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Manhwa Monday: April Preview

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Welcome to another Manhwa Monday!

Before we get into April releases, the big news last week was DramaQueen’s shipment of The Summit (Vol. 1) by Young Hee Lee (You’re So Cool). Brigid Alverson has the full scoop at Robot 6. The real news is not the release date (which was announced mid-March) but the fact that those who pre-ordered have actually received books, an event that no one could have confidently predicted based on DramaQueen’s recent history.

Snow Wildsmith reviews the first volume at Fujoshi Librarian, admiring Lee’s comic timing and skill with “off-kilter relationships.” Snow also has praise for DramaQueen’s production, specifically a new style of cover and improved paper quality.

The obvious question, of course, is “Will we ever see volume two?” Stay tuned!…

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Manhwa Monday: Late Edition

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It’s a hectic Manhwa Monday today at Manga Bookshelf, but we’re squeaking in at the last minute!

With the manga/manhwa blogosphere still riding out the aftershocks of the most recent debate on scanlations (or “scanslations,” depending on who you talk to) it’s refreshing to see some fans still sharing untranslated material the old fashioned way.

A reader recently pointed me towards this journal from dreamwidth.org user sohan, who is sharing summaries and translated (text-only) exerpts of the unlicensed manhwa series Nabi by Kim Yeon-joo (not to be confused with Tokyopop’s Nabi: The Prototype, a collection of one-shots).

Four volumes are covered so far, with more to come. Those learning Korean currently will be pleased to note that sohan posts excerpts both in English and hangul. …

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Guest Review: Itazura na Kiss, Vol. 1

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Itazura na Kiss, Vol. 1
By Kaoru Tada
Published by DMP


Buy This Book

High school student Kotoko Aihara has admired Naoki Irie from afar after hearing him make an exceptional high school entrance speech two years ago. Her dream has been to get out of Class F (the class for underperformers) and into Class A—the same class as the school genius Naoki. However, as academics aren’t Kotoko’s strong point, she instead writes him a letter to tell him how she feels. Naoki flat-out rejects her letter offering in front of the entire school, saying he doesn’t like stupid women. Later that night after a mild earthquake destroys her new home, she and her father end up moving into the Irie household.

Itazura na Kiss is a romantic comedy that deals with the uncertainties of life in an amusing, reassuring way. Kotoko constantly finds herself out of her element and out of her depth. She is living in another family’s house and neither Naoki nor his little brother Yuuki wants her there. She hopes to attend college, but her entire class is failing the high school exams. And because she’s in Class F, Kotoko and her classmates are considered inferior and ridiculed by the rest of the school. To top it off, she has unwittingly attracted the attentions of a well-meaning but overly emotional yanki-type, Kin-chan, whose passionate, public declarations make her life at school even more embarrassing. Yet even through this, she now has a mother figure in her life (Naoki’s mom) who loves having a girl in the house and who does everything she can to make Kotoko feel welcome, including bringing Kotoko and Naoki together at every opportunity. Kotoko has great friends, including Kin-chan, who are there to help and watch out for her. Even Naoki, however unwillingly at the onset of trouble, is there to lend a hand when it matters. Her uncertainty about her future doesn’t go away, but she has two loving families living together in the same house to support her as she finds her own path.

Kotoko is a dreamer with a big heart. It’s these qualities that allow her to press on when others would simply give up. And most girls would with Naoki. He’s conceited, apathetic, and takes special pleasure in making Kotoko feel uncomfortable. But living in the Irie household gives Kotoko a chance to get to know a side to Naoki that he doesn’t show to others, and he is smart enough to realize that her involvement in his life is making him grow as a person. Rather than Naoki, who may be on his way to becoming a more compassionate person, Kotoko’s growth centers on surpassing obstacles that are deemed impossible by other more practical characters.

As well as creating engaging characters, Kaoru Tada had a gift for facial expressions. Readers can quickly grasp the emotional and comedic aspects in any given scene. Her artwork is full of gags, but this enables those rare quiet moments to have a special impact. This series was created in the early nineties, and it has smaller panels and fewer screentones than you would find in many current shoujo manga series. This isn’t a detriment to the work; it’s simply different. It also should be noted that the series wasn’t complete at the time Kaoru Tada passed away. However, this series is about the characters’ journey through life, not their destination, so it remains a fulfilling read even though the series never reaches the mangaka’s planned ending.

Itazura na Kiss has long been a favorite of mine, and I’m glad to see it released in the US. Few shoujo manga series allow the reader to follow the characters out of high school and stay with them as they go through subsequent stages of life. Amid the hardships and uncertainty the characters face, there is joy in these pages. Highly recommended.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Little Butterfly Omnibus

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As a feminist, yaoi puts me in a difficult position. On the one hand, I love the idea of women creating erotica for other women, of creating a safe and fun space where female readers can explore their sexual fantasies. (I don’t know about you, but Ron Jeremy has never factored into any of mine.) On the other hand, I’m often uncomfortable by the way in which rape is conflated with extreme romantic desire in yaoi; it’s disappointing to see the “you’re so irresistible, I couldn’t help myself!” defense trotted out as a justification for sexual violation. To be sure, the rape-as-love trope abounds in romance novels and mainstream pornography as well, but as a feminist, it makes me just as uncomfortable to encounter it in yaoi as it does to encounter it in an episode of General Hospital. Then, too, there’s the issue of the characters’ homosexuality, which is sometimes trivialized (i.e., they’re not gay, they’re just so good-looking they couldn’t help themselves!), ignored, or “explained” by a character’s tragic past, as if sexual orientation were a simple, situational decision.

Still, I’d be remiss in my manga critic duties if I ignored such an important publishing category. With a little encouragement from readers, therefore, I decided to take a chance on Hinako Takanaga’s Little Butterfly (DMP), a title I’ve heard praised by folks whose interest in yaoi fell everywhere on the spectrum between Can’t Get Enough to Not My Cup of Tea. And you know what? I liked it. So much, in fact, that I would recommend Little Butterfly to just about any manga fan as a first-rate character study about two teens exploring the boundary between friendship and love.

Those teens are Kojima, a popular, cheerful student, and Nakahara, brooding loner with a troubled home life. (Dad is abusive; mom is mentally ill.) Kojima finds Nakahara intriguing and makes a concerted effort to befriend him — overtures that Nakahara ignores or rebuffs until circumstances (namely, a class field trip) throw them together. To his great surprise, Nakahara discovers that Kojima is kind and sympathetic, while Kojima discovers that Nakahara is intelligent and mature for his years, qualities that Kojima greatly admires. (In a genuinely funny and revealing scene, Nakahara names an NHK newscaster as his “favorite celebrity.”) As the teens spend time together, Nakahara develops an intense, romantic attachment to Kojima that leaves Kojima bewitched, bothered, and bewildered: is he falling for Nakahara? Is he gay? And is he ready for a sexual relationship?

What makes Little Butterfly work is Hinako Takanaga’s ability to capture the ebb and flow of close, same-sex friendships; anyone who’s ever felt a strong attachment to a high school friend will recognize the dynamic between Kojima and Nakahara as it vacillates between intense candor and intense self-consciousness. As their friendship shades into romance, Takanga shows us, through her characters’ awkward body language and behavior, how uncertain both boys are about what to do next. In one chapter, for example, Kojima frets that his lack of sexual experience will be a turn-off for Nakahara (who, in reality, isn’t much more experienced than Kojima is), nearly derailing their relationship in the process. That realism carries over to their actual encounters, which are clumsy, start-and-stop affairs, characterized by miscommunication and fumbling as each boy tries to figure out what he feels comfortable doing. These scenes feel real enough, in fact, that they aren’t sexy; anyone reading this book out of prurient interest will be sorely disappointed.

Though Takanaga handles the boys’ friendship with great sensitivity, Little Butterfly has some dramatically unpersuasive moments. In one unintentionally comic scene, for example, Kojima throws his arms around a friend to gauge his interest in other men, concluding that he only has eyes for Nakahara. (Presumably he didn’t get the memo that being gay doesn’t mean you’re attracted to every member of the same sex.) Takanaga also lays it on thick with Nakahara’s home life; not only is Nakahara’s father violent and emotionally distant, he’s also willing to use his wife and son as a bargaining chip for a loan, while Nakahara’s mother is such a perfectionist that she suffered a psychotic break after Nakahara failed to gain admission to an elite elementary school. I suppose these things happen — undoubtedly, New York Magazine has published a trend piece about Upper East Side moms afflicted with the same condition — but these touches register as melodramatic excess, as if having an abusive father and a crazy mother wasn’t quite enough to explain why Nakahara sought an emotional and physical connection with Kojima.

Still, it’s impossible not to read Little Butterfly without growing attached to the characters; their sincerity and awkwardness are genuinely endearing. I can’t say that Little Butterfly worked for me as yaoi, but I certainly enjoyed it as a coming-of-age story (no pun intended) that captured the difficulties and joys of teenage relationships in an engaging, emotionally honest manner. Recommended.

LITTLE BUTTERFLY: OMNIBUS • BY HINAKO TAKANAGA • DMP • RATING: MATURE (18+) • 560 pp.

Female Manga Bloggers From A-Z

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So, a friend mentioned on Twitter today that she’d been engaged in discussion with another friend on the topic of the manga blogosphere, revolving around the fact that it is a “very white male space … that seems to profoundly effect the way things are talked about.”

I was floored. All I could think was, what manga blogosphere is she talking about, because the one I’m looking at is really not that–at least not the “male” part. While I’d agree that both western comics blogging and anime blogging are male-dominated from what I’ve seen, my experience with manga blogging has been very much the opposite. Sure, there are a slew of great male manga bloggers out there (and many, many male fans) but when I look at my blogroll or RSS aggregator, women outnumber them by far. …

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Only By Chance

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Original text by Betty Neels
Art by Chieko Hara
Harlequin K.K./SOFTBANK Creative Corp., 126 pp.
Rating: YA (16+)

Henrietta Cowper is a low-level assistant to an insufferable physician at a London hospital. Adam Ross-Pit is a well-respected surgeon at the same facility. When Henrietta falls ill in the middle of her shift, Adam forces her into an extended hospital stay, ultimately resulting in the loss of her apartment and her job. Feeling responsible, he steps in to take care of her cats and ends up finding her housing and a new job as well—as a tour guide in a large manor near his country home. Though Henrietta and Adam are each drawn to one another, their social stations place them worlds apart. Is it possible for two gentle souls like these to overcome societal barriers?

Very little happens over the course of this manga, but that’s actually what makes it work so well. While more ambitious stories fall to pieces under the constraints of manga adaptation, this simple, quiet romance slips perfectly into place with no obvious cuts or awkward shifts in tone. There’s no real drama here—no true villains or any genuine conflict. The romance is inevitable but lazily pleasant, like sunlight on a Sunday morning or a cat stretching out after a long nap. Do these comparisons sound ridiculous? They’re not. If you’re now picturing a lazy cat stretching in the sun, you’re actually right on track.

Betty Neels’ protagonists are sweet in an vintage sort of way, reminiscent of the quieter characters of Louisa May Alcott or L.M. Montgomery, perfectly matched by Chieko Hara’s old-fashioned shojo character designs. The art is a real highlight of this volume overall, especially in terms of pacing and emotionally rich imagery. Though the lettering is as sloppy as all the books in this series, its stodgy font choice actually feels rather appropriate.

Though Only By Chance delivers neither high drama nor epic romance, this gentle little love story is truly a breath of fresh, spring air.

Only By Chance is available now at eManga.com. Review access provided by the publisher

Honor’s Promise

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Original text by Sharon Sala
Art by Esu Chihara
Harlequin K.K./SOFTBANK Creative Corp., 125 pp.
Rating: YA (16+)

Though still mourning the recent loss of her mother, Honor O’Brien strives to keep her mother’s memory alive by caring for the restaurant she started after the death of her husband. When a young man from Colorado sweeps into town and sweeps Honor off her feet, she’s surprised to find herself experiencing real happiness alongside such fresh grief. She’s even more surprised to discover that the man she’s fallen for so quickly is actually in town to deliver a rather appalling truth about her own origins. Can Honor truly find love with the man whose job it is to tear down everything she’s ever known?

This manga starts out strong, easily establishing a believable whirlwind romance between Honor and her out-of-town suitor, Trace, as well as a solid foundation for Honor herself, including her close relationship with her mother and their restaurant’s built-in “family.” If Honor’s surroundings don’t exactly feel like Texas, they do feel like home and all the things (wonderful and hurtful) that go with it. Less well-developed are the story’s antagonists—long-lost relatives threatened by Honor’s arrival into their lives—which keeps the volume’s dramatic climax from truly packing a punch. The greatest sacrifice made in the name of single-volume romance, however, is the lack of time allotted to Honor’s grief after Trace’s revelation, which robs her of an opportunity to achieve real depth.

Though DMP’s adaptation suffers from stunningly sloppy lettering—pages and pages of square blocks of text artlessly pasted over rounded speech balloons—the visual storytelling is quite effective. Honor, in particular, is expressively drawn, which plays a large role in her believability, especially in the beginning.

Though the manga’s middle chapters are too rushed to support the story as well as they might in prose, Honor’s Promise is a sweet, dramatic, genuinely poignant romance.

Honor’s Promise is available at eManga.com. Review access provided by the publisher.

Otomen 5 by Aya Kanno: B

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Otomen is the story of Asuka Masamune, a manly-seeming boy who harbors a secret love for “girly” pursuits like cooking and sewing. In this volume, his tomboyish girlfriend, Ryo, is picked to represent the second-year students in the school’s Ideal Woman competition, and draws on things she’s learned from Asuka in order to meet the challenge.

The third chapter focuses on Juta, who is secretly a shojo mangaka, and his attempt to protect the dreams of his fans who would be crushed to learn their favorite series is penned by an indolent playboy. The fourth sees the return of the Beauty Samurai, an awesome sentai duo (Asuka and fellow otomen and makeup expert, Tonomine) that beats up bad guys and gives makeovers!

As in previous installments, this volume offers episodic comedy with a decidedly silly bent. All of the stories within share the common theme of identity, too, whether it’s Ryo deciding that she really ought to know how to cook and sew (Asuka assures her she’s fine the way she is), Juta struggling to maintain his anonymity, or Asuka and Tonomine finding a covert outlet for their skills while living in fear of disappointing a parent. Kanno’s light touch ensures the feel remains light and fun, but it’s nice that there are deeper things one can read into it if one chooses.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Manhwa Monday: East Coast Blues

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Welcome to another Manhwa Monday! First, an apology. I’ve been horribly remiss. Though fellow manhwa fan, Eva Volin, alerted me at least two weeks ago about an upcoming exhibition on manhwa at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library, I failed to report it here.

Though the exhibit, “Korean Comics: A Society Through Small Frames,” continues through June 13th, it’s already too late to catch one of its accompanying lectures which took place on March 17th. Fortunately, reader Sara K. attended and was kind enough to write out her recollections of the event in a comment to last week’s post. Many thanks to Sara for sharing her report!

Another related event, Manhwa for Girls will take place on Thursday, April 8th, featuring discussion of “the role of girls and women in comics as well as comics by women artists.” …

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Otomen 3-4 by Aya Kanno: B

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These two volumes, although mostly comprised of one-shot chapters with silly plots (Kanno writes that she’s trying to hit all the major shoujo clichés), still manage to introduce two new characters and elevate the status of Ryo and Asuka’s relationship to “officially dating,” though that doesn’t result in any changes in the way they interact.

Volume three begins with Asuka agreeing to help Ryo out at a daycare center. He fully intends to lead the kids “in a manly manner,” but they soon tire of meditation and calligraphy. Eventually, he wins them over with fancy snacks and earns the love of a motherless boy who wants Asuka to fill that role.

An amusement park date’s next on the agenda (complete with dynamite-toting crazy), followed by a chapter about Juta’s family. The final chapter of the volume introduces Tonomine, Asuka’s kendo rival, who instantly becomes my favorite character. He, too, was forced to squelch his love for a traditionally feminine pursuit—he’s a genius beautician—and Asuka helps draw him out with a display of his own sewing prowess.

In volume four, Asuka helps Ryo’s dad understand girls just in time for his daughter’s birthday, then discovers a secret garden at school that’s been lovingly tended by a hulking fellow named Kurokawa. After Asuka reassures Kurokawa that loving flowers is not wrong, he proceeds to be subtle comic relief for the rest of the volume, surreptitiously sneaking up on beautiful people and “adorning” them with flowers.

When summer vacation rolls around, Asuka’s dreams of a beach date with Ryo (which awesomely involve riding dolphins) are stymied when he’s drafted to help with the business of a classmate’s uncle (a shoujo cliché I’ve seen a couple of times). This turns into a multi-episode tale of snack shack rivalry, complete with swimming challenges and displays of Asuka’s, Tonomine’s, and Kurokawa’s hidden talents. And, yes, there is a dolphin.

As you can see, the plots are nearly always extremely silly, bordering on ridiculous. The fact that this is obviously intentional makes it much more amusing than it would be in a series where the creator was genuinely trying to get away with stuff like this. I enjoy the cast a lot, and even though it’s clear that the plot is not going anywhere any time soon, Otomen is still a fun read. I liken it to Ouran High School Host Club in this regard, actually. I’m generally not one for episodic stories, but there’s a charm in both of these series that keeps me coming back.

Review copy for volume three provided by the publisher.

Breaking Down Banana Fish, Vols. 1-2

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Any regular reader of this blog will know that one of my favorite manga series is Akimi Yoshida’s 1980s shojo epic, Banana Fish.

I’ve spent quite a bit of effort attempting to persuade readers to check it out, so just imagine my joy when a few of my favorite manga bloggers agreed to indulge me in an ongoing roundtable discussion of the series!

Joining me here are Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue), Khursten Santos (Otaku Champloo), Connie (Slightly Biased Manga), Eva Volin (Good Comics For Kids), Robin Brenner (No Flying, No Tights), and Katherine Dacey (The Manga Critic). Each of these women writes about manga for multiple blogs and other online publications (despite the fact I’ve listed only one each here) and their combined knowledge and experience is, frankly, pretty intimidating if you let yourself ponder it for too long. …

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Natsume’s Book of Friends, Vol. 2

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By Yuki Midorikawa
Viz, 208 pp.
Rating: Teen

In this volume, Natsume is coerced into attending a school-sponsored “haunted challenge,” only to discover that one of his classmates (who suspects his abilities) wants his help to communicate with a yokai . Next, he falls prey to a curse that he can’t break without supernatural assistance. Later, he meets another human with his abilities and also becomes possessed by a yokai with a final, desperate wish.

Though this volume focuses less on Natsume’s quest to return all the names in the “Book of Friends,” that’s actually not a bad thing at all. Each of the chapters in this installment of the series is more touching than the last, which is saying a lot considering that the first chapter begins with Natsume pouring water on a dehydrated yokai collapsed in the middle of the road.

Unlike his grandmother, Reiko, Natsume is slowly developing bonds with his fellow humans, but he’s also forging relationships with yokai that are much more genuine than Reiko ever bothered with. While she ruled over yokai with the power of the Book, Natsume reaches out to them with genuine affection, struggling to understand how the yokai‘s wants and priorities might differ from his own. This deceptively simple lesson in learning to value things outside one’s own experience is subtly and effectively presented, with the same gentleness that has characterized the series thus far. The series’ humor is a highlight in this volume as well, providing much-needed contrast to its forthright sentimentality.

Though the series’ structure is still rigidly episodic, Natsume’s character development is satisfying enough to easily keep up the story’s momentum. Natsume’s Book of Friends remains one of this year’s best shojo surprises!

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Dear Fandom: Please Grow Up.

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Yesterday saw the release of the first Twilight graphic novel adaptation, produced in all its glossy, hardcover glory by Yen Press. I haven’t had a chance to do more than a quick flip-through so far, but though I’ve never read the novels (and have little interest in doing so) I’m actually looking forward to taking a look at the series in graphic novel form, if only to see what all the hype is about.

By “hype” I’m not only talking about the series’ huge sales. I’m also interested in finding a connection with its notoriously rabid fans. I’ve found myself defending them quite a bit recently against accusations of being “crazy,” “repugnant,” and “freaks,” which has made me more curious about the source of their obsession than I might have been otherwise. After all, if obsessive fandom is the issue, there’s very little I can relate to more. …

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Kiss Your Hair

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By Duo Brand
DMP, 177 pp.
Rating: M (18+)

A long-haired gardener provides special services to his employer but finds himself falling for the butler instead. A teenage houseboy (drawn too young for this reviewer’s comfort) catches his master in a compromising position with the head servant. An artist falls in love with his model and feels unable to sufficiently express his beauty through painting. These stories and more make up the anthology Kiss Your Hair, the latest in English from BL mangaka team Duo Brand, authors of Shards of Affection.

Though this anthology holds together better than some, it is unable to avoid the most common trap plaguing its kind—an inability to choose between romance and pornography. As a result, it ultimately fails at both. Loosely held together by the theme of master and servant (stretched to include relationships like senpai/kohai and employer/employee), each of the volume’s stories features grand declarations of love, almost none of which are well-developed enough to ring true. One possible exception is the story “Escape,” featuring two old friends who find themselves thrown together again in desperate circumstances.

Released under DMP’s adult 801 Media imprint, this manga is never coy about getting its characters into bed, but just as too much sexual content leaves little room for developing romance, the reverse is also true. Though the stories rush blatantly toward consummation (a few even begin there), these scenes feel hurried as well, like flashes of memory from a hazy, drunken night.

Duo Brand’s art is sketchy but expressive, with attractive character designs distinctive enough to provide genuine variety over the course of so many unrelated stories.

Without a clear allegiance to love or lust, Kiss Your Hair ultimately falls short on both counts.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Manhwa Monday: At the Movies!

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Greetings on another Manhwa Monday! First, a bit of news I picked up from Variety, NETCOMICS will be producing a film version of the manhwa series X Diary by Toma. According to the article, casting will begin in June of this year (with filming beginning in October). The film is being produced by NETCOMICS’ VP Soyoung Jung.

In a review from The Comics Journal earlier this year, Adam Stephanides writes, “X Diary is a feather-light collection of humorous four-panel strips — I would call them gag strips, but “gag” is too strong a word for the gentle humor here — about Mingo (female) and Jerry (male), a pair of 26-year-old ex-lovers who have decided to remain friends … X Diary is unpretentious, and there is a genuine warmth to both the writing and art. It could perhaps best be described as likable.”

For those interested in seeing for themselves, X Diary is available in print …

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