Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

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Best of 2008! In a way.

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For the past couple of days, Comcast has been having one of its too-frequent periods in which its DNS do not know that our domains exist. It’s been difficult to develop the motivation to post, when I know that anyone using Comcast is unable to reach my blog (this includes my mother, how cruel is that?) but I hate to just ignore everyone else. So, those of you who are not Comcast subscribers (or are Comcast subscribers who use Open DNS, like we’re doing right now), this post is for you. ETA: DNS problem solved! Thanks, Comcast!

Lots of people have been posting “Best of” lists for 2008, and I’ve felt too embarrassed to participate much. Since I’m so new to everything, I spent much of 2008 playing catch-up on many great series that the rest of you have been reading all this time, and haven’t really made my way to much that was newly released in 2008. So what I thought I’d do here, is make a list of manga I loved that was new to me in 2008.

This list was interesting to assemble, as I realized that much of the manga I raved over this year, I’d actually begun reading last year (xxxHolic, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Banana Fish, for example), so with those eliminated, here are my Top Five “New to Me” Manga in 2008:

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Snow. Lots and lots of snow.

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Today started out in a bit of a whirlwind, as I got up early to get into work by 7:00 AM, so that I could finish up all my pre-vacation business before getting hit by the 6-12 inches of snow coming our way. I then raced home to beat the storm, and now here I am, hatches battened, watching the snow come down. *whew*

We have a new roundtable discussion posted over at Manga Recon, where we discuss the canceled/indefinitely postponed series we would most love to see rescued! My personal choices were Yotsuba&! and the Kino no Tabi light novels, but there are a lot of amazing titles mentioned.

Other than that, I expect I’ll be shoveling snow for the rest of my life, but my vacation has started, and I’m feeling quite giddy! Happy Holidays, everyone!

Hitohira, and a little holiday joy!

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Before I forget to say anything about it, I have a new full-length review up at Manga Recon, for volume 1 of Idumi Kirihara’s Hitohira. I had mixed feelings about this manga, though I admit I’m considering buying the second volume, just to see if it gets any stronger. I’m hoping it does. Also, I think my reviews are getting more solid as I go, which makes me happy.

Life is a little crazy leading into the holidays, especially at work, so I’m trying to take time to enjoy the nice things as they come. This morning on my way to work, our local NPR station played Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Greensleeves, which my college orchestra played at our holiday concert my senior year. It really brought me back to that time, and I spent much of the day feeling nostalgic about that concert.

It also made me feel like sharing, so here’s a piece from the beginning of that concert, an arrangement (I’m embarrassed to say I don’t remember whose) of the Christmas Hymn, performed by the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic and Choirs, conducted by Dr. Robert Page, December 1990. It’s a bit chaotic, I suppose. The holiday concert is traditionally performed in the foyer of the College of Fine Arts, which is a big, echo-y, marble place, and for this, the choirs were split up and placed on all sides (including up on the mezzanines), with the conductor in the middle. In a place like that, we really couldn’t trust our ears, so we had to go just by sight. I chose this song, because I figure it’s the one people are most likely to know out of all the pieces we sang on that program. Hope you’ll enjoy. :)

Now I must tackle the work I brought home with me. Goodnight!

Bakuman, Bakuman, Bakuman

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You know, I really thought that my early love-affair with manga from Weekly Shonen Jump was over, once I finally realized that Hikaru no Go was an exceptional series, and I wasn’t going to love every boys’ manga like that. Sure, I’m still enjoying some Jump series, but as I’ve further developed my own tastes, I’ve definitely moved in other directions. I’ve even dropped my Shonen Jump subscription to pick up Shojo Beat instead. But then came Bakuman to suck me right back in.

I’m sure a lot of you remember my big stink over the sexism in the second chapter of Ohba and Obata’s Bakuman. None of my feelings about that have changed, and yet somehow, after only sixteen more chapters, Bakuman has become one of my favorite series. It’s gotten to the point where I’m constantly scanning manga news sites to find out if anyone has licensed it yet so that I can be certain of one day owning it in shiny little books. My excitement over this manga has been coming on slowly over the past few months, but the newly released chapter eighteen finally sealed the deal.

Spoilers for Bakuman ch. 18 after the jump! …

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All the titles I thought of sounded dirty

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This is a going to be a pretty strange little entry, I think, consisting mainly of bunnies and boys’ love. First of all, my husband took new photos of our bunny, Kino, the other day, and I wanted to share because, well, bunny. You can see them here on flickr. My favorite is this one.

I was going to ask for people’s opinions as manga fans on NY Comic Con, because I thought I might go, but then I realized that it is on the same weekend as UPTAs this year, which I am committed to attend for work. Very sad!

So, okay, boys’ love manga. I know I always say I’m not really a fan, and then I end up talking about it anyway. It just so happens that in the past week or so, I’ve ended up reading one of the nicest BL volumes I’ve personally read, and one of the worst. I won’t talk about the worst right now, because I’ll eventually be writing a review of it for Manga Recon. The other, though, I will discuss a little.

The book is Hinako Takanaga’s You Will Fall in Love, which I first became aware of thanks to Johanna Draper Carlson’s very thoughtful review at the beginning of the month. Her review is really right on, and there isn’t much I can add to that, except to say that what it really made me wish for was more of itself. I don’t mean more stories like it (though that would be fine too), but rather I wish it could have played itself out over a longer period, so that the characters and their relationships could have been more fully developed.

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Addicted and tormented

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I am officially addicted to Danielle Leigh’s Best Manga of 2008 thread over at Manga Before Flowers. I made my picks for best continuing series back when she first posted it, and now I just can’t help checking every day or so to see what other people are saying!

I’ve had a few small twinges of regret, most notably over Hikaru no Go, which Erin Finnegan voted in, and I did not. How could I not vote for Hikaru no Go? I wouldn’t have gotten into manga without it! My lack of support seems like a huge betrayal. Trouble is, I really dislike the excessive (in my opinion) Americanization of the Viz releases. Yet I voted for NANA which has that issue somewhat as well! Oh, the torment! Oh, the angst! Oh, the embarrassment of not having read enough new manga this year to even vote in that category! I do take heart in the fact that thanks to my commitment at Manga Recon, this will not be a problem next year. Still, I feel a sense of shame.

What I’m really getting around to here is, GO VOTE. Increase my torment. Feed my addiction. Please. :D

News!

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So after insisting over and over that I don’t really write reviews, I’m… writing reviews. :)

Just recently, senior manga editor Katherine Dacey invited me to join the staff of reviewers over at PopCultureShock’s Manga Recon. I accepted her invitation with much glee, and as a result, you can find my first review (of Claymore volume 13) in today’s Manga Minis !

Perhaps the greatest advantage to the fact that I really don’t write reviews here, is that very little at this blog can be expected to change. I’ll still be rambling on about manga as I have for the past year or so, and in addition, I’ll be linking to reviews of mine that are published over at Manga Recon.

A million thanks to Kate for this wonderful opportunity!

Manga and anime briefs

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Since everything else here requires spoiler warnings, I’ll start with the one item I can place before the jump and go from there!

I just wanted to make brief mention of an anime series we’ve been enjoying, not just for its terrific story and animation, but also for its method of delivery! Eve no Jikan (Time of Eve) from writer/director Yasuhiro Yoshiura (whose Pale Cocoon we also enjoyed), is being provided with English subtitles as free streaming video at Crunchyroll, shortly after each episode’s release in Japan. Episodes can also be downloaded for a small fee.

Eve no Jikan‘s premise is nothing extremely new. We’ve seen plenty of fiction involving the ethics and complications of a world in which human-like androids are employed to serve humans, and what it really means to be human, etc. What I’m enjoying about this series especially, is that the story revolves around an underground cafe where discrimination between human and android is prohibited. The cafe setting, with its set of fixed characters, helps make the story feel more intimate than what I’m used to in fiction with these themes, assisted also by the youthful POV of its protagonist. I’m impressed, too, with its effectiveness, considering that it is being fed to us only in 15-minute increments.

This is probably old news to most people who read here, but just in case I’m not the last person to talk about this, I wanted to pass it along! :) Watch the first episode here!

Now on to the rest. SPOILERS for new chapters of Bakuman, xxxHolic, and NANA, as well as recent episodes of Ef: A Tale of Melodies after the jump! …

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How I read Dororo volume one. Finally.

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Most of you know that I’m relatively new to the crazy world of manga. Now, when I get into something, I really get into it, so I’ve read a lot of manga in the short time I’ve been involved with it, but even at my pace, I’ve barely made a dent in the massive amount of material that’s out there and it will be a long time before I’ll feel like I can contribute anything truly meaningful to the discussion of the medium.

One of the things that’s weighed most heavily on me all this time is the fact that I hadn’t read any Osamu Tezuka. The truth is, I was actually kind of scared to do it. I felt really strongly that I needed to read some if I ever hoped to achieve any kind of deep understanding of manga, but I’d seen a few panels of it here and there and I was really concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get into it, which would leave me feeling forever like a hopeless newbie in the manga-reading world, deserving of whatever eye-rolling came my way.

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Five things I’m thankful for today

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It’s a little early for Thanksgiving, but having finished my workweek after only two days, I can’t help but feel a bit thankful for some of the people and things around me. I’ll leave major items for later in the week, but for the moment, I’d like to link to a few things that have made me feel happy (and thankful) today: …

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Raspberry Heaven, I’m coming back to you

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Arrived home late last night, and it’s very nice to be here. I’m still on Mountain time, so my body feels a bit off, but I had a nice, lazy day at home, which was the perfect thing.

Pop music geek moment: My husband started watching Azumanga Daioh while I was gone, so we watched the first six episodes together last night (I said I was still on Mountain time) and today. At one point while the opening theme was playing, I said, “This sounds like something Andy Partridge would write.” Later I looked it up, and found out the opening and closing themes are both written and performed by a Japanese duo who call themselves “Oranges & Lemons.” Geekiness for the win! :D For the non-pop music geeks, Oranges and Lemons is the name of an album by XTC, Andy Partridge’s band.

Speaking of Azumanga Daioh, I am completely hooked. Now I need to track down the comics. I think I mentioned that I’d picked up the first volume of Yotsuba&! in Utah, so it looks like I’m going to be on a little Kiyohiko Azuma kick for a while. Random Azumanga Daioh question: Does anyone else think that Sakaki looks a lot like Hanajima from Fruits Basket, or is it just me?

Speaking of random questions, is anyone else cursed with getting the opening theme of Lucky Star stuck in their head? *sigh* Anyone else doubly-cursed with the closing theme of Mahoromatic as well? Oh, Japan, you will do me in.

I did read some manga on the plane, including some new releases like NANA volume 13 and Fruits Basket volume 21. On the flight back, I also read the first volume of an older series that I picked up used at a bookstore in Salt Lake City.

Spoilers for ES (Eternal Sabbath) after the jump.…

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