Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

LBGTQ Manga

The Manga Review, 10/7/22

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Bust out that Sailor Moon costume–New York Comic Con is in full swing! If you’re looking for a good manga panel, I highly recommend This Manga Is Awesome! Manga Must-Reads and Underrated Gems, which is happening today at 3:30 pm. Deb Aoki leads an all-star crew of librarians, industry professionals, podcasters, and critics in a lively discussion about their favorite series. Also of note is Comics in the Post Pandemic World, which is scheduled for Saturday at 12:30 pm. Publishers Weekly is the sponsor; the conversation will focus on the explosive growth of the comics industry during lockdown, and will consider some of the challenges facing publishers as supply chain issues increase and inflation rises.

NEWS AND VIEWS

Jamila Rowser, founder of Black Josei Press, posted an update on the forthcoming Gladiolus Magazine, which “will feature comics, essays, short stories, and more created by people of color from marginalized genders and sexualities.” Rowser shared a list of contributors whose work will appear in the inaugural issue, as well as the magazine’s expected publication date: spring 2023. [Black Josei Press]

Bill Curtis compiles a list of October’s new manga and light novel releases. [Yatta-Tachi]

To kick off LGBTQ History Month, the librarians at No Flying No Tights recommend nine queer-friendly comics for teen readers, including The Bride Was a Boy and Be Gay, Do Comics. [No Flying No Tights]

Yuu Watase is resuming work on Fushigi Yugi Byakko Senki. [Otaku USA]

It’s a hit: Chainsaw Man now has 16 million volumes in print. [Otaku USA]

Dog lovers rejoice: Seven Seas has licensed Shibanban: Super Cute Doggies which is pretty much what it sounds like: a parade of adorable Shiba Inus doing adorable things. Volume one is slated for a May 2023 release. [Seven Seas]

If you’ve been on the fence about Taiyo Matsumoto‘s work, let Jocelyne Allen’s generously illustrated review of Tokyo Higoro persuade you to give him a second chance. “Pretty much every page is filled with such thoughtful detail to make even minor characters seem fully fleshed out,” she notes. “It’s one of those books that I kept flipping back and forth in, just to drink in the details, the art, and the many, many perfect pages.” [Brain vs. Book]

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

I’m not a big MangaTuber, but I make an exception for BakaBoysClub, a new-ish YouTube channel featuring lively, thoughtful reviews of manga, old and new. In particular, I thought that host GrunWho did an exceptional job of explaining why The Girl from the Other Side: Siúl, A Rún is such an engrossing story, making great use of the video format to highlight Nagabe’s beautiful artwork:

Check out the BakaBoys’ other videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnmtMpN3E2LGnz_Mef4zCCw.

REVIEWS

Thinking about starting your own manga blog or podcast? One great way to build an audience for your work is to contribute to an established site like The Fandom Post, which is currently looking for reviewers. Site founder Chris Beveridge notes that “we get a good range of books from publishers and have a bit of a backlog we’re looking to clear out… There’s a good mix of one-offs and ongoing series that we’re looking for people to take on and new series starting up all the time.” For information on how to apply, click here.

New and Noteworthy

Complete and Ongoing Series

The Manga Review, 6/17/22

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Big news from Yen Press: the publisher is launching IZE Press, a new imprint dedicated to Korean webnovels and webtoons. The imprint will debut this fall with three series created by HYBE and global pop stars BTS, as well as six additional titles: Tomb Raider King, The World After the Fall, The Boxer, My Gently Raised Beast, The Remarried Empress, and Villains Are Destined to Die. Explains JuYoun Lee, the Deputy Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Yen Press, “we couldn’t be more excited to get a chance to really open up the doors to put these beautiful books in the hands of English-language readers.” I’m still a little salty that the original manhwa boom went bust–remember Dokebi Bride or Goong?–but optimistic that the current market will be more receptive to Korean comics.

NEWS

Are you looking for a job in the publishing field? Yen Press is currently advertising a range of editorial, marketing, and accounting positions. [Yen Press]

The May NPD Bookscan numbers are in, and manga made a strong showing on the Top 20 Author Graphic Novels chart , with volumes of Solo Leveling occupying four of six top slots. Spy x Family continues to dominate the Top 20 Manga chart, though Death Note Short Stories and Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun also posted strong sales. [ICv2]

Justin Lin–best known for his work on the Fast & Furious franchise–has been hired to direct a live-action adaptation of One-Punch Man. [Deadline]

FEATURES, INTERVIEWS, AND PODCASTS

In honor of Pride Month, Latonya Pennington has posted a thoughtful exploration of the last 100 years of queer representation in manga. “A hundred years after the debut of the first yuri novel and twenty years after the publication of Wandering Son, LGBTQ+ manga has greatly matured in terms of their creators, content, and its subgenres,” she notes. “When it comes to manga with transgender characters and themes, there are more options than ever before… On the yuri and yaoi side of manga, both subgenres have moved beyond the teenaged schoolyard romances that were present at the genre’s inception. There are not only gay and lesbian manga featuring adult main characters, but also manga in different fictional genres.” [Popverse]

What LBGTQ+ manga would you like to see adapted into an anime? [Anime Feminist]

And speaking of queer manga, Kory, Helen, and Apryll discuss the merits of two recent titles: BL Fans LOVE My Brother?!, a done-in-one story from Tokyopop, and Even Though We’re Adults, an ongoing yuri series published by Seven Seas. [The Taiiku Podcast]

The latest Manga Machinations episode looks at 10 Dance, Classmates, and Ruri Dragon. [Manga Machinations]

Ashley and Asher investigate Flower in a Storm, a short romantic comedy about a super-rich boy and a headstrong girl. [Shojo & Tell]

The gang at Honey’s Anime compile a list of manga that they didn’t see through to the end. [Honey’s Anime]

Brigid Alverson interviews Seven Seas’ Lianne Sentar and Lissa Pattillo about the challenges and rewards of bringing Asian webtoons to the US market. “I think a huge factor is the convenience of the format,” they note. “Do you have a smartphone and an Internet connection? Here: endless comics to scroll through (discreetly!) during your lunch break, wherever you are. If you look at Asian markets like Japan and Korea, there’s a huge audience of people reading comics on their phones while commuting in public transit like trains. I think newer generations in particular are adding comic reading to the many other leisure activities they do on their phone, and in North America, the boom in Middle Grade comics over the last 5-10 years has seeded millions of new readers who are comfortable reading long-form, sequential comics the way they would ingest other media (prose, TV, etc.).” [ICv2]

REVIEWS

Over at Anime UK News, Sarah posts a glowing review of Gengoroh Tagame’s Our Colors, while No Flying No Tights declares Junji Ito’s Deserter a mixed bag. “That’s not to say this is a bad collection, but Ito has such wonderfully scary other pieces that many in this volume fell flat for me,” Kris notes. The latest Reader’s Corner is up at Beneath the Tangles, with brief reviews of Alice in Borderland, Golden Gold, and To Strip the Flesh.

The Manga Review, 6/3/22

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Two weeks ago, Seven Seas’ employees formed the United Workers of Seven Seas (UW7S). Their goal? To negotiate a standard benefits package that includes health insurance, retirement plans, parental leave, and paid time off. UW7S is also pushing for higher wages and better working conditions; in particular, the union’s mission statement emphasizes the importance of ending “both at-will employment and unnecessary ‘permalancing.'” On May 29th, management declined to voluntarily recognize the new union. In a press release, Seven Seas stated:

We respect the rights of our employees to choose or not choose union representation. While we have been requested by a number of employees to voluntarily recognize the Communications Workers of America as their legal representative—without a National Labor Relations Board conducted election—we have decided to respect the right of all eligible employees to vote on this issue. Since unionization would affect more members of staff than those who have already come forward, an election will ensure that everyone has the opportunity to learn about their rights and the details of this process before they cast their vote through a governed process.

We have notified the [National Labor Relations Board] that we are prepared to move forward with an election among an appropriate unit of employees, and we will, of course, abide by the outcome of the election.

The company’s next move was to hire the law firm of Ogletree Deakins, which has represented clients such as Boeing, Duke University, and IKEA in labor disputes. (Adding insult to injury: Ogletree Deakins counts former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio among its clients.) I’m not sure what’s next for UW7S, but as someone who belongs to a union, I fully support all of the staff at Seven Seas in their fight for a better, more secure workplace. For updates, follow UW7S on Twitter.

NEWS

Diamond Comic Distributors just released its Top 400 Graphic Novels list for April 2022. Manga made a strong showing in comic book stores, with three titles–Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Kaiju No. 8–among the month’s best sellers. (For a little perspective, these three books sold between 3,369 and 5,944 copies each.) Scanning the top 100 titles, there were another 37 manga on the list, ranging from the final volume of The Rose of Versailles to the new edition of Apollo’s Song. [ICv2]

J-Novel Club unveiled five new manga licenses at its Anime Boston panel, including Tearmoon Empire and Oversummoned, Overpowered, and Over It! [Anime News Network]

Dark Horse will be publishing the sixth and final installment of Neon Genesis Evangelion-The Shinji Ikari Raising Project Omnibus this December. [AiPT!]

After social media users criticized the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) for inviting artist Pink Cat (Saba Moeel) to appear at this year’s event, TCAF withdrew the invitation. In a statement posted to its website on May 31st, organizers explained that “TCAF initially extended a programming invitation to Moeel on the basis of their daily digital comics work on Instagram, and the personal importance that work had to one of our team members. At the time of this invitation, the organization was unaware of Moeel’s online conduct, plagiarism, or allegations of tracing. We apologize for programming and promoting this artist.” [Toronto Comics Art Festival]

Heidi MacDonald has the full scoop on the TCAF/Pink Cat controversy. [The Beat]

FEATURES, PODCASTS, AND INTERVIEWS

Erica Friedman files a report on this year’s Anime Boston convention, where she was a featured panelist and author. [Okazu]

Deb Aoki explores the secret history of Unico, Osamu Tezuka’s lonely little unicorn. [Mangasplaining]

Elias Rosner previews August’s best new manga, from Rooster Fighter to The Poe Clan. [Multiversity Comics]

BuzzFeed shares a list of 15 LGBTQ+ Comics, Graphic Novels And Manga To Read After Watching Heartstopper. [BuzzFeed]

It’s that time of the month again: Walt Richardson and Emily Meyers do a cover-to-cover roundup of Shonen Jump‘s May issue. [Multiversity Manga Club Podcast]

The Manga Mavericks assemble an all-star team to discuss Akira Toriyama’s Manga Theater. [Manga Mavericks]

On the latest installment of Shojo & Tell, Ashley and husband Asher Sofman jump in the WABAC machine to look at one of the weirder shojo titles Tokyopop published: Yuri Narushima’s Planet Ladder. Beware the giant chicken! [Shojo & Tell]

Claire explains why you should be reading Kageki Shojo!! The setting “is fascinating, with copious details about Japanese traditional arts interspersed with contemporary (otaku) cultural references that will delight manga and anime fans,” she notes. The author “gives her story and the girls room to breath and develop at an organic (and thus, often hesitant) pace. There is substance to each of these girls, and I for one am delighted that the series survived the dissolution of its original publisher so that we get to see what happens next. These girls are going places.” [Beneath the Tangles]

REVIEWS

Looking for a good beach read? The staff at Beneath the Tangles just posted brief reviews of the latest releases, from Ghost Reaper Girl to Summertime Rendering.

Also of note: Kate Sánchez declares I Want to Be a Wall “one of the most beautiful takes on a relationship I have ever read,” while Helen recommends Summertime Rendering for manga lovers “who want a read that they can’t put down late into the night.”

My Brother’s Husband, Vol. 1

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The world has changed since Heather Has Two Mommies was published to controversy and acclaim in 1989. Here in the US, we’ve seen the legalization of gay marriage, first on the state and then on the federal level. We’ve also witnessed a slow but meaningful change in the way that our judicial system conceptualizes parental rights, as evidenced by a recent decision overturning Alison D. v. Virginia M., a 1991 lawsuit in which the court held that non-biological, non-adoptive parents have no legal standing in custody disputes. Writing in 2016, the New York Court of Appeals declared that “the definition of ‘parent’ established by this Court 25 years ago in Alison D. has become unworkable when applied to increasingly varied familial relationships,” recognizing the degree to which gay and lesbian partnerships had been marginalized by the original ruling.

Our recent presidential election offered a powerful reminder, however, that the initial firestorm over Heather Has Two Mommies was never fully extinguished; no matter how much the law had evolved to reflect shifting cultural attitudes, some Americans still clung tenaciously to the idea that the only legitimate families were headed by a father and a mother. In this moment of uncertainty, Gengoroh Tagame’s My Brother’s Husband is a welcome arrival in American bookstores, offering younger readers a warm, nuanced portrayal of gay life that challenges the idea that the only families that “count” are based on blood relations.

Tagame’s story focuses on Yaichi and Kana, a single father and his curious, outspoken daughter. Their cosy household is upended by the arrival of Mike Flanagan, a good-natured Canadian who was married to Yaichi’s deceased twin brother Ryoji. Yaichi is reluctant to host Mike, but seven-year-old Kana warmly embraces their visitor, insisting that Mike stay with them as an honored family member.

In the early chapters of the story, Mike represents a direct challenge to Yaichi’s unexamined beliefs about homosexuality. Tagame uses a split screen to make us privy to Yaichi’s internal monologue, contrasting Yaichi’s public actions with his private thoughts, in the process revealing the extent to which Yaichi uses stereotypes to justify his discomfort with Mike. Not surprisingly, Yaichi initially treats Mike as a nuisance, but his attitude changes as he watches Kana interact with Mike; her natural curiosity and warmth bring out the same qualities in their guest, encouraging Yaichi to view Mike as an individual, rather than a type.

In the later chapters of the story, Mike’s role in the household begins to evolve. He joins Yaichi and Kana in their daily activities — going to the store, visiting the community center — and talks openly with Kana about his marriage to Ryoji. When Yaichi’s ex-wife arrives for a visit, she marvels at Mike, Yaichi, and Kana’s closeness, recognizing the degree to which they’ve formed their own impromptu family in just a short amount of time.

My Brother’s Husband might feel like an Afterschool Special if not for the crispness of Gengoroh Tagame’s artwork, which conveys both the small-town setting and characters’ feelings with great specificity. In particular, Tagame does a fine job of suggesting just how conspicuous Mike really is in the village where Yaichi and Kana live, using the scale of Yaichi’s house — the rooms, the tatami mats, the bathtub — to drive home the point. Tagame proves equally adept at using the characters’ body language and facial expressions as a window into their feelings. In one of the story’s most poignant scenes, for example, a drunken Mike mistakes Yaichi for Ryoji, dissolving into tears as he collapses into Yaichi’s arms; it’s the only moment in which the strong, confident Mike seems vulnerable, his posture and face convulsed in grief over losing the husband he cherished. Yaichi’s grimaces, smiles, and gasps likewise reveal his vulnerability, documenting his ambivalent feelings about Mike in particular and homosexuality in general; the dialectical process by which Yaichi comes to embrace Mike as part of his family registers as much on Yaichi’s face as it does in his words and his actions.

Though some of the conflicts are resolved with sitcom tidiness, My Husband’s Brother earns points for its well-rounded characters and frank acknowledgment of Yaichi’s initial discomfort with Mike. That we believe in Yaichi’s transformation from skeptic to ally, and embrace Mike as a complex individual and not a cardboard saint, is proof of Tagame’s ability to tell a nuanced all-ages story that will resonate with readers on both sides of the Pacific. Highly recommended.

A word to parents, teachers, and librarians: My Brother’s Husband is appropriate for readers in middle and high school. Though the subject of Mike’s relationship with Ryoji is discussed at length, the story focuses on Mike’s romantic feelings for Ryoji; the sexual dimension of their relationship is not depicted.

Review copy provided by the publisher. My Brother’s Husband will be released on May 2, 2017.

MY BROTHER’S HUSBAND, VOL. 1 • BY GENGOROH TAGAME • PANTHEON BOOKS • NO RATING (SUITABLE FOR READERS 10+)