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The Josei Alphabet: N

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“N” is for…

Natsuyuki Rendez-vous, written and illustrated by Haruka Kawachi, currently serialized in Shodensha’s Feel Young. This supernatural romance introduces us to a flower-shop employee who’s competing with a ghost for the love of his boss. I love that cover.

Nejimaki no Niwa, written and illustrated by Shiki Kayase, originally serialized in Ichijinsha’s Comic Zero-Sum and Zero-Sum Ward, two volumes. I’ve gotten kind of picky about titles from Comic Zero-Sum, because a lot of them seem to blur together when described, but this one looks neat. It’s about a bunch of kids who explore the mysterious legends of their secluded school.

Neko no Okorumino, written and illustrated by Naomi Akimoto, originally serialized in Kodansha’s Kiss, one volume. There are several series about cats that start with the letter “N.” This one had my favorite cover of the litter.

Nemureru Mori no Binan, written and illustrated by Wakuni Akisato, originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Petit Flower, one volume. Okay, want. A young Japanese doctor moves to New York City so he can live more freely as a gay man. He meets another gay doctor and falls in love. Their mothers must be so proud!

Nurse Station, written and illustrated by Kyoko Shimazu, originally published by Shueisha, 20 volumes. A look at the working and personal lives of nurses, which is one of the professions I’d really like to see explored in manga.

Licensed josei:

  • Nodame Cantabile, written and illustrated by Tomoko Ninomiya, originally serialized in Kodansha’s Kiss, partially published in English by Del Rey and in French by Pika.

What starts with “N” in your josei alphabet?

Reader recommendations and reminders:

  • NUDE, written and illustrated by Fumiko Nozaki, originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Judy, three volumes.

Bookshelf Briefs 5/2/11

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This week, Kate, David, MJ, and Michelle check out a batch of new releases from Viz Media, TOKYOPOP, and Vertical, Inc.

7 Billion Needles, Vol. 4 | By Nobuaki Tadano | Vertical, Inc. – The final volume of 7 Billion Needles epitomizes what’s good — and bad — about Nobuaki Tadano’s adaptation of Needle, Hal Clement’s 1950 novel. On the plus side, Tadano’s protagonist is a genuine improvement on Clement’s; with her quicksilver moods and impulsive behavior, Hikaru is a more intriguing, sympathetic character than the super-wholesome Bob. On the minus side, Tadano deviates from Clement’s novel in volumes three and four, introducing a confusing storyline about a planet-wide evolutionary crisis sparked by Horizon and Maelstrom’s arrival on Earth. Though Tadano’s apocalyptic imagery is suitably nightmarish, these later scenes aren’t as tense or clearly staged as the early cat-and-mouse game between Hikaru and Maelstrom; Tadano relies too heavily on a god-like character to explain what’s going on, sapping the story of its narrative urgency. On the whole, however, 7 Billion Needles is an ambitious, entertaining riff on Clement’s original story. – Katherine Dacey

Dengeki Daisy Vol. 4 | By Kyousuke Motomi | Viz Media – Warning: Reading this book while drowsy may seriously impair your ability to stay awake. In the previous volume, Teru found out that the mysterious DAISY with whom she’s been corresponding is really Kurosaki, the snarky custodian of her school and object of her affection. Now, uncertainty about how to act around him ensues. Once some equilibrium in that regard is restored, the plot bounces around disjointedly, from Teru considering attending a group date to hone her feminine wiles, to DAISY revealing regrets about his past, to a cell phone virus designed by a fake DAISY spreading around campus. There are a few decent moments to be found, but on the whole, this volume is a total yawn banquet. -Michelle Smith

Hikaru no Go, Vol. 23 | By Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata | Viz Media – After seven years and 23 volumes, this long-running shounen series finally comes to a close as Hikaru faces young Korean Go star Ko Yong Ha in the final round of the Hokuto Cup. While one might expect these chapters to focus on the competition itself, Yumi Hotta looks further, into the reasons these young men play the game at all. Though a quiet ending may not be typical for the genre, this series concludes with the same thoughtful elegance that has characterized it from the start, emphasizing the the long history and limitless future of game and those who choose to play it. While it’s sad to reach the end of a series that has so long been a favorite, it’s gratifying when that ends is so graceful and thought-provoking. Extras in this volume include character sketches from artist Takeshi Obata and two bonus chapters. Highly recommended.-MJ

The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko, Vol. 2 | By Ririko Tsujita | TOKYOPOP – Among the many sad results of the closing of Tokyopop is that readers have one less shôjo heroine who casually quotes Nietzsche. Kanoko, our sharply observant protagonist, continues to chronicle junior-high foolishness and allows herself to be drawn into the woes of her ever-changing roster of classmates. Aside from the fact that these stories are bracingly sarcastic and funny, they also feature nicely crafted messages – be yourself, know your limitations and strengths, say what’s on your mind, and so on. Tsujita makes the most of what could be a repetitive premise, crafting interesting characters and scenarios that allow Kanoko to do what she does best: spy and meddle. While it’s unfortunate that we probably won’t be getting the third and final volume of this series any time soon, it’s episodic in nature, and I don’t have any qualms about recommending you enjoy what we have. -David Welsh

The Story of Saiunkoku, Vol. 3 | By Kairi Yura and Sai Yukino | Viz Media – This is my favorite shôjo series currently in release. It’s got complex, sympathetic characters living in a well-developed, beautifully appointed world. This volume begins a new arc where the heat of summer is leaving the royal offices woefully understaffed. Our hardworking heroine Shurei dresses up as a boy so she can temp in the treasury. The experience is rewarding, but it leads her to wonder if her dream of becoming a civil servant (a profession that’s only for men in this culture) is worth pursuing, or if she should settle for traditionally female pursuits. The fact that the creators can thoughtfully address these kinds of issues and still pack the pages with comedy, romance, and courtly intrigue is a marvelous accomplishment. Like Shurei, the book is generous, smart, sincere, and ambitious. -David Welsh

From the stack: Ai Ore! vol. 1

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Who could have predicted that the comic I read this week that really made my skin crawl wasn’t Usumaru Furuya’s Lychee Light Club (Vertical)? No, that dubious honor goes to Mayu Shinja’s Ai Ore! (Viz). It manifests the kind of dreadful sexual politics I secretly hoped for from The Beautiful Skies of Hou Ou High, providing a handy reminder that one should always be careful about the wishes one makes.

It begins with an all-girl rock band losing its lead singer and the subsequent application of a boy for the vacant spot in the line-up. The band members are all sexy and androgynous, and they’re idols at their all-girl high school. The would-be singer is delicate and feminine, and his classmates have declared him the princess of their all-boy academy. Mizuki, the de facto leader of Blaue Rosen, is reluctant to admit Akira to the band. She doesn’t think she’s particularly fond of guys, but Akira is persistent. In fact, he’s creepily persistent. One might even say he doesn’t take no for an answer.

His desire to join the band is driven mostly by his obsession with Mizuki, and her repeatedly expressed disinterest doesn’t really penetrate Akira’s disconcerting determination. He’s one of those “just a matter of time” love interests who keeps acting like the girl’s already fallen for him (or that she doesn’t have a say in the matter). In spite of her formidable demeanor, Mizuki can’t seem to effectively fend off Mizuki’s persistent advances. Worse still, and obviously, she doesn’t really want to.

This is the part where I start ranting like an old prude, but dynamics like this really bother me. I hate the whole “I know what you want better than you do” précis, and I think it sends a horrible message. I really hate unwanted physical affection being presented as romantic or, even worse, cute. I hate when female characters are repeatedly put in peril so their stalker love interests can save them and look marginally better by comparison. And I hate Akira.

I find him repulsive. Part of this is due to the way that Shinja draws him. She’ll give Akira close-ups, narrated by Mizuki talking about how cute or ardent he looks. I think he looks demented in these panels, but maybe I’m just projecting my interpretation of his behavior on his appearance. It’s certainly partly because of the horrible lines he uses on Mizuki. (“Instead of singing about love, drown yourself in me.” “I came to take advantage of… your sadness, Mizuki-Chan.” “Don’t  you like me licking you?”) But mostly it’s just his obnoxious, menacing behavior. His final acts of the volume go so far beyond the pale that the second should begin with him being sent to jail.

Listen, I’m not naive enough to think that this kind of thing doesn’t have its audience, and I certainly don’t think that I’m going to make any difference by bitching about it. But when my primary response to a romantic narrative is “Nobody who actually loves you would treat you that way,” then it seems worth noting, at least for the record.

(Based on a review copy provided by the publisher.)

 

5 Reasons to Read InuYasha

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InuYasha was the first comic that I actively collected, the manga that introduced me to the Wednesday comic-buying ritual and the very notion of self-identifying as a fan. Though I followed it religiously for years, trading in my older editions for new ones, watching the anime, and speculating about the finale, my interest in the series gradually waned as I was exposed to new artists and new genres. Still, InuYasha held a special place in my heart; reading it was one of my seminal experiences as a comic fan, making me reluctant to re-visit InuYasha for fear of sullying those precious first-manga memories. VIZ’s recent decision to re-issue InuYasha in an omnibus edition, however, inspired me to pick it up again. I made a shocking discovery in the process of re-reading the first chapters: InuYasha is good. Really good, in fact, and deserving of more respect than it gets from many critics.

What makes InuYasha work? I can think of five reasons:

1. The story arcs are long enough to be complex and engaging, but not so long as to test the patience.

There’s a Zen quality to Rumiko Takahashi’s storytelling that might not be obvious at first glance; after all, she loves a pratfall or a sword fight as much as the next shonen manga-ka. Don’t let that surface activity fool you, however: Takahashi has a terrific sense of balance, staging a romantic interlude between a demon-of-the-week episode and a longer storyline involving Naraku’s minions, thus preventing the series from devolving into a punishing string of battle arcs. The other great advantage of this approach is that Takashi carves out more space for her characters to interact as people, not just combatants; as a result, InuYasha is one of the few shonen manga in which the characters’ relationships evolve over time.

2. Takahashi knows how to stage a fight scene that’s dramatic, tense, and mercifully short.

‘Nuff said.

3. InuYasha‘s villains are powerful and strange, not strawmen.

Though we know our heroes will prevail — it’s shonen, for Pete’s sake — Takahashi throws creative obstacles in their way that makes their eventual triumph more satisfying. Consider Naraku. In many respects, he’s a standard-issue bad guy: he’s omnipotent, charismatic, and manipulative, capable of finding the darkness and vulnerability in the purest soul. (He also has fabulous hair, another reliable indication of his villainy.) Yet the way in which Naraku wields power is genuinely unsettling, as he fashions warriors from pieces of himself, then reabsorbs them into his body when they outlive their usefulness. Naraku’s manifestations are peculiar, too. Some are female, some are children, some have monstrous bodies, and some have the power to create their own demonic offspring, but few look like the sort of golem I’d create if I wanted to wreak havoc. And therein lies Naraku’s true power: his opponents never know what form he’ll take next, or whether he’s already among them.

Sesshomaru, too, is another villain who proves more interesting than he first appears. In the very earliest chapters of the manga, he’s a bored sociopath who has no qualms about using InuYasha’s mama trauma to trick his younger brother into revealing the Tetsusaiga’s location. As the story progresses, however, Sesshomaru begins tolerating the company of a cheerful eight-year-old girl who, in a neat inversion of the usual human-canine relationship, is dependent on her dog-demon master for protection, food, and companionship. Takahashi resists the urge to fully “humanize” Sesshomaru, however; he remains InuYasha’s scornful adversary for most of the series, largely unchanged by his peculiar fixation with Rin.

And did I mention that Sesshomaru has awesome hair? Oh, to be a villain in a Takahashi manga!

4. InuYasha‘s female characters kick ass.

Back in 2008, Shaenon Garrity wrote a devastatingly funny article about the seven types of female characters in shonen manga, from The Tomboy to The Little Girl to The Experienced Older Woman. I’m pleased to report that none of these types appear in InuYasha; in fact, InuYasha boasts one of the smartest, toughest, and most appealing set of female characters in shonen manga. And by “tough,” I don’t mean that Kagome, Kikyo, and Sango brandish weapons while wearing provocative outfits; I mean they persist in the face of adversity, even if their own lives are at stake. They’re strong enough to hold their own against demons, ghosts, and heavily armed bandits, and wise enough to know when words are more effective than weapons. They’re not adverse to the idea of romance, but recovering the Shikon Jewel takes precedence over dating. And they’re woman enough to cry if something awful happens, though they’d rather shed their tears in private than show their pain to others.

5. The horror! The horror!

Takahashi may have the coolest resume of anyone working in manga today; not only did she study script writing with Kazuo Koike, she also worked as an assistant to Kazuo Umezu — an apprenticeship that’s evident in the early chapters of InuYasha. In between Kagome and InuYasha’s first encounters with Naraku are a handful of short but spooky stories in which seemingly benign objects — a noh mask, a peach tree — are transformed by Shikon Jewel shards into instruments of torture and killing. Takahashi’s horror stories are less florid than Umezu’s, with fewer detours into WTF? territory, but like Umezu, Takahashi has a vivid imagination that yields some decidedly scary images. Here, for example, is the demonic peach tree from chapter 79, “The Fruits of Evil”:

Takahashi doesn’t just use these images to shock; she uses them to illustrate the consequences of ugly emotions, impulsive actions, and violent behavior, to show us how these choices slowly corrode the soul and transform us into the most monstrous version of ourselves. (Also to show us the consequences of substituting human bones and blood for Miracle Gro. Kids, don’t try this at home.)

What Takahashi does better than almost anyone is walk the fine line between terror and horror. Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe, author of The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797), was one of the first writers to argue that terror and horror were different states of arousal. “Terror and Horror are so far opposite, that the first expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes and nearly annihilates them,” she wrote in an 1826 essay, “On the Supernatural in Poetry.” Critiquing Radcliffe’s work in 1966, Devendra P. Varma explained that difference more concretely: “The difference between Terror and Horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse.” And that’s exactly where Takahashi operates: she gives us tantalizing, suggestive glimpses of scary things, then keeps them obscured until the denouement of the story, allowing our imaginations to supply most of the grisly details. We read her work in a heightened state of awareness, which only intensifies our pleasure — and revulsion — when the true nature of Kagome and InuYasha’s foes are revealed.

* * * * *

If you haven’t looked at InuYasha in a while, or missed it during the height of its popularity, now is a great time to give it a try. Each volume of the VIZBIG edition collects three issues, allowing readers to more fully immerse themselves in the story. And if you’re a purist about packaging, you’ll be happy to know that VIZ is finally issuing InuYasha in an unflipped format — a first in the series’ US history.

Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce

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From the back cover:
“From now on I’m Alan of Trebond, the younger twin. I’ll be a knight.”

And so young Alanna of Trebond begins the journey to knighthood. Though a girl, Alanna has always craved the adventure and daring allowed only for boys; her twin brother, Thom, yearns to learn the art of magic. So one day they decide to switch places: disguised as a girl, Thom heads for the convent to learn magic; Alanna, pretending to be a boy, is on her way to the castle of King Roald to begin her training as a page.

But the road to knighthood is not an easy one. As Alanna masters the skills necessary for battle, she must also learn to control her heart and to discern her enemies from her allies.

Filled with swords and sorcery, adventure and intrigue, good and evil, Alanna’s first adventure begins—one that will lead to the fulfillment of her dreams and the magical destiny that will make her a legend in her land.

Review:
For a period of several years, I was an administrator on an online roleplaying game based on a popular series of children’s fantasy books starring a protagonist with a peculiarly shaped scar. New players to this game would frequently submit applications for characters that read very similar to this:

“Ten-year-old Alanna has red hair, purple eyes, and a twin brother. She is very smart, determined, and brave. Plus, she has a great magical gift, so great that she will one day be able to succeed in curing a deadly sickness where all other healers have failed. She also excels at becoming the best at unarmed combat and swordsmanship (albeit with quite a lot of practice), distrusting bad guys instantly, and conveniently finding ancient, powerful swords with sparkly crystals on them.”

Okay, perhaps that’s a bit better than your average newbie attempt, but there are still some striking similarities. This resulted in me snickering out loud the first time Alanna’s looks—for, yes, that paragraph is describing the protagonist of this book—were mentioned, and in rolling my eyes every time her awesomeness was further established. The action in the book covers several years, and Alanna’s plan is to divulge her secret on her eighteenth birthday, after she is made a knight. It’s certainly welcome to see a female proving herself in that environment so adeptly. I don’t mean to suggest that awesome women cannot exist, but after a while I started asking myself, “What next?”

Perhaps such a heroine appeals more to young adults, the intended audience for this book. There are some good messages here about applying oneself when the things you want to do prove challenging and not letting anyone’s idea of your limitations get in your way. It’s just that everything kind of happens too easily. Even though we know Alanna is spending hours and hours practicing, her evolution from fumbling beginner to “a matchless swordsman” doesn’t seem to take very long. The climactic battle at the end against an immortal race of evil beings living in “the black city” also seems too simple.

In the end, I liked Alanna: The First Adventure enough to continue with the rest of the quartet. It appears to be the first book Pierce published, so it’s no wonder it doesn’t match up to my favorites amongst her works.

License request day: Global Garden

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MJ and Michelle Smith took their Off the Shelf column on the road this week, discussing Saki Hiwatari’s Please Save My Earth (Viz) over at The Hooded Utilitarian. I enjoyed the discussion so much that I took a look at other works by Hiwatari. One of them features the ghost of Albert Einstein.

If you’re anything like me, this is all you need to know to want to read at least one volume of the series, because legendary theoretical physicists just don’t show up in shôjo manga as often as they should.

The series, Global Garden, ran for eight volumes in Hakusensha’s Hana to Yume in the early 2000s. In it, two young men share a precognitive dream that the world tree is dying because of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They foresee a young girl being able to heal the tree and save the world, so Einstein branches out into theoretical pharmacology and gives them something to slow their aging. Einstein dies, and his disembodied spirit offers these eternally youthful do-gooders guidance as they wait about 50 years for the girl who can save the world. Along the way, someone manages to make a clone that’s half psychic slow-aging guy, half Einstein. So, one of the protagonists has a baby with Einstein, basically.

Global Garden also promises several items off of the classic-sounding-shôjo menu: gender fluidity, a seriously magical girl, and complex blended-family dynamics, and mixes them in with an environmental message. Plus psychic powers. And Einstein’s ghost. Hakusensha offers some preview pages of the first volume.

It’s been published in French by Delcourt as Global Garden: Einstein’s Last Dream. I suspect this is because the French are better at marketing manga and know that, when you’ve got the shôjo Einstein card in your hand, you play it.

This isn’t Einstein’s only appearance in manga. Most obviously, there’s Edu-Manga: Albert Einstein (Digital Manga), written by Isao Himuro and illustrated by Kotaro Iwasaki. A teen Einstein clone is part of the student body of Kumiko Suekane’s Afterschool Charisma (Viz). It seems odd that he’s not a cast member of Kouta Hirano’s Drifters (Dark Horse), but perhaps the available information on that series is incomplete.

Since we’re on the subject, what are some of your favorite examples of actual people from history showing up in manga under unlikely circumstances?



3 Things Thursday: Please Save My Earth

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Given that I spent the past week pretty much fully immersed in a re-read of all 21 volumes of Saki Hiwatari’s Please Save My Earth (followed by a full three days’ discussion and editing of same), it should be no surprise that I’ve got PSME on the brain.

And so, for this week’s 3 things Thursday, I give you…

3 reasons to re-read Please Save My Earth:

1. Alice Sakaguchi – Considering the way I felt about her the first time I read the series, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I am. Alice Sakaguchi kicks ass. No, seriously, she does. Is she restless & feisty, making her mark everywhere she goes? No. Does she have a quick temper? No. Does she confront her enemies with anger, telling them where to shove it? Definitely not. But she’s far from passive and definitely not dumb, accusations I might have hastily hurled at her when I first read the series. What she actually is, is thoughtful, compassionate, careful, and mature, and the only one of the kids in the series who will not let herself be controlled by the person she used to be. If you’re like me, and you originally read Alice as passive, I urge you to read the series again. I was stunned by my experience, and perhaps you will be too!

2. Humor – Though it’s easy to remember the series’ most dramatic moments, the biggest surprise waiting for me as I began my re-read was just how damn funny the Hiwatari can be. It’s a rare author who can genuinely pull off occasional remarks made to the audience (even some of the asides in Paradise Kiss make me cringe), and Hiwatari does this beautifully. I laughed out loud numerous times during the first volume, and that’s not even counting my delight over the artwork depicting Rin Kobayashi’s prowess with rhythmic gymnastics. Priceless, truly.

3. Art, art, and more art – Saki Hiwatari is a gorgeous artist, obviously influenced by the 49ers (among others), but very talented in her own right. Every panel in this series is wonderfully crafted, clear and expressive, regardless of tone. Drama, humor, romance, she draws it all, and she draws it well. This isn’t just pretty artwork, it’s powerful visual storytelling that gets better and better with each volume. It was difficult to stop scanning pages for our HU piece, because I found myself wanting to display everything, that’s how well the art in the series works for me. I found this a lot easier to appreciate on a more leisurely second read.

Yeah, I’ve got PSME on the brain, and I’m definitely proselytizing at this point, but that’s kinda what I love about manga, my friends. It makes me want to share.

So, readers… why would you re-read Please Save My Earth? Or why might you read it for the first time?

Off the Shelf: PSME on the road!

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Calling “classic” shoujo fans (yes, I have difficulty with the concept of stuff from the 80s being “classic”): This week, we’ve taken Off the Shelf on the road to The Hooded Utilitarian, where we discuss Saki Hiwatari’s Please Save My Earth in its epic entirety. The series is not only a favorite for both of us, but also one of the series you picked in our super-scientific 3 Things Thursday poll not too long ago.

At over 6500 words, our piece is epic in its own way, with lots of pretty, pretty pictures as well. Read it here. With a series like this, it’s impossible to discuss everything, and we’re certain we’ve left out a lot, so please pipe up in comments to continue the discussion!

As many of you know, Please Save My Earth is increasingly difficult to buy, with several volumes clearly out of print and definitely out of stock. It’s painful to recommend a series that’s so hard to obtain legally, but our greatest wish would be that increased interest might inspire re-release, perhaps in omnibus form. So if you want to read Please Save My Earth, come on and make some noise! We did!

Please Save My Earth at The Hooded Utilitarian

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For our second joint venture at The Hooded Utilitarian, MJ and I take a look at the sci-fi shoujo classic, Please Save My Earth.

Summarizing a series this long is a daunting undertaking, but MJdoes an admirable job:

“Please Save My Earth is a 21-volume soft sci-fi epic about seven Japanese children (six teenagers and one elementary school student) who discover that they are the reincarnations of a group of alien scientists who once studied the Earth from a remote base on the Moon. Their discovery is made through a series of shared dreams, in which the children re-experience their past lives, including the destruction of their home planet and their eventual deaths from an unknown illness that spread rapidly through the group during their final days. Now reborn on earth, the children seek each other out, burdened with unfinished business from their past lives while simultaneously struggling with the present.”

To check out the rest of our conversation, which touches upon the series’ themes, characters, humor, and artwork, please visit The Hooded Utilitarian.

The dreary skies of Hou Ou High

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When I do my “pick a dubious manga” polls, I have two preferred outcomes in mind. The first is that I’ll be pleasantly surprised by a manga that sounds questionable, finding a nugget of gold in an unexpected place. The second is that the book will be even worse than it sounds and that I’ll be able to unleash a bitter diatribe on something that’s offended one of my core values. The worst potential outcome is that I’ll merely be bored.

Unfortunately, the first choice in this series of reader-generated selections achieves that last result. Arata Aki’s The Beautiful Skies of Hou Ou High (Digital Manga) is garden-variety bad. Oh, it’s very bad, I assure you, but it’s not memorably bad.

It’s about a young lesbian whose mother contrives admission to an elite, all-boys’ school in the hopes that the complete immersion in a sea of wealthy dreamboats will burn the gay out of her daughter. (“The students are all fat-cats!” Mom crows. “If she gets pregnant, then we win!”) Aki doesn’t stage a train-wreck of skin-crawling sexual politics like Jun Yuzuki did with Gakuen Prince, mostly because I suspect Aki isn’t writer enough to conceive of a plot outlandish (or consistent) enough to be that awful.

Instead, we get a lot of quirky classmates out of central casting who harbor an inexplicable fascination with our heroine, Kei, whose defining characteristic is her stupidity. (“She really is an idiot,” Kei’s younger sister notes. In a moment of what’s later revealed to be understatement, her mother calls her “dimwitted.” “Man, everything about you is weak,” her first friend at school concludes.) Manga has a rich history of endearingly dumb protagonists. Kei Saeba is not among their number. She’s frantic and grating and dull, and her stupidity is so generic that it’s hard to invest any interest in it.

What passes for an ongoing subplot isn’t especially promising. The school’s administration has been blackmailed into admitting Kei, and they basically want her gone. (Sympathies, gentlemen!) The director is terrified of potential scandal involving a girl secretly attending the prestigious school, but he’s equally concerned with concealing his own secrets. I could go on, but I don’t care. Even a little.

I don’t care about stupid Kei. I don’t care about the blurry boy harem that Aki is assembling for her. I don’t care if the headmaster arranges for her to be tossed into a deep, icy well.

I do care about the fact that Digital Manga couldn’t be bothered to include translation notes for the volume, as at least knowing what some references were would have given me something to think about besides the manga I was trying to read. But no, all I had to work with were dull characters, inane plot developments, and a tone that couldn’t even work up the energy to offend me.

Blue Exorcist, I’m sorry I ever doubted you.

 

The Josei Alphabet: M

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“M” is for…

Marginal, written and illustrated by Moto Hagio, originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Petit Flower, five volumes. In what sounds like Hagio in her classic speculative-fiction mode, she tells the tale of an Earth that’s faced a cataclysm that left only one woman and an average lifespan of 30 for the men. If Hagio’s name is listed after “By,” I want it.

Mesh, written and illustrated by Moto Hagio, originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Petit Flower, seven volumes. Nobody ever said I couldn’t mention two titles by the same creator in one letter, especially when that creator is Hagio. This story focuses on a teen’s decision to kill his drug-dealer father.

Midnight Secretary, written and illustrated by Tomu Ohmi, originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Petit Comic, seven volumes, published in French by Soleil. In spite of her old-school fashion sense, Kaya proves to be a remarkably adaptable administrative assistant when she learns her boss is a vampire.

Mizu ni Sumi Oni, written and illustrated by Akiko Hatsu, originally serialized in Asahi Sonorama’s Mystery, one volume. This collection of horror shorts was apparently published in English by ComicsOne, though I can find no evidence of this. I include it here mostly for the gorgeous cover.

Momokan, written and illustrated by Kikuno Shirakawa, currently serialized in Kodansha’s Be Love. Cute puppy manga! Cute puppy manga! Cute puppy manga!

Josei magazines:

  • Mystery, published by Asahi Sonorama.

Licensed josei:

What starts with “M” in your josei alphabet?

 

 

Manga Artifacts: Rumiko Takahashi’s Rumic Theater

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Most American readers know Rumiko Takahashi through her work in Shonen Sunday, but Takahashi has a foot in the seinen world as well. Maison Ikkoku ran in Big Comic Spirits from 1980-87, alongside Area 88 and Wounded Man, while short stories such as “To Grandmother’s House We Go” and “One Hundred Years of Love” appeared in Big Comic Spirits‘ sister publication Big Comic Original. In Japan, Takahashi’s seinen shorts have been collected into four volumes: 1 or W, The Tragedy of P, The Executive’s Dog, and Red Bouquet. Here in the US, however, only two have been translated into English: The Tragedy of P, which was re-titled Rumic Theater (1996), and 1 or W, which was published as Rumic Theater: One or Double (1998). (N.B. One or Double includes a handful of shonen and josei stories that appeared in Shonen Sunday and Petit Flower, respectively.)

These two translated volumes showcase Takahashi’s ability to work in almost genre. There are sports comedies (“The Grandfather of All Baseball Games”), domestic dramas (“Hidden in the Pottery,” “House of Garbage,” “The Tragedy of P”), rom-coms (“The Merchant of Romance,” “The Diet Goddess”), pop-culture spoofs (“Shake Your Buddha”), and ghost stories (“To Grandmother’s House We Go,” “One or Double”). As with Takahashi’s work in Shonen Sunday, many of these stories fold supernatural elements into everyday situations. In “Extra-Large Size Happiness,” for example, a woman’s relationship with her mother-in-law is strained by the sudden and frequent appearance of a household spirit that only she can see, while in “Reserved Seat,” a ghostly grandma takes possession of her grandson’s body so that she can honor her season tickets at the Takarazuka Revue.

Takahashi is a master at establishing her premise in just a few pages, allowing plenty of room for character development and broad comedy without compromising narrative momentum. One of the reasons Takahashi can be so economical is that she invests even the smallest moments with telling detail, making sure that every aspect of a character’s behavior is consistent with the story’s premise. In “Excuse Me for Being a Dog,” for example, the hero — who turns into a shiba inu whenever he suffers a nosebleed — acts like a canine even in his human form: he investigates an abandoned book bag with his nose, curls his lip at strangers, and recoils in the presence of pungent odors. Takahashi doesn’t make a big deal of these behavioral tics, but their inclusion in the story elevates Shiro’s condition from a wacky plot contrivance to a fundamental aspect of his existence. (OK, it’s also a wacky plot contrivance.)

Takahashi’s deep affection for her characters also contributes to the stories’ success. Though they bicker and tease and goad one another, the characters’ good will and mutual affection is seldom in question, even when their judgment is. Takahashi is as generous with her least sympathetic characters as she is with her leads, allowing them moments of wisdom and decency that often challenge the other characters’ perception of them. In “The Story of P,” for example, a man agrees to care for his eccentric client’s pet penguin, despite the fact the Hagas’ apartment complex doesn’t allow pets. For most of the story, Mrs. Haga plays cat-and-mouse with her neighbor Mrs. Kakei, the head of tenants’ association and a reputed animal hater. (Mrs. Kakei keeps tabs on the other tenants, notifying the management of any pet violations.) Yet in the last pages of the story, we learn that Mrs. Kakei has complicated, emotional reasons for ratting out her neighbors that stem, in part, from a genuine concern for animal welfare and not a humorless love of rules.

Art-wise, Takahashi produces some of the cleanest, most accessible layouts in manga. Her characters’ faces are easy to read, and her scenes are staged for maximum clarity and emotional impact; no one times a scare or a punch line better than Takahashi. Even more striking is the sense of mischief and play that informs her artwork. The elderly heroine of “One Hundred Years of Love,” for example, gains the ability to fly after surviving a near-death experience. Takahashi draws the old woman astride an enormous crutch, soaring over an urban landscape. At first, Mrs. Hoshino mutters about the weather, but soon she embraces the possibilities of flight, buzzing an unsuspecting eight-year-old apartment dweller:

 

That same sense of mischief is evident in “Extra-Large Size Happiness,” in which a giant yokai pops into the frame — directly behind the frazzled heroine’s mother-in-law. Readers familiar with InuYasha‘s Shippo and Myogi will immediately recognize this round, genial figure:

The similarities between this nameless yokai and Myoga could be construed as a flaw or weakness of Takahashi’s style, but there’s an argument to be made that Takahashi employs a “star system” of her own. Granted, Takahashi never constructed a neat theoretical framework to explain the recurrence of certain characters in her stories, as Osamu Tezuka famously did for his. Flipping through the pages of Rumic Theater, however, it’s easy to imagine these characters as actors who specialize in certain types of roles, retaining something of their own “off-screen” personality and appearance in every story; as David Welsh observed in his recent essay on Ranma 1/2, “The fun is in seeing the specialists find variations on their distinctive themes.” And here, in Rumic Theater, the fun comes from seeing Takahashi’s regulars tackle more grown-up themes — marital discord, neighborhood politics, growing old — than might otherwise be permissible in the context of a long-form adventure such as InuYasha or Ranma 1/2 .

MMF: Discovering Ranma and Ranma

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In every art form, it seems like there are chameleons and specialists. You can appreciate a particular actor for the way he or she vanishes into a role, or you can welcome the presence of a performer who has a narrower range but nails it every time. A novelist may embrace a variety of tones, subjects and styles over the course of their career, or they may choose to excel in a certain type of story told in a certain way.

I admire creative types from both categories, though I’ll admit to a slight preference for specialists, partly for the comforting familiarity they present. I know Meryl Streep is an extraordinary actress, but I feel no particular need to see everything she’s ever done. I also know that I’ll probably never mistake Eve Arden for any other performer or not be completely aware of her specific presence, but I go out of my way to watch any movie she’s ever done to bask in her brilliantly executed if more limited palette. The fun is in seeing the specialists find variations on their distinctive themes.

For my money, Rumiko Takihashi is one of our most treasured specialists. There are certain consistent elements in her work, whether it’s a nuts-and-bolts romantic comedy like Maison Ikkoku or a time-traveling fantasy epic like InuYasha. These recurring elements are always entirely welcome, in my opinion. They make reading a Takahashi title feel like catching up with an old friend whose life may have changed a bit in her absence but who is still comfortingly, reliably, charmingly herself.

To confirm this opinion, I decided to use the occasion of the Rumiko Takahashi Manga Moveable Feast to dive into a series I hadn’t yet read, Ranma 1/2. I know this is the series that not only introduced a lot of her admirers to Takahashi’s work and sometimes to manga itself, but I’d never gotten around to reading it. Part of this is due to the length of the series, which is a little daunting. But, while the selection of graphic novels at my local library isn’t comprehensive, they do have a robust supply of Takahashi’s work, including a full run of Ranma 1/2.

It’s about a highly skilled young martial artist named Ranma Saotome who has a bit of a problem. During rigorous training with his father, he fell into a cursed spring. Now, whenever he’s hit with cold water, he turns into a female version of himself. (Hot water reverses the transformation.) He and his father become guests of the Tendo family and their “School of Indiscriminate Grappling.” Fathers Tendo and Saotome have arranged a marriage between Ranma and one of the three Tendo daughters, Akane. She’s a tough cookie, and she’s not thrilled that this key component of her future has been decided for her. And she doesn’t seem to like Ranma that much.

I say “seem” because one of the most recognizable aspects of Takahashi manga is the ambivalent romantic relationship. Takahashi doesn’t waste any time twigging readers to the fact that Ranma and Akane are ideally suited to one another, but she doesn’t make Ranma and Akane seem stupid for not instantly realizing it themselves. The trick with this kind of drawn-out courtship is to create honest obstacles to the eventual union, and Takahashi is very, very good at that kind of slow burn. Novelist Charles Reade is credited with instructing storytellers to “Make ‘em laugh; make ‘em cry; make ‘em wait,” and Takahashi has successfully embraced this mantra.

In Ranma 1/2, she does this mostly by making us laugh. Few activities seem to give her as much pleasure as humiliating her protagonists, and Ranma’s boy-to-girl transformations give Takahashi plenty of opportunities. When a bucket of cold water can drastically alter the direction of a story arc, your narrative opportunities expand, and Takahashi makes excellent use of this device. It’s solid, secret-identity farce that offers quick sight gags and more complex complications.

This brings us to another Takahashi specialty, the idiot rival. In the three volumes I’ve read so far, there has been a delightful variety of this type of character, and Ranma’s dual nature makes their attentions even more potentially awkward. There’s school kendo star Kuno, who wants Akane for himself and detests male Ranma as a result. But he’s instantly smitten with scrappy, adorable female Ranma. His smug, conniving sister shows up, as does an old rival of Ranma’s with his own humiliating curse.

While all of these romantic complications force Ranma and Akane’s relationship to shift and evolve, they also result in yet another Takahashi motif, the ridiculous battle sequence. In her universe, nothing seems to say “I love you” quite as much as a completely over-the-top combat challenge. That neither Akane nor Ranma seem in the least inclined to accept the romantic terms of defeat in these tourneys matters very little; they like to kick ass. Cementing or protecting their relationship is generally just gravy, and they keep whatever savor they derive from that to themselves.

So they combine martial arts with rhythm gymnastics in one memorable sequence. As I read this, the possibilities offered by Takahashi’s shamelessness immediately sprang to mind. “They could fight people on ice skates!” A few chapters later, my theory was realized. If it sounds formulaic, it’s not, because Takahashi is a versatile specialist. As comfortable as she is with her style, she doesn’t seem inclined to repeat herself. Good comedy comes partly from the ability of the storyteller to surprise, to find new corners in a familiar, heightened universe. It’s why television sitcoms can run for a decade on the same premise and still be welcome.

This is helped by Takahashi’s ability to build sprawling, likable casts. Ranma an Akane’s fathers don’t play huge roles in the story, but they’re fun examples of the kind of parental figures that are both smarter and more experienced than the heroes but still goofy and quirky. Akane’s sisters get a few good bits, as does the family doctor whose romantic inclinations tend to overcome his professional detachment. I mentioned the rivals earlier, and I certainly look forward to meeting more of these clueless, narcissistic fools, because Takahashi tends to knock that character type out of the park.

But what about the “make ‘em cry” edict? Nobody’s ever going to mistake Ranma 1/2 for a three-hanky drama, but it is invested with genuine feeling. (Great farce always is.) This is almost entirely confined to Ranma and Akane’s underlying feelings for each other and the obstacles they face, but Takahashi does sprinkle a number of honest, moving moments here and there. The series wouldn’t work as well without them; it’s the difference between liking characters and just being amused by them.

Ranma 1/2 has all of the expected qualities of a Takahashi manga: the charm, the slapstick, the warmth, the durability. It also has that last alchemical property, Takahashi’s ability to surprise even when she’s traveling familiar territory. It’s that last quality that makes her the best kind of specialist in the world of comics.

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 1

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Have you ever seen the pilot episode of Law & Order? Most of the regular characters are present, and the script follows the three-act structure familiar to anyone who’s watched an episode of any Law & Order series, but the pacing is slack; the dialogue fizzles where it should crackle; and the actors struggle to create believable relationships between the characters, even as the script demands that they explain things to one another that, presumably, they’d already know from working together. Small wonder that “Everybody’s Favorite Bagman” languished for nearly a year before NBC rescued the show from limbo and ordered a full season of episodes.

So it is with Blue Exorcist, which has a first chapter that might charitably be described as a “pilot episode.” In these opening thirty pages, Kato introduces orphan Rin Okimura, a hot-tempered young man; Yukio, Rin’s snot-nosed fraternal twin; and Father Fujimoto, their guardian. Rin, we learn, is a direct descendant of Satan, and is in imminent danger of going over to the dark side. Father Fujimoto, however, has kept this information from his young charge, seeing fit only to explain the complexities of Rin’s lineage when Satan’s minions try to spirit Rin back to Gehenna, the demon realm. (Like all manga priests, Father Fujimoto spends more time fighting demons than preparing Sunday sermons or ministering to the sick, hungry, and bereaved.) An epic confrontation between Satan and Father Fujimoto leaves Rin’s mentor dead, forcing the boy to decide whether to cast his lot with Satan or with humanity.

There’s no reason why this opening prelude has to be such a bumpy, predictable ride, but Kato seems so intent on relating Rin’s entire Tragic Past in one installment that she trades naturalism for economy. (Sample: “I see you’ve returned. An overnight trip to the job center? How diligent of you.” And how helpful of Father Fujimoto to ask Rin a question to which he already knows the answer!) In the second chapter, however, Kato finds her stride with the material: the dialogue is looser and funnier; the characters’ relationships are more firmly and plausibly established; and she introduces her first genuinely memorable character, Mephisto Pheles. The plot is stock, with Rin vowing to avenge Father Fujimoto by enrolling in an exorcism “cram school,” but Kato enlivens the proceedings with humorous twists and nifty artwork.

And oh, the artwork! It’s crisp and expressive, filled with small but suggestive details. Mephisto, for example, carries a patched umbrella and wears a polka-dot cravat — two minor flourishes that help establish him as a slightly decadent figure, elegant but down at the heels. The not-very-imaginatively named True Cross Town provides another instructive example of Kato’s meticulous and thoughtful draftsmanship: she lavishes considerable attention on architectural details and infrastructure, stacking layers of houses and buildings on top of one another to form a giant urban ziggeraut:

In short, Kato has created an imaginary urban landscape that seems to have evolved naturally over time, with old and new buildings side-by-side and modern modes of transport straddling canals and rivers. That kind of thoroughness may not serve much purpose in the context of a manga about demon fighters, but it lends Blue Exorcist a temporal and geographic specificity that’s sometimes missing in other areas of the story — like the religious bits.

Whatever my reservations about the first chapter, I freely admit that I’d fallen head-over-heels for Blue Exorcist by the end of the second. The brisk pacing, sharp artwork, and cheeky tone of these later chapters convinced me that Kazue Kato is in firm control of her story, and has successfully laid the foundation for the series’ first major story arc. Bring it on, I say!

BLUE EXORCIST, VOL. 1 • BY KAZUE KATO • VIZ MEDIA • 198 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

License request day: Aoi Hana

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The impetus for a license request can be very simple, but it can also come from a variety of triggers. For instance, someone might casually mention a Japanese magazine that interests me like Ohta Shuppan’s Manga Erotics F. (Any magazine that can host both Natsume Ono’s Ristorante Paradiso and Usumaru Furuya’s Lychee Light Club is bound to catch and hold my attention.) It might also be a week when The Josei Alphabet featured a number of intriguing-sounding titles that featured romances between women. And one might add to that the happy anticipation of the first volume of Takako Shumira’s Wandering Son, to be translated by Matt Thorn, who always has interesting things to say on the subject.

So, with these guideposts, we arrive quite naturally at Takako’s Aoi Hana, a complex yuri romance which is running in Manga Erotics F and has five collected volumes at this point. It’s about the web of friendships and romance among the members of a high-school drama club. For me, commentary on the quality of yuri romance doesn’t get more reliable than that provided by Erica (Okazu) Friedman, so let’s see what she has to say about the series, which she’s read in Japanese.

She’s described the first volume as “both cute and sweet – and I liked it quite a bit. Which is pretty surprising, as it is both genuinely cute and sweet.” (Erica often likes her heroines to carry powerful automatic weapons, as do we all, and it doesn’t seem like there’s much ordinance in Aoi Hana.) The second volume leads Erica to conclude that, “when I read any book, part of what goes on in my mind is ‘Would I want to hang out with any of these people? Would I let anyone in this story come over for lunch?’ No one, not one character in Life would be allowed in my house – while just about everyone in Aoi Hana would.”

Erica finds the third volume “emotional without being histrionic.” The fourth reveals inner strengths of some of the characters. The fifth earns praise for the careful rendering of the heroine’s gradual move towards accepting her sexual orientation. Erica has also reviewed the anime, which ran on Crunchyroll, and hosted a guest review of the first volume of the French edition, Fleurs Bleues, which is being published in Kazé’s Asuka imprint. Asuka offers extensive preview pages from each of the four volumes they’ve published so far, so you can get a look at Shimura’s spare, elegant visual style.

While my initial interest in Aoi Hana sprang from a convergence of whims, further investigation has led me to conclude that it’s the kind of series I always really enjoy: a sensitive examination of adolescence featuring kids pursuing an interesting hobby. It’s also got attractive art and an intelligent look at same-sex relationships. Why hasn’t someone published this already?