Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Features & Reviews

Manga Artifacts: Osamu Tezuka’s Lost World

by

Reading Osamu Tezuka’s Lost World (1948) reminded me a formative graduate school experience. I was researching George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935), when I stumbled across a blistering review of a composition I’d never heard: Blue Monday (1922), a one-act “jazz opera” that Gershwin composed for Paul Whiteman’s Scandals of 1922. After attending its premiere, Charles Darnton, critic for the New York Tribune, pronounced the project a disaster, an ill-advised attempt to transplant the conventions of verismo opera to a Harlem setting. Blue Monday, he opined, was “the most dismal, stupid, and incredible blackface sketch that has probably ever been perpetrated. In it a dusky soprano finally killed her gambling man. She should have shot all her associates the moment they appeared and then turned the pistol on herself.” (Darnton, 11)

Ouch.

The review piqued my interest, however, prompting me to track down a recording of Blue Monday. Judged against Porgy and Bess, it was an inferior work; as Gershwin biographer Charles Schwartz observed, the music was several degrees removed from jazz and ragtime, drawing its cues from Alexander’s Ragtime Band and not The Maple Leaf Rag. (Schwartz, 61) The dramaturgy, too, was weak, conveying little of the Harlem setting. Yet in this early experiment, I could hear glimmerings of Gershwin’s mature style, a conscious effort to bring African-American music to the opera stage. And that excited me.

I had a similar reaction to Lost World, an early, problematic work in the Tezuka canon. First published in 1948, Lost World focuses on a scientific expedition to the fictional planet Mamango, a large, egg-shaped rock that, five million years earlier, had been a part of the Earth. When the scientists arrive on Mamango, they discover a Jurassic landscape carpeted in monstrous ferns, populated by hungry dinosaurs, and littered with powerful “energy stones.” The financial and scientific value of their discoveries, however, soon cause a deadly rift within the expedition party.

The execution of Lost World will come as a shock to readers familiar with Tezuka’s mature style. The profusion of subplots, minor characters, and doppelgangers makes the story hard to follow on a moment-to-moment basis; without frequent narrative interventions from the characters, large stretches of Lost World would be incomprehensible. More frustrating still is Tezuka’s over-reliance on dialogue to resolve plot points and reveal motive, even when that information is readily conveyed by the pictures. (“This is payback for you throwing me into the gorge! You get me?!” one character yells as he pummels the person who pushed him off a cliff in the previous scene.) The biggest disappointment, however, is the artwork; most of the panels consist of talking heads, with a handful of dramatic, but disjointed, action scenes interrupting the steady stream of chatter.

Writing about Lost World in the 1980s, Tezuka conceded Lost World‘s shortcomings, attributing them to his age (he was 20) and the circumstances of its publication. As he explained, the work originally ran in an Osaka newspaper, Kansai Yoron, where the target audience was young adults. The two-volume version published by Fuji Shobo, however, was aimed at the children’s market, necessitating substantial changes to the the script. What had been a romance in the original version, for example, was recast as a brother-sister relationship in the Fuji Shobo edition; anything more explicit would have been “absolutely taboo in children’s comics” of the period. (Tezuka, 248)

At the same time, Tezuka touted Lost World as an important milestone in his artistic development. “I thought that at the very least, there was no other comic book like mine, which was like a novel (albeit a very crude one), and had an unhappy ending,” Tezuka explained. (Tezuka 247) A careful inspection of Lost World supports Tezuka’s claim for its significance; whatever its shortcomings, many of the characters and themes of his mature works appear in embryonic form in Lost World.

On the most basic level, Tezuka employs several of his best-known “stars” in Lost World, arranging them in contrasting pairs. Acetylene Lamp, for example, plays an unscrupulous journalist who stows away aboard the expedition’s spaceship so that he can get an exclusive scoop on Mamango — and profit from the mysterious “energy stones” scattered across its surface. Another Tezuka favorite, Shunsaku Ban (a.k.a. Higeoyaji), plays yang to Lamp’s yin; as in many of his other incarnations, Ban is a middle-aged detective whose blustery demeanor camouflages his basic decency. Both characters are motivated by curiosity, but their curiosity compels them in opposite directions: Lamp towards profit, Ban towards truth.

From left to right: Acetylene Lamp, Shunsaku Ban/Hygeoyaji, Kenichi Shikishima

The story’s two scientists are likewise played by major “stars” from the Tezuka troupe. Kenichi Shikishima, hero of New Treasure Island, leads the Mamango expedition. Dr. Shikishima’s youthful spirit, resolve, and courage are contrasted with that of Dr. Butaru Makeru, a mustachioed villain whose cowardice and opportunism precipitate the disaster on Mamango. While Shikishima resolves to visit Mamango “for the sake of world science,” Makeru hints at his selfish motives for participating in the expedition: “If by some chance we meet with something unexpected on that planet, don’t blame me. Heh, heh, heh!” That contrast is also underscored by their terrestrial research as well: while Shikishima’s experiments are intended to help animals achieve human consciousness, Makeru’s experiments are designed for his own personal benefit, with little regard for their greater social or scientific good.

In later works, Tezuka was less schematic in his representations of good and evil, allowing characters to simultaneously embody both. Father Garai, anti-hero of MW, is a good example of this later tendency: Garai is a good man tormented by dark sexual desires, seeking grace even as he sins repeatedly. Black Jack is another, a character whose misanthropy and greed are counterbalanced by a strong reverence for life. As Helen McCarthy observes in The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga, Black Jack is “sometimes a gentle and compassionate savior, sometimes a cold and unforgiving avenger,” two opposite yet equally human responses to “the inevitability of death.” (McCarthy, 199)

Ayame

Mimio

Lost World also introduces a recurring character type found throughout Tezuka’s work: the artificial life-form. Early in the story, Tezuka introduces us to Mimio, a talking rabbit, and Ayame, a “veggie girl.” Both are the result of scientific experiments: Dr. Shikishima surgically enhanced Mimio’s brain to grant him human intelligence, while Dr. Butamo cultivated Ayame in a laboratory. (Note that Shikishima’s motives seem benevolent; he wants to help animals achieve equal status with humans, whereas Butamo is more interested in making a wife for himself.)

Mimio and Ayame’s quest for humanity is rather baldly presented. In an early chapter, for example, Mimio visits Shikishima’s lab, where a new group of surgically enhanced animals are learning how to think and act like humans. Though the animals’ struggles with language and manners are played for laughs — “Boy, all humans sure do look alike!” exclaims a dog — there’s a definite sense that these creatures’ own desires are being subordinated to Shikishima’s grander mission of animal-human detente. “You’re very being is unique,” one of Shikishima’s colleagues tells his subjects. “Therefore, you should help humans and be a guide to other animals in perpetuum.”

Unlike Mimio, Ayame looks human, even though she is composed entirely of plant material — and that makes her situation more precarious than the rabbit’s. On the one hand, Dr. Butamo wants her to become his wife, threatening to kill her if she refuses to honor his marriage proposal. On the other, some of the characters view Ayame as nothing more than a walking, talking cabbage — and thus a potential food source when the crew’s rations run out. Ayame remains committed to exploring her humanity nonetheless; late in the manga, she and Shikishima have this pointed exchange:

Shikishima: Miss Ayame, surely, you must be surprised to be having so many adventures.You see? The world of humans is full of adventure and wonder!

Ayame: I feel as if I finally understand what things bring the most pleasure and happiness to the hearts of humans!

Shikishima: Well, then, when you return to the laboratory, you should have Mr. Butamo teach you even more, shouldn’t you?

In Mimio and Ayame, it’s not hard to see the inspiration for later characters such as Dororo‘s Hyakkimaru and Black Jack‘s Pinoko, both of whom struggle to reconcile the circumstances of their “birth” with their desire to be fully human.

Perhaps the most striking thing about Lost World is the final act, in which an accident permanently strands Ayame and Shikishima on Mamango. In Tezuka’s original version, Ayame and Shikishima embrace their fate as lovers, but in the Fuji Shobo edition, Tezuka portrayed them as brother and sister. Nonetheless, Tezuka left the final words of the original intact, speculating that in five million years, “when Mamango once again approaches the Earth,” mankind might find a new race of “plant animal people” descended from Ayame and Shikishima.

Similar Adam-and-Eve motifs recur throughout Tezuka’s oeuvre, finding a more sexual and spiritual expression in such mature works as Apollo’s Song and Phoenix: Nostalgia. Nostalgia is a particularly odd and fascinating variation on the theme, as the Adam figure dies early in the story, leaving his pregnant wife alone on a remote space colony. His wife then mates with her own offspring who, in turn, mate with an extraterrestrial life form whose DNA proves essential to rescuing humanity from the brink of extinction. In short, Nostalgia — like Lost World — dares to a imagine a new future for mankind in which other forms of life — terrestrial and extraterrestrial — play an important role in our evolution.

Whether these observations will make Lost World more palatable to a casual reader is debatable; I fully admit that I struggled through its 246 pages, backtracking frequently in a futile effort to understand what was happening. But if you approach Lost World in the same spirit I approached Gershwin’s Blue Monday — as a window into a major artist’s early development — you may find, as I did, a work of astonishing vibrancy, contradiction, and interest.

Works Cited
“Bet Lost on First Opera.” New York Times. 21 July 1935: II1. Print.
Darnton, Charles. “George White’s Scandals’ Lively and Gorgeous.” New York World 29 Aug. 1922: 11. Print.
McCarthy, Helen, and Osamu Tezuka. The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga. New York: Abrams ComicArts, 2009. Print.
Schwartz, Charles. Gershwin: His Life and Music. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1973. Print.
Tezuka, Osamu, and Kumar Sivasubramanian. Lost World. Milwaukee, OR: Dark Horse, 2003. Print.

Special Edition: Interview with JManga’s Robert Newman

by

The digital manga portal JManga got off to a slow start, but it has gained traction among manga fans for a number of reasons: Cool, quirky manga, reasonable prices (once the site owners abandoned the original price of $8.99 per volume), and good communication with fans.

We can thank Robert Newman for the latter; from the very beginning, he was out there as the public face of JManga, listening and responding to every review and snarky Tweet–and getting results, such as the price drop. As we mentioned the other day, Newman has been lobbying the 39 Japanese publishers involved in JManga for something else that a lot of people want: Global reach. Currently, JManga is available only to U.S. and Canadian readers, but the demand is worldwide, and Newman has been asking readers to respond to JManga’s Twitter and “Like” their Facebook post on opening the manga portal up to the rest of the world.

I asked Newman if he could talk a little bit about the inner workings of JManga and why they can’t just pull a switch and open it up to the world. As long as I had him, I asked some general questions as well.

Brigid: First of all, what makes you think it would benefit JManga to go global? What sort of demand have you seen from your side?

Robert: We would like to think of JManga going global as being more of a benefit to manga fans than to us as a company. We have received countless comments from manga fans worldwide who have come with high hopes to JManga.com only to be shut out by our sky blue geo-filter screen. Another major merit to manga readers worldwide is that JManga provides a legal and safe alternative to reading manga online that benefits readers, manga artists, and publishers.

Brigid: Why are the publishers reluctant to do it? Is there a general consensus or do opinions differ?

Robert: The main reason is that each publisher has their own policy regarding international development and each publisher’s licensing situation differs. So we have had to develop a system with each policy and licensing situation in mind.

Brigid: Would you consider offering the manga in languages other than English?

Robert: Our system is built to handle multiple languages. We hope to add languages following demand.

Brigid: Are there complications with taking different currencies?

Robert: This is something we gave had to consider carefully. If we can go global, we will start off as a service made for America and Canada, but that can be accessed worldwide. In short a kind if extension of our current service.

Brigid: What are the most popular manga on the site?

Robert: Though we have had a very good reception accross the board, the more niche titles, yuri and foodie titles for example, have been especially well received.

Brigid: Are you noticing any interesting patterns, such as people reading in the evening, geographic distribution, etc.?

Robert: Initially I had expected to see peak views clustered in the evening to night times, but what we have actually found is that readers are enjoying JManga pretty much all day long, from the early morning to the late night!

Another interesting point that we have found is that female readers generally spend more on manga than male readers. This is the same as readers in Japan.

Brigid: How do you see the site evolving over the next year or so?

Robert: Our main goal for the next year is to adapt and enhance our site to the needs of users worldwide and to release as much content as possible.

Subtitles & Sensibility: Three with Ken’ichi Matsuyama

by 4 Comments

Last spring at the Seattle International Film Festival, I discovered Ken’ichi Matsuyama through a sold-out screening of Norwegian Wood. The film came back to Seattle this winter, so I took the opportunity to see it again and then decided to check out a few other Matsuyama films.

An adaptation of the popular Haruki Murakami novel, Norwegian Wood is an overwhelmingly sad picture which played better the second time through.

The film centers on Toru (Matsuyama), a university student who is torn between the tragedy of his past and the possibilities for his future. The past is represented by Naoko, the longtime girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. After his inexplicable suicide, Naoko and Toru try to process the devastation together. For Naoko, it is impossible to deal with, and as she sinks into depression she threatens to pull Toru down with her.

However, at university Toru meets Midori (the utterly charming Kiko Mizuhara), who gives him the opportunity to choose life.

The first time around I found the film very heavy, unsurprisingly! It is more emotionally intense than the novel, partially because the film is more present, whereas the novel was reflective. The novel left space for humor, like expanding the character of Toru’s roommate Storm Trooper, and it took us out of the potentially-claustrophobic triangle of Toru, Naoko, and Midori by allowing more space for characters like Naoko’s eventual roommate Reiko to develop.

However, I am nothing if not understanding of the limits of adaptation. Tonal departures or character embellishments which work in a novel can easily feel out of place in a film.

More importantly, Norwegian Wood is a gorgeous piece of cinema. I was better able appreciate the unique textures, both visual and aural, when I saw it the second time. Overall the film is very lush, and it was easy for me to get lost in the visuals of everything from the gorgeous landscapes of the countryside to the patterning of fabric, and the excellent sound design between the university and the woods. Toru is swept through the film on waves—waves of sorrow, waves of protesters, and waves of wind through the long grasses on his long walks with Naoko—and I was willing to be swept along with him.

::

I followed it up with another, rather different adaptation. Death Note, based on the manga of the same name, is the story of Light, a college student with dubious ethics who discovers a notebook. It’s the death note of the title, and it is quite a find. If you write someone’s name in it, they die.

Of course, it isn’t quite that simple. We quickly learn the many rules of the death note, and to the credit of the plot, the rules appear perfectly timed to answer audience questions.

Light (Tatsuya Fujiwara, devilishly creepy) uses the notebook to become a sort of Dexter Morgan from afar, causing the deaths of people who he thinks truly deserve it. However, he quickly begins using it in his own self-interest, killing the innocent, and manipulating the rules to manipulate people. Having not read the manga yet, I don’t know if Light is so unapologetically unpleasant in that as well. I hope so! I like the idea of a main character that the audience is so quickly turns against.

Light is accompanied in his adventures by a Shinigami named Ryuk, a sort of death god who owned the notebook before, dropped it in hopes someone interesting would pick it up, and now is just curious what shenanigans Light might get up to. Ryuk is essentially the world’s worst imaginary friend. The character, delivered via cartoonish CGI, resembles nothing so much a death metal version of the Joker, if the Joker was addicted to apples.

Ken’ichi Matsuyama, offscreen for over half of the film, plays the mysterious L, a reclusive genius detective. He’s an almost-otherworldly character, pale and compact, locked away in a hotel room and outsmarting criminals from afar. He steals the movie with his physicality alone, nearly unrecognizable between this and his role as Toru. Shoulders hunched, he hides behind eye makeup & shaggy hair, living off of sweets.

Both L and Light are childlike, existing very little in the real world and instead hiding away in their respective rooms, playing out a high-stakes game of strategy virtually. With all of the screens (television news, security footage, and the like) it’s almost a video game with real-world consequences.

Speaking of consequences, ladies do not fare well in Death Note despite my early hopes, particularly for Naomi Misora, a stellar FBI agent. One is introduced solely as a set-up for the second film, and others exist to be manipulated by Light via the notebook.

The whole structure of Death Note is frustrating because Light has absolute power with the book. He kills from afar, and after the deaths have been played out we take no pleasure in learning how the manipulations work. We’re seeing the strings of a show we didn’t enjoy the first time around, and as the film progresses and the deaths become more elaborate, I started to despair that anything will stop Light.

Thanks to the cliffhanger ending, I’m going to have to check out the second film to see if it ever happens. I’ll be sure to report back.

::

In contrast, Gantz was also a film based on a manga series and split into two parts, but the first film worked as a complete story on its own. Though clearly there are many unanswered questions regarding the mechanics of the plot and the fate of secondary characters, Kurono undergoes a satisfying character arc. There’s an emotional conclusion if not a technical one.

Gantz is strange, the sort of picture that would play really well with a midnight, cult-film crowd. It opens with the accidental death of two high school students, Kurono (Kazunari Ninomiya) and Kato (Matsuyama). Rather than moving on to any traditional afterlife, they find themselves in an unfurnished apartment along with a few other people and a large black sphere.

The sphere has brought them here to participate in a life-or-death game, fighting against aliens who have been living on Earth. There are some rules to the game, though it seems fewer rules than were involved in Death Note.

Gantz features nice effects, great character design on the aliens, and very stylish cinematography by Taro Kawazu.

The film definitely raised a lot of questions. Are they really dead? Are they in limbo? How are they able to return to their old lives after missions? I have a lot of questions, so I’ll definitely be checking out the second film here as well!

Review copies of Death Note and Gantz provided by New People Entertainment.

Manga the Week of 2/29

by

It’s a 5th week that’s really a 4th week, so there’s actually quite a lot of manga shipping.

Dark Horse has a very busy week compared to their usual (their usual being no manga at all lately). A new volume of Gantz, which is at 21 volumes yet still providing the violence and latex outfits everyone wants. Speaking of what everyone wants, Volume 1 of Gate 7, much like its predecessor Kobato, featured CLAMP trying a bit too hard to be CLAMP. I’m hoping Volume 2 goes a little lighter on their standard tropes and heavier on plot and characterization.

I wish I didn’t have to give it the cover spotlight, but it’s the final volume, and it used to be awesome, so here it is. Del Rey’s last manga series ends with the publication of Vol. 19 of xxxHOLIC. The early volumes of this series were possibly the best thing CLAMP has ever done not named Card Captor Sakura. This last one… is out this week. :)

A trio of new manga from DMP. After much delay, we get the 7th volume of Itazura na Kiss. Featuring everyone’s least favorite hero. Let’s hope he gets a sweet moment or two this time around. There’s also Vol. 3 of the awesomely named Bad Teacher’s Equation, and the more sedately named Border. Both by the same author. I wonder if she did them at the same time?

Midtown comics lists Vol. 4 of cyberpunk series Mardock Scramble as coming in next week. My shop says it is also getting the 13th volume of Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei, which will answer the all-important question, “Can a translator last longer than 4 volumes on this series without burning out and leaving?”

Vertical has Volume 11 of its brand new series, GTO The Early Years. Yes, both those things are correct. Vol. 1-10 were released by Tokyopop, and Vertical is picking up where they left off. Known in Japan as Shonan Jun’ai Gumi, this series lasted even longer than GTO, and is how the world first got to know Onizuka. This volume should contain Vol. 21-22 of the original. Ed says if sales are good, they may go back to put 1-10 back in print. Get it! Onizuka rules!

Lastly, Midtown lags a week behind everyone else, as most of Diamond’s shops got Vol. 5 of Tenjo Tenge this week. It has kicking! And boobies! It is hard to imagine a more appropriate manga for 13 year old boys. Who, of course, should not be reading it. At least not in North America. M for Mature, folks.

So what appeals to you this week?

Toriko, Vol. 8

by

By Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

It’s been a while since I did a full review of Toriko, but this is a good volume to talk about, as it’s less fight and more food oriented. After finishing off the cliffhanger from last volume (and getting to meet several of the side-villains face to face), Toriko reunites with Komatsu and goes to Gourmet Town, the #1 town to get fantastic food. While there they meet up with a legendary chef, the elderly but insanely strong and intelligent (as with most elderly manga women) Setsuno, who gives the two of them a taste of a legendary soup. A soup that is still incomplete, and needs one more ingredient. This leads to the cliffhanger of this volume, as both Toriko and Komatsu must journey to “Ice Hell” to find said ingredient…

In general, successful Jump series seem to fall into a pattern of “fighting + friendship + X”, where X is a variable. Plus ninjas, plus pirates, plus mangaka, plus Nisioisin… that type of thing. Here it’s food, and while much of Toriko is sitting back and watching insanely strong men battle each other, the food is not just an added extra to make the story palatable. First of all, even with the occasional ‘reader suggestion’ thrown in, the different types and varieties of food show off the author’s prodigious imagination. But food also controls the plot and the main characters. They live for it. A lot of the scenes in this volume will be familiar to fans of Oishinbo or similar titles – the initial reaction of happiness, followed by a description of what they just ate, possibly delineating the ingredients used. This is Jump foodie manga.

This volume also has several strong scenes between Toriko and Komatsu, including Setsuna, reminiscing on her own partnership with Jiro (who she was also romantically involved with), noting what good partners Toriko and Komatsu make. Now, I don’t think that any Jump title currently running is written primarily for the magazine’s growing BL audience. No, not even Reborn. But certainly a lot of what attracted the BL fandom in the first place is here – men in close friendships, with lots of bonding and fights and befriending former enemies. Komatsu is in many ways the perfect uke, and he’s surrounded by strong partners – not just Toriko, but also Coco and Sunny from previous volumes – all of whom initially see him as rather pathetic but then grow to treasure him as Komatsu’s true talents in food preparation are revealed. There’s also a dearth of women in this story – Rin has been around, and she has a crush on Toriko, but he completely ignores it. So while this isn’t a BL story, it does have everything that drew BL fans to Jump in the first place, and does not go out of its way to disappoint them.

I’m impressed by the world building going on here. A lot of titles like this give off a feeling that the author is making stuff up from week to week, but several of the plot points here seem to be well planned. Komatsu’s naivete is useful in this regard, as Toriko can explain various things to him, but there’s a casualness to it that doesn’t make it seem like exposition. I particularly liked the references to the Colonel sending a duplicate to Ice Hell rather than himself – it’s made mysterious while also being obvious for the reader.

Toriko is great fun, and looks to be starting another big arc. Hopefully it will continue to balance its big fights and male bonding with more delicious food. Recommended for Jump fans.

Going Digital: February 2012

by , and 4 Comments

Welcome to the latest Going Digital, Manga Bookshelf’s monthly feature focusing on manga available for digital viewing or download. Each month, the Manga Bookshelf bloggers review a selection of comics we’ve read on our computers, phones, or tablet devices, to give readers a taste of what’s out there, old and new, and how well it works in digital form.

This month, we’ll take a look at VIZ Media’s new manga for the NOOK Color, as well as a couple of titles from JManga. Device, OS, and browser information is included with each review as appropriate, to let you know exactly how we accessed what we read.


E-Readers

VIZ Manga on the NOOK Color

In last September’s Going Digital column, I wrote about my experience reading manga on a Kindle. The review included such sentiments as “Wow, this looks like crap,” and ended with this pithy observation:

I guess paying $6 for a Kindle edition of a book I didn’t like very much is better than paying $13 for same, but my advice to those considering reading manga on their Kindle is simple: “Don’t.”

So, when I was presented with the opportunity to check out the titles VIZ has made available for NOOK devices, I was quite eager to see how the experience would differ. As it turns out, the NOOK vastly outperforms the Kindle in all areas but one, and that one is not a deal-breaker.

The loaner model NOOK Color I received came pre-loaded with a few VIZ titles, so I can’t comment on the ease of buying and downloading manga from the Barnes and Noble site, but it looks pretty straightforward to me. There’s a WiFi connection on the device, so you can shop directly from the reader, as well. Books are accessible in the Library, which displays a nice gallery of color covers instead of a plain text list of titles. Simply tap the cover of your book of choice to open, and you’re good to go.

The first offering I perused was volume 31 of Bleach, and when I saw its cover come up full-screen, so crisp and beautiful, I am pretty sure I uttered a “wow” aloud. The inner pages are just as sharp, with clean, white backgrounds and legible text. Navigation is easy—gently tap the right side of the screen for the next page (granted, this is a little counter-intuitive when reading manga, as normally you’d be turning to the left) and the left side for the previous page. Tap the middle and a menu pops up, where one can scroll amongst all the pages in the volume and manage bookmarks, which one sets by pressing the “+” icon in the top right of the screen, creating a little digital “dog-ear” effect on the page.

At this point, I still hadn’t figured out how to zoom—I’m definitely a late adopter where technology is concerned, so there was a bit of a learning curve with touch-screen navigation—so I thought I’d check out some shoujo, which is known for its teensy asides and author-talk sections with small text. I found examples of both on a page of Absolute Boyfriend, and personally found the text legible, but once I discovered the “reverse-pinch method” of zooming in, it was a definite improvement. The screen is larger than the Kindle, so a single page looks pretty good as is. The NOOK’s got an auto-rotate function, which means that the display will shift to landscape mode if you turn the device on its side. This is helpful when you want to enjoy the scope of a two-page layout from an artistic standpoint, but not really practical for reading that way, unless you want to stay zoomed in all the time.

There are only two complaints I have about the NOOK, and one is exceedingly minor. In most respects, the sensitivity of the touch screen is a good thing, but as I held the device, I somehow kept placing my thumb in such a way that caused the system to repeatedly alert me to my lack of new notifications, which was annoying. The second issue is more significant, and that is that the NOOK is pretty heavy. According to Barnes and Noble, the NOOK Color weighs 15.8 ounces, but mine (with protective cover) clocked in at 20.8 ounces, which is equal to three print volumes of manga. Obviously, this is not extremely heavy, and even the fact that the latest Kindle supposedly weighs less than six ounces could not ever induce me to recommend it over the NOOK Color where reading manga is concerned. – Michelle Smith


Web Browser

Morita-san Wa Mukuchi Vol. 1 | By Tae Sano | Takeshobo, Manga Life Momo | JManga.com | Windows XP, Firefox 10.0

Readers of print manga in North America will be very familiar with the type of manga we get with Morita-san. It’s what’s termed a ‘4-koma’ style manga. Basically the equivalent to American comic strips such as Peanuts or Beetle Bailey, They’re 4 panels, mostly vertical, with quick punchlines and gag humor. Yes, there are the occasional serious 4-koma series, but they are definitely the exception. We;ve seen the high school band series K-On!, the high school eccentrics of Azumanga Daioh, and even spin-offs of popular titles like Haruhi Suzumiya and Shugo Chara.

This series has a lot of the same types of ingredients. With the exception of a token male or two to get one-liners, the cast is almost entirely cute and female. It takes place in a typical high school. There’s no real plot to speak of – we follow our heroine and her friends through the school year, being amused at their comedy antics. However, despite all of this, I found Morita-san to be quite a fun and pleasant experience. It has a very good hook. The heroine, the titular Morita, doesn’t speak. Note that she *can* speak – she just never gets a good opportunity. Either she thinks too long about what to say and everyone moves on, or she gets flustered, or the timing is wrong… as such, she spends the volume as a sort of ‘silent support’.

Her friends, and this is another reason I found this fun, don’t really bring this up or hold it against Morita at all. It’s just a quirk, like her best friend Miki’s being boy-crazy, or Hana’s being shy. They treat her like a good friend, and don’t even mention the silence – they always ask her opinion on things and the like. And Morita herself is a likeable heroine, being nice and sweet without getting overly sappy. (Her parents help here – her mother vacillates wildly between sweet adoring wife and jealous harridan, and it’s noted Morita got her reticence from her upbringing.) There’s even some mild yuri tease here, involving the cool Student Council President who everyone loves, as well as an unnamed girl who keeps trying to stalk… um, strike up a conversation with Morita only to misread whatever situation is going on. If you’re going to read 4-koma, it should be as fun and likeable as this. -Sean Gaffney

Hyakusho Kizoku, Vol. 1 By Hiromu Arakawa | Shinshokan, Wings | JManga.com | Mac OS 10.7.3, Chrome 17.0.963.56

As most Manga Bookshelf readers will already know, I’m a huge fan of Hiromu Arakawa’s epic shounen series Fullmetal Alchemist. In fact, the series even made my personal top ten. I consider Arakawa to be a truly exceptional storyteller, so when I heard that JManga was offering something new from her, I immediately ran over to read it. I was not disappointed in the least.

From the pages of the eccentric shoujo magazine Wings, Hyakusho Kizoku is a series of humor-tinged manga essays detailing life on a Hokkaido dairy farm. Though, on the surface, Hyakusho Kizoku may seem to share little in common with a fantasy epic like Fullmetal Alchemist, fans of FMA will quickly recognize Arakawa’s easy sense of humor, as well as her ability to create compelling, recognizable characters with just a few deft strokes.

The series is openly autobiographical, filled with anecdotes from Arakawa’s childhood and teen years that cover everything from her father’s habit of visiting the cow shed in winter wearing only his underpants, to a bit of light authorial ranting on topics like pesticides, government demands, and why Hokkaido would be better off as an independent country. And though her humor is a highlight, it’s not the only way in which Arakawa shows off her strengths. One particularly haunting lesson about the fate of a sick, newborn calf had me tearing up as I read—a feat achieved mainly through just a few poignant strokes of Arakawa’s pen, as she drew her own mournful, childish face and that of the unsuspecting calf.

If I sound like a hopeless fangirl, well, perhaps I am. But it’s a devotion well-earned by any author who can entertain equally well with action-packed fantasy and facts about cow dung. And fortunately, JManga does their part as well, offering up a clean, readable adaptation that lets the series’ conversational style shine.

While Hyakusho Kizoku may not be every FMA fan’s cup of tea, it certainly is mine. Highly recommended. – MJ

Hallowed Murder by Ellen Hart

by

From the back cover:
The police call Allison’s drowning a suicide, but her housemates at her University of Minnesota sorority insist it was murder. That’s when alumnae advisor Jane Lawless steps in to find out the truth.

Abetted by her irrepressible sidekick Cordelia, Jane searches for clues, and what she finds is as chilling as the Minnesota winter—for in those icy drifts, at a lonely vacation house, she risks everything to ensnare a cunning killer…

Review:
Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless has volunteered to serve as an alumnae advisor for her former sorrority, Kappa Alpha Sigma. One morning, while out exercising with her reluctant friend, Cordelia Thorn, Jane discovers the body of one of the girls, Allison Lord. When the local police are quick to dismiss Allison’s death as suicide (which they attribute to confusion over her sexuality), Jane decides to do a little investigating of her own, eventually concluding that she’ll need to set herself up as bait to catch the killer.

I didn’t outright dislike Hallowed Murder, but it does have some major problems. Most significant is the fact that the culprit is not a surprise, thanks to a brief opening chapter that reveals their motive. Other aspects of the mystery are less transparent, though, and Hart at least managed to make me briefly suspect other characters. And speaking of the characters…. Jane is okay, and I like the aura of sadness that clings to her after the death of her long-time partner, Christine, but her friend Cordelia seems to have just one mode—obnoxious. Jane’s brother makes a couple brief appearances, but he is utterly insubstantial. Then there are the victim’s three closest friends, one of whom we scarcely meet before she apparently drops out of the sorority off-camera. Again, it’s not exactly bad, but it’s all quite superficial.

The same can be said of Hart’s writing style. As I look now at the quotes I jotted down, they don’t look so objectionable, but while I was reading they were jarringly simplistic. Too much tell, not enough show. Here are a couple of examples:

The early morning mist had settled around the base of the old bridge, making it appear to float above the water. It looked like a stage set. A perfect setting for a murder. Cordelia shuddered at her own morbidity.

Jane looked around at the young man taking notes. She had never been interrogated by the police before and did not like her words being cast in stone on some stenographer’s pad.

That second one could’ve been “Jane looked uneasily at the young man taking notes,” and it would’ve communicated all of that without seeming so… prim. This was a common problem, with dialogue and character thoughts frequently coming across as stiff and unnatural. Characters were also exceedingly forthcoming with their prejudices. Now, true, this was published in 1989, so perhaps open homophobia was more common, but characters with these opinions don’t even try to disguise them, and generally have no other positive attributes that would make them more three-dimensional—they’re just being used as ignorant mouthpieces. Here’s a quote from Susan Julian, another sorority advisor, after she learns about Allison’s sexual preference:

Having allowed a—I even hate to say the word—lesbian in our midst would destroy our reputation. We can only hope it doesn’t make the papers. I mean, no one would feel safe joining.

I haven’t yet decided whether to read Vital Lies, the second Jane Lawless mystery. The excerpt included in the back of my paperback was not very promising, but some mystery writers do improve over time. And, of course, Hart earns bonus points for managing to mention both Richard III and Doctor Who.

Additional reviews of Hallowed Murder can be found at Triple Take.

Soulless: The Manga, Vol. 1

by

Soulless is saucy in the best possible sense of the word: it’s bold and smart, with a heroine so irrepressible you can see why author Gail Carriger couldn’t tell Alexia Tarabotti’s story in just one book.

As fans of Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate novels know, Alexia is a sharp-tongued woman living in Victorian London — or rather, a steampunk version of Victorian London in which vampires and werewolves co-exist with the “daylight” (read: “human”) world. As she would in the real nineteenth-century England, Alexia faces pressure to marry, a prospect complicated by her age — she’s twenty-six — her ethnicity — her father was Italian — and her prodigious intellect. Alexia has one additional strike against her, albeit one that doesn’t affect her marriageability: she’s soulless, a “preternatural” being who can neutralize the vampires and werewolves’ power, temporarily reducing them to mortal form.

Plot-wise, Soulless is an agreeable mishmash of Young Sherlock Holmes, Underworld, and Mansfield Park, with a dash of Jules Verne for good measure. The basic storyline is a whodunnit: Alexia becomes the prime suspect in a string of supernatural disappearances around London, and must collaborate with Lord Collan Maccon, a belligerent werewolf detective, to clear her name. What they discover in the course of their investigation is a grand conspiracy worthy of an Indiana Jones movie, complete with evil scientists, vampire “hives,” sinister-looking laboratories, and a golem; all that’s missing is the Ark of the Covenant and a few Nazi generals.

At the same time, Soulless is a romance. Alexia would make a swell Austen heroine, as she faces the kind of obstacles to marriage that would elicit sympathy from the Dashwood girls and Fanny Price. The greatest of these hurdles isn’t her name or her age, however; it’s Alexia’s firm conviction that marriage should not be a socially or financially expedient union, but a true partnership. Paging Elizabeth Bennett!

Given how many genres are present in the text — it’s a crime procedural, a thriller, an urban fantasy, a comedy of manners, and a bodice ripper — it’s astonishing how well all the tropes mesh. Some of that success can be attributed to the dialogue. The characters’ peppery exchanges are an affectionate parody of British costume dramas; substitute “soulless” for “penniless,” and Alexia could easily be a character in Sense and Sensibility. A few passages strain too hard for effect — would anyone have really chosen “comestibles” over “food” when complaining about a party? — but for the most part, Carriger finds a convincing tone that’s neither faux-archaic nor casually contemporary.

Soulless’ other great strength is its appealing cast of characters. Alexia and Maccon are clearly the stars of this imaginary universe; anyone who’s read Middlemarch or Emma will immediately recognize that Alexia and Maccon are The Main Couple, as they spend most of volume one denying their mutual attraction and trading zingers. (“I may be a werewolf and Scottish, but despite what you may have read about both, we are not cads!” Maccon declares in a fit of Darcy-esque pique.) In the spirit of the best nineteenth-century novels, however, Carriger situates her lovebirds inside a vibrant community, albeit one inhabited by grumpy werewolves and flamboyant vampires in lieu of parsons, baronets, and virtuous maidens. Though these supporting characters don’t always get the screen time they deserve, Lord Akeldama, Professor Lyall, and Ivy Hisselpenny enliven the narrative with sharp observations and sound advice for Alexia and Maccon.

Manga artist Rem, best-known for her work on Vampire Kisses, does a fine job of translating Carriger’s prose into pictures. Though Rem’s attention to period detail is evident in the characters’ sumptuous costumes and lavishly furnished parlors, her meticulousness extends to the action sequences as well. An early fight between Alexia and a vampire is expertly staged, making effective use of dramatic camera angles and overturned furniture to capture the intensity of their struggle. Rem also manages to fold many of Carriger’s steampunk flourishes — zeppelins, steam-powered carriages, “glassicals” — into the story without overwhelming the eye; if anything, I found the subtlety of the steampunk elements an improvement on the novel, where the object descriptions sometimes felt like tangents.

The only drawback to the artwork is Alexia herself. In the novels, Carriger describes her as plain and full-figured; in the manga, however, Rem depicts Alexia as a buxom, wasp-waisted babe with a pouty mouth and a pretty face. That transformation is certainly in keeping with manga aesthetics — even the plainest young characters are usually pleasing to the eye — but not with the source material; as a reader, one of the real pleasures of Soulless is watching the heroine triumph on the strength of her character and brains, not the size of her bust.

On the whole, however, Rem has succeeded in taking a justifiably popular novel and making it work in a different medium on its own terms; readers new to Carriger’s work will be as enchanted with this cheeky, fun adaptation as her hardcore fans. Recommended.

Review copy provided by Yen Press. Volume one of Soulless: The Manga will be released in March 2012.

SOULLESS: THE MANGA, VOL. 1 • STORY BY GAIL CARRIGER, ART AND ADAPTATION BY REM • YEN PRESS •  208 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (VIOLENCE, SEXUAL SITUATIONS, NUDITY)

You Can Draw in 30 Days by Mark Kistler

by

From the back cover:
Drawing is an acquired skill, not a talent—anyone can learn to draw! All you need is a pencil, a piece of paper, and the willingness to tap into your hidden artistic abilities. You Can Draw in 30 Days will teach you the rest. With Emmy award-winning, longtime public television host Mark Kistler as your guide, you’ll learn the secrets of sophisticated three-dimensional renderings, and have fun along the way.

In just 20 minutes a day for a month, you can learn to draw anything, whether from the world around you or from your own imagination. It’s time to embark on your creative journey. Pick up your pencil and begin today!

Review:
I was somewhat dubious when I set out to complete Mark Kistler’s instructional book, You Can Draw in 30 Days. Despite his claim that drawing is a skill and not a talent, and that anyone can learn to do it, I had no expectation that I would emerge from the experience with the ability to create vividly realistic drawings. And, indeed, that did not happen. I did, however, learn some interesting and useful techniques, and if the goal has been merely to gain confidence and a grasp of some basic fundamentals, then I’d say it’s been achieved.

First, Kistler has students complete a pretest in which they draw a house, an airplane, and a bagel. Here’s mine. Please do not laugh at that pathetic airplane too much.

From there, students progress through a series of lessons designed to introduce and elaborate on nine “foundation elements,” which include concepts like overlapping, shading, and contour lines. These ideas are reiterated frequently throughout the book, and I enjoyed some more than others. For example, I got a little tired of drawing shadows all over everything, but the way that contour lines—here exemplified via figures Kistler has dubbed “contour kids”—can make objects appear to be in motion is extremely cool.

The first seven lessons focus on basic shapes—spheres, cubes, towers—but then Kistler begins tossing in some rather odd things like koalas, roses, scrolls, and rippling flags. Each lesson is still imparting some useful idea, but they do reveal that Kistler’s style is essentially cartoony. Here’s my koala, from lesson eight. The bonus challenge for that chapter was to draw some real-world koalas, and while my efforts look better to me now than they did originally, the fact remains that I did not (and still do not) feel well-equipped to actually faithfully reproduce a realistic-looking koala.

Beginning with lesson 22, Kistler focuses on drawing in one- or two-point perspective. I enjoyed these exercises a lot—possibly because I got to draw with a ruler, which made everything nice and crisp. Here’s my tower in two-point perspective, which looks pretty good despite a couple of minor flaws.

The final three chapters introduce drawing anatomy, and Kistler drops the ball here a bit. Instead of really trying to teach someone how to draw a face, he instructs students to trace an example, provides a few basic pointers, and then directs them to other books for more information. (Perhaps that’s why the included illustration of a student’s attempt is far less accomplished than other examples throughout the book.) Lessons on the eye and hand were better, though, and I’m rather proud of my results for the 30th and final lesson, “Your Hand of Creativity.”

On the whole, the progression of the lessons makes sense and I have few complaints. However, I must voice my objection to Kistler’s attempts to foment enthusiasm by asking lame questions throughout the book. “Are you inspired?” “Are you excited?” “Don’t you feel like a collegiate fine arts student?” This invites readers to say, “Um, no?” I get what he’s trying to do, but jeez. Enough is enough.

Ultimately, a better title for this book would have been You Can Draw Certain Things in 30 Days. I still don’t feel like I can draw well in general, but I think I’m a bit better than before. Certainly, I could apply these lessons to drawing everyday objects that fit the shapes covered in the book. So, if you ever need a picture of your loved one, don’t call me, but if it’s an open cardboard box you want, I’m your gal.

Additional reviews of You Can Draw in 30 Days can be found at Triple Take.

BL Bookrack: February 2012

by and 11 Comments

Welcome to the February installment of BL Bookrack! This month, MJand Michelle take a look at two offerings from SuBLime Manga, VIZ Media’s new BL imprint, The Bed of My Dear King and Oku-San’s Daily Fantasies, as well as Rainy Day Love from the Digital Manga Guild. In Brief: volume two of Only Serious About You from Digital Manga Publishing’s Juné imprint, and volume one of Love Pistols from SuBLime.

The Bed of My Dear King | By Sakae Kusama | SuBLime Manga | Rated M (Mature) – This is my first SuBLime title—one of the first batch of digital-only releases, in fact. It appealed to me because it was described as “a suite of emotionally resonant, romantic stories.” Plus, the description included the words “unexpected” and “poignant.” So, does The Bed of My Dear King deliver on its claims? Well, mostly. Although, instead of “emotionally resonant” and “romantic,” the first words I’d use to describe the stories herein would be “quirky” and “memorable.”

The title story is about an electrician named Koga who visits the isolated mountain home of an initially surly sculptor to make a repair. The sculptor, who eventually reveals that his name is Takashi Tohno, gets a little more friendly and helpful as Koga attempts to get to the root of the problem, and when a sudden snow storm traps them together, a bit of booze leads to a “let me feel you up for my art” kind of encounter. I love Kusama’s use of big panels to evoke the wide open spaces around Tohno’s home, and though the pair decide to date pretty durn swiftly, the result is still an unforgettable story.

“Cherry” is about Ueno, an overachieving student council member who only slows down once his glasses get broken, and Tama, a boy who’s friendly to everyone in class but treats Ueno more formally than the rest. Ueno’s near-blind state results in a terribly cute “I’ll take you home by bike” scene and a promise that they can kiss or something after the school festival. You wouldn’t think a bike scene would make a story stand out so much from its BL compatriots, but it does.

The third and final story, “Flowers,” is the weakest of the three. Kumon, a runner, is curious about Ozu, his classmate. Rumors begin swirling that Ozu has impregnated a girl, and when Kumon asks him about it, Ozu trades the details for gradually escalating intimacy. This story has the potential to deal with some weighty issues, but doesn’t delve too deeply, and the ending is just kind of dumb. Kusama writes in her notes that these stories were serialized at different times, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was an earlier effort.

All in all, this is an intriguing collection of stories and I’m glad I read it.

– Review by Michelle Smith

Oku-San’s Daily Fantasies| By Noboru Takatsuki | SuBLime Manga | Rated M (Mature) – I’ll be honest, here. Looking over the list of SuBLime Manga’s debut offerings, my initial reaction was one of disappointment. As a BL reader whose preferences lean towards thoughtful, carefully-developed romance and long-form storytelling, it was depressing to note that the imprint’s first few titles seemed to fall mainly into the categories of short stories, fluffy comedy, and gratuitous smut. Oku-San’s Daily Fantasies could be described as all three, but to a far more satisfying end than I ever would have imagined.

Oku is a bored office drone, whose single joy in life is fantasizing about Sudo, a local delivery man from a popular shipping company. In order to see Sudo as often as possible, Oku constantly orders things online, each time fantasizing about what might happen when his dream man arrives to deliver the package. Eventually, his orders extend to porn videos and sex toys, which he soon discovers are being sold to him by the company his neighbor works for. Once this discovery has been made, the neighbor, Yokoshima, drops by often, interrupting Oku’s fantasies with overly-exuberant friendliness and requests to try out new products. Though Oku initially finds this annoying, little by little, he finds himself warming up to Yokoshima. But can a real relationship ever live up to Oku’s fantasies?

There are a number of reasons why this manga really works, not the least of which is the fact that Oku’s (often hilarious) fantasies provide the opportunity for the author to include a whole lot of deliberately over-the-top, porno-rific sex scenes that actually serve the story. While even in the most serious romantic tales, sex sequences have a tendency to get in the way of the storytelling more than anything else, here they are actually a significant aspect of Oku’s character development, and even help to forward the plot. Even more surprising, is mangaka Noboru Takatsuki’s ability to write sexually-charged comedy that is actually funny, which is not something I generally associate with humorous BL manga. Takatsuki’s artwork is a highlight as well, serving the story’s comedy and erotica with equal skill.

Though SuBLime may not yet be satisfying my desire for epic, nuanced BL romance, they’ve managed to win me over with this charming bit of humorous smut. Surprisingly recommended.

– Review by MJ

Rainy Day Love | By Satomi Konno | Digital Manga Guild | Rated M (Mature)- One rainy day, Yuta Yoshizawa is working at his family’s senbei shop when Shizuno stops by. Graceful and handsome, Shizuno was a first-year member of the shogi club when Yuta was in his third year, and soon they’ve rekindled their friendship. In the blink of an eye, Yuta confesses his feelings, whereupon Shizuno reveals that he’s been in love with Yuta since sixth grade. After a brief interlude, during which these lovebirds realize that they don’t actually know each other at all, they start focusing their thoughts on consummating their relationship.

It’s not that Rainy Day Love is bad, really. It’s just really superficial. This is what I get for routinely judging BL by its covers—and this is a really nice one—but I somehow expected, from the title, more of a melancholy story. Instead, this is fast-paced and a little frivolous, with love confessions that are so abrupt and unconvincing that they made me go “Pfft!” and many scenes where super-deformed characters have dialogue like “Eep!” There is nothing wrong with a romance being silly—and there’s certainly something to be said for a story that doesn’t take its own drama seriously—but there’s nothing really compelling about it, either.

After Yuta and Shizuno manage to get it on, their story ends and the volume is rounded out with a couple tales about Yuta’s brother, Shoichi, and his friend Seigo, who’s been in love with him since elementary school. There’s really not much to recommend this, either, honestly. I guess if you like comedic BL about horndogs, then you might like Rainy Day Love. If you like more serious BL, like I do, then you’re probably going to be bored and disappointed.

– Review by Michelle Smith

In Brief:

Only Serious About You, Vol. 2 | By Kai Asou | Digital Manga Publishing | Rated YA (16+) – If volume one of Kai Asou’s Only Serious About You impressed me with its ability to craft a real, moving love story out of well-worn genre clichés, what’s most impressive about its second volume is its ability to make me forget that they were ever clichés to begin with. Though this volume’s primary conflict is divorced dad Oosawa’s struggle to maintain custody of his young daughter, the deeper issue here is his decision to accept his feelings for former playboy Yoshioka, and come out as his lover. Though the “only gay for you” syndrome is one of the genre’s least appealing tropes, here, it barely reads as a trope at all. On the negative side, Oosawa’s custody battle is resolved a tad too easily, but this is not nearly enough to sink a title this strong. Enthusiastically recommended. – MJ

Love Pistols | By Tarako Kotobuki | SuBLime Manga | Rated M (Mature) – Among the first four titles offered up by SuBLime Manga, Love Pistols would appear to be the closest to “my kind of BL,” at least on the surface. It’s a steamy, dramatic romance, told in multiple volumes (seven and counting), with some pretty complicated world-building and supernatural themes. Unfortunately so far, it’s also got a dull, controlling love interest, stunningly unappealing sex scenes, and just enough exposition to drown in. And while the tragic rarity of multi-volume BL ensures that I’ll give this series at least one more chance to win me over, there’s no denying the fact that reading its first volume was a distressingly unpleasant chore. Better luck next time, Love Pistols? Let’s hope so. – MJ

Review copies provided by the publishers. Cover art: The Bed of My Dear King © Sakae Kusama 2011, Oku-san’s Daily Fantasies © Noboru Takatsuki 2011, Love Pistols © Tarako Kotobuki 2004

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

Other recent BL reviews from MJ & Michelle: I Love You, Chief Clerk! (JManga); Only Serious About You, Vol. 2 (Juné).

Guest Feature: The Geeky Heart of Taipei

by 16 Comments

If you are a geek, and find yourself in Taipei, know this: you must visit the Huashan-Bade-Guanghua geek complex. They can supply any geek, whether food geek (there is a farmer’s market), korean drama geek (lots of korean drama DVDs) and even the jade geek (yep, there’s a jade market too).

Naturally, it’s the best place to buy comics books in Taipei, and possibly even the best place to buy comic books in all of Taiwan. First, let’s look at Huashan Cultural Park.

A picture of the former factory buildings which are now Huashan Culture Park

Once upon a time, Huashan was a factory. As Taipei de-industrialises, authorities try to repurpose the leftover structures, and Huashan is one of their more successful efforts. It has galleries, trendy cafes/eateries, a yoga center, and hosts various artsy/indy events. Futhermore, it’s a popular location for wedding photos. When I talk to young people about what places in Taipei they recommend visiting, Huashan is one of the places they mention the most often. However, there is not much in the way of comic books around Huashan.

Outside of the exhibit for the M Riders is a cardboard cutout showing all of the main characters from the TV series.

Here is a temporary exhibit at Huashan dedicated to The M Riders, a Taiwanese fantasy TV series. I don’t know much about it, though based on what little I’ve seen, it looks like it has been heavily influenced by Harry Potter.

This is a sign on Bade Road which shows a bunch of circuitry, highlighting Bade Road's techie credentials

Now let’s head to the Bade Rd. market.

Along Bade Road, we se the signs of many tech stores

As you can see by the street signs, this section of Bade Rd. is full of technology stores.

This storefront is quite open, designed to invite people passing by to browse through the various gadgets

This is a typical store-front.

Street stalls selling typical Taiwanese street food mix with the technology stores

Here, in the alleys, tech stores mix with vendors of standard Taiwanese street fare, in case you get hungry while browsing through wares (and it’s the wrong day of the week for the farmer’s market).

This is a picture showing Animate from the outside

Of course, all of the geeks converging on Bade Rd. to get their gadgets also need something to read. Animate, one of Taiwan’s largest comic book stores, is right here to serve them.

Animate carries lots of manga and otherwise geeky magazines.

Here is the magazine section.

Along the staircase of Animate you can see various ads and comments about manga/anime

Here is the staircase.

Unfortunately, they did not want me to take pictures of the second floor (where most of the store is). However, they have a huge selection of (new) manga of all kinds, as well as lots of light novels, and manhwa, and the type of manhua which is styled after Japanese manga. Alas, I have never seen any of the types of manhua which stray further from the Japanese style at Animate. But that’s just the front part of the store. In the back part of the store, they sell lots of anime/manga themed merchandise. And in the very, very back is the “18 and older” section, naturally.

A picture of the 5-floor Guanghua Digital Plaza from the outside

But now it’s time to head to … GUANGHUA DIGITAL PLAZA!

A picture of the various technology-selling stalls on the ground floor of Guanghua Digital Plaza

Here’s a picture of the ground floor of Guanghua Digital Plaza. Though the ground floor has some eateries (which I do not care about) … the real business is selling the big gadgets. Like computers.

Of course, many of the tech stalls at Guanghua Digital Plaza are actually outposts of the (larger) stores in Bade Market. Because everything is much closer together inside Guanghua Digital Plaza, it’s easier to do comparison shopping, or to shop for mutiple items. Therefore Guanghua Digital Plaza gets much more foot traffic. All the stores want a slice of that.

A picture of a stall selling HP computers next to a stall selling Fujitsu computers

This is the stall where I bought the computer I am using to write this post.

One of the features of shopping at Guanghua Digital Plaza is the haggling. It is easier to haggle at Guanghua Digital Plaza than at the Nova Arcade on Chongqing road (the other major spot in Taipei to buy electronic gadgets). It is often said that you should never accept the list price for anything (at least for the tech items). I am not good at haggling, so I can’t give advice, but you should definitely try to get as good a deal as you can.

A view of the types of stall found on the second and third floors of Guanghua Digital Plaza

Let’s go up to the second and third floors – where all the comic books are!

Here are some tall, rolling bookshelves inside a comic book stall.

This is a pretty typical set up for comic book stores / rental shops throughout Taiwan – tall, shifting shelves to pack in as many comics as possible.

A store selling various kinds of outdoor gear

Here’s an outdoor-gear store. I told you this area catered to geeks of all kinds.

A small hole-in-the wall bookstore which manages to stock a lot of used books.

Now here is a little book store that I love. Though it’s small, they have a good selection of comic books:

Comic book series bundled together and stacked on upon the other.

Of course, with all of those comics stacked up on each other, browsing is a bit challenging – how can you know what’s buried under there? That’s why there is a list of all series currently in stock; if you indicate interest in a series, the store keeper will pull it out for you.

Kpop stars are dancing on a bunch of computer screens to show off the quality of the image.

Here are some Korean pop stars showing off the visual quality of these monitors. All things K-pop are very popular in Taiwan (well … manhwa is not very popular in Taiwan, though I suspect it sells much better in Taiwan than in the United States). If you browse the monitors at Guanghua Digital Plaza, you will see a lot of K-pop dancing.

This is a small Mollie's Used Bookstore tucked inside Guanghua Digital Plaza

And here’s Mollie’s outpost at Guanghua Digital Plaza. Mollie’s Used Bookstore is one of the local used bookstore chains. While this Mollie’s merely has a small selection of comics, it’s always worth a look.

A bunch of manhua titles for sale, including Creative Comics Collection, Old Master Q, and various wuxia titles

If you were disappointed that Animate does not sell manhua which veers from the Japanese style, this store has a nice selection of such manhua.

A typical corridor on the third floor

Somewhere on this floor is the store where I bought the camera I’m using to take all these pictures … but I can’t seem to find it.

Yet another hole-in-the-wall comic book store at Guanghua Digital Plaza

Here’s another great comic books store. This place just sells used comics – specifically, it just sells bundled used comic books. It’s great if you want the full run of a semi-popular-thru-somewhat-obscure series without putting your wallet through too much pain.

A typical video store selling DVDs and VCDs at Guanghua Digital Plaza

And here’s a video store. There are a number of these throughout the second and third floor. They sell Hollywood fare, Hong Kong fare, Chinese fare, Japanese live-action fare, anime, lots and lots of Korean dramas, and local idol dramas. Notice that there is a sign on top for the Emma anime.

A hole in the wall bookstore / comic book store which manages to have quite a selection in spite of its size

And here’s Wawa, which has by far the best selection of new comic books in all of Guanghua Digital Plaza. They even have some new comics which I have not seen at Animate.

New copies of a bunch of volumes of (Chinese language) Glass Mask

For example, they have Every Single Volume Of Glass Mask. New. It’s not hard to find a used set of Glass Mask, but having new copies of the entire run in stock? That’s impressive.

A bookstore which is utterly crammed with used books

And here’s another little store that I love.

A stack of comic books outside a bookstore

Again, the comics are stacked up right out front, though there are also many comics inside too (I never understood how this store is organized, and that’s okay – it make is more like a treasure hunt).

The inside of the bookstore, where used books are stuffed into every nook and cranny possible

And here’s the interior. Look at how books are spilling out of every book and cranny. While it’s not so good for the books, I love this kind of used bookstore. It feels so much warmer and cozy than bookstores where everything is neatly and coldly laid out.

So that’s Huashan-Bade-Guanghua. I admit that it’s quite commercial (well, Huashan Cultural Park is less so), but buying, selling, and trading what you love is quite exciting. Every time I visit, I think I already know everything that’s there – yet I always manage to discover something new. And if you visit yourself, I’m sure you’ll disover something new yourself.

Sara K. has previously written Why You Should Read Evyione and a review of Mary Stayed Out All Night for Manga Bookshelf. She now has her own blog, The Notes Which Do Not Fit, though you won’t find much about comic books or Asian culture over there. She currently lives in Taoyuan County, Taiwan.

Manga Bestsellers: 2012, Week Ending 05 February

by Leave a Comment

Comparative Rankings Based on Consolidated Online Sales

last week’s charts
about the charts

##

Manga Bestsellers

1. ↔0 (1) : Sailor Moon 3 – Kodansha Comics, Jan 2012 [477.0] ::
2. ↔0 (2) : Sailor Moon 1 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [427.5] ::
3. ↔0 (3) : Sailor Moon 2 – Kodansha Comics, Nov 2011 [422.3] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Black Butler 8 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [412.5] ::
5. ↑17 (22) : Negima! 33 – Kodansha Comics, Jan 2012 [398.4] ::
6. ↓-1 (5) : Maximum Ride 5 – Yen Press, Dec 2011 [393.1] ::
7. ↓-1 (6) : Naruto 54 – Viz Shonen Jump, Mar 2012 [383.5] ::
8. ↓-1 (7) : Sailor Moon Codename: Sailor V 1 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [375.3] ::
9. ↓-1 (8) : Naruto 53 – Viz Shonen Jump, Dec 2011 [355.1] ::
10. ↑2 (12) : Sailor Moon 4 – Kodansha Comics, Mar 2012 [352.0] ::

[more]

Top Imprints
Number of volumes ranking in the Top 500:

Yen Press 82
Viz Shonen Jump 81
Viz Shojo Beat 67
Kodansha Comics 46
Viz Shonen Jump Advanced 37
Seven Seas 21
Dark Horse 17
Vizkids 17
DMP Juné 16
HC/Tokyopop 10

[more]

Series/Property

1. ↔0 (1) : Sailor Moon – Kodansha Comics [1,115.5] ::
2. ↔0 (2) : Naruto – Viz Shonen Jump [943.5] ::
3. ↔0 (3) : Black Butler – Yen Press [846.5] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Maximum Ride – Yen Press [791.5] ::
5. ↑5 (10) : Negima! – Del Rey/Kodansha Comics [636.1] ::
6. ↓-1 (5) : Highschool of the Dead – Yen Press [590.8] ::
7. ↓-1 (6) : Fullmetal Alchemist – Viz [534.4] ::
8. ↑1 (9) : Rosario+Vampire – Viz Shonen Jump Advanced [524.9] ::
9. ↓-1 (8) : Pokemon – Vizkids [514.1] ::
10. ↓-3 (7) : Black Bird – Viz Shojo Beat [499.7] ::

[more]

New Releases
(Titles releasing/released This Month & Last)

1. ↔0 (1) : Sailor Moon 3 – Kodansha Comics, Jan 2012 [477.0] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Black Butler 8 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [412.5] ::
5. ↑17 (22) : Negima! 33 – Kodansha Comics, Jan 2012 [398.4] ::
11. ↓-1 (10) : Black Bird 12 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jan 2012 [345.3] ::
12. ↓-1 (11) : Rosario+Vampire Season II 7 – Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Jan 2012 [339.5] ::
14. ↑1 (15) : Highschool of the Dead 5 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [328.4] ::
18. ↓-5 (13) : Pandora Hearts 8 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [321.8] ::
21. ↓-4 (17) : Skip Beat! 26 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jan 2012 [269.0] ::
23. ↑7 (30) : Durarara!! 1 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [249.6] ::
27. ↓-4 (23) : Pokemon Black & White 5 – Vizkids, Jan 2012 [229.4] ::

[more]

Preorders

7. ↓-1 (6) : Naruto 54 – Viz Shonen Jump, Mar 2012 [383.5] ::
10. ↑2 (12) : Sailor Moon 4 – Kodansha Comics, Mar 2012 [352.0] ::
19. ↓-3 (16) : Sailor Moon 5 – Kodansha Comics, Apr 2012 [297.6] ::
26. ↓-2 (24) : Sailor Moon 6 – Kodansha Comics, Jun 2012 [236.5] ::
41. ↑109 (150) : Bleach 38 – Viz Shonen Jump, Mar 2012 [180.7] ::
60. ↑10 (70) : Sailor Moon 7 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2012 [147.7] ::
61. ↑4 (65) : Naruto 55 – Viz Shonen Jump, Mar 2012 [146.2] ::
69. ↑15 (84) : Negima! 34 – Kodansha Comics, Apr 2012 [133.7] ::
104. ↑19 (123) : Ambiguous Relationship – DMP Juné, Mar 2012 [93.7] ::
123. ↓-21 (102) : Dance in the Vampire Bund 12 – Seven Seas, Jun 2012 [85.2] ::

[more]

Manhwa

179. ↑314 (493) : Black God 15 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [61.3] ::
268. ↓-5 (263) : JTF-3 Counter Ops (ebook) – RealinterfaceStudios.com, Mar 2011 [42.9] ::
356. ↑21 (377) : Bride of the Water God 9 – Dark Horse, Oct 2011 [31.5] ::
366. ↓-174 (192) : Laon 6 – Yen Press, Jul 2011 [30.4] ::
451. ↑163 (614) : March Story 3 – Viz Signature, Oct 2011 [23.3] ::
487. ↓-230 (257) : Totally Captivated 3 – Netcomics, Jun 2008 [20.8] ::
512. ↓-210 (302) : Totally Captivated 4 – Netcomics, Sep 2008 [19.1] ::
666. ↓-34 (632) : March Story 2 – Viz Signature, Apr 2011 [12.3] ::
736. ↑61 (797) : Goong 11 – Yen Press, May 2011 [9.9] ::
762. ↓-243 (519) : Totally Captivated 6 – Netcomics, Feb 2009 [9.2] ::

[more]

BL/Yaoi

47. ↑66 (113) : Finder Series 5 Truth in the View Finder – DMP Juné, Dec 2011 [169.1] ::
76. ↑15 (91) : Private Teacher 2 – DMP Juné, Jan 2012 [123.9] ::
80. ↓-18 (62) : Maelstrom (ebook) 1 – Yaoi Press, Jun 2011 [121.5] ::
101. ↑11 (112) : A Fallen Saint’s Kiss – 801 Media, Jan 2012 [96.9] ::
104. ↑19 (123) : Ambiguous Relationship – DMP Juné, Mar 2012 [93.7] ::
110. ↓-4 (106) : Seven Days Friday-Sunday – DMP Juné, Sep 2011 [91.4] ::
116. ↓-15 (101) : Mr. Tiger & Mr. Wolf – DMP Juné, Sep 2011 [87.1] ::
138. ↑50 (188) : Finder Series 4 Prisoner in the View Finder – DMP Juné, Aug 2011 [77.0] ::
177. ↑281 (458) : Seven Days Monday-Thursday – DMP Juné, Aug 2010 [61.6] ::
188. ↓-5 (183) : Maelstrom (ebook) 6 – Yaoi Press, Aug 2011 [59.9] ::

[more]

Ebooks

77. ↓-22 (55) : Amazing Agent Luna 1 – Seven Seas, Mar 2005 [123.0] ::
80. ↓-18 (62) : Maelstrom (ebook) 1 – Yaoi Press, Jun 2011 [121.5] ::
84. ↓-10 (74) : Vampire Cheerleaders 1 – Seven Seas, Mar 2011 [117.0] ::
88. ↓-17 (71) : How to Draw Manga (ebook) Lesson 1 Eyes – Japanime’s Manga University, May 2011 [113.3] ::
98. ↑33 (131) : Manga Cookbook – Japanime’s Manga University, Aug 2007 [100.2] ::
106. ↓-11 (95) : Amazing Agent Luna 2 – Seven Seas, Jul 2005 [92.6] ::
113. ↑30 (143) : Sin (ebook) chapters 1-10 – MangaMagazine, Sep 2011 [89.0] ::
119. ↓-23 (96) : The Outcast 1 – Seven Seas, Sep 2007 [86.1] ::
130. ↓-27 (103) : Dragon Ball Z Legend: The Quest Continues – Cocoro Books, May 2004 [82.2] ::
151. ↓-25 (126) : Kanji de Manga 1 – Japanime’s Manga University, Jan 2005 [71.6] ::

[more]

Combat Commentary: Bakuman Volume 6, Ch. 48-50

by 2 Comments

What’s that, you say? What am I doing looking at Bakuman? It’s not even a battle manga. Don’t I know the title of my own column? Well, allow me to explain. I’ve mentioned before that I am interested in looking at non-conventional fight scenes and battles. Not all conflict (or even fights) needs to be physical. Sometimes they can be battles of ideals, or of ideas. They can be mental mindgames, or cleverly constructed traps. One could even say that any form of conflict resolution is a battle.

While I will continue to focus on battles involving actual physical confrontation, every once in a while I plan to slip in a commentary on the more unconventional battles that are found in manga. With this entry at least I hope to show that a manga does not need punching to be shounen. Series like Bakuman are just as shounen, possibly even more so, than series involving a great deal of fighting.

What Happened?
After overworking himself, Mashiro collapses on the floor of his studio. His assistants find him, and he is admitted to the hospital. While Mashiro insists that he can keep working while in the hospital, his friends try to get him to stop until he recovers. But one by one he convinces them all, even Azuki, that he needs to keep drawing, no matter what. Once he finally has everyone on his side, and is finishing up the pages for the next chapter, the Editor in Chief says that their series will be put on hiatus until Mashiro and Takagi graduate from high school.

(click images to enlarge)

What Happens?
Everyone, including several of the editors, and all of Mashiro and Takagi’s manga artist friends, disagree with the Editor in Chief’s decision to put the series on hold, despite the fact that the decision is made with Mashiro’s well-being mind. Fukuda, and the rest of Team Fukuda, decide that they will protest the Editor in Chief’s decision by boycotting the magazine. They meet with their editors, and tell them that they fully intend to withhold their series from the magazine until the decision to put Muto Ashirogi on hiatus is reversed.

The Editor in Chief remains firm in his decision, and despite the next issue being printed without any of Team Fukuda’s manga, he refuses to change his mind. Miura tries to resolve the issue by getting Mashiro and Takagi to accept a hiatus until Mashiro is discharged from the hospital. He manages to do this, and Mashiro convinces Fukuda and Nizuma to put an end to the boycott. But even after getting the boycott resolved, the Editor in Chief refuses to change his mind. It is not until Mashiro leaves the hospital, and he and Takagi and Miura present the Editor in Chief with all the chapters they created while Mashiro was hospitalized, that the Editor in Chief finally relents and allows Trap to continue serialization in the next issue.

What Does it Mean?
Battles do not have to be physical to be battles. Sometimes they can be a mental game between two opponents, such as are found in Death Note. At their most basic, battles are a clash between opposing ideals. In every good battle, the protagonist and the antagonist’s ideals clash, and the battle does not end until one set of ideals has been proven superior. Generally these confrontations are simplified down to the stronger fighter having the correct ideals.

Even better, is when there is no clear right or wrong. Oftentimes the ideals are simplified down to clear black and white, but in the case of Bakuman, a lot of the driving force of the conflict is that both sides have good arguments. In a way, the Editor in Chief’s lone stand against the rest of the cast puts him in quite a heroic role, especially when considering his motivation is to protect Mashiro from sharing his uncle’s fate.

In a series mostly based in the real world, like Bakuman, fantastic physical confrontations are not possible. And while no blows are traded, two ideals are still pitted against each other. The Editor-in-Chief is convinced that if Mashiro keeps working, he will end up like his Uncle, and wants to protect him from this fate. While Mashiro and the rest of the cast believe in the youthful ideals of always working hard, no matter what puts itself in your path.

The battle is fought with sheer willpower. The same willpower that brings other shounen heroes back to their feet, is what keeps Mashiro drawing, despite his body rebelling against him. It is the same willpower that allows his friends to risk their careers to fight what they perceive as an unjust decision. And in the end, it is that exact same willpower that convinces the Editor-in-Chief to reinstate the series before he had intended to.

By digging deep, and finding examples of battles in even a series like Bakuman we find that battles are the core of every good narrative. Whether actual battles are fought or not, a story relies on the clash of ideals that happens when two opposing sides face each other. And it is the resolution of this conflict that gives every story worth reading its bite.

In a way, the series itself manages to focus not only on how manga is created, but it also uses its story as a way to show how to create good manga. Mashiro’s battle against the Editor-in-Chief has all the hallmarks of a good battle scene, and everything else about the manga sets up the ideas used to create good shounen manga. From Mashiro and Takagi’s incredible drive, to their rivalry against Nizuma (which only really started because they decided to make him their rival) which drives them on to become Number One. Not only are meta-battles used in all forms of storytelling, but Bakuman is a rare case in that the entire point of the series is to portray shounen manga in a different setting than normal.

From the Heart, Cocohana

by 4 Comments

It’s not often I’m in the right place at the right time to see the birth of a new magazine. This time, I was. Shueisha’s Cocohana launched in time for January 2012 and I just happened to be at a store that carried it when it hit the shelves.

Cocohana is being positioned as a Shoujo magazine for adults. As a result, the feeling is neither quite Josei, nor Shoujo, but some hybrid creation. From my perspective, it works.

To bump up its appeal to an adult audience, Volume 1 started right off with a few power names on the roster, Higashimura Akiko (known for Kuragehime, known here as Jellyfish Princess,) with “Kakukaku Shikajika,” Yamashita Tomoko (Dining Bar Akira,) with a one-shot, “Biseinen,” and is reprinting some previously serialized stories from Chorus magazine, including Haruno Nanae’s classic Papa Told Me. (This gives me hope that, perhaps we’ll see her Pieta re-serialized. This story is one of my favorite older Yuri series and as the Yuri audience now exists as a thing on its own, I think Pieta‘s time has come.) “Ashi Girl,” by Morimoto Kozuek,o is the kind of fantastic mix of historical rewrite and female experience that I haven’t seen since Akaishi Michiyo’s Amakusa 1637. I’m looking forward to more of it.

Previews of most of the series running in Cocohana are avialable on the website: http://cocohana.shueisha.co.jp/viewer/index.html, as are messages from the manga artists. Uniquely, the Cocohana main page also includes a Twitter stream of messages by the manga
artists, something I haven’t seen any other magazine website include – despite the adoption of Twitter by many manga artists. The website also offers a personalized fortune-telling session, if you send your information in by form.

Scheduled for 28 volumes a year, Cocohana retails for 500 yen ($6.44 at time of writing,) for approximately 450 pages, which puts it at the high end of per-page cost for a manga magazine…another sign that this is for an older audience. Bolstering the idea that the magazine is Shoujo, not Josei, it comes with a giveaway – a small purse – but, with art by Anno Moyocco which confirms that the audience is adults. So far, in image and story, Cocohana is balanced perfectly to present a specific image.

Cocohana, the shoujo magazine for adults, from Shueisha: http://cocohana.shueisha.co.jp

 

Manga the Week of 2/22

by

The fourth week (but really the 3rd) of February gives us quite a few titles to choose from. And for once, none of them are from viz – it’s the other publishers that get a look in.

Dark Horse gives us the 20th volume of Oh My Goddess, which means they have now caught up with the ‘unflipped’ editions. Honestly, it’s a sign of how popular this series is with their fans that they even went to all the trouble of this giant re-release, and I’m impressed. As ever, Carl Horn supplements the releases with letters and endnotes. Going forward, starting with Volume 41, it’s all heading forward into the future, rather than reliving the glorious past.

As always, DMP’s yaoi publications always end up with the best titles. This week we have ‘Gentlemen’s Agreements Between A Rabbit And A Wolf’, which sorely needs a tiger in there as well, but I won’t quibble as I know it would destroy the beautiful seme/uke balance the title provides. And in more sedate titles, we also have the 5th volume of the deluxe reissue of Kizuna.

Kodansha gives us the 4th volume of 24-style thriller Bloody Monday, and the 4th volume of fantastic dinosaur art series Gon. Two series that really are unlikely to ever cross over. (Gon doesn’t appear in Cage of Eden, does he? Cause that would just make my year.)

Seven Seas is giving Midtown the 3rd volume of A Certain Scientific Railgun, which many other Diamond customers – including me – got this week. There is still no sign of the parent series, A Certain Magical Index, but Railgun is entertaining enough.

That’s right, it’s my blog, and so Higurashi gets the image again. The Atonement Arc hits Volume 3, and no doubt will feature increasing paranoia and bloodshed. Can the ircle be broken, or are we in for another depressing reset? Well, we won’t find out yet, but certainly this will ramp up the tension. Also from Yen, we have new volumes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (the normal manga version, not the SD one); ninja manga Nabari no Ou; ecchi harem fantasy catgirl samurai… thing Omamori Himari; the awesomely insane Soul Eater; and a new volume of Sumomomo Momomno, which is still going, to my surprise. it’s hit Volume 11 too! Sheesh, kids these days…

All this and the debut of Soulless: The Manga from artist REM! What interests you this week?