absolutely love Chacha—so much so that I wouldn’t mind at all skipping over Shuri right now and coming back to him later.

MICHELLE: That would be okay with me!

MELINDA: Chacha is one of those characters who grabbed me in about two seconds. I loved that fact that she was respected and revered by her crew and that there was no fuss made whatsoever about the fact that she was a woman. It was just a matter of fact.

MICHELLE: We glimpse some of her and Zaki’s shared backstory in volume seven, and even from childhood she’s challenging the notion that she won’t be able to take over leadership of the pirate crew because of her gender. She simply proceeded to get stronger than everyone, defeat them publicly, and then she was accepted. And she is definitely womanly, and passionate about her pleasures, etc.

KAREN: Chacha is indeed awesome – but there’s a number of the women of Basara I could say that about. Tamura is one of those writers who shows that women have ways to develop and display their power, in a variety of ways. Kikune, one of the Four Nobles, is the only girl in that group and feels like she has to work harder to measure up – even when she has skills beyond the others and her gender helps her with one of her assignments (such as being a lady-in-waiting to the Purple Queen). Despite her ties to the White King, she seems to be able to be helpful wherever needed – and provides Sarasa a friend her own age.

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Then there’s women such as Princess Senju, Shido’s (briefly) wife and later widow, who represents the letting go of the cycle of vengeance that could undermine everything that Tatara is fighting for. Another woman who breaks that cycle is Sarasa’s mother, who devotes herself to tending the wounded of either side of the battlefield, which seems to lead to a larger “Nightingale” movement, which is significant to the healing of a united Japan as well.

MICHELLE: Definitely an impressive list! I’m also fond of Yuna, Dr. Basho’s apprentice, who becomes Shuri’s friend yet doesn’t take any of his crap and talks plainly to him, which is what he needs.

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MELINDA: Since we’re talking about female characters, I can’t help but bring up Tara, a character who appears in one of the many side stories that populate the series’ last couple of volumes. She’s someone we eventually find out is sort of an ancestor to Sarasa, philosophically speaking—and in more ways than one! She’s living a nomadic warrior lifestyle with three men, one of whom she’s very close to (and probably in love with, but that’s a whole other thing). At one point, she’s confronted by the girlfriend of that guy who tries to appeal to her as a woman, “Please… give him back. You’re a woman, too. You must understand. A woman is happiest with the one she loves, having his children, having a family. I hope you can find that life, too.” Tara answers, absolutely befuddled, “I don’t understand. Even an animal can do that. I want to do something only I can do.”

Tamura spends a lot of time rejecting traditional ideas about what it means to be a woman, but I think even more than that, what it means to be a person. She treasures the individuality and autonomy of her characters more than anything else, but not in a self-obsessed Ayn Rand kind of way. Rather, she seems to place the greatest value on an individual’s capacity for unbridled compassion—an ability to do great things in the service of others.

ANNA: I agree, Sarasa starts out as a decent human being and manages to grow in both her capabilities and her compassion as she’s exposed to more people during her travels through post-apocalyptic Japan.

MELINDA: To bring this back to your discussion of leadership, Anna, one way in which Sarasa grows especially is in her ability as a leader, and it’s this that really caused me to identify Basara as a social anarchist narrative. Sarasa becomes more skilled as a warrior and as a military strategist as the story goes on, and she certainly learns the importance of trusting her comrades. But the place that trust eventually comes from—and what Tamura characterizes as her greatest strength as a leader—is in her ability to take her own ego entirely out of the equation. It’s stated several times throughout the story that the rebellion wouldn’t end if Tatara were to die, because each of Tatara’s followers is personally driven and capable of continuing the fight on his or her own. Sarasa’s a natural leader, and she’s used those skills along with the legend of “the child of destiny” to empower people to rise up against their oppressors, but the secret to her success is in knowing when not to lead—or perhaps in the fact that she leads by example rather than by rule. “Tatara’s army is a marvel,” someone observes late in the series. “Each man moves at his own discretion, but they don’t fragment into chaos.”

And while there is certainly a sense throughout the series that Tamura believes this kind of vision could only have been realized because “Tatara” is a woman, I think the message goes beyond feminism. It’s significant to me that though Tamura portrays certain forms of government in a more positive light than others, Sarasa never tries to establish any government at all. And when, in a later side story, we hear more about the government that did spring up after the rebellion, it’s already begun to sink into corruption.

MICHELLE: I actually have some geekbumps now, thinking of the first time “Tatara” specifically addresses the masses about the type of world she wants to create. It comes during volume thirteen when Renko (another strong woman!) is being persecuted for operating a newspaper critical of Momonoi, the governor of Suo City who’s been appointed by King Ukon in the Red King’s absence. In a very stirring scene, Tatara cinematically stands upon a rooftop and, for the first time, specifically orates about her vision for the future. Killing Momonoi is not the way, she insists, because a new leader will only be appointed in his place and nothing will change.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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MELINDA: And perhaps this is the time to finally come back to Shuri, the Red King, because though Sarasa grows immensely throughout the series, it’s Shuri whose entire worldview must be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

Our first glimpse of the Red King is as the worst kind of tyrant. When a young Sarasa accidentally runs out in front of his marching army, he—just a child himself—orders her to be killed. Thanks to intervention from Ageha (oh, so much to say about him here at some point), Sarasa’s life is spared, but the king returns just a few years later to remove the potential threat of “the child of destiny,” killing Tatara and pretty much wiping out Sarasa’s entire village.

Sarasa’s next encounter with him is at a remote hot spring, where she’s gone to soothe herself after suffering a wound in her escape as “Tatara.” There, Shuri’s just a guy, a bit too sure of himself, but still just a guy. Sarasa is put off by his arrogance, but after a second encounter, the two start to open up to each other—Sarasa about her plans to avenge her loved ones and Shuri about his plans to take control of his screwed-up family. On one hand, it’s set up as a classic tale of star-crossed lovers, but what Tamura really uses this for is to allow Sarasa to reach Shuri and introduce him to a new way of thinking without her blind hatred for the Red King getting in the way. And while this ultimately forces Sarasa to confront her own hatred, it’s Shuri whose ideas must be completely transformed, not only to be worthy of Sarasa, but also to become worthy of the people of Japan.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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I’ll be the first to admit that I really disliked Shuri in those early scenes in the hot springs, and I worried initially that he was going to be just another controlling shoujo love interest I’d be expected to adore. Fortunately, that wasn’t Tamura’s agenda in the slightest.

ANNA: Shuri really changes and evolves. It is a tricky thing to pull off, showing someone so unsympathetic at the beginning only to be completely transformed through their experiences, but Tamura pulls it off. And just as Sarasa manages to surround herself with loyal followers Shuri gradually puts together his own supporters as well.

MICHELLE: Like Sarasa’s, Shuri’s evolution is so well done because it’s hard-earned and gradual. His first chance to spend some significant time with Sarasa occurs when they travel to Seiran (home of the Blue King) together, each secretly thinking to use the other as cover. They end up participating in the sick race Melinda mentioned earlier, and during it, they have their first clash about how to treat people. Though Shuri dismissed her views at the time, Sarasa’s words come back to him later, even though he is still unable to admit he’s made any mistakes.

And even after he’s seen Okinawa and been inspired, Shuri really only sees the flaws in Japan and how it could be different, but still nothing wrong about himself or anything he’s done. There’s a telling scene in volume nine where he’s talking about being reborn and one starts to expect some kind of big turning point… except on the next page he reveals that instead of being a king, he’s decided to become an absolute dictator.

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It’s clear that while some new thoughts are beginning to percolate in his brain, he still doesn’t truly get it. And really, his overall goals—a united Japan that is peaceful, prosperous, and green—aren’t so very different from Tatara’s. It’s just that his own ego is FULLY in the equation. Dominating the equation, in fact.

ANNA: Shuri’s arrogance is a defining characteristic. I’ve often thought that if he were transplanted into the current times, he’d be an effective CEO of a company. While he has more than enough ego to spare, he also has an uncanny ability to find people who will be loyal to him, and he uses their abilities to further his goals. In addition, Shuri’s confidence may contribute to him being a bit reckless, but his recklessness often leads to success as he often exhibits a certain kind of calculated ruthlessness when making his decisions. It is easy to see how other people would be drawn to him, because his potential for greatness is obvious.

scan0002KAREN: Shuri’s growth was exciting to watch because despite its harshness, it really, really took a long time for him to really and truly change. Where Sarasa was The Child of Destiny who was meant to change the world, Shuri really had to overcome his birthright and his destiny to become a better person, and worthy of Sarasa. But wow, how he was broken – his best friend dead, his capital burnt, deposed, forced into death race, sold into slavery – he’s hard to break and even harder to change. The reader roots for him to be a better person because there are glimpses and glimmers of a better person underneath, and what all of that intelligence and charisma could do, if used for good. The relationship between simply Shuri and simply Sarasa was important not just for the sake of romance, but to show a different side to the rebel leader and the Red King.

Sarasa and Shuri really have to learn to trust others – Sarasa’s worry is that she’s burdening others, a trait probably having to do with feeling like the left-behind sister of the Child of Destiny – while Shuri’s is a matter of pride. He is the son of the king, he is the Red King – as Michelle, said, ego – he clings to that to a point where it could have destroyed him. When he’s deposed and the common folk try to offer their help, he angrily brushes it aside. For this reason I enjoyed seeing his friendships with Nakijin and Yuna develop, although the Shuri/Nakijin bromance wasn’t the most intense one in the series (I would give the Cipher award for Best Bromance to Nachi and Hijiri, although I’m open to other nominations).

Now that we’re into Shuri, how about the other two major players from the royal family – the mercurial Asagi/Blue King and the scheming, deeply damaged Ginko/White King?

MELINDA: Oh, Asagi… Asagi. I e-mailed Michelle partway through the series to express my surprise that Tamura had made me half-fall for a character like Asagi. Then later, I fell the rest of the way. Kinda pathetic, really, but wow did I find him relatable later on. You could boil his entire character down to the one simple desire: to have someone—anyone—just one person love him best. And seriously, who can’t relate to that?

scan0004MICHELLE: I love the notion of Asagi as parasite—that’s the name of the chapter in which he first comes aboard Tatara’s ship, even—because he’s so cold and calculating yet really depends on others more than anyone. At first, his presence among Tatara’s followers really stressed me out because I just hated watching everyone being controlled by him so easily, but once Sarasa gains confidence as a leader she’s able to shut down some of his schemes and manages him more effectively. Of course, by this time he’s begun to be changed by proximity to her, as was the White King’s concern.

ANNA: Asagi is a fully realized character, but he’s also a bit of a plot contrivance, just because he actively prevents Sarasa and Shuri from finding out the truth about each other.

MELINDA: It’s interesting that you say that, Anna, because that idea hadn’t really crossed my mind at all. I mean, yes, he deliberately withholds the truth from both of them after he’s figured it out, but his motivations make so much sense, it hadn’t occurred to me to think of him as a contrivance. He’s so jealous of Shuri, and has been for so long (for very relatable reasons, if not good ones) that it seems perfectly natural to me that he’d cling to any power he had (or could imagine he had) over Shuri’s life. And in the end, he really has none at all. Meanwhile, the meaningful friendship he develops with Sarasa (despite his protestations) is one of my favorite relationships in the series.

KAREN: There were certain points with Asagi where I wish he’d grow a mustache so he’d have something to twirl as he plots away. Okay, he wasn’t ever that cartoonish, but he seemed very impressed with his own scheming – he did learn from a master, after all. But he never could quite have the White King’s detachment – and this proves to be his undoing to furthering her plots. Despite all his plans, he liked Sarasa and her group – those friendships humanized him more than he ever intended. He may be selfish, but he’s very salvageable – he thankfully never got as twisted as his mentor/mother/sister. Parasites can sometimes be beneficial, after all.

One character I did love right away was Ageha. I think he has other fans here as well?

MELINDA: It’s difficult for me to imagine any reader not loving Ageha. He makes an immediate impression by standing up to the Red King on Sarasa’s behalf, and things only go uphill from there. He’s a rare kind of heroic shoujo figure who can spend a major portion of his time crossdressing for a living, and still strike fear into the heart of… well, really anyone. There’s a scene at one point late in the series, when Ageha has become a source of terror for those in King Ukon’s circles, and he passes Shuri on the street, dressed as a woman, strumming lightly on a small stringed instrument. And it’s one of the most menacing things in the world. Only Ageha could pull that off—both the grace of it and the foreboding.

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He’s also one of the series’ most sympathetic characters, and the most tragic from my point of view. I couldn’t help half-shipping him with Sarasa, just because he was so entirely worthy of her, unlike any other man in the series, really. And I honestly cried when he sat to have a smoke with the severed head of his dear friend, Taro, who had been executed for being a journalist.

ANNA: Ageha is so larger than life and fascinating! He’s one of my favorite supporting characters in manga of all time. In addition to Basara, I would have happily read a 20+ volume series just about him. I think with Ageha as an example, Sarasa starts to get a sense of how important Tatara is as a symbol, and her use of theatricality in addition to military tactics helps her win confrontations. Ageha is in many ways the perfect mentor, showing up just when Sarasa needs him, and disappearing when it seems like she might rely on him too much.

MICHELLE: I love Ageha very, very much. One thing I was particularly struck by this reread is how he initially keeps some distance in his relationship with Tatara and still acts friendly with some of the people she opposes. It’s not emblazoned brightly, but Tamura does show this how this came to be in a conversation Ageha has with Senju in volume nine. Senju asks, “So now whose side are you on?” Ageha replies, “Now? I can’t say.” His thoughts continue with, “I haven’t heard from Tatara yet. What kind of country do you want to build? How will you change things? I still haven’t heard…”

When Sarasa returns from Okinawa, inspired, she addresses her followers with specific goals for the country’s future for the first time. Ageha looks on, impressed, and from then on suddenly becomes a much more committed ally. Has he chosen his side at last? He’s there for her in a huge way all throughout the Abashiri Prison arc—we must talk about this, which boasts several very painful scenes—and one eventually comes to realize that he’s been hoping this whole time. Hoping she was the one who’d change things, and helping her in any way he could, but maintaining some distance just in case she ended up a disappointment.

MELINDA: He also manages to be respected by pretty much everyone, including those who oppose Tatara the most. Besides his complicated history with Shuri’s most trusted ally, Shido, one scene that also springs to mind is in the Blue King’s castle, where he’s able to speak plainly, insulting the Blue King (the fake one, not Asagi—that’s a whole thing) who is begging Ageha to become his personal entertainer and somehow getting away with it—in part thanks to Asagi’s intervention, but also just because that’s who Ageha is. He’s not someone who can be dismissed, even in anger.

basara-taroMICHELLE: I did wonder how he got to be so influential. Perhaps it’s due to his career as Kicho, which allowed him access to people in positions of power, who he was then able to charm with his beguiling dance.

MELINDA: I think that’s got to be a major factor—much is made of the fact that he is beguiling to everyone—and I also think it’s his presence. As a former slave, Ageha went through a lot to recover himself as a person (with the help of the troupe that took him in), and as a result, I think he’s more certain of who he is and who other people really are than anyone else in the story. That alone is a real source of power.

MICHELLE: I can see that. Hence the lack of kowtowing to authority figures.

KAREN: Michelle, I wondered that too! He must be a great dancer.

I loved him most when he took a despondent Sarasa, who was heartbroken over finding out that Shuri was the Red King, away from her supportive cocoon (which also has some less-than-supportive elements) to try to make her deal with everything. I think only Ageha could have done that; she knows that he’s been through much, much worse and I think he’s the one who loves her enough to essentially abandon her when she needs it.

And then he cuts his hair. That devastated me, because his support seemed to be the most important – he seemed to be the only one that got Sarasa and the rebel leader Tarata.

I wondered at that point if he had really given up on her being “the one”. His destiny – that he would one day meet a woman worth dying for – is even heavier than Sarasa’s. Did he know when he sacrificed his eye for her when she was a child? Then he’s in Kyoto, and is it Taro’s death that drives him to his endgame? Or is he realizing, like Sarasa, that he can’t outrun his destiny?

MELINDA: I love that you brought all this up, Karen, and especially the cutting of his hair, because it seemed so… final. I’m grateful that it wasn’t, and that he came back to Sarasa in the end, but his story is the most painful for me, ultimately, because I have the same questions as you do, and I wonder if he was really sure, even in the end, that she was that “woman worth dying for.”

ANNA: Ageha’s status as a person apart also serves as a contrast to the familial bonds that develop between Sarasa and her companions. It is easy to see that Ageha has plenty of friends, but something about him always remains solitary.

MELINDA: You know, Anna, I think maybe that’s why the scene where he brings a smoke for Taro’s severed head affected me so strongly. It’s such an intimate moment, really, even though Taro’s gone. We don’t see Ageha showing that kind of personal vulnerability that often.

ANNA: He isn’t often shown that vulnerable, although he does seem to have an immense capacity to endure suffering in addition to his almost super-human personal magnetism. I think it all contributes to his mystique and the way everyone around Ageha responds to him as a larger than life character.

MICHELLE: This reminds me of something he thinks while incarcerated at Abashiri Prison. In order to protect Sarasa, he gives his body to the leader of the cell in which they’re placed. Sarasa is absolutely anguished about this. Ageha tells her to close her eyes and cover her ears, and then narrates, “From birth.. my tarot has been the “hanged man.” It is the card of sacrifice, ordeals, and unrequited love. Yeah, it’s dull. But you know what? You are worth it.”

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MELINDA: Even with all that tremendous mystique, I’ll admit that Ageha’s strong presence in Sarasa’s life actually came as a bit of a surprise to me. It’s Nagi who is the most influential early on, and it’s not that he’s exactly replaced by Ageha, but somehow Ageha comes to understand Sarasa the most thoroughly. In fact, the only person who I think comes close to the same level of understanding is Sarasa’s mother, who isn’t even with her for the bulk of the series.

I have a favorite scene between Sarasa’s mother and Shuri, in which she’s clearly figured out who Shuri is and tells him about her daughter. And it’s amazing how well she knows Sarasa, even though they’ve been separated for so long and though it seemed that Tatara was the focus of their parents’ attention before that. Her honest assessment of Sarasa in that scene reminds me of Ageha somehow, as though Ageha is in some way fulfilling her role in Sarasa’s life in her absence.

Well, her role, but with more killing. And maiming. Much more maiming.

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MICHELLE: Sarasa does liken him to a parent at one point!

ANNA: I feel like the discussion of maiming is a good jumping off point to discuss the great action scenes and set pieces in Basara. One of the reasons why I enjoy this series so much is because it invests a ton of emotion in action scenes.

MICHELLE: You’re so right, Anna. What springs to mind immediately is the incredibly intense battle in volume three between Chacha’s crew and the Red King’s forces, who appear to have them surrounded. A desperate yet determined Sarasa stealthily swims through the king’s fleet (using a shark for camouflage at one point), boards a third party’s ship, and then uses their cannon to blow the fleet to smithereens. This is all very exciting, and a huge victory for Tatara, but amidst the carnage, Sarasa spots the silhouettes of soldiers suffering and dying in flames. “Those are red demons,” she tries telling herself. “The red demons that destroyed my village.” But that doesn’t stop her tears from flowing, and from this point on, she’s always cognizant that even her enemies have loved ones that will mourn their passing.

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MELINDA: That’s one of my favorite battle scenes as well, Michelle. Another pretty spectacular sea battle is later in volume nineteen, in which Tatara’s army has reached such a desperate point that they have no choice but to blow up their own ship—one which has become home to so many of their people. It’s an incredibly tense battle, involving enemy armies and a group of assassins who have been sent to kill Tatara. I’m not always big on manga battles, because I often find them difficult to follow, but even with so much going on, Tamura leads us through so expertly. As a result, it’s both exciting and extremely moving on a number of levels. The sinking of the Suzaku flagship feels both tragic and somehow freeing—like it was one last comfort necessary to cast off in order for Tatara’s comrades to be free.

ANNA: I think Tamura always does a great job at making the battles emotionally meaningful and a demonstration of character development. Sarasa learns with each confrontation, and how people fight tells the reader something essential about their personalities.

MELINDA: At first when you brought up the action scenes in particular, Anna, I thought I would have trouble coming up with favorites, because I’m such an emotionally-driven reader. But as you say, the battles in Basara are so emotionally meaningful, they are really completely essential to my experience with the series and so many of the things about it I hold dear.

Do you have a favorite scene of your own? Or a favorite set piece?

ANNA: There are so many great action scenes that the favorites that come to mind are likely to just be centered around whatever volumes I’ve read recently. That being said, I think the scenes when Sarasa is trapped in prison in volumes 11-12 are particularly harrowing and claustrophobic. I’ve just finished rereading volumes 13-16, and the battle in volume 14 where Sarasa and Shuri confront each other as Tatara and the Red King is particularly devastating emotionally. You can see them work through the psychological blocks they inadvertantly inacted about each other’s identity, and they are both just utterly destroyed by their new knowledge finding out that the person they love is their hated enemy. Seeing Sarasa slip into a fugue state as she forces out the commands to kill the Red King made me wonder if this was a blow she’d be able to recover from.

Also, my favorite action scenes would also be anything featuring Ageha, since he is so fabulous.

KAREN: Tamura has the sort of art that works so well for action scenes – its very fluid and lively, but she still manages to make it all personal. These are the characters we’ve grown to care about, after all. The action scene in particular that stands out to me is the battle where Sarasa and Shuri realize who the other is – the battle is rising and then there’s this stunning, shattering confrontation in the middle of it. So much action, but there’s an amazing, emotional heart to it all.

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MELINDA: Anna and Karen, I’m so glad you brought that particular scene up, because I thought of it as well, and I just wasn’t sure how to talk about it. Because what’s so stunning about it is that confrontation you mention—the sudden inaction in the middle of all this action. Everything comes to a complete halt, with the on-screen action matching perfectly the emotional state of the two leads. There, in the midst of their passionate rage, they see each other and their worlds just… stop.

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This is something we encounter often in romantic fiction, where two lovers (or soon-to-be lovers) spot each other across a crowded room and their hearts stop and everything else suddenly falls away. Except that convention is nearly always used to illustrate something wonderful—that heart-stopping recognition of true love, the spontaneous creation of a slow-motion universe of two. But in this case, Tamura does something very similar to illustrate two hearts shattering to pieces over that recognition. Everything else falls away, but the universe they’re left with—that universe of two—is the worst thing they can imagine.

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MICHELLE: One thing I especially love about the way Tamura has structured her story is that we are privy to how painful this is for both of them. It’s not just the heroine realizing that the one she loves is her enemy, who has dealt her many personal blows. She has also dealt him many personal blows, killing Shido and putting the final nail in the coffin for Suo, the city he and Shido planned together and loved so much.

MELINDA: Well said, Michelle! I was thinking in particular about that scene that I really appreciated that they were *both* completely ruined by the realization of who they really were. I half expected one of them to attack anyway—to be enraged by the revelation rather than ruined. That they both broke down so completely not only felt entirely refreshing, but it also added depth to the love scene earlier in the volume. It made it clear that their love was real to both of them, and not something that even hate could overcome.

ANNA: I also loved the aftermath of the scene where Asagi is saving Shuri for further torment and he becomes more and more frustrated with Shuri’s utter indifference to him. It was a small moment of comedy after some very emotional events.

basara-pineappleMICHELLE: Tamura is positively wonderful at including small moments of levity amidst serious goings-on! I adore the little background reunions between Kagero (Ageha’s owl) and his son, Shinbashi, every time their two humans meet up, for example.

And there’s another memorable gag in volume fourteen right in the middle of Nachi’s tense espionage mission. Not only is he attempting to recover someone’s body so that he may be buried alongside the woman he loved, but he’s also been tasked with sabotaging the palace’s well. While skulking about he comes across Nakijin, Shuri’s Okinawan ally, and they both immediately are stricken by the resemblance of the other’s hair to a pineapple. This is funny enough on its own, but it happens again in a few pages and still elicits giggles.

I also love the sidebar profile for King Ukon where someone off-panel is hurling a rock at him. I think Tamura-sensei and I must be on the same wavelength, humor-wise.

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ANNA: I think the little flashes of humor is one thing that keeps the series from seeming long or tedious, even though it stretches across many volumes.

KAREN: I really like Shinbashi – and sometimes his bits are taking place in the background, as if Shinbashi is having his own epic adventure as well. Tamura also does some great side-panels and her “Tam-Tam Time” is really wacky stuff. The extra gag stories are also worth reading – she clearly loves her characters but also loves to mess with them – the high-school and singing contest re-imaginations were a lot of fun.

The other running gag I liked was Shuri’s “bird mouth” moments, which his daughter seems to have inherited.

MELINDA: I’ll admit that I often skip gag strips in series like these, because I’m usually anxious to get to the next volume and I hardly ever find them funny anyway. But like Hiromu Arakawa (again? I really didn’t expect Fullmetal Alchemist to come up at all in this roundtable, let alone twice—heh) Yumi Tamura is actually funny.

KAREN: Melinda, I got a very Hiromu Arakawa vibe in her off-story panels/pages as well. I tended not to skip because unlike other extra stories, I needed the palate-cleanser of offbeat humor some of the dramatic and heart-breaking places where each volume left off.

MICHELLE: I think this may be my cue to unleash the torrent of squee I’ve been holding in: I freaking love Shinbashi SO MUCH. Even though there’s been plenty of horrible things happening since the beginning of the series, the first scene to truly make me bawl happens in volume eleven. Sarasa, Ageha, and Asagi are on their way to Abashiri Prison and when Shinbashi objects to the treatment they receive, he gets thrown out of the cart just as it’s beginning to snow. He can’t fly yet, and we get several just awful pages of Sarasa’s anguish as she pleads for the driver to stop.

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Ageha attempts to bolster her spirits, but we don’t see Shinbashi again for a couple of volumes.

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When we do, he can fly and has a new home. Sarasa acknowledges that it would probably be better for him to stay there, but he rejoins her and her reaction of pure unadulterated joy at his return is quite literally making me tear up right now just thinking about it.

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MELINDA: Oh, Michelle, YES. I kind of lost my mind with grief when Shinbashi was lost in that volume, even though I felt that it was very likely we’d see him again. And his eventual reunion with Sarasa… GAH. I think you and I had very similar reactions to all of this. In general, I love that fact that Shinbashi is so much a part of everything—even in the love scene I mentioned earlier, he’s around, barely avoiding getting smushed in all the excitement. It means a lot to me that he’s so important.

MICHELLE: Me, too. I mean, in a way, it’s like he didn’t just return to/for Sarasa but chose to be part of the rebellion rather than seize his chance at a cushy life. Like Karen says, he’s having his own epic adventure, too! There’s a great page in volume fourteen too, where he’s just returned from his first solo messenger assignment, then flies back to Sarasa’s side wearing the most adorably determined expression.

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ANNA: I think that Shinbashi is the most fully realized animal sidekick that I’ve seen in manga, in terms of him having a distinct personality and adding an essential layer to the story.

KAREN: Anna, I agree with you about how nice it is to have a useful animal sidekick. For communication purposes alone that’s a great contribution – like all of Sarasa’s other allies he’s very useful and, as Michelle pointed out, chose to be there.

MELINDA: This may sound a bit random, but you know I’ve had Harry Potter on the brain lately, and in some way having Shinbashi around, being so wonderfully written, has helped me get over my seemingly never-ending grief over the death of Hedwig. I never knew I had such a thing for owls, but there it is.

MICHELLE: You are not alone. I thought of Hedwig, too. Of course, now you’re making me ponder which characters in Basara match to which characters in Harry Potter, but while some fit, I think most probably don’t.

MELINDA: Ha! Well, I’ve already talked at length about Asagi and Draco Malfoy, but I hadn’t really thought further about anyone else. Well, maybe the White King as Voldemort? Though she’s a lot more sympathetic than Voldemort ever is.

MICHELLE: Hayato as Ron? Ageha as Lupin? These are just off the top of my head, but maybe. I guess Nagi and Kaku could be Dumbledore and Hagrid? Hee.

MELINDA: Ageha’s such a badass, maybe he’s Remus and Sirius all rolled up into one.

KAREN: off-topic, but when mentioning other fantasy franchises, every time Masunaga popped up I totally got a Lee Pace-as-Thranduil-in-The Hobbit image going on, and now I can’t shake it – I think it’s the eyebrows combined with an odd headdress that did that to me.

MELINDA: I love that imagery, Karen! I don’t know that I had many major fantasy references spring to mind while reading (other than what I mentioned already) though I did at one point mentally compare the fake Blue King to Joffrey Baratheon.

MICHELLE: I guess we ought to try to wrest ourselves back on to Basara itself. One question I wanted to put to the group is pretty broad… do you personally have any favorite scenes that have not been mentioned so far?

MELINDA: There are a thousand moments in the series proper that I love with my whole heart—too many to even sift through, really. But for some reason, my mind keeps bringing me back to one of the side stories in the final volume called “Black Story: Cherry.” It’s a bit of backstory involving Masunaga and Tamon, two of the characters we first met in the Abashiri Prison arc. Both were among four boys chosen as potential wielders of the Genbu sword—one of the four swords passed down through generations that become central to Sarasa’s quest for allies to join her rebellion.

The four are sent into ceremonial test to see which of them is worthy to inherit the sword. Masunaga is frustrated that Tamon—by far the best sword fighter among them—lacks the aggression required for a warrior, but when the get into the test, it’s only Tamon who is able to see that “foes” they are fighting are actually each other. In the end, he is given the Genbu sword, which as it turns out, is made of bamboo.

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Partly, I like this story because I like gentle Tamon, who wants nothing more than to spend his days fishing. But I also like the Genbu sword as a symbol—as a warning against the thirst for blood that consumed the original sword and its wielder.

ANNA: For me really most of the scenes in volume 25 that concluded the story were incredibly effective. The last time we see Ageha, Sarasa’s final choice, all of it added up to a tremendously satisfying ending.

MICHELLE: I mentioned before about scenes between supporting characters being fascinating, and one relationship that I just could not get enough of was the one that developed between General Kazan and Chigusa, Sarasa’s mother. Shortly after Chigusa was captured (and subsequently abused by the Red King’s men), she comes under Kazan’s protection. He’s clearly in awe of her beauty and dignity, and she lives for a time as his guest, unbeknownst to the Red King. Asagi sees to it that this secret eventually comes out, and though Shuri gives Kazan several chances to claim that this apparent treachery was all a clever ruse, loyal Kazan refuses to take the offered way out, because doing so would sully his feelings for Chigusa. Chigusa is stunned. Despite what Kazan did to her son, he’s still clearly an honorable man. I just love that so much.

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I’m also haunted by a particularly indelible sequence of pages at the end of volume 22, but I’m not going to spoil them!

KAREN: It’s hard to pick just one! But if I must… it would be from volume 16, where Sarasa finally meets with her mother again after so long. I’m glad that Michelle mentioned Chigusa and Kazan, I think that experience gave her some of the wisdom that she was able to use to counsel her daughter. “I can’t do it… I can’t hate anyone anymore.”

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It took other people to bring Sarasa back from the shock of finding out that Shuri was the Red King – as I mentioned before, Ageha, but her mother is able to bring her some peace yet gives her permission to feel the pain she’s been carrying. Only after she lets go of the pain and guilt that she bears, Sarasa is not just functional again – she is able to articulate her vision of the Japan she’s fighting for – and she’s also able to want to see Shuri again, to see what his dreams are for Japan. It’s the first step in reconciling Shuri as the Red King, her lover and her enemy, which will all lead up to the final battle and its outcome, as we will see in volume 25. That ending couldn’t have been as satisfying and justified without the groundwork being laid – in this case, with simple acts of compassion to dying men on a frozen mountain.

MELINDA: Another scene that springs to mind comes near the end of the series. Tatara has brought her army into a final battle with the Red King, who appears to be fighting on behalf of the royal family. She’s been confused the entire time, though, because Shuri’s been fighting in an oddly extravagant manner—with showy effects, expensive equipment—even a freaking elephant. Finally, as the battle reaches its climax, Shuri reveals that he’s deliberately collected all the wealth and old relics of the royal regime to be destroyed in battle.

What’s spectacular to me about this scene, is that it simultaneously demonstrates Shuri’s new commitment to a different way of life for the people of Japan, while also showcasing his still-enormous pride. Shuri’s so proud of himself for pulling this off right under the noses of the aristocracy, he practically radiates it. I just love the fact that Tamura was careful not to change his personality regardless of his shift in political philosophy.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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Thank you so much, Anna and Karen, for joining us in this discussion! And thank you, Michelle, for inspiring me to working to collect all these volumes. I expected to love Basara, but I’m not sure I was prepared for just how much I’d love it. I finished the last volume just a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve wanted nothing more than to start from the beginning and read it all again.

I dearly hope that Viz will be able to offer this series digitally someday soon, but I simply have to say that if you’re a manga fan, a fantasy fan, a or even just a fan of extraordinary storytelling, it’s worth trying to hunt down all 27 print volumes. It’s that good.


All images © Yumi Tamura/Shogakukan, Inc. New and adapted artwork and text © Viz Media. Color images from the Basara Postcard Calendar Book. This article was written for the Yumi Tamura Manga Moveable Feast. Check out Tokyo Jupiter for more!


More full-series discussions with Melinda & Michelle:

Moon Child | Fullmetal Alchemist | Paradise Kiss
The “Color of…” Trilogy | One Thousand and One Nights | Please Save My Earth
Princess Knight | Fruits Basket | Chocolat
Wild Adapter (with guest David Welsh) | Tokyo Babylon (with guest Danielle Leigh)

Full-series multi-guest roundtables: Hikaru no Go | Banana Fish | Gerard & Jacques | Flower of Life

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: basara, Manga Moveable Feast, MMF, Yumi Tamura

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