Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews
I received an e-mail this morning to let me know about an event I very much wish I could attend– an exhibition entitled “Manhwa 100: Centenary of Korean Comics” presented by London’s Korean Cultural Centre from May 21st through June 24th. If you’re reading this blog from across the pond, take note! From their press release:
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By est em
Published by NETCOMICS
Rating: Mature (18+)
One of the most intriguing stories in est em’s earlier collection Seduce Me After the Show was “Rockin’ In My Head,” featuring a young guitarist named Billy who drinks himself into a stupor over the death of a personal idol and the sudden disappearance of his bandmate, Nick (who took off with Billy’s cash and guitar). Billy is escorted home by another patron in the bar who turns out to be Joe Coxon, the former guitarist of Billy’s favorite band, The Rebels–the same band whose vocalist, Pete Brian, has just died. With Nick still missing, Billy convinces Joe, now in his fifties and with his last performance far in the past, to step into his band for a single show, reminding Joe what it means to be needed on stage. Age Called Blue expands on this story, focusing on the complicated relationship between Billy and Nick (introduced “onscreen” here for the first time) and how it mirrors the relationship of Pete and Joe, whose chance for reconciliation after years of estrangement is destroyed by Pete’s untimely death.
The story begins just after the events in the original short, with Nick turning up unexpectedly in the supermarket after his disappearance. Billy is initially furious, but isn’t able to hold on to his anger long in the presence of Nick’s badly beaten face. Billy takes Nick back home to get him cleaned up, and becomes enraged again when he finds out that Nick had prostituted himself for cash to their idol, Pete, the day before he died. Nick tries to kiss Billy and is forcefully rejected, but it’s obvious that the emotions between them run deep and the rest of the story explores just what that means for both of them and for the future of their band.
What’s really effective in this story is how est em weaves together the lives of all four men, retracing the days just before and after Pete died and interspersing them with present-day events. Although Joe and Pete ultimately fail to get what they need from each other, thanks to pride and the cruelty of fate, it is their music that brings Billy and Nick together in the first place and their influence that helps the two younger men realize what is most important to them and just how fragile that can be. “I don’t know complicated things well,” Joe says to Billy one night over drinks, “but I suggest you secure the things that you don’t want to lose. Maybe that’s music, or maybe it’s that boy.” Watching Joe coming to terms with his own regret enough to actually try to help someone else avoid the same mistakes is quite moving all on its own, and when Billy finally makes his choice (“Nick is my music.”) the effect is stunning. The fact that, in Joe’s mind, there can only be one choice–music or love–is a heartbreaking example of why he lost what Billy will give everything to keep.
Nothing comes easy in Age Called Blue, which is one of its greatest strengths. Even after Billy makes the decision to stick with Nick, things get harder, though this only further illustrates the truth of Billy’s choice. Though he is eventually forced to give up the band to be with Nick, the question of giving up music never even comes into play, not with Nick still in his life. Nick is a piece of work, that’s certain–childish, unreliable, and self-destructive–but he really is Billy’s music, both its source and its vessel.
With its intense emotional content and bohemian setting, Age Called Blue may be the most overtly romantic story in est em’s catalogue so far, and this is by no means a bad thing. It is beautifully crafted throughout, and though it is made richer by having read “Rockin’ In My Head,” enough of that story is included to allow this volume to stand on its own. Est em’s visual storytelling is exquisite as always, and though the adaptation lacks the clarity of Matt Thorn’s work on Red Blinds the Foolish, the real meaning shines through in the visuals even when the dialogue is somewhat oblique. The art itself is gorgeous–realistically portrayed adult men in est em’s usual style, which makes her work feel so much more real than most of the yaoi manga being published in English. It is important to note, too, that this realism is achieved without the crutch of explicit sex scenes or coy winks to the audience. Though the characters’ sexuality is a significant part of their lives and their relationships to each other, anything that happens between them is for the sake of characterization and moving the story forward which makes this manga a rarity in the genre, much like est em herself.
The volume ends in typical fashion with two unrelated stories, though the first of these, “I Saw Blue,” again hearkens back to a story from Seduce Me After the Show, which is a nice treat. Still, it’s hard not to wish for a full volume’s worth of the featured story, and seeing these characters return from earlier shorts only makes that desire burn more fiercely. Though est em’s quiet, melancholy style is very well suited to short vignettes–and in fact, even her longer arcs are actually series of short pieces that could each stand alone–to see that unique talent applied to something substantial in length would be truly incredible.
All whining about length aside, there is not a justifiable complaint to be made about this manga. Beautiful, gritty, emotionally resonant, and surprisingly romantic, Age Called Blue is a real treasure, both within its genre and in the medium as a whole.
Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally posted at PopCultureShock.
Detroit Metal City, Vol. 1
By Kiminori Wakasugi
Published by Viz Media
Soichi Negishi is a kind, polite young man who loves his mother and dreams of being in a Swedish pop band. Unfortunately, he’s ended up as the lead singer of a Japanese evil-core death metal band called Detroit Metal City, in which he must play the part of Krauser II–a crude, angry, death metal god who claims to have murdered his own parents. Though he is exceptionally talented as a death metal god (much to his dismay), Krauser II’s impact on his everyday life is nearly unbearable for Soichi. He can’t be honest with his family (or his dream girl, Aikawa), his own musical ambitions are completely buried, and his metal-crazy manager trashes his apartment, insisting, “We’re going to make you death metal, all the way down to your balls.” Each chapter of this volume illustrates yet another way in which Soichi’s double life destroys everything he cares about, and it does so with increasing hilarity.
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It’s been a big weekend of reviews for me so far, with three posted at Manga Recon (and one that should appear here sometime tomorrow). First of all, I review volume ten of La Corda d’Oro and volume seven of Wild Ones for the On The Shojo Beat column. The greatest treat for me, however, was reviewing est em’s new manga, Age Called Blue, which is probably my favorite work of hers so far, and that’s saying a lot.
Something that strikes me every time I read est em’s work, is how much it reminds me of a fannish form of writing I was very fond of not so long ago–a form known as the “drabble.” A drabble is a complete story told in exactly 100 words (no more, no less). Something I used to enjoy very much (both writing and reading) was a larger story made up of a series of 100-word drabbles, each complete on its own, yet contributing to the larger work. As I mention in my review, all of est em’s larger story arcs (such as “Red Blinds the Foolish” and “Age Called Blue”) are actually series of smaller stories strung together to make a whole, just like those series of drabbles I used to be so fond of, and there is a very specific feel to this kind of storytelling that is unlike anything else. Each piece feels fragile in its brevity–without a single extraneous word or gesture–remove even the tiniest piece and the entire thing shatters. This extends, too, to the larger structure, which would fall apart without its smaller pieces, for though each of them stands on its own, the series itself relies on these small stories in order to maintain its delicate thread. This is the nature of an est em manga. Every word and every panel are so important, even if you just read too quickly the whole thing crumbles from the loss.
Why do I like this kind of story? I don’t know. I know that I’m drawn to the delicate melancholy of a series of isolated moments, but I don’t know why. I also don’t know how it is that I can claim to love this when I’ve gone on and on about how much I want to read epic, multi-volume stories, and how it is these stories that got me into manga in the first place. This is undeniably true. It is indeed long stories that drew me to manga, and they are what keep me involved in the medium to this extent. Perhaps in the end it is just that the work of est em revives in me an old love–one I thought to be dead–in a form that I am still able to appreciate.
Read Age Called Blue. You won’t regret it.
By Kiyo Fujiwara
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Teen
Volume seven of this series begins on a low note with a jealous student scheming to keep a girl he likes from confessing to young Yakuza bodyguard and school prince Rakuto (a plot which proves hopeless in the end), though this story line eventually takes a more serious turn as Rakuto’s teacher decides to visit his home to determine why he’s been unable to decide on a career track. This scenario is followed by an aimless romp at an amusement park where Rakuto and rival Azuma bicker over who should get to share rides with the object of their affection protection, Sachie. Later, another seemingly pointless story begins with a rival “heiress” challenging Sachie to a meaningless duel. Surprisingly, this ends up providing the first real turning point in Sachie and Rakuto’s endlessly drawn-out romance, as Rakuto is forced to admit to himself how much Sachie cares for him, and Sachie learns that it might actually be okay to show her true feelings.
This volume starts off weaker than the one previous, but it ends (uncharacteristically) with a little cliffhanger which offers up some small hope that something might actually happen between Sachie and Rakuto at long last. It suddenly seems possible that the spark that has been missing all along may finally appear to rescue this vaguely attractive series from the dregs of mediocrity. As both characters finally drop their false disinterest in each other, there is actually some real chemistry between them for the first time as well, making it easy to root for them and providing some real impetus going into the next volume.
Though for the most part this volume is no more exciting than those that precede it, its final chapter makes a tentative promise of better things to come.
Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.
By Yuki Kure
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Teen
As Kohoko and the other contestants head into the final selection of Seisou Academy’s music competition, there is a last-minute shake-up when the decision is made to change the order of their performances to reflect their scores up to that point in order to show off the strongest musicians for Mr. Kira, a young man whose family runs Seisou Academy and who believes the music competition is, in his words, “a bit silly.” The change is a shock for all of the contestants, though prickly violinist Len surprises everyone by protesting that it undermines their performances to make them suddenly aware of their standing in a competition that is supposedly about promoting the enjoyment of music. Finally, however, the performance goes on with each of them demonstrating the impressive growth they’ve experienced during the competition, especially Kahoko who is performing for the first time without magical assistance.
There is a lot of reflection in this volume, especially on the part of Kahoko, who spends much time pondering her first meetings with the other contestants and how her relationships with them have progressed to this point. It’s quite an emotional volume, too, with some very moving moments, particularly Kahoko’s encounter with Len just before she goes on (in which he offers to help her replace her E string with the one formerly magical string remaining, saying, “It means something to you, right?”), her performance itself, and her tearful goodbye with Lili who made it possible for her to learn that she loves music.
With at least two more volumes to go, it’s hard to see where the story will find the momentum to move forward now that the competition’s final selection is complete. There is the question of Kahoko’s love life and perhaps some drama to come regarding the flippant Mr. Kira, but it will be interesting to see where this goes now that it has passed what would seem to have been a comfortable stopping point. La Corda d’Oro may not be a masterpiece, but it is sweet, heartwarming, and oddly addictive with its cast of attractive characters so sincere in their musical pursuits.
Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.
This volume presents three episodic tales, two of which focus on Asuka’s challenge to be true to himself despite the expectations of others. In the first of these stories, he acquires an apprentice who wants to use him as a reference on how to be cool and masculine, requiring Asuka to suppress his girly tendencies, and in the other, his mother attempts to set him up in an arranged marriage and manipulates him by warning that her health will suffer if he should thwart her or betray any sort of preference for feminine things. This last story is insanely kooky, but it gives Ryo the opportunity to ride in on a white horse and rescue the about-to-be-wed Asuka, so I can’t fault it too much.
Kanno’s art is very attractive in general, but I was especially impressed by it in this volume because she was able to adopt a completely different style—one reminiscent of ’70s shoujo—to depict the parents of Asuka’s fiancée. What’s more, there are scenes where they are sitting at a table with Asuka’s mom, and seeing the two very different artistic techniques juxtaposed in the same panel is pretty awesome.
The other story in the volume is more of a romantic one. Asuka finds out that Ryo has never celebrated Christmas before, and so plans the perfect Christmas party for her. It’s a nice chapter overall, but the best part is Asuka’s inexplicable fixation upon a yule log as the essential ingredient for the event. I often find straightforward comedies unfunny, but the absurdity of Otomen gets me every time.
Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.
Nabari No Ou, Vol. 1
By Yuhki Kamatani
Published by Yen Press
Middle school student Miharu, a quiet loner whose life’s plans extend to the inevitable inheritance of his parents’ okonomiyaki shop, carefully avoids becoming involved in anything that would require him to care about anyone (or anything), or worse, require anyone to care about him. Unfortunately, his dreams of perfect apathy are shattered when he discovers that he holds The Secret Art (shinra banshu)–the power to control everything in creation–inside his own body. …
Comic, Vol. 6
By Ha Sihyun
Published by Yen Press
Volume five ended with turmoil for both protagonist and aspiring manhwa-ga Alice Song and her love interest, established manhwa-ga Patrick Kang. Having not quite escaped the clutches of manipulative queen bee Daria, Patrick lied to Alice about it, only to be shocked by a furious slap in the face from Alice who (unbeknownst to him) spotted them together in the physics classroom at the very worst time possible. Volume six opens with the reintroduction of the infamous piano room “pervert” whom Alice caught dancing half-naked back in volume four. …
Nodame Cantabile, Vol. 2
By Tomoko Ninomiya
Published by Del Rey
This volume opens with the introduction of new character Masumi Okuyama, a timpani player with massive crush on Chiaki who sees Nodame as his rival. His initial attack against her consists of various childish pranks, like sending her an ominous chain letter and taping a sign that reads “IDIOT” on her back. Eventually, the two of them become engaged in a competition to see who can procure a Christmas Eve date with Chiaki–a challenge they both lose (or both win, depending on how you look at it). Also introduced in this volume is a new professor of conducting, Maestro Franz von Stresemann–a notorious skirt-chaser who takes photographs of the female students’ underwear, and who creepily pursues Nodame from the first moment he appears. He later forms his own personal orchestra made up mainly of colorful characters and pretty girls chosen without regard to their actual musical talent.
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Gorgeous Carat caught my eye because it looked like a frothy costume drama. I’m a total sucker for that kind of thing, especially if it involves beautiful people fighting and falling in love in fancy surroundings. Alas, what I’d hoped would be a pleasant bit of escapism turned out to be so problematic in its presentation of gender, sexuality, and race that I never got swept up in its embrace.
The premise is ridiculous, but the first volume has a certain flair that carries Carat past its credulity-straining aspects. Our hero, Florian Rochefort, belongs to a French family with a noble name and and not-so-noble debt load. Rather than fence the family jewels, Florian’s mother does what all self-respecting French aristocrats do in yaoi manga: she sells Florian into slavery, delivering him to Ray Balzac Courtland, a distant relative who also happens to be, natch, young and handsome. Florian may be too dense to recognize his growing attraction to Ray, but it doesn’t take long for Florian to realize that Ray is, in fact, “Noir,” a cat burglar who’s the talk of fin-de-siecle Paris. When Florian is kidnapped by a rival gang of thieves, Ray sails for Morocco to enlist an old friend in tracking down his prized possession relative.
Elegant men in elegant costumes hopscotching across Europe and North Africa in pursuit of treasure: sounds good, no? Alas, You Higuri’s beautiful artwork can’t disguise the fact that her vision of North Africa is steeped in the same colonialist attitudes as Salammbo — not exactly an unimpeachable source of information about the Middle East. Take, for example, Laila, one of the key supporting characters in the Carat cast. Laila is Ray’s gal Friday, helping him track down information, cooking him meals, and keeping his car’s engine running whenever he sets out on a mission that might require a quick getaway. She might be a harmless character if it weren’t for Higuri’s decision to make Laila a dark-skinned Moroccan wearing a midriff baring costume.
Though we’re meant to see Laila as plucky, she has an ugly, Pygmalion-esque backstory (Courland rescued her from the streets when she was a girl and taught her to read) and is depicted as all-too-eager to do her master’s bidding. More disturbing is the way in which she competes with the fair-skinned Florian for her master’s attention. She throws temper tantrums, rages at Florian, tries seducing Ray, and, when none of that works, concedes that Florian has the superior claim on Ray’s heart. In fairness to Higuri, I think Laila is intended to be a surrogate for Carat’s female readers—a kind of wink-wink to readers wishing that Ray or Florian harbored romantic feelings for women. Instead, Laila comes across a tempestuous child-servant—a Steppin’ Fetchit for the Britney Spears era.
Equally troubling is the kidnapped-by-a-sexy-sheik subplot in the second volume. Florian becomes a pawn in an ugly contest between Ray and Azura, a mysterious Moroccan who—naturally—is impossibly and exotically beautiful himself. I got the same queasy feeling reading these pages as I did watching the implied rape scene in Lawrence of Arabia. Much is made of Florian’s fair, virginal beauty, just as Jose Ferrer fawns over Peter O’Toole’s blue eyes, pale skin, and sexual innocence. But while David Lean shows us the terrible ramifications of this encounter, Higuri includes these scenes in Carat for pure titillation. Yes, she hints that Azura may have “ruined” Florian, but given the series’ Harlequin romance plotting, it’s a safe bet that the lasting impact of Florian’s imprisonment will be bringing him closer to Ray, not sending him into, say, an irreversible tail spin of drug addiction and prostitution. (Though, of course, Higuri does inflict amnesia and temporary insanity on Florian for most of volume three.)
In Higuri’s defense, I doubt she knew much, if anything, about the imperialist discourse that shaped European attitudes towards the “Orient.” Yet she rehearses many of the stereotypes prevalent in nineteenth-century European art, literature, and scholarship about the Middle East, portraying Laila and Azura as irrational, childlike, and dangerously sensual — just as Flaubert portrays his Carthaginian princess. About the best I can say for Higuri is that she’s so committed to her story and characters that Gorgeous Carat almost works as a parody of Delacroix, Flaubert, and Massenet. Good thing Edward Said never picked up a copy.
GORGEOUS CARAT, VOLS. 1-4 • BY YOU HIGURI • BLU MANGA • RATING: MATURE (18+)
Book description:
In James’s stellar fourteenth Adam Dalgliesh mystery, the charismatic police commander knows the case of Rhoda Gradwyn, a 47-year-old journalist murdered soon after undergoing the removal of an old disfiguring scar at a private plastic surgery clinic in Dorset, may be his last. Dalgliesh probes the convoluted tangle of motives and hidden desires that swirl around the clinic, Cheverell Manor, and its grimly fascinating suspects in the death of Gradwyn, herself a stalker of minds driven by her lifelong passion for rooting out the truth people would prefer left unknown and then selling it for money.
Review:
The Private Patient isn’t bad—I think it’d be impossible for P. D. James to write a bad novel—but it isn’t very gripping. It’s written in her usual style, very descriptive of setting, even down to the retirement home accomodations of an obscure family solicitor, and spending a lot of time with the victim and her environs before the crime actually takes place. Like most of James’ novels, this one involves a small institution of some kind with a precarious financial future, and a limited cast of subjects connected with it.
Perhaps I’m a bit jaded, but I’d expected a few more twists and turns out of this. There’s one point, quite near the end, but not near enough that it seemed a culprit should really be revealed, when all evidence seemed to point to one person. “Ah,” I reasoned, “this person is the red herring. We will now get the twist ending when it will turn out to have been Y instead of X!” Except all that happens is that X commits a completely unnecessary additional act of violence and gets found out, leaving me going, “Oh. It was X. Huh.”
Much like the previous book, The Lighthouse, this could possibly be the last in the Dalgleish series. The whole reason Dalgleish’s squad is on the case in the first place is because a wealthy client of the clinic got her politically connected hubby to pull some strings. This rankles with Dalgleish quite a lot, as one might imagine, and the increasing politicization of his squad, along with the possibility that it will be eliminated in forthcoming budget cuts, makes him ponder retirement. The door’s still open, however, as the novel ends without Dalgleish making a firm decision in either way.
If this is the last novel, I’ll be slightly disappointed in the ending, which doesn’t focus on him at all. Instead, we get an epilogue about those still at the clinic as well as an attendee’s view of Dalgleish’s wedding. Then again, perhaps this slipping out of the limelight and into quiet, happy domesticity exactly parallels Dalgleish’s fate. That’d be nice.
I have a mini review out at PCS today for volume seven of manhwa series One Thousand and One Nights. This is such a beautiful and well-crafted series, and I could easily have written a full-length review of this volume so I will add some things here that I did not have room to say in my mini. Bonus: I get to say them here with wholly unprofessional abandon. :)
Walkin’ Butterfly, Vol. 2
By Chihiro Tamaki
Published by Deux Press
Despite Michiko’s new resolve, her path to a career as a model is not progressing easily. She is raw and untrained, and her impatience and unwillingness to try things she doesn’t understand are huge obstacles for her. Fortunately, her desire to impress childhood friend Nishikino provides some fresh motivation and she digs in once again, but though she finally begins to grasp some of what it means to do the job she’s pursuing so relentlessly, it isn’t enough to win over prickly designer Mihara. Meanwhile, Mihara is facing big decisions of his own as he’s offered an opportunity to join a fashion house in Paris, and Michiko’s agent, Tago, fights what could be the end of her career if she’s unable to make something of Michiko.
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Following up on my post, Let’s Talk About Manhwa, I’ve been slowly seeking out early volumes of series recommended in comments by readers. This first volume I was lucky enough to pick up at Mangatude and now I’m itching for more!
Do Whatever You Want, Vol. 1
By Yeri Na
Published by NETCOMICS
Buy This Book
Jiwon and Hosoo are best friends dreaming of musical stardom which they’ve sworn to pursue together to the exclusion of all else, including girls. Their friendship is so close that rumors persist that they are involved with each other romantically, but though Hosoo appears to appears to view Jiwon in much the same way as he does a pretty girl (and Jiwon has examined his own feelings for Hosoo with some concern as well), both of them are too focused on family problems and career goals to dwell too much on questioning the nature of their relationship. …
