Daily Chatter

I had a great time discussing the first volume of Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son (Fantagraphics) for the latest Manga Out Loud podcast, though I bailed before the talk switched to the anime, as I’m avoiding spoilers. Speaking of that marvelous book, Glen Weldon includes it on his list of “Five Recent Graphic Novels You Really Shouldn’t Miss” for NPR’s Monkey See blog.

In other news, Viz triggered mild panic when it listed the fourth volume of Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game as the final volume on its Facebook page. After panicked inquiries from overly invested geeks like me, a Viz rep hastened to reassure us that it was a typo and that they will publish the series in its entirety. PHEW!

 

I generally like to highlight different titles in the Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week and in these trawls through the ComicList, but sometimes I just have to repeat myself.

Even if this week didn’t mark the inaugural Pick of the Week contribution of Sean (A Case Suitable for Treatment) Gaffney, I’d still be in lockstep with his choice, the fourth collection (containing the eighth and ninth volumes) of Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game from Viz Media. Viz is publishing some other perfectly likeable manga this week, but it’s hard for anything not to pale in comparison to Cross Game. To avoid repeating myself, I’ll simply link to myself: here are my reviews of the first, second, and third collections, and here’s my contribution to the Cross Game Manga Moveable Feast.

Speaking of Manga Moveable Feasts, you all know that I’m hosting the July installment on Natsuki Takaya’s transcendent Fruits Basket (Tokyopop), right? The feast will start on Sunday, July 24, and end on Saturday, July 30. I’d be happy to host pieces here, if that would work better for you. Just drop me a line.

And, speaking of critical examination of manga, there’s a jam-packed edition of Bookshelf Briefs for your perusal. I take an look at Natsume Ono’s La Quinta Camera and a feels-belated look at the second Kekkaishi 3-in-1 collection by Yellow Tanabe. Most importantly, Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey reads the second volume of Ai Ore! so I don’t have to. EVER.

 

It’s a big ComicList this week, so let’s get right to it:

I just have to restate my Pick of the Week, Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son (Fantagraphics). After a few delays, we finally get our hands on this acclaimed series about two transgendered kids navigating early adolescence. This debut has already earned a bunch of pre-release acclaim, and I’m really eager to read it.

Kodansha USA kindly continues publication of Koji Kumeta’s Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei with the ninth volume, where Del Rey left off. As things stand, this dense, often scathing satire is probably the most off-kilter thing that Kodansha is publishing, so it’s great to see it return. Now, how about picking up Masayuki Ishikawa’s Moyasimon to continue the trend? I thought the second volume was a significant improvement on the first, which was okay enough in its own right, and I’d love to read more.

Speaking of funny manga from Kodansha, Vertical releases the sixth volume of Kanata Konami’s Chi’s Sweet Home. I reviewed it for the latest round of Bookshelf Briefs. I’m glad to have that venue for shorter reviews, especially when all I basically have to say about a series is that it’s still really good.

I have two highlights from the rather long list of Viz Media releases:

First up is the second volume of Yellow Tanabe’s Kekkaishi 3-in-1 collections. I enjoyed the heck out of the first three volumes, and I felt much the same out of the stories collected this time around. It’s just a super-solid, emotionally satisfying shônen fantasy-adventure.

Second is the ninth volume of Karuho Shiina’s Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You. I’m a bit behind on this series, but I’m determined to catch up soon, because I love the combination of postmodern and utterly sincere application of shôjo romantic tropes.

What looks good to you?

 

Ed (Manga Out Loud) Sizemore and Johanna (Manga Worth Reading) Draper Carlson were kind enough to invite MJ(Manga Bookshelf)  and I to participate in a podcast on the subject of manga for women. Johanna has also posted a handy timeline describing josei’s start-and-stop presence in the licensed manga market. I believe this is the first time I’ve participated in a podcast when you can’t hear my dogs barking in the background. I think they were napping.

 

Yes, I admit that the Manga Bookshelf crew took a look at the Midtown Comics list and abstained from voting, but the ComicList is always at least somewhat different, and there are two items I wanted to mention.

Isn’t it nice to have a publisher you can blindly trust to publish books that are always worth your scrutiny? I find Fanfare/Ponent Mon to fall into that category, so I ordered Galit and Gilad Seliktar’s Farm 54 without really knowing a single thing about it. It’s an autobiographically informed coming-of-age story set in Israel in the 1970s.

Nobody would ever accuse me of blindly trusting Tokyopop, and the use of the word “maid” in the title of a manga is usually enough to send me running in the other direction, but the readers spoke, so I dutifully ordered the first (and possibly only) volume of Maid Shokun, written by Nanki Satou and illustrated by Akira Kiduki. While I haven’t allowed myself to read his full review, so as not to color anything I may write about the book, I’m relieved to hear that Sean (A Case Suitable for Treatment) Gaffney found the book much better than he had expected it would be. This is one of the two preferred outcomes of crowd-sourced comic ordering: a pleasant surprise, or something much worse than even my fevered imagination could predict.

In other Manga Bookshelf news, we’ve offered our views on a variety of relatively recent releases in the latest installment of Bookshelf Briefs. Is anyone else ready for the Straw Hats to come back, or is it just me?

Let’s take a quick pass through the current ComicList, then move on to some linkblogging! Diamond’s primary source of goodness this week is Viz, which offers a combination of Signature and Shonen Sunday titles:

I can’t believe we’ve hit the next-to penultimate volume of Hiromu Arakawa’s excellent Fullmetal Alchemist, but that’s the simple fact of the matter. This is probably the best shônen series to be published in English in the last five years, and I’m going to miss it when it’s done. (Update: Sorry about the false alarm. I transposed volume numbers on the list in my head.)

Other appealing Viz arrivals include:

• 20^th Century Boys vol. 15 by Naoki Urasawa
• Afterschool Charisma vol. 3 by Kumiko Suekane
• Arata: The Legend vol. 6 by Yuu Watase

One appalling Viz arrival is their debut of oh!great’s Tenjo Tenge. I detested what I read of it when it was being published by CMX, so I can’t imagine how a more faithful production could change that. Of all of the CMX titles to rescue, I ask you, why this one?

For a look at what’s due at a non-Diamond-dependent comic shop, check out the latest Pick of the Week over at Manga Bookshelf. For the battle robot’s verdicts on some recent releases, click on over to this week’s collection of Bookshelf Briefs. And to learn more about the truly awesome manga that is the subject of the current Manga Moveable Feast, take a peek at MJand Michelle’s introductory post.

 

Thanks to my partner, who is never quite as much of a cautious adopter as I am, we’re now proud caregivers of a couple of iPads. I’m still figuring out what exactly to do with it aside from coo over the fact that it’s really neat, but I’m sure I’ll be able to incorporate it into my time-wasting infrastructure without too much difficulty.

So far, I’ve only dabbled with a few comics apps and downloaded a few freebies, mostly from Archie, to see how they read. They’ve all looked fine, and my protests of being a dead-tree partisan will undoubtedly abate as more material becomes available. I won’t be quite so cautious when it comes to making unreasonable requests about just what kind of material I’d like to see.

In that direction, it’s very convenient that Kate posted the latest i-nnouncement from Viz Media over at The Manga Critic. My first reaction to the content available on the Viz app was that it was extremely cautious. That’s a sensible enough decision to make from a business standpoint, but it doesn’t exactly set my consumer’s heart racing. Their initial offerings were exactly the kind of titles I’d have absolutely no difficulty finding in any chain bookstore just about anywhere in the continental United States.

The recent round of additions is a bit exciting in that three of my very favorite current Viz titles – Children of the Sea, Cross Game and The Story of Saiunkoku – have been added to the roster, but that’s the excitement of a partisan seeing increased availability of and exposure for products he enjoys and admires. So while it’s rewarding to see Viz add more shôjo and seinen, they have a ways to go before my personal needs will be served.

One of Kate’s suggestions for Viz particularly resonated for me:

“(3) dig into their archives and resurrect out-of-print gems such as A A’, Banana Fish, Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President, Firefighter! Daigo of Company M, From Far Away, Please Save My Earth, and Urusei Yatsura.”

And since I can never resist the urge to list things, I thought I’d throw out five Viz properties that should be made available on the iPad:

Sexy Voice and Robo, written and illustrated by Iou Kuroda: Part of my love for this comic is the physical production of it, with its phone-book dimensions and appropriately pulpy paper. It’s hard to find, though, and if we can assume that the average iPad user might be a little older, I think this book might find a new audience through this device.

Phoenix, written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka: Until Vertical works out contractual agreements and unveils its own app, this is seems like a reasonable opportunity to get one of Tezuka’s masterworks available in digital form. You’re in great shape if you can read Japanese, but English-only readers are out of luck so far.

Four Shôjo Stories, featuring works by Moto Hagio, Keiko Nishi, and Shio Satô: This one is a result of pure selfishness, as the available copies of this out-of-print collection are just too damned expensive. From a more self-righteous place, I think every manga publisher should devote at least some effort to publishing challenging, off-the-beaten-path works by women for women. The iPad seems like a natural habitat for that kind of material.

The Drifting Classroom, written and illustrated by Kazuo Umezu: Seriously, is there any mass transit experience that couldn’t be improved by the ability to read deranged Umezu manga? Sure, you risk strange looks from fellow travelers as you giggle at the over-the-top violence and total disregard for the well-being of children, but come on. Tell me this wouldn’t rock. I dare you.

Monster, written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa: In spite of near-universal critical acclaim, Urasawa’s works don’t seem to have earned matching commercial success, which has always struck me as odd. He writes the kind of genre-bending, sort-of-intellectual thrillers that a lot of prose readers really love. Maybe digital availability would give those prose readers incentive to give a graphic version of their genre of choice a shot.

So what Viz titles would you like to see on one of their digital platforms?

 

It’s time for the results show, just like on American Idol or Dancing with the Stars! Well, partly, because only one poll depends on popular votes. So the other half is more like when Tom Colicchio decides who gets knifed on Top Chef, except I’m not an icon to the bear community. (I don’t honestly think Colicchio is either, and how would Andy Cohen know if Colicchio is or not? I just don’t see him doing exit interviews at the Green Lantern.) Anyway, thanks to your votes and input, I’ve managed to complete my Previews order.

First up, we’ll discuss this month’s Boys’ Love Blind Date. Now, as I strongly suggested, I eliminated Only Serious about You, as it sounds exactly like something I’d really enjoy, so no vetting was necessary, and I just ordered it. While A Fallen Saint’s Kiss would probably offer valuable insights into adult novelties, the power dynamics might negate that value by making me wish for death. A similar problem taints Private Teacher, and it doesn’t even sound smutty, so why risk it? This leaves Mr. Tiger and Mr. Wolf as this month’s choice. Characters with animal ears don’t do a single thing for me as a reader (see also: angel wings), but there does seem to be a likelihood that this book may be funny and/or cute.

Moving on to the infinitely more dangerous, fully crowd-sourced Dubious Manga Selection, it is my duty to report that the majority of comments were in favor of Mardock Scramble. This is actually kind of a relief. I can’t honestly imagine any way that Tales of the Abyss won’t be crushingly boring, and reports indicate that Bloody Monday is actually pretty good, as these things go. There’s a giddy, frightening uncertainty to Mardock Scramble. It could be interesting and provocative. It could be dull and formulaic and pandering. It could be so deliriously awful that I may require hypnotherapy to recover from the reading experience. I just don’t know, and that’s the fun of these polls, at least for me.

To wrap things up, I noticed an omission in my Previews overview post:

Gate 7 vol. 1, written and illustrated by CLAMP, Dark Horse Comics, item code JUN11 0039: I have a mixed history with CLAMP titles, but I’m kind of high on them at the moment, still coasting on my overwhelmingly positive reaction to Cardcaptor Sakura. Here’s the skinny on Gate 7:

“Chikahito Takamoto has always read about the beauty and mystique of Japan’s ancient capital city, Kyoto. Now, two years into high school, he’s finally visiting there for real. But wandering the grounds of Kyoto’s legendary Shinto shrine of Kita no Tenmangu, he chances upon a mystery that his guidebooks didn’t prepare him for – two handsome men and an attractive woman, all strangely-garbed, wielding powers…and fighting monsters! The two men treat poor Chikahito with suspicion – but the girl seems to like him. They aren’t worried about what Chikahito’s just seen, because they have the power to erase his memory…except for some reason, that power doesn’t work! And why does the girl kiss him before sending him away? One thing’s for sure: Chikahito is going to be seeing a lot more of these three strangers…”

Hardly untraveled territory for CLAMP or a hundred other mangaka, but I’m hoping for lots of lovingly drawn scenery and some gender-neutral romantic geometry. These do not seem like unreasonable expectations.

 

As we noted over in the current Pick of the Week at Manga Bookshelf, this is a positively crushing week for new releases from Viz. As it is at Midtown, so it is with the ComicList. As a result, I’m limiting my Viz picks to one, but it’s a doozy.

Yes, at long last, it’s time for the 57^th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s smashing pirate adventure, One Piece. When we last joined would-be greatest-pirate-in-the-world Luffy, he was desperately trying to save his older but considerably less ambitious brother from execution. Along the way, he inadvertently staged a massive prison break and raised pirate-navy tensions to perhaps their highest pitch in the history of the series. An alternate title to this book could be “How to Succeed in Chaos without Really Trying.” As always, I’m enjoying it enormously, but I miss the heck out of the rest of Luffy’s crew and am eager for their return.

Vizalanche aside, there are a couple of pamphlets I’m eager to purchase. First is Adam Warren’s second Empowered Special which asks Ten Questions for the Maidman from Dark Horse. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, Maidman is one of the few peer superheroes who treats our titular heroine with anything resembling courtesy and respect. I fully expect another outing packed with equal parts satire and sincerity, plus a reasonable amount of equal-opportunity cheesecake.

There’s unlikely to be any cheesecake in Veronica 207, the first issue of the Kevin Keller miniseries created by Dan Parent for Archie Comics. Kevin, as you may recall, is Riverdale’s first openly gay character. As Brigid (MangaBlog) Alverson noted in this piece for Publishers Weekly, Kevin is one of the reasons that Archie has reasserted its relevance over the past couple of years and become, dare I say it, kind of cool for possibly the first time in its sturdy but fairly safe-and-steady history. I just like comics about gay people, provided they aren’t Chick Tracts.

What looks good to you?