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Manga the Week of 3/14

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After an insane week this week, the manga world has decided to take pity on us. Well, mostly. Except for this giant pile of BL. Let’s start with that.

There’s a bunch of stuff from DMP out next week. There’s a volume of short stories by prolific artist Minase Masara, released under the title Ambiguous Relationship. Beast & Feast has smoking hot police officer on yakuza love (or is it the other way around?), as well as a great title. Blue Sheep Reverie hits Vol. 5. (It used to run in Betsuhana! Honest! Can you picture it next to Otomen? Well, yes, actually…) Depression of the Anti-Romanticist also has a great title, and I think that it needs to have a cage match with Beast & Feast to see who’s best. Lastly, we have another volume of the novel series Yashikiden Demon Princess, which I know little of except it’s by the Vampire Hunter D author.

Kodansha Comics wraps up a series, as we get the final volume of Monster Hunter Orage, from the Fairy Tail creator. We also get the 18th volume of Fairy Tail, which I hope to like more than the 17th.

Vertical has a final volume as well, with Vol. 12 of Twin Spica. This contains Vols. 15 and 16 of the Japanese series, and means I finally get to decide once and for all if it’s heartwarmingly uplifting or crushingly melancholy. I suspect I’m going to pick the former. If you don’t get this series, you missed out on something special.

Viz has two Pokemon volumes. I know I give these short shrift here, but… if you like Pokemon, get these! That’s about all I can say.

Lastly, in non-manga news, Fantagraphics is finally releasing the first in a series of collections of the comic strip Nancy, by Ernie Bushmiller. This isn’t the first chronologically – like Carl Barks, they’re picking and choosing what years to begin with – but that doesn’t really matter. The comic we all thought was even duller than Garfield as a kid turns out, when our parents were kids, to have a certain zen brilliance that’s hard to sum up in words. If you like classic comic strips, check this out and be amazed what one artist did with just minimalist art and vaudeville gags.

So what would Sluggo buy this week?

Psyren, Vols. 1-2

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By Toshiaki Iwashiro | Published by VIZ Media

Ageha Yoshina is a first-year highschool student who channels his passion for fighting into helping people (for a fee). When classmate Sakurako Amamiya goes missing, he can’t just ignore it, particularly since she seems to know something about Psyren, a mysterious organization that recently issued Ageha a phone card when he answered a ringing public phone. The quest to find Sakurako leads Ageha to Psyren itself, which is not so much an organization as a place—a dangerous dimension where a chosen few (known as Psyren Drifters) brave the harsh landscape and murderous denizens to reach a particular gate, at which point they return home to be called again in the future, using the interval to learn more about Psyren and hone the psionic skills that Psyren’s atmosphere has infected them with.

I wasn’t sure what to think of Psyren at first. It starts slowly, and neither Ageha nor Sakurako are particularly distinct characters (Ageha because he’s so like every other shounen hero and Sakurako because Iwashiro-sensei is admittedly not aiming for any kind of consistency in her characterization). Once Hiryu—a formerly wimpy elementary school classmate who is now simultaneously hulking and thoughtful—arrives, however, things begin to improve. He provides a foil against which Ageha can be compared, which makes their psionic training sessions (in which Hiryu excels with concentrated effort and Ageha fails time and time again until he unleashes a powerful, uncontrolled burst) pretty fun.

It also helps that the concept of Psyren has elements that remind me of other series: the giant insectoid creatures and dire depiction of Japan’s future remind me of 7SEEDS, the cyborgish enemies remind me of BLAME!, and the contract by which unwitting participants are forced to risk their lives for some vaguely explained purpose reminds me of Bokurano: Ours. It remains to be seen whether Psyren will truly turn out to be as great as these other series, but it does have a dark edge—hinting that one’s performance in the game can somehow impact Earth’s future—that I appreciate.

To be sure, Psyren is not perfect. As mentioned, the main problem is Sakurako. She, quite literally, seems to change personality from panel to panel. At first, I thought that maybe this was happening because she’d used her psionic abilities so much that it had affected her mind, but after Iwashiro’s confession—“I was very careful when portraying [heroine of previous series]’s personality, but I’ve tempered that tendency, allowing for more of a kaleidoscopic view of Sakurako”—that doesn’t seem to be the case. Too, I feel like we’re supposed to find Matsuri-sensei, the concert pianist/biker chick who has beaten the Psyren game, cool and awesome, but she just makes me yawn.

Ultimately, Psyren is better than I thought it would be. It’s also, at sixteen volumes, not a sprawling epic that would require a huge commitment. At the moment, at least, I plan to continue for the long haul.

Psyren is published in English by VIZ Media. The third volume came out this week. The series is complete in Japan with sixteen volumes.

Review copies provided by the publisher.

Combat Commentary: Fairy Tail Vol. 11, Ch. 86-87 – Lucy & Juvia vs. Vidaldus Taka

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The good thing about writing about fight scenes in shounen manga is that I will never run out of material. The bad thing is that I have too many to chose from. When considering which battle from Fairy Tail to write about, I had to eliminate several possibilities, though chances are they will all see the light of day eventually.

Let’s be honest, women get a raw deal in shounen manga. More often than not, the female lead is one of the least appreciated characters. Her prowess is constantly being compared to that of her male counterpart. And with almost no exceptions, she is found lacking by an incredibly picky fanbase.

I could go into detail about how it’s ridiculous to judge a character’s value based on her combat ability, but that seems a little counter–productive for a column focusing on nothing but fights. Instead, let us talk about a series that puts the women on the same playing field as the men, and gives them a fair shot at being just as formidable as the boys.

Erza Scarlet is one of the rare female characters who is consistently stronger than the male lead. But she is not the female lead—that falls on Lucy Heartphilia instead. At first glance, Lucy comes across as the basic female lead in a shounen manga. More often than not, she needs saving, and she’s consistently weaker than Natsu, the male lead. The difference between her and far too many other female shounen leads is that she consistently gets at least one fight per arc in the latter parts of the manga.

Compared to characters like Naruto‘s Sakura (who’s gotten exactly one fight over the course of years of publication), Lucy may not be the most powerful character, and her fighting style isn’t as direct as shounen audiences like. But at least she gets fights, and she usually wins them. On the other hand, she also tends to lose her clothes during the fight. You win some, you lose some.

(click images to enlarge)

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What Happened?
Erza, in a rare case of damsel in distress, is kidnapped by former friends of hers. They take her to the Tower of Heaven, where she and they had been child slaves years ago. There, Erza discovers that an old friend of hers, Jellal, has almost finished the Tower of Heaven, and intends to use the R-System within it to resurrect the dark wizard Zeref.

Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Juvia make their way to the tower and infiltrate it to save Erza. After meeting up with Erza, who had escaped captivity on her own—damsel in distress did not agree with her—they all split up to take down Jellal. Lucy and Juvia go together, and are confronted by Vidaldus Taka, a punk rocker with the ability to control his hair and make women his slaves.

Eeyup, no subtext here. Just unfortunate translations.

What Happens?
Vidaldus takes control of Juvia, and turns her against Lucy. Juvia beats on Lucy, but her real feelings manage to make their way through. Lucy then realizes she can use the water that makes up Juvia’s body to summon her strongest Celestial Spirit, Aquarius. Aquarius floods the room with water, and Lucy and Juvia combine their magic power into a unison raid to overpower Vidaldus.

What Does it Mean?
Last week’s column brought up the issue of using established abilities vs sudden power-ups in the middle of battle. This is an example of the latter. Lucy and Juvia somehow manage to combine their magic powers, an ability that is never foreshadowed, nor is it ever explained or brought up again.

Clearly, you are meant to know exactly what this prior unexplained phenomenon is!

For all of his ability to create entertaining manga, Mashima is bad at ending things. Whether it be fights, or an entire story. The reliance on a deus ex machina (sort of) power-up is lazy writing, especially when the proper groundwork hasn’t been laid. The difference between a satisfying climax and a deus ex machina is always in the preparation that has been done prior to the climax.

That being said, considering this is the eleventh volume of the series, it’s actually only Lucy’s second proper fight. Fairy Tail does an interesting thing with her character. She starts off as being the damsel in distress more than once, but as the series progresses she becomes more involved in fights and even starts to win them on her own. More or less. She never really fights on her own, much the way a pokemon trainer never really fights his own battles.

I choose you...Dewgong?

If Natsu, Gray, and Erza get the big cool moments, with epic powers clashing against mighty foes, Lucy gets the small cool moments—such as the moment she realizes she can summon Aquarius using Juvia’s unique body structure&mdashwhich makes the random power up at the end of this fight all the more a shame. Lucy is one of the characters who fights differently from the average shounen fighter. She has to use more strategy and take advantage of her surroundings and the unique abilities her Celestial Spirits give her. Generally, her fights are more interesting than most of the other characters,’ which isn’t too shabby at all for a member of a demographic too often neglected in shounen manga.

How about you? Is this shoddy writing at its worst, or an interesting start to a well-rounded character development? Best comment wins cake. Also, if you have any requests for future entries to this column, feel free to submit them here. If I’ve already read the manga, then the chances of it getting covered are much higher. Also, be sure to check out my blog at Burning Lizard Studios.

The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer, Vol. 1

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By Satoshi Mizukami. Released in Japan as “Hoshi no Samidare” by Shonen Gahosha, serialized in the magazine Young King OURS. Released in the United States by Shonen Gahosha on the JManga website.

First of all, I should note that the JManga site lists this under its original Japanese title. Despite the fact that the English title is PRINTED ON THE FRONT COVER. Given none of Shonen Gahosha’s titles have been translated to date, I will assume this is some stupid business rule, but I wish it would change. In any case, when you look for this book, look for it as Hoshi no Samidare. And you definitely should look for it.

At first glance, this may seem no different from many other shonen titles. A young man, Yuuhi, it woken late at night by an animal mascot, who tells him that he must join with other allies to defend his Princess and protect the Earth. It almost sounds like it could fit right in with several Western-type superhero plots you’d see over here. Sure, the animal mascot is a lizard, but that’s probably just an eccentricity of the author. We’re in for rollicking action and fun times. Friendship, Training, Victory, right? Well, not quite. This manga isn’t in a shonen magazine, but a seinen one. The very eccentric Young King OURS, home of Excel Saga, Trigun and Hellsing. And Yuuhi is not your typical shonen hero.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Yuuhi is a nihilist, but certainly he is a young man who does not wish to interact with life. Likewise, the heroine, who is the aforementioned Princess, has declared that it is her desire to destroy the world – rather than save it. And it is *this* – the appeal of simply ending everything – that causes Yuuhi to suddenly gain a purpose in life and pledge his allegiance to her. It’s not really a stretch to say that the conscience of the manga, at least in this first volume, is the lizard (often horrified at Yuuhi’s thoughts) rather than the two leads.

Muxch of this first volume is setting up for what will no doubt be a larger cast – indeed, we see one of them, Hangetsu, show up in the final chapter, and he’s a complete contrast to the pessimistic and grumpy Yuuhi. Most of the time, though, we deal with Yuuhi and his own demons. Yuuhi spent most of his childhood being abused, mentally and emotionally (as well as physically, I’d suggest, given the chains). I would go so far as to say that he’s at his most tragic when he’s smiling, as it reveals to us the fragile facade he’s built up. In my favorite part of the volume, Yuuhi calmly relates the death of his father, his mother’s abandonment, and his grandfather’s abuse, and then simply grins. Neu, the lizard familiar, stares in horror, for he is able to visualize what it must have been like.

As for Samidare, we don’t get as much of a look into her own life – she blithely states she doesn’t want the world to survive after her own death, which is why she plans to destroy it, but that’s not really telling us motivation. After hearing about his past, we can see why Yuuhi wants everything to end. Indeed, he’s very matter-of-fact about it, telling Samidare (in a dream, which the two of them share almost from the start), that he’s binding himself to her so he can free himself from his grandfather’s chains – he’s still bound. It’s not all dark and tortured misery, mind you – Yuuhi’s meeting with his grandfather gives us some hint that there is still compassion inside of him, even if there is no forgiveness yet. What’s more, his determination to be someone who can protect his lady (Yuuhi is an unathletic normal guy, while Samidare seems to have super strength) is admirable, and reaches a peak towards the end in a fantastic action sequence against one of the golems sent to kill him.

The series is 10 volumes long, so we’ve only really just gotten started. It was a cult hit online, and while I had heard some companies making noise about licensing it (Dark Horse and Vertical both said they were aware of the title), the current market really didn’t seem to fit its tone. I’m very happy that Shonen Gahosha and JManga have brought it over. It isn’t perfect – the translation suffers from awkwardness at times, like many JManga titles, and the art style is best defined as ‘striking’ rather than ‘pretty’ – but it’s a fun, gripping read. If you like superhero comics with a kick to them – or you want shonen that’s a little more grown up – give The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer a try. One of the best licenses yet from JManga.

Recorder and Randsell

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Most of the 4-koma manga I’ve read have been stamped from the same mold. There’s a quartet of teenage girls, each of whom has one personality trait, one talent or obsession, and one distinguishing physical characteristic. They all attend the same cram school, or live in the same dorm, and participate in the same everyday activities: studying for tests, planning trips to the beach, baking cakes. What passes for humor arises mostly from the clash of personalities or interests: the klutz accidentally pours water on the neat freak’s homework, or the brain chastises the compulsive gamer for playing another round of Warcraft instead of hitting the books.

Recorder and Randsell is an interesting variation on this theme, replacing the quartet of girls with mismatched siblings: Atsumi, a high school sophomore who looks eight, and Atsushi, a fifth grader who looks like a college student.

As one might guess from the characters’ appearance, most of the jokes revolve around mistaken identity. Atsumi’s best friend, the well-developed Sayo, pretends that Atsumi is her daughter to keep creepy guys at bay, while Atsushi’s grade-school pals dress him up as a parent so they can attend a cultural festival without a chaperone. Not all of the humor is PG-rated: in one of the series’ many running gags, Atsushi’s pretty young teacher is flustered by her student’s deceptively mature physique, her humiliation compounded by strangers mistakenly assuming that the puppy-like Atsushi is, in fact, her boyfriend.

To be sure, many 4-koma titles are built on the same foundation as Recorder and Randsell: the characters are easy to grasp; they follow clearly established patterns of behavior; and they seldom learn from their mistakes. What makes Recorder and Randsell funny is Higeyashi’s ability to devise new scenarios that yield the same disastrous outcomes; no matter what Atsumi and Atsushi do, or where they go, other people misread their respective ages. Higeyashi is also unconcerned with making her characters lovable, which grants her license to be weird, edgy, and a little mean to them — something that almost never happens in Sunshine Sketch or Ichiroh!!, where the characters’ behavior is carefully calibrated to trigger the reader’s awwwwwwwww reflex.

Also working in Recorder and Randsell‘s favor is the small but well-defined supporting cast. Meme Higeshiya gives each of these characters a clear role to play: Atsushi’s sidekicks, for example, remind us that Atsushi is on the brink of becoming a teenager, as they simultaneously envy the attention Atsushi receives from female classmates and tease him about his size. (“He’s a huge target!” one gleefully declares at the beginning of a dodge ball game.) The best supporting player, however, is Take, the Miyagawa’s next-door neighbor, a thirty-something man who can’t hold a steady job. Though we never see his face, Take is a frequent visitor to the Miyagawa household, unloading unwanted clothing on Atsushi whenever he breaks up with a girlfriend. (“Naoko gave me that shirt… Sachiko picked out those pants… Keiko bought me those shoes,” Take tells a bewildered Atsushi. “Stop or I won’t want to wear them anymore!” Atsushi complains.)

The art, like the script, gets the job done. Higeshiya plays up the physical contrast between the siblings, rendering Atsumi as a tiny, doll-faced girl with enormous eyes and Atsushi as a tall shojo prince. On closer inspection, the reader will see that Higeyashi is skillful enough to capture her characters’ respective ages through their body language and facial expressions; Atsushi clearly comports himself like a child, with wildly exaggerated movements and quicksilver moods, while Atsumi assumes the scolding posture of an adult.

I’d be the first to admit that such a slender premise couldn’t sustain a eight- or ten-volume series; by the fifth time the police arrest Atsushi on suspicion of being a pedophile, the punchline falls flat. Read in short bursts, however, the effect is like a good newspaper strip, offering an agreeable mixture of predictable and not-so-predictable jokes. Recommended.

RECORDER AND RANDSELL, VOL. 1 • BY MEME HIGEYASHI • TAKESHOBO CO., LTD. (JMANGA) • 115 pages • RATING: TEEN PLUS (13+)

Off the Shelf: GTO, Twilight, Soulless

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MJ: Well, hello there, my friend!

MICHELLE: For some reason I am inclined to respond to that with, “‘Allo, poppet!”

MJ: Well. That’s interesting indeed. I’ll admit I’m not quite sure how to respond to that. Perhaps, instead, I’ll change the subject. Read any good manga this week?

MICHELLE: I did. Kind of unexpectedly good, in both cases!

One of the things I read was the first volume of GTO: 14 Days in Shonan by Toru Fujisawa (published by Vertical, Inc.). I knew absolute nothing about the GTO franchise going into it, and therefore had no idea what to expect. The initial setup, which explains how ex-delinquent-now-teacher Eikichi Onizuka has to lay low for a while and decides to do so in his hometown of Shonan, caused me a bit of concern, since it involves the hapless protagonist getting into all sorts of trouble and a comedic sensibility that put me in mind of Detroit Metal City, which, as you know, was not my cup of tea.

Once Eikichi gets to Shonan, however, things begin looking up. He meets up with an attractive young woman named Ayame Shiratori, who was classmates with one of his coworkers. She’s heard that Onizuka has done wonders with his students and wonders if he’d help out at White Swan Children’s Home for a bit. Since he has no place else to go—and since he would like to roger Ayame—he agrees. Although the hostility of one of the students, Katsuragi, is immediate and rather over-the-top, I warmed to the series once Onizuka showed a real flair for getting through to miserable teens, each the victim of selfish parents.

He does it so naturally that it doesn’t feel like Fujisawa is imparting some Important Moral Lesson. Essentially, he treats them like people and instinctively understands how to draw them out. And he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is and defend them with everything he’s got when they are threatened. For kids who’ve come to distrust the sincerity of adults, an idiot—but a genuinely honest idiot—like him may be exactly what they need.

I’m not sure if I’m ready to track down the other GTO volumes that have come out in English, but I am at least looking forward to volume two!

MJ: Well, as Detroit Metal City decidedly was my cup of tea, I’m intrigued all-around! Like you, I knew almost nothing about GTO before Vertical announced this license, and I’ll admit I was initially hesitant, thinking it might be hard for a newcomer to jump in at this point. But it sounds like this is really not an obstacle.

MICHELLE: Not at all. Aside from a couple of brief appearances in the beginning, 14 Days in Shonan features an entirely new cast of characters. It’s interesting, too, that it’s kind of slipped into a two-week period of the main story during which most people assumed Onizuka was recuperating in the hospital.

So, what’ve you been reading this week?

MJ: Well, I didn’t fare quite as well as you, though ultimately it was a good week. I began with the second volume of Young Kim’s graphic novel adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. And while my reaction to the first volume was something along the lines of, “This was more readable than expected,” I’m afraid the second volume didn’t go down quite so easily.

To be clear from the get-go, none of my issues are Young Kim’s fault, and I expect I’m ultimately grateful to be reading this series in a less prose-heavy format than the original. And really, my biggest qualms about this volume aren’t even about the weirdly overt racism or the less-than-subtle lessons in sexual abstinence. What really made this volume so difficult for me to get through was my increasing anger over the fact that Stephenie Meyer did not see fit to grant her heroine even a single personal interest outside of her creepy, undead boyfriend.

Bella has no thoughts or desires that don’t revolve around Edward. She has no apparent interests in school. She doesn’t even have a hobby. Her entire existence—her very identity revolves around her feelings for a boy. And though there may have been times as a teenager when I felt utterly consumed by my feelings for whatever boy I was crushing on, those were just isolated (if intense) moments, scattered amongst the hours upon hours I spent reading, writing, playing music, arguing about politics, and thinking about the multitude of things that interested and/or enchanted me in the great wide world.

Honestly, even if this didn’t make me angry as an adult woman and a feminist, who longs to see a world filled with great, empowering fiction for girls, it makes me utterly unable to identify with Twilight‘s protagonist, even from the point of view of my distant teenaged self. Though I never like hearing female readers say they “hate” a female protagonist (because, seriously, it’s not the character’s fault she was so gravely shortchanged by her creator, is it?), I have to admit that Bella is the greatest obstacle standing between me and enjoyment of Twilight, even as a guilty pleasure. And that’s really a shame.

MICHELLE: I had a similar reaction when I read the book, in which Bella demonstrates some alarming passivity when she learns about the various creepy things Edward has been doing, including breaking into her house to watch her sleep. When I learned that a friend’s daughter was reading the series, I felt I needed to warn her parents so they’d be sure to give her the “if any boy ever does this to you, please know that it is not romantic” speech.

To address an issue specific to the graphic novel release… some folks were critical of the typeface in the first volume, I believe, as well as the placement of speech bubbles. Did you notice any discernable change in those areas?

MJ: The style of the second volume is the same as the first, in that it uses very non-comics-y fonts, and the way the speech bubbles look is also not what I’m used to in the comics I read. However, I never found this to be as problematic as a lot of critics did, and I rather like Kim’s art style, so I’m good with it. If anything, the artwork is one of the things I was able to enjoy in the book.

So, since we’re on the topic of Yen Press “manga” adaptations, shall we move on to a title we both read this week?

MICHELLE: Let’s do!

MJ: Well, when I read Kate’s review of REM’s new adaptation of Gail Carriger’s Soulless, I thought suddenly that it would be a great choice to read alongside Twilight. Both are OEL adaptations of popular novels, and both revolve around a heroine who lives in a world alongside vampires and werewolves. Unlike Twilight, I had very little knowledge of the details of Soulless, and though I expected I might like it more than Twilight, I was not really prepared for how much more.

Alexia Tarabotti is a 26-year-old “spinster” in Victorian London, a life complicated even more by the fact that she’s also a “preternatural,” a person without a soul whose purpose is to bridge the gap between the supernatural and natural worlds. Alexia’s London is filled with vampires and werewolves, most of whom are highly regarded (and highly organized) members of society. As the story opens, Alexia accidentally kills a vampire who attacks her at a party—an event that throws supernatural society into a bit of a tizzy. Fortunately, the tizzy also rather hurries along Alexia’s long-time flirtation with Lord Conall Maccon, a well-regarded werewolf who may actually be a match for her.

MICHELLE: I too knew nothing about Soulless going in and was pleasantly surprised by REM’s adaptation. Although I think I would probably enjoy the novel even more—while the relationship between Alexia and Lord Maccon is a lot of fun, the mystery plot involving missing and unaffiliated werewolves and vampires gets short shrift—the graphic novel is still tremendously enjoyable, with plenty of witty dialogue (seriously, all you need do to amuse me is mention hedgehogs), lovely supporting characters (Lord Akeldama and Ayame Sohma… separated at birth?), and a pair of strong leads whom I like and sincerely root for as a couple. I also enjoyed how enthusiastic Alexia was to make out with him once she had the chance.

MJ: Yes, it really is a treat to kind of adore both members of the story’s primary couple, isn’t it? I really do adore them both. And oh, Lord Akeldama… first of all, you’re on the nose with the Ayame Sohma (though Akeldama has the benefit of not being quite as self-absorbed), and secondly, I think one of my favorite moments in the entire volume was when Alexia, whose soulless nature allows her to render vampires and werewolves to their form closest to human with only her touch, grants his request to accompany him outside so that he can view the sunset.

I’ll also agree that reading this made me quite anxious to try the novel, and I’ll confess I’ve already bought the e-book to read on my iPad.

MICHELLE: And I’m going to buy the audiobook next time I get a new Audible credit!

There are a couple of key things that make Alexia a better protagonist than Bella. For one, to directly contrast what you said before, she actually has a life outside her love interest. We don’t see much of her hobbies, true, but she visits with a couple of friends and attends social events with her family. For another, she desperately wants to be useful, and suggests several times that she be allowed to help Conall with his work for the Bureau of Unnatural Registry. One gets the impression she’d be a rather kickass demon hunter if she weren’t living in Victorian England.

MJ: Yes, exactly, there’s a constant sense that Alexia is desperately oppressed by the constraints forced upon her, both by her place in society and her gender, and that she longs for opportunities to use her brains to really do something in the world. One of the things that makes her fiery relationship with Conall so appealing, is that they’re both characters who possess exceptionally strong will.

If there’s one issue I have with the graphic novel adaptation, aside from the lack of page time available for its non-romantic plotline, it’s that Alexia is repeatedly referred to as plain, yet is drawn by REM as a voluptuous beauty. Now, I’m not exactly complaining (she’s a voluptuous beauty that even female readers can appreciate), but it might have been a nice touch if she looked just a tad less like a comic book heroine, and more like an average woman. She’s an awesome enough character to be irresistibly attractive with or without being so conventionally gorgeous on the outside, and actually “plain” women are tragically underrepresented in comics.

MICHELLE: Yes, REM’s rendering of Alexia takes heaving bosoms to a whole new level. I was wondering how someone could remain a spinster so long with attributes like that! It’s almost like drawing Elizabeth Bennet with giant knockers, in that it makes the hero just a little less special for seeing in her what others don’t.

MJ: I think I could totally buy the heaving bosoms (let’s face it, in a corset, any woman not shaped like a stick is subject to heaving bosoms) if she’d been just a little chunkier and less dazzling otherwise. But overall, it’s a small complaint. This is the first of Yen Press’ novel adaptations that has grabbed me so immediately, and I’m not only looking forward to reading the novel, but to reading the second volume of the adaptation.

MICHELLE: Same here. And though it may be insanely early to call it, I have a feeling this will turn out to be the best novel-to-manga adaptation of 2012!

MJ: I suspect you may be right!

Apple censors still targeting LGBTQ content?

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In June of 2010, Apple’s policies for adult content in the iOS App Store received a lot of attention in the comics press after Tom Bouden’s all-male graphic novel adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest was rejected from the store for its very mild sexual content, while similarly non-explicit heterosexual content seemed to be flying through just fine. Though Apple eventually agreed to accept a censored version of Bouden’s comic, Prism Comics founder Charles “Zan” Christensen gave voice to the thought on everyone’s mind at the time in his article, “iPad Publishing No Savior for Small Press, LGBT Comics Creators” at the company’s website. And though, just a year later, Apple seemed to throw its arms open wide to Christensen’s LGBT imprint Northwest Press by accepting several of Northwest’s comics into its iBooks store, publishers and fans have remained skeptical.

American manga publishers learned their lessons early on. In 2008, Yaoi Press founder Yamila Abraham—an early proponent of digital distribution—worked with a company called Fika Publishing to create apps for their comics, which feature male-male relationships. “They knew Apple had tight policies so we first attempted to get our tamest title accepted, Zesty,” Abraham told me in an e-mail this week. “There is no gay sex in Zesty. The gayest thing is two guys kissing. The School Library Journal even rated it grades 10 and up,” she said. “Apple flat out rejected it and refused to tell us why so we could modify it for a resubmission. To me it said they aren’t anti-porn, they’re anti-gay. I was extremely bitter over this.”

Given Apple’s track record, most manga publishers haven’t even tried. Of yuri publisher ALC Publishing, founder Erica Friedman says, “… we have not ever considered releasing any ALC Publishing books by iTunes. When we last published a book, Apple wasn’t the monster distributor it is now—print was still the favored distribution. Right now, I am so enraged and disgusted by Apple’s censorship—especially of LGBTQ material—that I do not consider them a viable distributor of our material.”

Jennifer LeBlanc, editor of VIZ Media‘s new BL imprint SuBLime Manga (whose titles are largely digital-only), when asked why they had not followed their parent company to the iOS platform replied simply, “Because of Apple’s strict content policy, we have no plans for developing an iOS app at this time.”

Then came Digital Manga Publishing. Most well-known for their extensive line of BL manga—ranging anywhere from sweet, chaste romances to racy adult fare—DMP announced their launch on the iPad just last November. When I reviewed their app in January, DMP’s iPad catalogue was fairly robust, populated mostly by titles from their various BL imprints, DokiDoki, Juné, 801 Media, and the fan-localized Digital Manga Guild.

On February 2nd, DMP broadcast the following message to their followers on Twitter, “Sad day, yaoi fans. Unfortunately we’ve been asked to remove our yaoi titles from our iPad app soon. Get them while you still can!”

Further inquiry revealed that the removal was, indeed, for mature content, though whether the mandate applies to all of DMP’s BL titles (and if not, which ones?) remains vague. DMP representative Kelly Orita told me that she hasn’t “been given the OK to mention which specific titles caused problems.” She said that they’d been contacted previously about removing certain pages from their titles, “… but I don’t know how far along we were in that process before they asked us to remove entire books. Internally we’ve been working in batches to take down books with explicit content—we have to take down the content, get Apple to OK the removal, then hear back from them in regards to further developments.”

When asked about the app’s rating, Orita replied, “We did provide a 17+ rating for the app, and while I can’t double check to confirm at the moment I am fairly positive all explicit books had warnings as well.”

Though at the time of this writing, BL titles still remain in DMP’s iPad store, it is unclear how many may be removed before this process is over, when the removal will be complete, or what which titles may still be available by the end. Without that information, of course, it’s difficult to determine whether Apple’s policies are being applied unfairly towards DMP’s same-sex content. Still, I did a little poking around in some popular comics apps to see what kind of content Apple apparently deems appropriate.

My first stop was DC Comics, whose mainstream, non-adult-rated app offered me volume one of Catwoman from their New 52 lineup. Here are a few screencaps taken on my iPad of the final scene in issue #1, where Catwoman meets up with Batman for a passionate sexual encounter.

(click images to enlarge – read left-to-right)

Here’s the most explicit scene from Rihito Takarai and Venio Tachibana’s two-volume Seven Days (Monday-Thursday & Friday-Sunday) series, currently available from the DMP app.

(click images to enlarge – read right-to-left)

Certainly, many of DMP’s BL titles do contain more explicit scenes, including various stages of nudity. To see if this kind of content was being censored in comics with heterosexual couples, I popped over to the 17+ Comixology app, where I was able to download issue #57 of Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra, published by DC’s grown-up imprint, Vertigo. Here are a few iPad screencaps from an early scene in that issue:

(click images to enlarge – warning: full nudity)

Given the content allowed here, it’s difficult to imagine where DMP has gone wrong, or what kind of content they could be offering that would be inappropriate in a 17+ app.

Meanwhile, fans of DMP’s BL comics looking to read them on their iPads have at an alternative in Amazon’s Kindle app, though the difference in quality is fairly brutal.

The downsides of reading DMP manga on the Kindle app are, as I understand it, pretty much the same as reading on the Kindle itself. First, though Japanese comics read from right-to-left, the Kindle app only allows page-turning from left-to-right, making for a somewhat unintuitive experience for manga readers, who must still read pages and panels in the Japanese configuration. This issue is minor, however, compared to the disparity in image quality.

Here is a page from Keiko Kinoshita’s Kiss Blue, as viewed in DMP’s iPad app (full size):

Here is the same page from the Kindle version (full size):

The iPad version is crisp, clear, and easy to read, while smaller (and especially hand-written) text requires a lot of squinting when reading from the Kindle app. This issue becomes even more pronounced when taking advantage of the apps’ two-page spreads. Two page spreads accentuate the issue with page-order as well, as you’ll note that the Kindle’s two-page spread requires that the pages be followed from left-to-right, while the content still reads right-to-left.

DMP App version (click image to enlarge to full-size):

Kindle App version (click image to enlarge to full-size):

Both apps offer the ability to zoom in on any portion of the page, but not only is the DMP app’s interface far more intuitive (zooming in and out on the DMP app is accomplished with a double-click, while the Kindle app requires the two-finger pinch-and-spread, after which the reader must tap an “X” to close out of the enlarged section), its image quality blows the Kindle app out of the water.

DMP App version (click image to enlarge to full-size):

Kindle App version (click image to enlarge to full-size):

As you can see, while the Kindle app serves as a semi-tolerable stop-gap for iPad users, the prospect of losing access to these comics in the DMP app’s superior format is a significant blow for the publisher’s fans.

Manga Bookshelf will report further information as it’s available, including names of specific titles that have been targeted for removal, and any response from Apple who, at the time of this writing, have yet to respond to a request for comment.

Disclosure: MJ is currently under contract with DMP’s Digital Manga Guild, as necessitated for her ongoing report Inside the DMG. All compensation earned by MJin her capacity as subcontractor will be donated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. MJ is also a long-time Apple customer.

Seven Days: Friday-Sunday © Venio Tachibana/Rihito Takari. All rights reserved. English translation © 2011 by DIGITAL MANGA, Inc./TAIYO TOSHO CO., LTD. KISS BLUE © KEIKO KINOSHITA. All rights reserved. English translation © 2008 by DIGITAL MANGA, Inc./TAIYO TOSHO CO., LTD.

GTO: The Early Years, Vol. 11

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By Toru Fujisawa. Released in Japan as “Shonan Jun’ai Gumi” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Vertical.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Tokyopop released the first 10 volumes of the SJG omnibuses, but then stopped 3 years ago (they seem to have stopped before they folded, in fact, so we can ascribe it to mediocre sales more than anything else, I expect). Luckily, Vertical has picked up where they left off, and say that if sales are good they may go back and re-release the first 10. That said, this is not GTO: 14 Days in Shonan, where you can simply hop right into the story with minimal info. The series was up to Vol. 21 and 22 in Japan (the volumes collected here), and it shows. New readers are advised to go here to catch up on the characters so as not to be confused.

That said, it’a not impossible to read this without huge knowledge of what has gone before. I had fallen way behind in my SJG reading, but was able to pick up where I left off with minimal confusion, mostly as this is a delinquent manga, and so just expect lots of people hitting other people. When Onizuka was in GTO, and even 14 Days, he still gets into tons of fights, but at least there he’s slightly more successful at not wanting to get involved in them. Here, in high school, there’s simply not enough impetus (beyond “getting laid”, still his primary motivation) to not be the leader of a gang. Mostly as Onizuka and his best friend Ryuji are *really good* at being gang leaders. They don’t do evil stuff, they inspire loyalty, and they protect the weak. They’re the gang you only see in Japanese manga like this.

Of course, Onizuka is still recognizable even if he’s younger (though, being that it’s school, be prepared for everyone to say Eikichi more than Onizuka – it is his first name, after all). Mostly in his complete inability to score with the opposite sex. By now we’re far along enough in the series that his friend Ryuji is living with his girlfriend, the sweet (at least sweet NOW) girl Nagisa, but Onizuka still strikes out, for the exact same reasons as in GTO: he’s an absolute idiot about it. And just like in GTO, there are girls who are clearly in love with him and would be happy to be with him if he’d only get a clue. Chief among these being Shinomi Fujisaki, who clearly likes him but is also far too similar to him for things to work out. (It doesn’t help that he sees her as a little sister.) I like the girls in GTO, who come in many different types and varieties, and the gang aspect of the plot means we get a lot who can kick any guy’s ass. Shinomi is, along with Azusa and Urumi from GTO, one of the most important women in Onizuka’s life. Expect to see more of her.

There’s also some terrific comedy here – the author likes to break up all the gang fights with one-shot chapters that are hilariously silly. Here we have two opposing tough guys trying to outbluff each other, only to have everything completely ruined by the escalating war between their respective girlfriends. Possibly the funniest chapter, though, was seeing Golgo 13-esque huge guy Usagi and his family, who are all named after Sailor Moon characters – and all look like they stepped out of Fist of the North Star. Despite having a punchline that you can see from space, it still works beautifully.

Be warned – with GTO and 14 Days in Shonan, you can sit through the manga without necessarily being a fan of big, epic fights. (well, just about.) That’s not something you can do here. GTO The Early Years shows us how Onizuka came to be the guy we know, and that means a lot of gang wars, fights, and blood. No one is killed – this still runs in Shonen Magazine, after all – but it’s a manga about young kids who get into a lot of fights. If you can respect that, there’s a lot to love here. Well, except maybe Onizuka’s hair. He did himself a big favor when he lost the perm.

Manga The Week of 3/7

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First week of the month, which means it’s a landslide. As always.

Midtown lists Zetsubou-sensei 13 from Kodansha, which I got today. It also has Cage of Eden 4, which I didn’t get today, and Air Gear 22, which I simply don’t get. In many ways. (Two very fanservicey titles, and Zetsubou-sensei. Which I suppose has service this volume as well, but… it’s not really the same.)

Vertical has the 3nd and final volume of Usamaru Furuya’s manga adaptation of No Longer Human, which promises to bring things to an appropriate finish. That means no picket-fence and two-car garage, I’m reckoning. You may have a better chance of getting that in Chi’s Sweet Home 8, which is not drawn by Furuya. (Though the mind reels at how he’d draw a chapter of it…)

Then there is the terrifying pile of Viz. Let’s start with shoujo, as we have another debut this month. The fantasy romance The Earl And the Fairy, based on a series of light novels, debuts. It looks very pretty, but I’ve heard good things about it anyway. There’s a new Black Bird, which is apparently wrapping up soon, having possibly run out of new ways to appall me. Dengeki Daisy should wrap up this current arc with an epic finish (I think… maybe? Long arc, anyway.) Kimi ni Todoke is almost caught up with Japan, but not quite, as we get lucky Vol. 13 here. La Corda D’Oro hits Vol. 15 with a new release (perhaps it’s speeding up now that it’s over in its home country). Oresama Teacher is apparently still not satisfying everyone, but I still adore it. Stepping on Roses is STILL NOT ABOUT SHOGI. And we get some re-releases of two of Viz’s most popular series, with 3-in-1 omnibuses of Hana-Kimi and Skip Beat!.

As for shonen? Bleach has a 2nd character book, showing that its fans are devoted enough to actually make a character book sell – quite a rarity in North America. There’s new Naruto and One Piece to slam into the bestseller charts. And new Psyren, which… well, probably won’t, but is still interesting. In Sunday manga, there’s new Rin-Ne and Arata. (Speaking of which, what ever happened to Sunday’s digital initiative? Did the weekly chapters die for the non-Takahashi stuff now as well?)

Lastly, there’s a new Volume of Fluffy Fluffy Cinammonroll, which just makes me hungry.

That’s a lot of manga. Is there anything you can’t live without?

Combat Commentary: Toriko Vol. 4, Ch. 26-28

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What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of food manga? Is it shounen fighter series? I didn’t think so…

Huh. I guess it would be kind of up there. Surprisingly enough, food is actually a major part of many shounen fighter series. Take for example Goku, Luffy, and Natsu, who are well known for consuming insane amounts of food. Or Naruto, who has a ravenous hunger for ramen. Or Yoshimori (from Kekkaishi) whose hobby is baking cakes. In some way or another, many shounen protagonists are connected to food, to the point where the big eating hero has become something of a trope. Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro took that trope and based an entire series around it, giving us Toriko.

The majority of Toriko features the titular character defeating and eating a large variety of exotic beasts. But in Vol. 4 he faces off against a human opponent for the first time. Or, rather, he faces off against a robot being controlled by a human. Nevertheless, this battle was the first one in which he found himself facing off against an intelligent opponent in a more traditional kind of fight.

What Happened?
Toriko and Komatsu visit Biotope 1, a place where rare gourmet ingredients are kept and studied, at the request of the International Gourmet Organization (IGO). While there, they discover an gladiatorial ring that pits rare and powerful creatures against each other as the rich and famous bet on the outcomes of the matches. When a pregnant Battle Wolf is pitted against four of the most vicious creatures in the world, Toriko steps in to protect the wolf while it gives birth. In the panic caused by Toriko breaking open the protective dome around the coliseum, a strange individual calmly remains sitting. Director Mansam confronts him, but he is attacked by the stranger, who reveals himself to be a GT Robot.

(click images to enlarge)

While Toriko and the Battle Wolf deal with an enraged Devil Python, the Battle Wolf finishes the beast off immediately after giving birth, only to be struck down by the GT Robot’s laser.

What Happens?
Toriko, enraged by the GT Robot’s sneak attack on the Battle Wolf, faces off against the machine. None of his attacks do any damage, as the robot is made of a Titanium alloy—even its joints are reinforced. Toriko, after taking some gruesome damage, goads the robot’s controller into using his most powerful attack. Doing this exposes his only weak point, the laser array inside his head, and Toriko takes advantage of that moment of weakness with his most powerful concentrated five fold spiked punch.

What Does it Mean?
This early on in the manga, Shimabukuro is still exploring the extent of Toriko’s power. He manages to create a fight that not only is a legitimate challenge for his hero, but also allows him to expand his strength. Toriko has three basic attacks available to him; Knife, which allows him to use the edge of his palm to cut through almost anything; Fork, an attack that uses the tips of his fingers to give him great penetrative strength; and the Spiked Punch, which comes in scatter and concentrated varieties, and has a power level that can be adjusted depending on how many times he punches.

As far as fights go, this one is surprisingly short. The GT Robot is shown as being indestructible, and then Toriko finds a way to enjoy it. Sometimes brevity is best, in this case it most certainly was. Toriko is still in the early stages of his development, but he is also still in the stage where he can take care of most opponents with relative ease. The fight is almost elegant in its execution. It uses the basic elements of a shounen battle: an overwhelming opponent appears who apparently cannot be beaten, the hero takes some damage, and finally the hero discovers the power within himself to overcome his opponent. Toriko takes that framework, which usually spans several chapters in most series, and condenses it down to barely two chapters. It’s shounen battle at its most basic.

While it isn’t uncommon for the hero to defeat his opponent by discovering a new power, Toriko instead adapts his already established attacks, modifies his fork attack into a more penetrative icepick, and uses what he already has to defeat his enemy. He shows intelligence in how he fights, taking his ability to absorb incredible amounts of damage and marrying it to an intelligent mind, making him one of the tougher shounen heroes around.

The framework by which all shounen battles work, shown so elegantly in this example, is crucial to a good fight. The way in which it is executed determines the enjoyment of the fight. Fights that don’t follow this basic framework tend to suffer pacing issues. Because a good fight is like a good mystery, the method in which the hero overcomes his foe is crucial. And sometimes it can be something as simple as using the tools they are given that provides the reader with the most satisfaction.

Higurashi: When They Cry, Vol. 17

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Story by Ryukishi07; Art by Karin Suzuragi. Released in Japan as “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Tsumihoroboshi-hen” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Gangan Powered. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I will admit, very little happens in this volume of Higurashi, at least in terms of actual events. Rena’s paranoia grows, the others realize just how far she’s gone, and they resolve to save her. That’s about it, along with one other revelation. But that said, this was a fantastic volume of Higurashi, mostly as it rewards the readers who have been following along with the first volume.

We haven’t quite seen Higurashi get as ‘conspiracy happy’ as it does here, and that’s mostly due to the choice of protagonists. Keiichi was the newcomer, so his paranoia was stemming from not knowing his new friends well enough. As for Shion, everything about her revolved around Satoshi, making her manipulable in that sense. Rena, though, has already killed and is well on her way to the madness we’ve seen before. So it’s time to break out the silly guns. Yes, we get ‘aliens are causing it all’, along with ‘it’s a parasite burrowing into people’ and ‘my dead friends have been replaced with exact duplicates’ as well. Sadly, not only are many of those actual common diagnoses with folks who have paranoia, but several of them might be true. We’re still not sure what’s actually causing everything. And now we find that one of the series’ perennial corpses – Takano Miyo, the sleepy-eyed nurse – may have been dead 24 hours before she was supposed to have died.

So Rena’s not doing very well, and Keiichi, the one person she can trust, immediately goes and tells Moin about this. From Rena’s perspective, it’s the worst kind of betrayal. From *our* perspective, we’re cheering. At last, we’ve stopped distrusting our best friends! And true to form, Mion is able to put his mind at ease and also help start a search for Rena, who’s gone missing. Rena is, of course, hiding from everyone who is plotting to kill her – i.e. everyone. And unfortunately, the one to run into her first is Rika. We’ve gradually become aware that Rika can remember the previous iterations of this manga, and would appear to be very different from the small child she appears to be. She’s never been quite so bleak and uncaring as she is here, though. Some of what we see is clearly Rena’s ‘paranoia-vision’, but some of it is clearly a person who is exhausted and has just given up – and who has seen a bit too much of the nasty side of humanity. Rika’s cynicism here is the opposite of what we want to see in Higurashi, which makes it heartbreaking.

(She’s also drinking wine as well, which can’t be good for her. And talking to an offscreen voice we can’t see.)

After this, Keiichi tracks down Rena, but she’s prepared for him. She reveals Keiichi’s past to us. Given that everyone else in the manga has a tortured, tragic past, it makes sense that Keiichi would have one as well – it’s not as bad as the others, but it definitely shows us why he might be the way he is, and why he’s so tolerable of the girl’s goofy antics at his expense. And given that, like Keiichi, Rena has also shown signs of being very intelligent but hiding it under a mask of goofy, it helps to connect them even closer. If Rena wasn’t driving him away, that is.

So a guilt-ridden Keiichi confesses what he did before he moved to Hinamizawa to his other friends. And they’re OK with it, forgiving him, noting they were all little brats as well, and pointing out that being friends doesn’t mean telling everyone every aspect of your lives. It was good to hear that, especially from a comedy-horror manga. Then, just as Keiichi is coming to accept their forgiveness… he remembers the events of Book 2. Remember Book 2? The first arc? Seeing a shot of Mion’s head getting beaten in with a bat, especially as we weren’t expecting the flashback, is very startling. and now Keiichi’s in even worse shape. He thought he just had to be forgiven for his own past – now he has to atone for the other Keiichis as well!

Rika’s the one to notice the big thing, though – Keiichi REMEMBERS ANOTHER ARC! She even calls this an impossible miracle, noting that she’s the only one who remembers them. That said, it’s to Keiichi’s credit that this doesn’t turn him into a gibbering heap – remembering Rena desperately trying to save him (and it was terrific, if horrifying, seeing the events of the first arc as they actually happened – with Keiichi’s paranoia fueling his murders) makes him even more determined to avoid her going through the same thing. Even better, this actually galvanizes Rika. She notes that this world is beyond saving – this isn’t the last arc – but decides to help Keiichi anyway, as Rena is her friend and it’s the right thing to do.

So everyone’s forgiven everyone – except for Rena, who’s scratching at her bloody throat and getting out her billhook to prepare to kill everyone in the village in order to save them. (Something, notably, she and Keiichi had regarded as ridiculously stupid at the very start of this volume.) Will Keiichi be able to stop her madness? The previous evidence suggests the answer is no, but who knows? One more volume to go to find out.

Bookshelf Briefs 2/27/12

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This week, Michelle, MJ, Sean take a look at new releases from the Digital Manga Guild, Viz Media, Dark Horse Manga, and Vertical, Inc., while Kate offers up an unusual Tezuka find as she wraps up this month’s Manga Moveable Feast!

Ata | By Tamaki Fuji | Digital Manga Guild – I’ve reviewed quite a few books now from various groups in the Digital Manga Guild and most have been pretty good. And then there was Ata. It’s an absolute mess, with lousy art and mistakes galore. Releasing a book with an error on practically every page just goes to show that passing DMP’s proficiency tests is not sufficient to guarantee a quality product. But maybe it’s “rediculous” to expect them to be able to spell “speical” words like “fufilling,” especially when it’s “hard to breath” near the tree when it “bares” its fruit. You’ll note that I haven’t said anything yet about Ata‘s story, and that’s because I was so overwhelmed and distracted by the dozens upon dozens of easily preventable mistakes that I was unable to become invested in it. The shoddy work of this group ruined the manga for me. Avoid at all costs. – Michelle Smith

Bleach, Vol. 38 | By Tite Kubo | Viz Media – If there’s one thing Bleach seems determined to remind me, it’s that I’m not its target audience. And while this may seem like an obvious conclusion for a 40-something woman reading a shounen battle manga, the thing about Bleach is that originally I was. Tite Kubo won me over easily in the series’ early volumes, with well-developed relationships, a terrific sense of humor, and an ability to make readers care about a large cast of characters, both friend and foe. Though later volumes have devolved into increasingly tedious fight sequences featuring increasingly disinteresting enemies, he’s won me back, time and again, as recently as volume 36. Sadly, with this volume, he’s lost me again. Despite one short, dramatic scene revolving around the defeat of Ikkaku, the volume overall hinges on the reader’s interest in fights for their own sake. Unfortunately, that’s just not enough for me. – MJ

Gate 7, Vol. 2 | By CLAMP | Dark Horse Manga – Back in December, I described Gate 7 as “my kind of CLAMP,” and while I believe this still may well be the case, the series’ second volume doesn’t put in much effort to prove it. Volume one’s greatest weakness was a glut of exposition, and that trend continues here, as CLAMP introduces us to a whole slew of brand new characters before we’ve had a chance to fall for the ones we already have. The result is shaky pacing and glassy-eyed confusion, exacerbated by an onslaught of historical information likely to send most western readers thumbing their way repeatedly to the book’s (thankfully extensive) endnotes in the hopes of reaching solid ground. Though as a long-time CLAMP fan, I’m willing to grant the artists a few more volumes to create some emotional stakes worthy of my investment, many readers may find their patience waning by the end of this volume, and I’m not yet confident enough to urge them on. Not quite recommended. – MJ

Kamisama Kiss, Vol. 7 | By Julietta Suzuki | Viz Media – There’s a lot of manga cliches going on here, honestly. Which is not always bad, but when I saw Nanami telling Tomoe that he had to stay behind while she went to the meeting of the Gods, I knew it was a classic “if only she’d explained” moment. Sigh. Other than that, this volume introduces a lot of new kami, as we delve into just how much prejudice Nanami has to fight to be accepted as a god herself. Of course, for those who want romance, there’s Chapter 38, which is almost a perfect ‘date’ chapter, and sure to warm the heart. Overall, though, this felt like a transitional volume of Kamisama Kiss, setting up the plots that will be taken care of in the next volume. Still good stuff, though. – Sean Gaffney

No Longer Human, Vol. 3 | By Usamaru Furuya | Vertical, Inc. – After enjoying the first two volumes of No Longer Human more than I’d expected to, I was really looking forward to the final volume, which seems an odd thing to say, given the extent of the extremely grim things that tend to happen in this series. We begin one year into Yozo Oba’s marriage to cheerful and innocent Yoshino. They’re happy together, but shortly after a friend points out that Yozo must eventually pay for his past crimes, something terrible happens to strip Yoshino of her trusting personality, and the change in her destroys Yozo’s happy fantasy. Forced to confront the awfulness of humanity, he spirals into drug abuse and madness. Furuya depicts Yozo’s descent into ruin with creative, effective imagery, which results in some odd moments where readers are admiring the art whilst something profoundly unsettling is actually happening in the panel. Dark and strange, No Longer Human may not be for everyone, but I still recommend it. – Michelle Smith

Nura: Rise Of The Yokai Clan, Vol. 7 | By Hiroshi Shiibashi | Viz Media – This volume of Nura is neatly divided into two parts. The first deals with Yura, who is finding herself confused as to the true nature of the yokai… and is suspecting that Rikuo is involved somehow. What’s worse, her two older brothers show up, and explicitly state that there is no such thing as a good yokai. Anyone who says they see the world only in black and white morality is never going to be a good guy in manga, but these two are surprisingly well handled. And Yura gets some nice bonding with Rikuo (another potential romance? This isn’t getting harem-ey, is it?). The second half is mostly a flashback to how Nura’s grandfather met his grandmother, and interested me mostly for seeing Tsurara’s grandmother, a lot less perky and a lot more sultry in the Yuki-Onna department. As always, recommended for Jump fans. – Sean Gaffney

Otomen, Vol. 12 | By Aya Kanno | Viz Media – The best part of this volume, to me, was seeing the flashback to Asuka’s mother in school, which strikes me as an amazing story… which we don’t see. Indeed, Aya Konno explicitly says she wanted to draw more of it, but didn’t. Oh Otomen, why do you always sidestep my expectations? Instead, we get the expected resolution between Asuka and his father (if you hadn’;t guessed who it was, you weren’t reading hard enough), which is nice and sentimental but not as deep as I’d have liked. I hope we get more of his mother in future. The best part of the book was the final chapter, a terrific side story with Amakashi and a rather stoic high school girl, which did what I wanted the main story to do. Otomen seems to be heading into its endgame, so I hope we’ll see some better resolution of the main plotline. And more Ryo! – Sean Gaffney

Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga | By Philip Brophy | National Gallery of Victoria – This slim, handsomely packaged book is, in fact, the catalog for an exhibition mounted by the National Gallery of Victoria back in 2006. As such, it has all the virtues and faults of a museum product. On the plus side, the book contains immaculate reproductions of Tezuka’s work, from his very earliest stories — Metropolis, Crime and Punishment — to his final manga, Ludwig B. Editor Philip Brophy has paired these images with numerous statements by Tezuka about his characters and creative process — an impressionistic but effective strategy for helping the reader understand Tezuka’s artistry. On the minus side, the contextual essays run the gamut from very good to hopelessly vague; readers looking for biographical information will find Helen McCarthy’s The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga a more comprehensive introduction to the master’s life and work. – Katherine Dacey

Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James

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From the back cover:
P. D. James draws the characters of Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride and Prejudice into a tale of murder and emotional mayhem.

It is 1803, six years since Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on their life together at Pemberley, Darcy’s magnificent estate. Elizabeth has found her footing as the chatelaine of the great house. Elizabeth’s sister Jane and her husband, Bingley, live nearby; her father visits often; there is optimistic talk about the prospects of marriage for Darcy’s sister Georgiana. And preparations are under way for their much-anticipated annual autumn ball.

Then, on the eve of the ball, the patrician idyll is shattered. A coach careens up to the drive carrying Lydia, Elizabeth’s disgraced sister, who with her husband, the very dubious Wickham, has been banned from Pemberley. She stumbles out of the carriage, hysterical, shrieking that Wickham has been murdered. With shocking suddenness, Pemberley is plunged into a frightening mystery.

Review:
When I learned about this book on NPR, I was torn between trepidation and mad curiosity. The latter, as you can see, won out, mostly because I am a huge fan of P. D. James and if figured that if anyone could treat Austen’s material with respect, she could. And, indeed, her treatment of these beloved characters did not give any offense, but neither did it give anything near the delight inspired by Austen’s original work.

First, a brief summary of the plot. It is Autumn 1803. Elizabeth and Darcy have been happily married for six years and have two sons. On the eve of the annual ball at Pemberley, Elizabeth’s willful sister Lydia shows up unannounced (and uninvited), freaking out because she and the coachman heard gunshots soon after her no-good husband Wickham went into the woods after his friend, Captain Denny. A search party finds a drunken Wickham with Denny’s body, at which point he utters words to the effect of, “It’s my fault. He was my only friend, and I have killed him.” The local magistrate conducts his inquiries, there is a formal inquest, there is a trial, and then the full story is revealed.

As a Pride and Prejudice continuation, the book is not odious. It is, however, lacking any of Austen’s sparkle. Events leave Elizabeth and Darcy little time to be alone together, except at the very end, where James tacks on an epilogue in which Darcy, after six years, suddenly apologizes for some of his conduct in the original novel. It makes me wonder whether James believes readers could not surmise that Darcy would feel regret over his more snooty actions without spelling it out. Gone too are Austen’s sly and thoughtful observations upon society, except for one brief instance wherein chronic invalids are suddenly recovered sufficiently to attend church in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the Pemberley residents.

The result, therefore, is a book that is dreadfully dull. I was relieved to see that Elizabeth and Darcy do not suddenly become sleuths, but found the revelation of what really happened in the woodland to be rather vague and unsatisfying. While I cannot condemn the book for any particular sin, about the only praise I can muster is that James does provide some interesting fates for various characters and proposes an intriguing complication regarding Wickham’s attempted elopement with Georgiana Darcy.

Is it worth reading? No, not really. But I doubt anyone will feel the urge to hurl the book across the room in disgust, either.

Off the Shelf: Princess Knight

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MICHELLE: As we occasionally do when the Manga Moveable Feast rolls around, MJand I have opted to dedicate this week’s Off the Shelf column to the topic at hand, which this month is the works of Osamu Tezuka. Specifically for our case, we’re going to be talking about Princess Knight, Tezuka’s shoujo manga about Sapphire, a princess who accidentally receives both a boy’s heart and a girl’s heart at the time of her birth, and who, when we pick up her story as an adolescent, has somewhat of an identity crisis while undergoing many wacky hardships/hijinks.

This is my first time reading the series. Whenever Ed Chavez from Vertical would solicit suggestions for Tezuka titles to license, I would always request Princess Knight. I wanted the series so much I even bought a few of the bilingual Kodansha editions. However, when I finally had both parts of the series in hand, I was content for a while to merely gaze upon them, content. And now that I have finally gotten around to reading it, I must say… I’m a little disappointed.

MJ: Well, as you may recall, I certainly had my issues with volume one, and these didn’t disappear when I read volume two. In some ways, I’d even say they became more pronounced. On the other hand, there were things I liked about it, so though I could characterize my experience as disappointing as well, I’m still glad I read it.

Should we get the least pleasant subjects out of the way straight off?

MICHELLE: Might as well. I guess my big problem with it is that it’s supposed to be so groundbreaking in terms of gender identities, but it actually does very little in this regard. When Sapphire has only a boy heart, she’s swaggering and brave. When she has only her girl heart, she’s weak and fragile. True, some of the growl-inducing comments do come from the villains or from those attempting to fool villains by approximating girlish behavior (“I suddenly want to take up cross-stitching and play the piano.”) but I do have to wonder how much of it Tezuka really believes, since he creates a swordswoman character, only to bedeck her armor with hearts and have her proudly admit that she’s entered a tournament to find a husband.

MJ: Yes, this was definitely the biggest hurdle for me as well. While I might have found it interesting to watch a character struggle with her gender identity in a society where clearly what you describe is set up as the standard for femininity vs. masculinity, that’s not really what Tezuka does here at all. Even when he has his chances to challenge these roles, he passes them up. For instance, the big female revolt that happens during the second volume seems to hinge mainly on the threat of the country’s men being left without anyone to clean their homes or look after their children. Even after it’s over, the only comment made by one of the defeated men is relief that his wife will come home and take care of the laundry that’s piled up.

I completely understand that both Tezuka and Princess Knight are a product of their time, but I’m genuinely confused as to why this seems to be held up as a great example of shoujo manga challenging gender roles.

MICHELLE: It seems very likely that Tezuka never intended it to be so, since so much of it takes a Loony Tunes approach to storytelling. Why, indeed, take a female revolt seriously? Instead, let’s play it for comedy by making the men out to be henpecked morons! That’s not to say there aren’t some darker aspects that I did like and wish could’ve been expounded upon. For example, while I don’t care about or believe in the “true love” that suddenly springs up between Sapphire and Prince Franz Charming, the characters set up as romantic rivals are actually interesting and meet tragic fates. It makes me wonder what kind of story Tezuka could’ve fashioned with Hecate and Captain Blood (aka Heinrich) as the leads!

MJ: Yes! Though I actually quite liked Sapphire, at least until she became completely consumed by her weirdly passive pursuit of Prince Franz, my favorite characters were Captain Blood and Hecate. I would have happily read entire books about them. I rather wished that Sapphire would ditch Franz and fall for Blood, but I suppose it was never meant to be.

MICHELLE: And, really, Hecate is probably the best example of a character who defies gender roles, since she’s perfectly happy defining herself for herself and has no wish to consume Sapphire’s girl heart (which her witch mother, Madame Hell, keeps trying to steal on her behalf) and take up some passive, “feminine” identity. She’s independent, level-headed, and one of the few truly good characters in the story. Plus, she can turn herself into a goat!

MJ: Speaking of all the heart-exchanging business, I’d say that probably the only time I actually appreciated it, was when Plastic ingests Sapphire’s boy’s heart, and suddenly becomes a decent man, instead of a selfish, sniveling boob.

MICHELLE: Oh yes, I quite agree! And he promptly begins championing women’s rights! This makes him the second character in the series (after Hecate) to go his own way and oppose the evil schemes of a parent. I wonder if this is Tezuka’s way of saying that the younger generation is going to get things right regarding equality whereas their parents are hopeless.

MJ: That may be a generous assumption, but I’ll give it to him if you will. You know, I think what’s most disappointing to me about Princess Knight is that I feel like I really could have liked it. Tezuka’s artwork is so much fun here, and so full of life. And I’m really fine with the “Looney Tunes approach,” as you so brilliantly put it. I think this manga could have been a lot of fun. But the gender issues are so profound, they kinda take over the whole thing for me.

MICHELLE: I’m not sure I could’ve liked it even without the gender issues giving me fits. The plotting is just so random sometimes. Early on, there’s a scene where Sapphire is letting herself be collected by Duke Duralumin’s men as a potential consort for his then-still-feeble-minded son, Plastic. And Franz rides in from, like, the next kingdom over to rescue her, and then rides back home again a few panels later. Or then there’s my favorite spot of wtf, the scene where Blood quickly escapes slavery by coercing a nearby beetle into chewing through some ropes. Everything’s so fast, furious, and madcap that poignant things aren’t given time to sink in.

MJ: Hee hee, yeah, it’s like that. Is it wrong that I find that fun? Or maybe I find it fun, because the poignant stuff doesn’t sit right. I can enjoy something that’s silly and madcap for that alone, and Princess Knight works better as that for me. Overall, I’d say I liked the silly, unbelievable parts the most. Also, I love every scene that Blood is in. Heh.

MICHELLE: It’s not wrong for anyone to like what they like! :) I’m just hard to please, comedy-wise, so many of the gags just left me blinking impassively at the page. I feel bad for being so down on Princess Knight, because now that it’s over I find myself growing fond of the idea of it again. And though it may not have lived up to its reputation for me, I nonetheless wonder if it wasn’t the origin of certain shoujo tropes, like, say, all of the guys instantly falling in love with the passive heroine, or the contingent of jealous fangirls.

MJ: As disappointed as I might have been with it, I really am grateful to have had the opportunity to read it. It may not be my favorite of Tezuka’s works (or really even close), but I’m quite enamored of his artwork, as always, and even now as I’m just flipping through, I’m struck by the beauty and flow of what’s on the page.

MICHELLE: Oh, I am definitely exceedingly grateful to the folks at Vertical for licensing the work and producing such a beautiful edition. I’m also pleased to note that I didn’t spot a single typo in their text, and found that the translation actually included some rather sophisticated words without any hint of awkwardness.

MJ: So thanks, Vertical, for giving us the chance to experience Princess Knight!

For more of this week’s MMF bounty, please visit the Osamu Tezuka MMF Archive, hosted by Kate Dacey at The Manga Critic!

More full-series discussions with MJ & Michelle:

Fullmetal Alchemist | Paradise Kiss | The “Color of…” Trilogy | One Thousand and One Nights| Please Save My Earth
Fruits Basket | Wild Adapter (with guest David Welsh)

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

Manga Artifacts: Osamu Tezuka’s Lost World

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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.