Drama

Become You, Vol. 1

September 16, 2019 by Katherine Dacey

Ichigo Takano’s orange may be one the of best shojo manga published in the last ten years, offering readers a vivid, sympathetic portrait of five friends who get an unexpected chance to save a suicidal classmate’s life. Though orange explored dark emotional terrain, it was never mawkish; instead, orange ended on a hopeful note that showed younger readers that life goes on after tragedies big and small.

Become You, Takano’s latest series, mines a similar thematic vein, this time focusing on two emotionally damaged boys who form an improbable bond through music. And by “improbable,” I mean Taiyou and Hikari are temperamental opposites who initially seem ill-suited for friendship, let alone artistic collaboration. Taiyou is one of those only-in-manga characters whose dogged optimism shades into fanaticism—the kind of character who calls everyone his friend, and wears down skeptics with his relentless overtures. Hikari, by contrast, is a classic Character With a Secret, a former prodigy who abruptly abandoned the piano despite (or perhaps because of) his phenomenal success, keeping his classmates at bay with blunt comments. Naturally—by the immutable laws of Shojo Manga Plot Mechanics—Taiyou tries to recruit Hikari for a band, despite the fact that Taiyou is a tyro guitar player.

At first glance, Become You seems to be following a well-worn path in which an enthusiastic novice persuades a reluctant genius to mentor him, in the process drawing out his teacher and helping his teacher recover something that he lost—say, his joy in playing the tuba, or his relationship with an estranged family member. But Takano adds an interesting wrinkle to this familiar plotline: midway through volume one, we learn that Taiyou originally wanted to be an artist, but lost his desire to paint after being bullied by a teacher. In the aftermath of this encounter, what Taiyou really wants is to be good at something—anything, really—and will work diligently towards achieving that goal, even if he shows little or no aptitude for his chosen pursuit. Equally important, Taiyou is just as emotionally vulnerable as his would-be mentor, even though Taiyou papers over his anguish with bright smiles and cheerful comments.

As with orange, a magical plot device brings Become You‘s principal characters together–in this case, a mysterious cloaked figure who presents Taiyou with an electric guitar and words of Yoda-like encouragement. It’s not entirely clear if Taiyou is fantasizing or having a premonition, since his guardian angel looks an awful lot like Hikari. And while the ambiguity of these scenes has little impact on the reading experience, they occupy more space than the time-traveling letters did in orange—a mistake, I think, because Taiyou’s daydreams don’t add any special urgency or poignancy to the story. By contrast, orange‘s letters served a twofold purpose, setting the plot in motion and highlighting all the small ways that innocent comments or decisions could hurt someone as fragile as the suicidal Kakeru.

The other drawback to Become You is that Takano doesn’t seem to know much about music. Taiyou, for example, cheerfully states his intention to attend a “music college,” but lacks the rudimentary skills to play in sync with a metronome or sight-read sheet music. (He also seems blissfully unaware that conservatories require an entrance audition.) The concert sequences are similarly revealing: though Takano draws attractive, animated characters, and can put them through their emotional paces, she struggles to make Taiyou and Hikari’s musical performances come to life on the page, either by showing the physical effort necessary to making a sound—embouchure, hand position, posture—or by drawing convincing crowd shots that convey the impact of the music on listeners.

I’m not ready to give up on Become You just yet, however, as Takano has something worthwhile to say about pursuing activities for emotional fulfillment, rather than for personal achievement. She also explores the idea of artistic mentorship with honesty, acknowledging that the teacher-student relationship can have a profound effect on how a young artists finds his voice; any violation of that compact—an unkind comment, a dogged insistence on doing things the “right” way—can leave deep scars and stunt one’s artistic growth. Here’s hoping volume two strikes a better balance between the magical realism and the realities of being a musician. Tentatively recommended.

BECOME YOU, VOL. 1 • STORY & ART BY ICHIGO TANAKA • TRANSLATED BY AMBER TAMOSAITIS • SEVEN SEAS • RATED TEEN • 200 pp.

7 Essential VIZ Signature Manga

April 26, 2012 by Katherine Dacey 10 Comments

Are you an adult reader new to manga? Or a librarian who’s looking to add more graphic novels to your adult collection? Then this list is for you! The VIZ Signature imprint is one of the best resources for adults who read — or are curious about — manga. All of the Signature titles originally appeared in Japanese magazines that cater to grown-up tastes. As a result, the Signature line has broader appeal than many of VIZ’s other imprints, offering something for manga lovers who have “aged out” of Naruto as well as general interest readers who are more likely to discover a graphic novel through The New York Times than The Comics Journal.

Below, I’ve compiled a list of seven titles that best represent the VIZ Signature catalog. In choosing manga for this list, I was less concerned about identifying the “best” titles and more concerned with steering readers towards stories that resonate with their taste in movies, television, and comics. I’ve also focused on more recent series, as some of the line’s older titles — Monster, Sexy Voice and Robo, Phoenix — are out of print. Manga fans are strongly encouraged to add their recommendations in the comments section!

ALL MY DARLING DAUGHTERS

FUMI YOSHINAGA • 1 VOLUME

The five vignettes in All My Darling Daughters depict women negotiating difficult personal relationships: a daughter confronts her mother about mom’s new, much younger husband; a college student seduces her professor, only to dump him when he tries to court her properly; a beautiful young woman contemplates an arranged marriage. Like all of Yoshinaga’s work, the characters in All My Darling Daughters love to talk. That chattiness isn’t always an asset to Yoshinaga’s storytelling, but here the dialogue is perfectly calibrated to reveal just how complex and ambivalent these relationships really are. Yoshinaga’s artwork is understated but effective, as she uses small details — how a character stands or carries her shoulders — to offer a more complete and nuanced portrait of each woman. (One of my picks for Best New Manga of 2010.)

Recommended for: Readers who liked Drinking at the Movies, Dykes to Watch Out For, Make Me a Woman, and other graphic novels exploring the everyday lives of women; readers who are reluctant to commit to a multi-volume series.

BIOMEGA

TSUTOMU NIHEI • 6 VOLUMES

In this sci-fi/horror hybrid, an outbreak of a mysterious virus turns all but one resident of an island colony into zombies. Zoichi Kanoe, a corporate bounty hunter, is sent to retrieve that survivor, only to discover that she’s being guarded by a talking, gun-toting bear. Tsutomu Nihei has the artistic chops to pull off some outlandish stuff, including a rooftop chase scene that borrows a few pages from Bullitt and a spooky Martian prologue that would do John Carpenter proud. Nihei also has the good sense to exercise restraint — if one can describe an apocalyptic zombie scenario with pistol-packing grizzlies as “restrained” — revealing key bits of information only as the characters learn them. The result is a lean, fast-paced shoot-em-up that has just enough thought behind it to make it plausible but not so much that it seems ham-fistedly allegorical. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 2/14/10.)

Recommended for: Readers who like science fiction with elements of horror (e.g. Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing); readers who like zombie fiction, comics, and movies.

DETROIT METAL CITY

KIMINORI WAKASUHI • 10 VOLUMES

Satirizing death metal is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel: how hard can it be to parody a style associated with bands named Cannibal Corpse or Necrophagia? Poking fun at death metal while respecting the sincerity of its followers, however, is a much more difficult trick to pull off, yet Kiminori Wakasugi does just that in Detroit Metal City, ridiculing the music — the violent lyrics, the crudely sexual theatrics — while recognizing the depth of DMC fans’ commitment to the metal lifestyle. Though the musical parodies are hilarious, the series’ funniest moments arise from classic fish-out-of-water situations: Negishi driving a tractor on his parent’s farm while dressed as alter ego Lord Krauser (complete with makeup, fright wig, and platform boots), Negishi bringing a fruit basket to a hospitalized DMC fan while dressed as Krauser… you get the idea. The series begins to run out of gas around volume six, but has the decency not to overstay its welcome. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/28/09.)

Recommended for: Readers who love musical parodies (e.g. This Is Spinal Tap, South Park, Flight of the Conchords); readers who have fond memories of attending KISS or GWAR concerts back in the day.

HOUSE OF FIVE LEAVES

NATSUME ONO • 7 VOLUMES, ONGOING (8 TOTAL)

Timid ronin Akitsu Masanosuke can’t hold a steady job, despite his formidable swordsmanship. When a businessman approaches him with work, Masanosuke readily accepts, not realizing that his new employer, Yaichi, runs a crime syndicate that specializes in kidnapping. Masanosuke’s unwitting participation in a blackmailing scheme prevents him from severing his ties to Yaichi; Masanosuke must then decide if he will join the House of Five Leaves or bide his time until he can escape. Though Toshiro Mifune and Hiroyuki Sanada have made entire careers out of playing characters like Masanosuke, Natsume Ono makes a persuasive case that you don’t need a flesh-and-blood actor to tell this kind of story with heartbreaking intensity; she can do the slow-burn on the printed page with the same skill as Masaki Kobayashi (Hara Kiri, Samurai Rebellion) and Yoji Yamada (The Twilight Samurai) did on the big screen. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 8/20/10.)

Recommended for: Kurosawa junkies; readers who like costume dramas; readers with an interest in Japanese history.

OISHINBO A LA CARTE

STORY BY TETSY KARIYA, ART BY HANASAKI AKIRA • 7 VOLUMES

Equal parts Iron Wok Jan, Mostly Martha, and The Manga Cookbook, this educational, entertaining series explores Japanese cuisine at its most refined — sake, seabream sashimi — and its most basic — rice, pub food. The stories fall into two categories: stories celebrating the important role of food in creating community, and stories celebrating the culinary expertise of its principal characters, newspaperman Yamaoka Shiro and his curmudgeonly father Kaibara Yuzan. (Fun fact: Yuzan is such a food snob that he drove Yamaoka’s mother to an early grave, causing an irreparable break between father and son.) Though the competition between Yamaoka and Yuzan yields some elegant, mouth-watering dishes, Oishinbo is at its best when it focuses on everyday food in everyday settings, shedding light on how the Japanese prepare everything from bean sprouts to ramen. Warning: never read on an empty stomach! (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 6/24/09.)

Recommended for: Foodies, gourmets, and other people who like to watch the Food Network (or have daydreamed about becoming a restaurant critic); readers who enjoy The Drops of God.

REAL

TAKEHIKO INOUE • 10 VOLUMES, ONGOING

In lesser hands, REAL might have been an Afterschool Special in manga form, an earnest, uplifting story about disabled teens who find a new sense of purpose on the basketball court. Takehiko Inoue, however, steers clear of easy sentiment; his characters are tough, competitive, and profane, occasionally self-pitying, and fiercely determined to create a space for themselves that’s theirs—and theirs alone. Though the court scenes are brief (at least by shonen sports manga standards, where matches can take several volumes to unfold), Inoue captures the speed and energy of his athletes with consummate skill. A funny, honest, and sometimes rueful series that works equally well for teens and adults. (My choice for Best New Manga of 2008 at PopCultureShock; reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/3/09.)

Recommended for: Basketball enthusiasts; readers who enjoy sports stories with a human interest angle.

20TH CENTURY BOYS

NAOKI URASAWA • 20 VOLUMES, ONGOING (24 TOTAL)

Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys tells a twisty, layered story about ordinary people saving the world from annihilation. Other auteurs have explore similar turf — Tim Kring’s Heroes comes to mind — but Urasawa manages to sustain the reader’s interest without succumbing to cliche or unduly testing our patience. The key to Urasawa’s success is strong script with vivid characters and a clear sense of purpose, reassuring the reader that all the plot strands are just that: strands, not loose threads. Crisp, detailed artwork helps sell the more ludicrous aspects of the story, and distinguish the sprawling cast from one another. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 1/9/10.)

Recommended for: Conspiracy theory buffs; readers who enjoy television programs that blend elements of science fiction, suspense, and paranoia (e.g. Alcatraz, Heroes, Lost).

7 Essential VIZ Signature Manga

April 26, 2012 by Katherine Dacey

ALL MY DARLING DAUGHTERS

FUMI YOSHINAGA • 1 VOLUME

BIOMEGA

TSUTOMU NIHEI • 6 VOLUMES

Recommended for: Readers who like science fiction with elements of horror (e.g. Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing); readers who like zombie fiction, comics, and movies.

DETROIT METAL CITY

KIMINORI WAKASUHI • 10 VOLUMES

HOUSE OF FIVE LEAVES

NATSUME ONO • 7 VOLUMES, ONGOING (8 TOTAL)

Recommended for: Kurosawa junkies; readers who like costume dramas; readers with an interest in Japanese history.

OISHINBO A LA CARTE

STORY BY TETSY KARIYA, ART BY HANASAKI AKIRA • 7 VOLUMES

Recommended for: Foodies, gourmets, and other people who like to watch the Food Network (or have daydreamed about becoming a restaurant critic); readers who enjoy The Drops of God.

REAL

TAKEHIKO INOUE • 10 VOLUMES, ONGOING

Recommended for: Basketball enthusiasts; readers who enjoy sports stories with a human interest angle.

20TH CENTURY BOYS

NAOKI URASAWA • 20 VOLUMES, ONGOING (24 TOTAL)

Recommended for: Conspiracy theory buffs; readers who enjoy television programs that blend elements of science fiction, suspense, and paranoia (e.g. Alcatraz, Heroes, Lost).

Bunny Drop, Vols. 1-2

December 8, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

Fictional bachelor dads come in two flavors. The first is easily flummoxed by diapers, sippy cups, tantrums, and stomach aches, reacting in abject horror to bodily functions and extreme emotions (see Three Men and a Baby), while the second behaves more like a stand-up comedian than an engaged parent, commenting wryly on his charges’ behavior without doing much to guide or correct them (see Yotsuba&!). Daikichi, the singleton hero of Bunny Drop, is a pleasant corrective to these familiar stereotypes: he’s a sensitive, well-meaning thirty-year-old who steps up to the plate when his grandfather dies, leaving behind an illegitimate six-year-old daughter.

What begins as an impulsive decision — Daikichi is offended by his family’s reluctance to accept responsibility for gramps’ kid — quickly evolves into a serious commitment. Daikichi is humble enough to realize his limitations as a father, enlisting help from co-workers, friends, and family members in his efforts to find day care for Rin and impose some structure on her life, even though he isn’t entirely certain what kind of boundaries and routines are appropriate for a six-year-old. Yumi Unita wrings some humor out of Daikichi’s attempt to understand Rin’s unique point of view, but steers clear of easy laughs and easy victories. The early moments of rapport between Daikichi and Rin feel earned, not contrived, while Rin’s quirks reflect the bizarre circumstances of her early upbringing, as well as her deep fear of being abandoned.

Though Unita’s character designs are highly stylized and her panels free of busy detail, the spare, unfussy quality of her artwork is deceptive; her seemingly simple faces and bodies actually speak volumes about each character’s personality and history. The few lines on Daikichi’s face, for example, not only establish his age and his homeliness, they also give readers a window into his relationship with Rin. We see his growing attachment to the girl through the softening of his brow and jawline, and note the tension in his face when trying to negotiate new office hours for himself. (His co-workers are puzzled and angered by Daikichi’s decision to take care of Rin. “Just because it’s a relative’s child,” one underling complains, “why must you be the sacrifice, Kawachi-San?”)

With Rin, Unita focuses as much on the character’s body language as on her facial expressions. In the first volume, Rin appears closed off from everyone: rounded shoulders, downcast eyes, pursed lips, and folded arms. As Rin begins to trust Daikichi, however, her face and posture change: her limbs unfurl and her eyes brighten, and her repertory of faces soon includes pouty defiance and bravado. That same attention to detail extends to supporting cast members as well. Rin’s mother, whom Daikichi meets in volume two, comes across as impossibly young, swimming in an outfit too big for her slight frame, and fidgeting throughout her conversation with Daikichi, twisting her hair and avoiding eye contact in the manner of a sullen teenager.

The introduction of Rin’s mother suggests that future installments of Bunny Drop will continue to focus complex issues — what constitutes a family? who has the right to call himself a parent? what’s in the best interest of a damaged child? — in lieu of sitcom ones. (See sippy cups, bad dreams, and the stomach flu, above.) That Unita can take such potentially overwrought material and fashion a thoughtful, funny, and honest look at child-rearing is testament to her skill as a storyteller and — one suspects — as a parent. Easily one of 2010’s best new titles.

BUNNY DROP, VOLS. 1-2 • BY YUMI UNITA • YEN PRESS • RATING: TEEN (13+)

The Name of the Flower, Vols. 1-4

July 11, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

Given the sheer number of nineteenth-century Brit-lit tropes that appear in The Name of the Flower — neglected gardens, orphans struck dumb by tragedy, brooding male guardians — one might reasonably conclude that Ken Saito was paying homage to Charlotte Brontë and Frances Hodgson Burnett with her story about a fragile young woman who falls in love with an older novelist. And while that manga would undoubtedly be awesome — think of the costumes! — The Name of the Flower is, in fact, far more nuanced and restrained than its surface details might suggest.

The story starts from an old-as-the-hills premise: the orphan who grows up to marry — or, in this case, pine for — her guardian. In The Name of the Flower, the orphan role is fulfilled by Chouko, who, at the age of sixteen, lost her parents in a car accident. Overwhelmed by grief, Chouko stopped speaking or showing emotion until a distant relative took her into his home, admonished her for being silent, and suggested that she revive the house’s lifeless garden. Flash forward two years, and Chouko has emerged from her shell, still quiet but full of calm purpose and warm feelings for Kei, her guardian. Kei, however, is a troubled soul, a successful novelist who achieved notoriety for a string of nihilistic books written while he was in his early twenties. His eccentric garb (he wears a yukata just about everywhere) and brusque demeanor suggest a man in full flight from the outside world — or at least some painful memories.

The real drama begins when Chouko graduates from high school. Though Kei harbors feelings for Chouko, he worries about the gap in age and experience that separates them — he’s thirty, she’s eighteen — reluctantly acknowledging that it would be selfish to deny her a chance at independence. Despite Kei’s gruff prodding, however, Chouko can’t quite strike out on her own; her profound fear of abandonment keeps her tethered to Kei, even though she attends college and cultivates a small but supportive circle of friends. In short, the two are locked in a complicated, co-dependent relationship that’s about as healthy as Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester’s, though less sensational. (Kei doesn’t have a mad wife stashed in a remote corner of the house or a failed relationship with a French dancer in his past.) Only the intervention of other people — Akiyama, Kei’s sole friend, and Yousuke, Chouko’s classmate and not-so-secret admirer — prevents Kei and Chouko from sinking into a destructive cycle of clinging to and withdrawing from one another.

Throughout the series, Ken Saito walks a fine line between romanticizing Kei and Chouko’s relationship and recognizing its less savory aspects, generally erring on the side of sympathetic frankness. The series’ ending may be predictable, but the feelings it evokes in the reader are not, as we’re left to wonder whether Kei and Chouko can finally let go of their tragic pasts to embrace the present. At the same time, however, the story’s lighter moments — especially some wonderful comic business with Chouko’s friends, a group of hyper-verbal bibliophiles — suggest that Chouko, at least, is capable of feeling great joy and connecting with other people, a suggestion borne out by her relationship with the salty neighborhood septuagenarians, who stop by to trade gardening tips and upbraid Kei for his reclusive, sullen behavior.

Saito’s artwork is simple but lovely. Though her figures and faces aren’t especially distinctive, each of the principle characters’ appearance has been given careful consideration. Aspiring author Yousuke, for example, plays his part to the hilt, sporting a jacket with elbow patches and a tousled mop, while Chouko’s numerous experiments with hairstyles reveal a young woman just beginning to discover her own beauty. (I vacillated between ascribing Kei’s fondness for traditional garb to the author’s theory of the character and her desire to draw handsome men in period costume.) As one would imagine from a manga with the word “flower” in the title, floral imagery plays an important role in illustrating the characters’ inner lives, both in a conventional sense (e.g. faces superimposed atop images of roses) and in a more subtle fashion as well, with the plants’ own natural cycle of growth, death, and rebirth serving as a visual metaphor for the ebb and flow of Kei and Chouko’s relationship. Saito reserves her most detailed panels for Chouko’s garden, however, showing us not only what she planted, but also the physical space itself, from the trellises and vines to the rock formations — a gentle reminder that planting and tending flowers played a key role in Chouko’s emotional rehabilitation, just as it did for Mary Lennox in Burnett’s The Secret Garden.

At four volumes, The Name of the Flower is just the right length for the story that Saito wants to tell, allowing her enough space to explore Kei and Chouko’s relationship without resorting to false drama to delay its resolution. The prevailing mood is wistful and, at times, dark, but never melodramatic; Saito’s restraint is key to preventing The Name of the Flower from devolving into tawdry theatrics. It’s a surprisingly thoughtful character study that proves that shojo can be just as grown-up and sophisticated as its big sister josei. Highly recommended.

THE NAME OF THE FLOWER, VOLS. 1-4 • BY KEN SAITO • CMX • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

The Name of the Flower, Vols. 1-4

July 11, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

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5 Underrated Shojo Manga

July 10, 2010 by Katherine Dacey 7 Comments

Earlier in the week, I sang the praises of Kaze Hikaru, my all-time favorite shojo manga (and one of my all-time favorite manga, period). Today I shine the spotlight on five great titles that haven’t garnered as much favorable notice as they deserve. Sadly, all but one are officially out of print or will be soon, owing to publisher closings, lapsed licenses, and so-so sales. If you can’t find them through retailers such as Amazon, Buy.com, or Right Stuf!, you might wish to cast your net wider to include sites like Robert’s Anime Corner Store (a good source for older titles) and eBay, or try your local library for copies.

5. PHOENIX, VOL. 12: EARLY WORKS

OSAMU TEZUKA • VIZ • 1 VOLUME (complete)

A better subtitle for volume twelve of Phoenix would be I Lost It At the Movies, as these four stories reveal just how passionately Osamu Tezuka loved American cinema. In a 1980 essay, Tezuka explained that “watching American big-screen spectacle movies such as Helen of Troy and Land of the Pharaohs made me want to create a similar sort of romantic epic for young girls’ comics.” Looking at this collection, the sword-and-sandal influence manifests itself in almost every aspect of Tezuka’s storytelling, from the costumes and settings to the dialogue, which the characters declaim as if it were of Biblical consequence. (Paging Charlton Heston!) What makes this Hollywood pomposity bearable — even charming — is the tempering influence of Walt Disney. The character designs owe an obvious debt to Snow White, while the supporting cast could easily belong to Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty’s entourage of chatty animal friends.

Anyone looking for the moral complexity of later Phoenix stories will be disappointed in volume twelve, as Tezuka’s villains are cartoonishly evil and his heroes (and heroine) chastely noble. If one approaches this collection in the spirit of, say, a musicologist flipping through Beethoven’s pre-Eroica manuscripts, however, the rewards are more palpable. In these early stories we see Tezuka developing his comedic chops with pop culture references and physical slapstick; we see him experimenting with layout, as he renders the battlefields of Troy and Rome in sweeping, full-page panels; and we see him creating his first cycle of interconnected stories, introducing some of the themes that would unify the entire Phoenix saga. In short, we see Tezuka’s first attempts to find his own voice as he pays tribute to the artists who influenced him, learning more about his exuberant, unique artistry in the process. (Originally reviewed at PopCultureShock on 3/19/08.)

4. X-DAY

SETONA MIZUSHIRO • TOKYOPOP • 2 VOLUMES (complete)

When star high jumper Rika injures her leg and loses her boyfriend to a teammate, she becomes profoundly depressed. She soon discovers an online community of similarly disaffected students, however, all of whom share her desire to “make the school disappear.” Their internet chats soon give way to in-person meetings, where Rika comes face-to-face with three very different people: “Polaris,” a shy teen who dresses like a Goth off campus, “Mr. Money,” a friendly underclassman, and “Janglarian,” a young biology teacher who wants to dynamite the school. Setona Mizushiro’s dark story could easily spiral into melodrama, but she does a fine job of showing us how the normal tribulations of being a teenager — fighting with parents, enduring harassment from peers, feeling overwhelmed by anxiety — have led these four fragile people to hatch such a radical plan for coping with their pain. The second volume lacks the dramatic urgency of the first, as the students’ plot begins to come unraveled, but X-Day remains persuasive until its final pages, thanks to Mizushiro’s vivid characterizations and nuanced artwork.

3. A.I. REVOLUTION

YUU ASAMI• GO! COMI • 5 VOLUMES (incomplete; 17 volumes in Japan)

A.I. Revolution starts from a premise familiar to legions of Isaac Asimov fans: a human builds a robot, only to discover his creation has a mind and feelings of its own. Sui, the story’s human protagonist, initially views robots as household appliances, not unlike toasters or vaccuum cleaners. When her father presents her with an android companion, however, Sui develops a strong bond with it, discovering that Vermillion has a capacity for emotion that far outstrips her expectations.

A.I. Revolution may sound like I, Robot Hottie, but Yuu Asami puts a thoughtful spin on the material, filtering familiar sci-fi themes through a shojo lens. Though she weaves evil scientists and corporate espionage into the narrative, the story is at its best when focusing on Vermillion’s interactions with his human family; Sui’s father, for example, has modeled Vermillion in the image of a colleague that he admired, leading to a few funny, awkward moments of human-robot flirtation, while Sui seesaws between sisterly protectiveness and romantic attachment to her handsome companion. (Really, is there any other kind of robot in shojo manga?) Asami’s art reminds me of Akimi Yoshida’s with its elongated character designs, delicate linework, and sparing use of screentone. It’s a little dated perhaps, but a welcome change of pace from the slicker, busier layouts characteristic of the titles licensed by Tokyopop and VIZ. Highly recommended for fans of old-school shojo. (Originally reviewed at PopCultureShock on 3/4/08.)

2. GALS!

MIHONA FUJI • CMX • 10 VOLUMES (complete)

This wacky comedy is one of the better shojo licenses in the CMX catalog, a rude, raunchy, and oddly moral tale about a feisty kogal named Ran Kotobuki. Though Ran and her pals are primarily interested in shopping for outrageous outfits, visiting the tanning salon, and stealing book bags from students at rival schools, Ran’s upbringing in a household full of police officers (dad, mom, and big brother are all cops) has taught her to adhere to a strict code of conduct: no sex for favors, and no tolerance for anyone who disrespects her friends.

Ran is a terrific, memorable character — impetuous, loud, funny, and tough, the kind of person who would literally smack sense into another girl if she thought it would work. Better still, she’s not easily swayed by boys; her relationship with the sweet but dim Tatsuki is surprisingly chaste, limited primarily to hand-holding and awkward discussions about feelings. (Ran won’t deign to say, “I love you,” as it compromises her tough-girl image.) As befits a manga that was serialized in Ribon, all of the characters have enormous, doll-like eyes in the Arina Tanemura style, and fabulous outfits that shame the Gossip Girls. The backgrounds are surprisingly detailed, conveying the look and feel of the Shibuya district with a specificity that’s all too rare in shojo manga. In sum, Gals! is the kind of good-natured gang comedy that I hoped My Darling! Miss Bancho would be: full of humor and heart, but with fewer capitulations to shojo convention.

1. LOVE SONG

KEIKO NISHI • VIZ • 1 VOLUME (complete)

Back in the 1990s, Matt Thorn labored hard to make Keiko Nishi a household name among American manga readers, translating six of her stories for VIZ; two appeared in Four Shojo Stories alongside work by Moto Hagio and Shio Sato, and four appeared in a stand-alone volume called Love Song. Though Nishi didn’t catch on with Western shojo fans, it’s easy to see why Thorn championed her work: she’s a terrific, versatile storyteller, equally capable of writing light-hearted fantasies and character studies of deeply damaged people.

Of the four stories that appear in Love Song, two are standouts: “Jewels of the Seaside,” a black comedy about three sisters who compete for the same man’s affection, with disastrous results, and “The Skin of Her Heart,” a quiet sci-fi tale about a young woman torn between what she wants and what her mother wants for her. (Readers who enjoyed A, A’ or Twin Spica are a natural audience for “Skin of Her Heart,” though it works equally well for folks who aren’t big sci-fi buffs.) Nishi’s artwork is an acquired taste, at times precise, elegant, and naturalistic, and at times loose and sketchy, with the white of the page playing an important role in underscoring the emotional distance between her characters. Her minimalist approach won’t be to every shojo fan’s liking, but she demonstrates that it’s perfectly possible to convey the interior lives of her characters without resorting to the kind of visual shorthands — flowers, sweatdrops, nosebleeds — that have been overused in contemporary shojo manga. Love Song is out of print, but unlike Four Shojo Stories and A, A’, is still relatively easy to obtain through online retailers like Amazon. Highly recommended.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

duckprince1 DUCK PRINCE (Ai Morinaga • CMP • 3 volumes, suspended)
Morinaga’s battle-of-the-sexes comedy takes a standard shojo plot — homely gal gets makeover to win the guy of her dream — and turns it on its head, substituting a sweet, helmet-haired nerd for the customary plain Jane, and adding a novel twist: Reiichi appears to most girls as a smokin’ hottie, but in the presence of his beloved Yumiko, he reverts to his original form. As in all her work, Morinaga uses humor to make deeper points about gender roles and physical beauty, though Duck Prince is too rude and risque to be mistaken for an Afterschool Special. Central Park Media released three of the five volumes before suspending Duck Prince; of all the titles left homeless by CPM’s demise, it seems like one of the strongest candidates for a license rescue, though middling sales of Your & My Secret and My Heavenly Hockey Club may have scared American publishers away from Morinaga’s distinctive comedies.

shirahimesyo SHIRAHIME-SYO: SNOW GODDESS TALES (CLAMP • Tokyopop • 1 volume)
This lovely anthology is a radical departure for CLAMP. Gone are the super-detailed costumes and fussy character designs of their early, post-doujinshi work; in their place are spare, simply-drawn figures that seem consciously modeled on examples from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scroll paintings. The stories themselves are told directly without embellishment, though CLAMP infuses each tale with genuine pathos, showing us how the characters’ anger and doubt lead to profound despair. As a result, the prevailing tone and spirit are reminiscent of Masaki Kobayashi’s 1964 film Kwaidan, both in the stories’ fidelity to the conventions of Japanese folklore and in their lyrical restraint. And if my description didn’t sell you on Shirahime-Syo, let this beautiful image, taken from the final story of the collection, persuade you to give this out-of-print gem a try:

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So what titles top your list of underrated shojo manga? Inquiring minds want to know!

5 Underrated Shojo Manga

July 10, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

5. PHOENIX, VOL. 12: EARLY WORKS

OSAMU TEZUKA • VIZ • 1 VOLUME (complete)

4. X-DAY

SETONA MIZUSHIRO • TOKYOPOP • 2 VOLUMES (complete)

3. A.I. REVOLUTION

YUU ASAMI• GO! COMI • 5 VOLUMES (incomplete; 17 volumes in Japan)

2. GALS!

MIHONA FUJI • CMX • 10 VOLUMES (complete)

1. LOVE SONG

KEIKO NISHI • VIZ • 1 VOLUME (complete)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

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So what titles top your list of underrated shojo manga? Inquiring minds want to know!

Solanin

June 26, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

The characters in Solanin are suffering from what I call a “pre-life crisis”—that moment in your twenties when you realize that it’s time to join the world of adult responsibility, but you aren’t quite ready to abandon dreams of indie-rock stardom, literary genius, or artistic greatness. From a dramatic standpoint, the pre-life crisis doesn’t make the best material for a novel, graphic or otherwise, as twenty-something angst can seem trivial when compared with the vicissitudes of middle and old age. Yet Asano Inio almost pulls it off on the strength of his appealing characters and astute observations.

Solanin focuses on a quartet of twenty-somethings, each struggling to shed their collegiate persona and forge adult identities. To be sure, these characters are familiar types, working dead-end jobs, remaining in relationships out of habit, and clinging to unrealistic dreams. Yet Inio never dismisses or romanticizes their pseudo-bohemian aspirations, instead viewing these angstful young adults with a parental mixture of frankness and affection.

Early in the book, for example, a young woman (Meiko) introduces her boyfriend (Naruo) to her mother while trying to conceal the fact they live together. Inio might have milked the scene for its dramatic potential, staging a confrontation between Meiko and her mother. Yet he opts for something quieter and, frankly, truer to life: Meiko’s mother calls her daughter’s bluff, then offers the couple practical advice and encouragement. Instead of being pleased, however, Meiko is dumbfounded and embarrassed, leaving Naruo to stumble alone through an awkward conversation with her mother. What makes this scene work is Inio’s even-handedness; though we feel sympathy for Meiko — she’s genuinely afraid of upsetting her parents — we also realize that she’s disappointed that her decision to move in with Naruo hasn’t caused a scandal, a symptom of her not-quite-adult-relationship with her mother.

Solanin flounders, however, when Inio injects some drama into the proceedings. His big plot twist wouldn’t seem out of place in a deliciously overripe soap opera like NANA, but it feels too contrived for a low-key, slice-of-life story like Solanin; more frustrating still, Inio telegraphs what’s going to happen more than a chapter before that Big, Life-Changing Event, blunting its emotional impact. The book never quite regains its footing, culminating in a concert scene that’s as hokey as anything in The Commitments. Granted, that scene is beautifully executed, using wordless panels to convey the blood, sweat, and tears needed to pull off a live performance, but it feels too pat to be a satisfactory resolution to what is, in essence, a detailed character study.

I also felt ambivalent about the artwork. On the one hand, Inio draws his characters in a refreshingly soft and realistic fashion; as David Welsh noted in his 2008 review, Inio captures the transitional nature of their age through small but important visual cues: gangly limbs, baby fat still evident in their cheeks and tummies, soul patches and other “unpersuasive” attempts to grow beards and mustaches. Inio nails their body language, too, evoking his characters’ emotional and physical awkwardness as they try to forge connections. In this scene, for example, Inio’s characters can barely look one another in the eye, even though it’s evident from their conversation that each has a deep personal investment in music that s/he wants to share with the other:

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On the other hand, the backgrounds sometimes look like poorly retouched clip art. Such shortcuts are common in manga, but when done poorly (as they are in a few sequences in Solanin), the resulting images look more like dioramas or collages than organic compositions. In several key scenes, the characters appear to be pasted into the picture frame, floating above their surroundings instead of actually inhabiting them, spoiling the mood and pulling me out of the moment.

Artistic and narrative shortcuts aside, I’d still recommend Solanin. Inio’s book is funny, rueful, and honest, filled with beautifully observed moments and conversations that ring true, even if it occasionally succumbs to Brat Pack cliche.

SOLANIN • BY INIO ASANO • VIZ MEDIA • 432 pp • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

This is a revised version of a review that appeared at PopCultureShock on 11/19/2008.

Kingyo Used Books, Vol. 1

April 19, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

Kingyo Used Books starts from a simple premise: an eccentric group of people run a second-hand bookstore in an out-of-the-way location. Various customers stumble upon the shop — usually by accident — and, in the process of browsing, find a manga that helps them reconnect with a part of themselves that’s been suppressed, whether it be a youthful capacity for romantic infatuation or a desire to paint expressively.

Is there such thing as agit-manga? Because Kingyo Used Books seems like the brainchild of an editor who’s desperately trying to convince adults that one never outgrows manga. In the first story, for example, a salaryman tries to unload his collection at the store, telling the owner, “I’m not a kid anymore. Besides, it’s kind of pathetic to keep reading manga forever.” He gets a gentle comeuppance at a class reunion, where his friends’ fond memories of Dr. Slump remind him what an important role manga played in their young lives. The story is pleasant and enjoyable, but suffers from a bad case of predictability; as soon as the salaryman sees his friends engaged in tearful, rhapsodic discussions of their childhood reading habits, he’s overcome with emotion and — natch — a strong desire to keep the manga he’d previously hoped to sell.

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Other stories in volume one follow the same basic template. In “Far Away,” for example, an archery champion discovers that laughter and downtime are as essential to winning as practice, thanks to a pair of Kingyo employees whose snot-rolling-down-the-face, tears-in-eyes response to Moretsu Ataru inspires the archer to pick up a manga instead of his bow and quiver. “Fujiomi-kun,” another chapter that adheres to this formula, focuses on a frustrated housewife who makes some small but important changes in her life after rediscovering Chizumi and Fujiomi-kun, a romance about a handsome athlete who falls in love with a clumsy but kind-hearted girl.

The series’ episodic structure cuts both ways, see-sawing between a fun exercise in formula — which manga will feature prominently in this story? who will be drawn into the store? — and a frustratingly obvious collection of beats culminating in a character’s decision to make a change in her life. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the appeal of a series that highlights some famous (and, sadly, untranslated) manga, or that validates my own experiences as an adult manga reader; like many of the characters in Kingyo Used Books, I, too, have found titles as different as Suppli, Phoenix, and Night of the Beasts an outlet for emotions that don’t always find expression in my daily life. In settling for such a tidy approach to dramatizing manga’s transformative power, however, author Seimu Yoshizaki misses an opportunity to really move readers, instead treating us to sentimental, sometimes mawkish, scenes in which adults recover childhood memories of favorite books. Yoshizaki never acknowledges the messiness or risk that her characters take when acting on their epiphanies or experiencing personal growth, choosing instead to end every story on a positive note.

The artwork is clean, conveying the characters’ interior lives with directness and simplicity. Though her style isn’t particularly distinctive, Yoshizaki does a fine job evoking other artists’ styles, recreating images from famous series and altering one of her own characters to look like the hero of his favorite manga. The most striking image in the book is just such a recreation: it’s Hokusai’s iconic wave print, drawn in the sand by two students who then watch the incoming tide erase it. In the story’s final panels, the two reflect on their emotions as they watch their work vanish. One is pensive and wishes the work was permanent; the other responds by noting that permanence can be its own trap. “I’ve seen the pictures Hokusai drew when he was our age,” he says. “They really sucked.” Here’s hoping that volume two has more of these frank, funny, and true-to-life moments and fewer scenes of tearful housewives and salarymen reliving their childhoods through manga.

KINGYO USED BOOKS, VOL. 1 • BY SEIMU YOSHIZAKI • VIZ • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+) • 208 pp.

Ristorante Paradiso

March 14, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

Oh, Natsume Ono, I just can’t quit you! I was not wild about not simple, but try as I might, I couldn’t dismiss you as just another overrated indie artist. I couldn’t shake the memory of how I felt when I read the first few chapters of House of Five Leaves — that incredible sensation of discovering a new voice with something fresh to say, of having my love for manga validated all over again. So I picked up Ristorante Paradiso with high hopes. I’m happy to report I felt butterflies and excitement, just like the first time, and am firmly back on Team Ono.

Not that you didn’t test my patience — those first twenty pages were a slog, filled with the kind of amateurish moments that I might expect in a freshman effort. We learn that Casetta dell’Orso is popular because a character says it is; that the waiters are handsome because a character comments on how good-looking they are; that the loyal female clientele comes for the help not the food, again, because a character states it as a fact. In short, you have a bad case of telling instead of showing, of not trusting your artwork to demonstrate the restaurant’s popularity or the studliness of the wait staff. I nearly demanded the check.

Then something wonderful happened: the characters began to interact with each other, and in their impassioned conversations, we began to appreciate who they were, what drew them into the restaurant’s orbit, and why they seem stuck in certain unhappy, unfulfilling roles. Olga, the heroine’s mother, provides an instructive example. In the first few pages of the book, we witness a tense exchange between Olga and Nicoletta, the daughter she abandoned. Nicoletta, now twenty-one, has shown up on her mother’s doorstep demanding to be acknowledged, something Olga refuses to do out of fear that her current husband will leave her. It seems like you were stacking the deck against Olga, Ms. Ono, as Olga initially comes off as a dreadful Mommie Dearest who’s so committed to protecting her own interests that she initiates an elaborate charade to conceal Nicoletta’s identity. But then you slowly reveal how other people see Olga, as a vibrant, intelligent, giving woman who radiates warmth and charm. You help us understand that Olga is both a lousy, selfish mother and a loving wife to her second husband, two roles she struggles to reconcile. That we finish the book feeling sympathy for daughter and mother is testament to your storytelling skills and your obvious affection for your characters.

Your artwork, like your grasp of character, is stronger and more assured in Ristorante Paradiso than it was in not simple. As we watch the waiters moving through Casetta dell’Orso, for example, it’s easy to see why the female clientele swoons: the male characters have strong, distinctive faces that leave a lasting impression. They’re not conventionally handsome, but those faces have a wonderful, lived-in look that’s inviting and alluring — think of Alan Rickman, William Powell, or Marcello Mastroianni, not the smoothly perfect bishonen we’re so accustomed to seeing in manga. When Olga explains her attraction to Lorenzo, her husband, the artwork supports what she says: he’s drawn not as a fantasy object, but as a rugged, bearlike man whose virility is obvious even though his body and face are beginning to soften in middle age.

Put simply, Ms. Ono, you won my heart back. I found Ristorante Paradiso an engaging story filled with complicated, true-to-life characters who I enjoyed getting to know. It was a welcome departure from the emotional torture-porn of not simple, and a promise of good things to come: Gente and House of Five Leaves.

Missin’ and Missin’ 2: Kasako

September 16, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

missin After reading Missin’ and Missin’ 2, I’m convinced that novelist Novala Takemoto was a teenage girl in a previous life. But not the kind of girl who was on the cheerleading squad, the volleyball team, or the school council — no, Takemoto was the too-cool-for-school girl, the one whose unique fashion sense, sullen demeanor, and indifference to high school mores made her seem more adult than her peers, even if her behavior and emotions were, in fact, just as juvenile as everyone else’s. Though this kind of angry female rebel is a stock character in young adult novels, Takemoto has a special gift for making them sound like real girls, not an adult’s idea of what a disaffected teenager sounds like.

Consider Kasako, the heroine of Missin’ and Missin’ 2. Kasako feels estranged from her peers’ pop-culture interests, finding refuge in “the antique, the outmoded, indeed, the passe.” Though she has a special affinity for Schubert lieder and Rococo artwork, she finds a kindred spirit in Nobuko Yoshiya, a popular romance novelist whose career spanned the Taisho and Showa periods. Like an earlier generation of schoolgirls, Kasako is enthralled with Yoshiya’s Hana monogatari (Tales of the Flower, 1916 – 1924), a pioneering work of Class S fiction, or stories about romantic friendships between teenage girls.

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