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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Osamu Tezuka

The Manga Review, 6/10/22

June 10, 2022 by Katherine Dacey Leave a Comment

After Kentarou Miura passed away last year, fans feared that they would never see his long-running saga Berserk reach a proper conclusion. Then on June 7th, artist Kouji Mori announced that he would take the reins from his friend and complete the final story arc. Ryan Dinsdale reports that Mori pledged to “only write the episodes that Miura talked to me about. I will not flesh it out. I will not write episodes that I don’t remember clearly. I will only write the lines and stories that Miura described to me. Of course, it will not be perfect. Still, I think I can almost tell the story that Miura wanted to tell.” The Fantasia Arc/Elf Island Chapter will begin serialization in the June 24th issue of Young Animal magazine.

NEWS

Over at The Comics Journal, Ian Thomas interviews members of the United Workers of Seven Seas about their unionization effort. “At Seven Seas Entertainment we never received basic benefits such as healthcare or 401ks in the first place,” organizers note. “Even with the staff roster going from 10 full-time employees in 2018 to over 40 today, we are stretched to our limit trying to keep up with the volume of work. Like workers in every sector of the entertainment industry, we are burnt out, and unfulfilled promises of “imminent” benefits have worn thin.” [The Comics Journal]

Are you following the UW7S on Twitter? If not, you should; in addition to regular updates about their unionization efforts, they’re also posting great threads about the important work that other labor organizations do. [Twitter]

Brigid Alverson takes a closer look at the May 2022 NPD BookScan chart for the top 20 Adult Graphic Novels. [ICv2]

Kodansha Comics announced that it will be releasing a new edition of Princess Knight and a first edition of Bomba! [Anime News Network] 

Kodansha is also sponsoring a Humble Bundle that includes volumes of Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, Grand Blue Dreaming, Initial D. Peach Girl, Tokyo Revengers, and Until Your Bones Rot. All proceeds will benefit The Trevor Project, a non-profit that focuses on suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBTQ youth. [Humble Bundle]

New title alert: VIZ just began serializing Fusai Naba’s Aliens Area on its Shonen Jump website. [VIZ Media]

And speaking of Shonen Jump, Netflix just posted a sneak peek of its forthcoming live-action adaptation of One Piece. I’ll let you decide for yourself if this project looks good:

FEATURES, INTERVIEWS, AND PODCASTS

Shimada Kazushi profiles the late Abiko Motoo, who, with Hiroshi Fujimoto, created some of postwar Japan’s most popular manga under the pseudonym Fujiko Fujio. [Nippon]

In honor of Sailor Moon‘s thirtieth birthday, Christopher Chiu-Tabet begins an arc-by-arc exploration of the beloved series. [Multiversity Comics]

Tony Yao deconstructs a favorite storyline in Tokyo Revengers, using it to meditate on friendship, self-love, and vulnerability. [Drop-In to Manga]

The dynamic podcasting duo of Elliot and Andy compare notes on two popular romantic comedies: How Do We Relationship? and Ouran High School Host Club. [Screentone Club]

Mike Toole and Joey Weiser join the Manga Mavericks to discuss Akira Toriyama’s under-appreciated masterpiece Dr. Slump. [Manga Mavericks]

If you’ve been on the fence about reading Blue Giant, let the Mangaplainers persuade you to try this entertaining, engaging series about a young saxophonist’s quest to become the next John Coltrane. (Seriously, this series is great–something I almost never say about music manga!) [Mangasplaining]

Looking for a good read? Anna Williams recommends five underrated seinen manga. [CBR]

The folks at Yatta-Tachi just posted a comprehensive list of this month’s light novel and manga releases. [Yatta-Tachi]

Matthew Hill interviews Japanese artist Kyo Machiko about Essential: My #stayhome Diary 2021-2022. “Being a cartoonist is not an ‘Essential’ profession, but imagining, creating, talking to each other, and living an ordinary life are ‘Essential’ things that are essential to living like a human being,” she explains. “I chose the title because I have been thinking about this for a long time with the COVID-19 Disaster. Most people are not ‘Essential’ in their professions, but there is no such thing as a person who doesn’t need to be in this world. By depicting the ordinary lives of ordinary people in the city, I hope to convey the message that all people are indispensable to each other.” [The Comics Journal]

REVIEWS

At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson posts reviews of I Want to Be a Wall and the “weird but strangely attractive fantasy” The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again, Today. Erica Friedman praises the twisty plot of Summer Time Rendering. “Its 374 pages have enough twists to appeal to the most hard-core of suspense readers,” she notes. “It made me gasp out loud – more than once! – and kept me glued to the page right through the astonishing end of the volume.” TCJ contributor Leonel Sepúlveda looks at Hideshi Hino’s The Town of Pigs, praising Hino’s ability to create the “feeling of being trapped in a nightmare,” while the crew at Beneath the Tangles posts short reviews of Fangirl, Crimson Prince, Deadpool Samurai, and more.

  • The Abandoned Empress, Vol. 2 (Carrie McClain, But Why Tho?)
  • Alice in Borderland, Vol. 1 (Josh, No Flying No Tights)
  • Baron (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • Battles of the Wandering Chef (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • Beastars, Vol. 18 (Al, Al’s Manga Blog)
  • Came the Mirror and Other Tales (Jerry, No Flying No Tights)
  • The Crater (Danica Davidson, Otaku USA)
  • Crazy Food Truck, Vol. 1 (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • Deadpool Samurai, Vol. 2 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • Death Note Short Stories (Renee Scott, Good Comics for Kids)
  • From the Red Fog, Vol. 1 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • Ghost Reaper Girl, Vol. 1 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • High School Family, Vol. 1 (Danica Davidson, Otaku USA)
  • I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World, Too, Vol. 1 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • An Incurarable Case of Love, Vol. 1 (Kaley Connell, Yatta-Tachi)
  • Kaiju No. 8, Vol. 1 (Adam, No Flying No Tights)
  • Love After World Domination, Vol. 3 (Justin, The OASG)
  • Rosen Blood, Vol. 3 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • Talk to My Back (Publisher’s Weekly)
  • Tomorrow, Make Me Yours (MrAJCosplay, Anime News Network)
  • Undead Unluck, Vols. 6-7 (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • Watamote: No Matter How I Look At It, It’s Your Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular, Vol. 19 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: Kentaro Miura, Manga Sales Analysis, One Piece, Osamu Tezuka, princess knight, Seinen, Shonen Jump, UW7S

The Manga Review, 6/3/22

June 3, 2022 by Katherine Dacey Leave a Comment

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.”

  • The Apothecary Diaries (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)
  • Asadora!, Vol. 5 (SKJAM, SKJAM! Reviews)
  • Ayanashi, Vol. 1 (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • Beauty and the Beast of Paradise Lost, Vol. 4 (Onosume, Anime UK News)
  • Crazy Food Truck, Vol. 1 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • Cross-Dressing Villainess Cecelia Sylvie, Vol. 1 (The OASG)
  • Days on Fes, Vol. 5 (Azario Lopez, Noisy Pixel)
  • Daytime Shooting Star, Vol. 10 (Jaime, Yuri Stargirl)
  • The Elusive Samurai, Vol. 1 (Renee Scott, Good Comics for Kids)
  • Fire in His Fingertips, Vol. 3 (Demelza, Anime UK News)
  • Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Vols. 3-4 (Richard Eisbach, Anime News Network)
  • Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Vol. 4 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • A Galaxy Next Door, Vol. 1 (Al, Al’s Manga Blog)
  • A Galaxy Next Door, Vol. 1 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • The Gorgeous Life of Strawberry-Chan (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)
  • I Cannot Reach You, Vol. 4 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • Ima Koi: Now I’m in Love, Vol. 2 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • Island in a Puddle, Vol. 1 (Ivanir Ignacchitti, Noisy Pixel)
  • Kageki Shojo!!, Vols. 3-5 (Caitlin Moore, Anime News Network)
  • The King’s Beast, Vol. 6 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • Let’s Go Karaoke! (Sarah, Anime UK News)
  • The Life-Changing Manga of Cleaning Up (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)
  • Mizuno and Chayama (Al, Al’s Manga Blog)
  • New York, New York (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • Nighttime for Just Us Two, Vol. 1 (Ivanir Ignacchitti, Noisy Pixel)
  • Orochi: Perfect Edition (SKJAM, SKJAM! Reviews)
  • Play It Cool, Guys, Vol. 3 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • Reign of the Seven Spellblades, Vol. 3 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • ReZERO: The Frozen Bond, Vol. 1 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • Sakamoto Days, Vol. 1 (Alain, Reverse Thieves)
  • Stellar Witch LIPS, Vol. 5 (Krystallina, The OASG)
  • X-Kai (Megan D. The Manga Test Drive)
  • Yagi the Bookshop Goat, Vol. 1 (Al, Al’s Manga Blog)
  • Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Vol. 2 (Adi Tantimedh, Bleeding Cool)
  • Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Vols. 5-6 (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: Akira Toriyama, anime boston, Dark Horse, LBGTQ Manga, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Osamu Tezuka, Seven Seas, TCAF, Unico, UW7S

The Manga Review, 5/13/22

May 13, 2022 by Katherine Dacey Leave a Comment

April sales figures are in, and manga continues to dominate the NPD Adult Graphic Novels list. Though the list includes some perennial favorites–Berserk, Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia—Spy x Family saw a big jump in sales after its anime debuted on Crunchyroll last month. ICv2’s Brigid Alverson points out that  “April marks the fourth consecutive month that manga has completely filled the chart of the top 20 Adult graphic novels in the book channel.” Manga sales aren’t quite as robust in comic book stores, but three titles made ComicsHub’s Top 20 Graphic Novels for April: Chainsaw Man (4), Kaiju No. 8 (16), and Spy x Family (20). For additional insights into the current state of the manga, check our Madeline Dunnett’s recent post at Anime News Network.

MANGA NEWS

Kodansha just announced the winners of its 46th annual Manga Awards. [Anime News Network]

With less than three weeks to go, Sam Sattin and Guruhiru’s Kickstarter campaign for Unico: Awakening has exceeded its pledge goal of $50,000. The story is “an homage to the God of Manga’s original messaging of social welfare and eco-consciousness.” [Kickstarter]

Good news for Moto Hagio fans: Fantagraphics will be re-printing the first volume of The Poe Clan this summer. While there’s no official release date for the new edition, the long-awaited second volume will be released on July 26, 2022. [Fantagraphics]

Drawn and Quarterly will be publishing Nejishiki, an anthology of short stories by Yoshiharu Tsuge. Look for it in stores in April 2023. [Drawn and Quarterly]

Earlier this week, Yen Press announced that it will publish Sho Harusono’s Hirano and Kaguira, a spin-off of Sasaki and Miyano. [Yen Press]

Brace yourself: Seven Seas just announced even more new manga licenses! Among the most promising are Polar Bear Café: Collector’s Edition and Ex-Yakuza and Stray Kitten, which is pretty much what it sounds like: a former mobster indulges his softer side by rescuing a cat from the streets. [Seven Seas]

Over at The OASG, Justin and Helen round up the latest anime, manga, and licensing news. [The OASG Podcast]

FEATURES AND INTERVIEWS

Patricia Thang takes issue with the marketing label “manga-inspired,” arguing that “To call a comic ‘manga-inspired’ is akin to me saying, ‘Here’s a painting I did! It’s art-inspired! You’d think (or at least hope) I was joking, right? Because what in the fuck would that even mean?!” [Book Riot]

On the most recent Manga in Your Ears podcast, Kory, Helen, and Apryl dissect two manga by Naoki Urasawa: Sneeze, a short story anthology, and Asadora!, his latest series. [Manga in Your Ears]

Andy and Elliot dedicate the latest episode of the Screentone Club to City Hunter and Goodbye-Eri. [Screentone Club]

Walt Richardson and Emily Myers review the April issue of Shonen Jump. [Multiversity Comics]

The Mangasplainers turn their attention to Kakegurui: Compulsive Gambler, “the smash hit seinen manga that pits trust-fund-teens against one another in battles that cause embarrassment and ecstasy, skirting the line between schadenfreude and sadism!” [Mangasplaining]

As the spring anime season kicks into gear, Silvana Reyes Lopez recommends fifteen “unmissable” manga adaptations, from Chainsaw Man to Kakegurui Twin. [Book Riot]

Wondering what to read after Black Clover wraps up later this year? Christian Markle has a few recommendations. [Honey’s Anime]

Brianna Lawrence argues that Death Note Short Stories is more than just a sequel or a companion to the original series; it’s a thoughtful exploration of “how the government would react if such a terrifying weapon was available.” [The Mary Sue]

In an interview with TCJ’s Alex Deuben, Ken Niimura discusses his latest work, Never Open It: The Taboo Trilogy, which re-tells three of Japan’s most famous folk tales. “What I like about these stories… is that they’re pretty open ended,” Niimura explains. “They can be interpreted in many different ways. For example, there’s what’s considered to be the standard version of ‘The Crane Wife,’ but there are actually different versions depending on the region, the era, with many differences to the characters, the ending, etc…” [The Comics Journal]

REVIEWS

Readers in search of “hallucinogenic” stories might want to check out Keiichi Koike’s Heaven’s Door: Extra Works. “In some of these stories, the scale is pure Akira, but the detail and fluidness of the line are absolutely Moebius,” reviewer James Hepplewhite opines. Speaking of over-the-top manga, Megan D. revisits one of the most ludicrous series Tokyopop ever published: The Qwaser of Stigmata. (No, really; this manga goes to eleven.)

  • After School!, Vols. 1-2 (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • Apollo’s Song (SKJAM, SKJAM! Reviews)
  • A Bride’s Story, Vol. 13 (Sakura Aries, The Fandom Post)
  • Bungo Stray Dogs Wan!, Vol. 1 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • A Centaur’s Life (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)
  • Dead Mount Death Play, Vol. 7 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • Death Note Short Stories (Joseph Luster, Otaku USA)
  • Death Note Short Stories (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • Dissolving Classroom (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • Dr. STONE, Vol. 21 (Marina Z., But Why Tho?)
  • Eclair Bleue, Eclair Rouge, and Eclair Orange (Jaime, Yuri Stargirl)
  • Hinowa ga CRUSH!, Vol. 6 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • Hinowa ga CRUSH!, Vol. 6 (Krystallina, The OASG)
  • I Want to Be a Wall, Vol. 1 (Danica Davidson, Otaku USA)
  • Little Miss P: The Fourth Day (Demelza, Anime UK News)
  • Love of Kill, Vol. 7 (Krystallina, The OASG)
  • Made in Abyss (Harry, Honey’s Anime)
  • Magic Artisan Dahlia Wilts No More, Vol. 1 (Justin, The OASG)
  • The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, Vol. 1 (Sakura Eries, The Fandom Post)
  • Marionette Generation (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)
  • Moriarty the Patriot, Vols. 6-7 (King Baby Duck, The Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • The Music of Marie (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • Our Colors (Publisher’s Weekly)
  • Our Teachers Are Dating, Vol. 4 (Erica Friedman, Okazu)
  • Our Teachers Are Dating, Vol. 4 (Jaime, Yuri Stargirl)
  • The Royal Tutor, Vol. 16 (Sakura Eries, The Fandom Post)
  • Seimaiden (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)
  • Spy x Family, Vol. 7 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch, Vol. 1 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • Walkin’ Butterfly (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: death note, Drawn and Quarterly, Fantagraphics Books, Manga Sales Analysis, moto hagio, Naoki Urasawa, Osamu Tezuka, Seven Seas, Shonen Jump, The Poe Clan, Unico, yen press

The Manga Review, 5/6/22

May 6, 2022 by Katherine Dacey Leave a Comment

When it comes to manga commentary, I freely admit that I’m more of a reader than a listener. Mangasplaining, however, is helping change my mind about manga podcasts. Every week, Deb Aoki, David Brothers, Christopher Butcher, and Chip Zdarsky analyze manga old and new, from classic titles such as AKIRA to fan favorites such as Wotakoi: Love Is Hard for Otaku. The Mangasplainers are frequently joined by industry professionals for interesting conversations about translating, publishing, and creating manga; among their most recent guests were Jamila Rowser, founder of Black Josei Press, and Ken Niimura, a Spanish-Japanese artist best known for his work on I Kill Giants. Complementing the podcast is MSX: Mangasplaining Extra, a weekly newsletter written by Deb, Christopher, and Andrew Woodrow-Butcher that focuses on their newest venture: translating and publishing manga for North American readers.

NEWS AND FEATURES

Deb Aoki offers an in-depth look at the North American manga market. Though global supply issues have made it more difficult to bring readers their favorite series in print, manga sales reached a record high in 2021. As VIZ Media’s Kevin Hamric observes, “Manga is no longer a niche category. It is now a mainstream/mass category.” [Publisher’s Weekly]

Free Comic Book Day is tomorrow! Several manga publishers will have kid- and teen-friendly titles, from VIZ’s Pokémon Journeys to Tokyopop’s Guardian of Fukushima, a graphic novel about Naoto Matsumura, a farmer who defied government orders by returning to Fukushima to save his animals. [Free Comic Book Day]

Cat lovers take note: Daisuke Igarashi just launched a new series called Kamakura Bakeneko Kurabu, which translates roughly to Kamakura Monster Cat Club. [Anime News Network]

On Wednesday, Seven Seas unveiled four new manga licenses: Gap Papa: Daddy at Work and at Home, The Knight Blooms Behind Castle Walls, My Sister The Cat, and No Longer Human… In Another World, “a dark comedy starring a famous historical writer who would honestly rather die than live out an isekai fantasy.” [Seven Seas]

Tezuka Productions recently launched an English-language Twitter feed. [Twitter]

Megan Thee Stallion has impeccable taste in anime. [Black Girl Nerds]

If you plan to be in Tokyo next March, why not check out the Spy x Family musical, which will have its premier at the Imperial Theater? [Otaku USA]

Wondering what’s new at your local comic book store? Bill Curtis just posted a complete list of May’s manga and light novel releases. [Yatta-Tachi]

In the latest episode of Shojo & Tell, Ashley and guest Olive St. Sauver discuss the first six volumes of Suu Morishita’s Shortcake Cake. [Shojo & Tell]

Good news for yuri manga fans: Erica Friedman’s By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga is now available for pre-order. Her book is the first of its kind in English, offering a thoughtful, wide-ranging exploration of “the key creators, tropes, concepts, symbols and titles of the first 100 years of the Yuri genre.” [Okazu]

Sam Sattin chats with Masha Zhdanova about his latest project: a reboot of Osamu Tezuka’s Unico. “Unico in particular I found to be a fascinating character who is often misunderstood,” Sattin observes. “Unico was created for children, but like many of Tezuka’s child-oriented fables, the character’s story is complex, emotional, and chock full of meaning… In it, I see an amazing story that could simultaneously serve a new generation of readers and honor Osamu Tezuka’s work.” [Women Write About Comics]

Jeff Trexler, the Interim Director of CBLDF, sounds a cautionary note about Free Comic Book Day, noting that retailers need to be vigilant about which books they give away, and to whom. “The new comic’s code is an algorithm,” Trexler observes. “What people are trying to do is not simply the fact that they’re trying to get retailers arrested or school teachers arrested or librarians arrested. They recognize in the age of Twitter, you don’t have to do that. All you have to do is get them shamed or banned. You can mass swarm a retailer and report them to Facebook or Twitter for selling pornography.” [ICv2]

REVIEWS

Congratulations to Megan D., who celebrates the tenth anniversary of The Manga Test Drive this week! You can help her mark this milestone by checking out her recent reviews of Dick Fight Island (NSFW, as you might imagine), Hinadori Girl, Wanted, and Peepo Choo. Over at Book Dragon, Terry Hong posts a review of Gengoroh Tagame’s Our Colors, “another poignant, empowering, gay-centered narrative… translated by queer manga expert Anne Ishii.”

  • Ace of the Diamond, Vols. 1-7 (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • Anyway, I’m Falling in Love With You, Vols. 1-2 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • Blackguard, Vol. 1 (Demelza, Anime UK News)
  • Blue Period, Vol. 6 (Sarah, Anime UK News)
  • Boys Run the Riot, Vol. 1 (James Hepplewhite, Bleeding Cool)
  • The Case Files of Jeweler Richard, Vol. 1 (Al, Al’s Manga Blog)
  • The Case Files of Jeweler Richard, Vols. 1-2 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • The Dragon Knight’s Beloved, Vol. 1 (Kaley Connell, Yatta-Tachi)
  • Goodbye, Eri (Ari Tantimedh, Bleeding Cool)
  • The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!, Vol. 2 (Demelza, Anime UK News)
  • High School Prodigies Have It Easy, Even in Another World!, Vol. 1 (Megan D. The Manga Test Drive)
  • How De We Relationship?, Vol. 5 (King Baby Duck, The Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • I Belong to the Baddest Girl at School, Vol. 3 (Demelza, Anime UK News)
  • I Want to Be a Wall, Vol. 1 (Christian Markle, Honey’s Anime)
  • In Another World with My Smartphone, Vol. 5 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • Karakuri Odette, Vol. 3 (Thomas Zoth, The Fandom Post)
  • Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible!, Vol. 1 (Eric Alex Cline, AiPT!)
  • Lady Snowblood, Vol. 1 (SKJAM, SKJAM! Reviews)
  • Love After World Domination, Vol. 2 (Justin, The OASG)
  • Lovesick Ellie, Vol. 1 (Demelza, Anime UK News)
  • A Man and His Cat, Vol. 5 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • Mizuno and Chayama (Christian Markle, Honey’s Anime)
  • My Brain Is Different: Stories of ADHD and Other Developmental Disorders (Danica Davidson, Otaku USA)
  • My Hero Academia: Team-Up Missions, Vol. 2 (King Baby Duck, The Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • My Love Mix-Up!, Vols. 2-3 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • Nighttime for Just Us Two, Vol. 1 (King Baby Duck, The Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • Orochi: The Perfect Edition (Renee Scott, Good Comics for Kids)
  • Our Kingdom, Vol. 1 (Library Girl, A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
  • Our Kingdom, Vol. 2 (Library Girl, A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
  • Phantom Tales of the Night, Vol. 1 (Helen, The OASG)
  • Queen’s Quality, Vol. 14 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • Rent-a-Girlfriend, Vols. 10-11 (Demelza, Anime UK News)
  • Rurouni Kenshin: Three-in-One Omnibus, Vol. 1 (Library Girl, A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
  • The Royal Tutor, Vol. 16 (Krystallina, The OASG)
  • Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts, Vol. 15 (Krystallina, The OASG)
  • Sasaki and Miyano, Vol. 5 (Eric Alex Cline, AiPT!)

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: CBD, Daisuke Igarashi, Free Comic Book Day, Osamu Tezuka, Seven Seas, Tokyopop, yuri

My Week in Manga: August 7-August 13, 2017

August 14, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

I shifted around my usual posting schedule at Experiments in Manga a little last week so, instead of posting July’s Bookshelf Overload, I ended up featuring my review of Kazuki Sakuraba’s most recent work to be released in English, A Small Charred Face. The book is scheduled to be released in September (I received an advanced copy from Haikasoru for review purposes), and is definitely worth checking out. I’m not especially interested in vampire fiction, but A Small Charred Face makes for a very interesting contribution to the genre and I loved the queerness present in the story. Sakuraba is probably best known as the creator of Gosick, which I’ve been meaning to read, but my introduction to her work was through Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuchibas.

Elsewhere online last week: Justin of The OASG posted a transcript of Four Hundred Pages of Manga Every Single Week, a roundtable discussion held in July which was sponsored by Kodansha Comics and featured three of Weekly Shonen Magazine‘s editors, including the editor-in-chief; Anime News Network interviewed Akira Himekawa, the creative team behind most of The Legend of Zelda manga adaptations; Viz Media made a some licensing announcements while at Otakon including RWBY by Shirow Miwa, Takane & Hana by Yuki Shiwasu, and The Young Master’s Revenge by Meca Tanaka; Also at Otakon, Sekai Project, which is still relatively new to manga publishing, announced the acquisition of Keika Hanada and Kanemune’s manga adaptation of The House in Fata Morgana.

Quick Takes

Clockwork Apple by Osamu Tezuka. I’ll admit, I managed to burn myself out on Tezuka for a bit, so I’ve managed to amass quite a stockpile of his recently-translated manga which I haven’t actually gotten around to reading yet. Clockwork Apple is a collection of eight short manga originally published between 1968 to 1973. While they aren’t directly related to one another, they do share a similar tone, were generally intended for an adult audience (mostly seinen, I believe), and can all broadly be described as speculative fiction. The stories in Clockwork Apple tend to be fairly dark, dramatic, and serious. The visual humor, breaking of the forth wall, and self-awareness frequently present in Tezuka’s other non-comedic works are nearly nonexistent in the Clockwork Apple. (I don’t think the Tezuka’s Star System was applied, either.) Tezuka was personally having a difficult time in the late 1960s and early 1970s, so perhaps the tenor of these stories is partly a reflection of that. In general, I enjoyed the stories collected in Clockwork Apple even though the endings would sometimes be a little hit-or-miss or feel rushed. Each story would have at least one plot-altering twist, some had several, but occasionally those developments would come across as convenient rather than compelling.

Flesh-Colored HorrorFlesh-Colored Horror by Junji Ito. Most of Ito’s manga to have been translated into English are currently in print or have been recently reissued in a new edition and even more have been scheduled to be released in the near future. One of the few exceptions is Flesh-Colored Horror, the third and final volume in The Junji Ito Horror Comic Collection series released by ComicsOne. Currently, the volume can be a little difficult and expensive to find, but fortunately one of my local libraries had a copy. (I really hope to be able to find a reasonably-priced one of my own someday.) In addition to the titular story, Flesh-Colored Horror collects five of Ito’s other short horror manga. The six unrelated stories were originally published between 1988 and 1994 in Monthly Halloween, a shoujo manga magazine specializing in horror. Flesh-Colored Horror is a fantastic collection that is well-worth seeking out for either fans of Ito’s work or of weird horror in general. Ito has a way of starting with a simple and at times even mundane premise and twisting it into something truly strange and horrific. For whatever reason, while I greatly enjoy most of Ito’s work, I do find that I often prefer Ito’s older short manga over more recent collections; Flesh-Colored Horror continues that trend.

Giant Days, Volume 1Giant Days, Volume 1 written by John Allison and illustrated by Lissa Treiman and Whitney Cogar. I’ve been hearing good things about Giant Days for a while–the series has been nominated for multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards in the past, and several of my friends keep up with the comic–but I’m only getting around to reading it now. One thing that I didn’t realize about Giant Days, which initially started as a self-published webcomic before being picked up by Boom! Studios, is that it’s actually a spinoff of Allison’s earlier series Scary Go Round. I haven’t actually read Scary Go Round, but fortunately familiarity with that comic isn’t at all necessary to understand Giant Days. The comic largely follows three university students–Esther, Daisy, and Susan–who become close friends after living together in the same residence hall. The first volume seems to favor exploring the characters, their personalities, and relationships over having a strong overarching plotline. At times the comic feels somewhat disjointed and the scene changes can be rather abrupt, but the series has a good sense of humor and I do honestly like the characters. I think I would need to read a little more of Giant Days to really feel invested in their stories, but I greatly appreciate the inclusion of queer characters in the increasingly large cast.

Filed Under: FEATURES, My Week in Manga Tagged With: comics, Giant Days, John Allison, Junji Ito, Lissa Treiman, manga, Osamu Tezuka, Whitney Cogar

Melody of Iron

August 11, 2017 by Katherine Dacey

Osamu Teuka hit rock bottom in 1973. Mushi Production, the animation studio he’d launched to great fanfare in 1961, had just declared bankruptcy. Although Tezuka had parted ways with Mushi in 1968, he was still linked to his old company in the public imagination — Mushi was, after all, the studio that had introduced Tetsuwan Atom to television viewers around the globe, and made Kimba the White Lion a household figure in Japan. Tezuka also faced a creative crisis: his work was out of step with emerging trends in what he called “young adult manga,” a point he plaintively addressed in the afterword to the 1974 short story collection Melody of Iron:

The media was whispering that I’d hit my wall… With a broken heart, but also rebellious determination, I blindly tackled magazine jobs …These are examples of my Young Adult Manga write during times when I was mentally hungry. There were many more. Ranging from pieces that were too dark and hopeless, to really harsh pieces that, in today’s day and age, would immediately receive protest from all sorts of organizations. All of my pieces then had really emotionless themes and I don’t remember enjoying writing most of them.

Manga publishers agreed with Tezuka’s glum self-assessment. In 1973, Weekly Shonen Champion offered Tezuka an opportunity to write a limited five-week series with the implicit assumption that Tezuka was publishing his final work. That series turned out to be the opening salvo in a new stage of Tezuka’s career, however, as Black Jack became one of Tezuka’s best-known, best-loved titles, a mixture of bold, expressive cartooning, crazy plot lines, and gut-punch endings all held together by one of the most memorable characters Tezuka ever created.

Not all of Tezuka’s work from the 1970s walks this melodramatic tightrope as effectively as Black Jack, a point underscored by Melody of Iron. The title story, for example, is a three-act mish-mash of gangster movie cliches and seventies pseudo-science. In the first act, a young man runs afoul of the mafia, ratting out one their assassins in court; as punishment, the Albanis cut off his arms and leave him to die. In the second act, Dan holes up in a mad scientist’s laboratory where he learns to use a set of psychokinetic prosthetic arms. And in the final act, Dan’s ability to harness PK proves a mixed blessing when the arms exact revenge against the Albanis… without him.

The finale exemplifies what’s good and bad about Tezuka’s crank-it-to-eleven approach. On the one hand, Tezuka has the cartooning chops to make the arms look sufficiently animated, a necessary condition for selling us on his Stephen King-meets-Mario Puzo concept. On the other hand, Tezuka’s own distinctive style works against the potential horror of the killer limbs; the arms aren’t menacing enough to be a convincing embodiment of Dan’s fierce anger, looking more like the Tin Man’s costume than instruments of death. The arms’ efficacy is further neutered by the staging of their grand murder spree, a string of over-the-top deaths that re-enact Dan’s initial humiliation in the most baldly literal fashion: look, Ma, no arms!

The story also stumbles in its efforts to depict American racial dynamics. Shortly after Dan’s bloody encounter with the Albani’s goons, for example, a mob of African American teenagers harasses Dan, pelting him with stones and mocking him for his missing arms. The way these characters are rendered — with thick lips and maliciously gleeful expressions — creates a profoundly uncomfortable moment for the modern Western reader, resurrecting the visual iconography of minstrel shows to dehumanize these unnamed teens. Dan is rescued by Birdie, a black Vietnam vet who counsels Dan to abandon his murderous plans. Birdie looks more recognizably human than the rock-throwing teens, but he’s more a construct than a character, a noble voice of reason whose primary purpose is to advance the plot by introducing Dan to the mad Dr. Macintosh.

The third strike against “Melody” — and, by extension, the entire anthology — is that the edgier content feels like a self-conscious effort to dress up the material in adult themes, rather than a vehicle for exploring the darker corners of the human psyche. This problem is most pronounced in “Revolution,” a short story about Yasue, a housewife who wakes up from a coma convinced that she’s a young radical named Minako Hotta. In an effort to prove to her husband that she is, in fact, Minako, Yasue describes Minako’s sexual encounters with a wounded revolutionary, explaining how Minako’s tender ministrations brought him back from death’s door. We’re clearly supposed to sympathize with Yasue’s husband — he’s disgusted by Yasue’s “memory” — but his boorish, violent behavior in previous scenes makes it hard for the reader to sympathize with his predicament. Worse still, Minako’s sacrifices are presented as a sign of her dedication to the cause, a notion so risible it seems more like a lame joke from Woody Allen’s Bananas than a credible character motivation.

As with Tezuka’s other work from the period, the principal characters in Melody of Iron are generically attractive types whose personalities emerge primarily through what they say, while the supporting cast members are vividly drawn caricatures whose personalities are established through how they look. Such visual shortcuts are a standard manga technique, of course, but in Tezuka’s hands these aesthetic decisions are effective since they’re rendered with flair and specificity; you know exactly what kind of person Dr. Macintosh is from the shape of his nose, the tousle of his hair, and the hunch of his shoulders. Tezuka also scatters a few Easter eggs through the collection, including a sequence modeled on The Godfather‘s iconic wedding scene, and a panel depicting Broadway’s signature jumble of lights and signs; look closely and you’ll see the names of several Tezuka titles gracing the marquees.

For all the flashes of imagination in Melody of Iron, however, Tezuka was onto something when he characterized his “young adult” stories as “less approachable” than his other work from the early 1970s. Even the most over-the-top scenes feel a little labored and dour, lacking the visual exuberance or emotional oomph that makes “Dingoes” and “Teratoid Cystoma” such memorable entries in the Black Jack canon. Readers looking for an introduction to Tezuka’s late work may find Melody of Iron a good point of entry, but anyone with dog-eared copies of Black Jack or Ode to Kirihito may be underwhelmed by this more workmanlike collection.

THE MELODY OF IRON • BY OSAMU TEZUKA • TRANSLATED BY ADAM SECORD • DIGITAL MANGA, INC. • RATED YOUNG ADULT (16+) FOR VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL CONTENT • 214 pp.

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Classic Manga, DMP, Horror/Supernatural, Osamu Tezuka, Seinen

My Week in Manga: April 10-April 16, 2017

April 17, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week at Experiments in Manga was relatively quiet, but I did post the Bookshelf Overload for March. As mentioned in that post (and I think sometime prior to that as well), I’m currently in the process of changing jobs, so I’ve been a bit preoccupied to say the least. (If you follow me on Twitter, this largely explains my sporadic appearances there.) This week is my last week in my current position, so I’m understandably pretty busy with meetings and tying up loose ends and such. I still plan on finishing up and posting my review of the first volume of Nagabe’s The Girl from the Other Side sometime this week, but it will probably be towards the end.

Over the last week, Seven sees announced a couple more new licenses: Yoshikazu Takeuchi’s Perfect Blue novels (which were the basis for Satoshi Kon’s anime film of the same name) as well as Jin and Sayuki’s manga series Nirvana. Yen Press also had a slew of announcements: Natsume Ono’s ACCA 13 (probably the one I’m most excited about), Kudan Naduka and Nakoto Sanada’s Angel of Slaughter, Matoba’s As Miss Beelzebub Likes, Rihito Takarai’s Graineliers, Afro’s Laid-Back Camp?, Mufirushi Shimazaki’s The Monster Tamer Girls, Koromo’s A Polar Bear in Love, Matcha Hazuki’s One Week Friends, Fuse’s Regarding Reincarnating as Slime light novel (Kodansha Comics has licensed the manga), both the light novel and manga of Carlo Zen’s The Saga of Evil Tanya, Okina Baba’s light novel So I’m a Spider, So What?, Keiichi Shigusawa and Tadadi Tamori’s Sword Art Online: Alternative Gun Gale Online, Abec’s Sword Art Online Artworks artbook, Reki Kawahara and Shii Kiya’s Sword Art Online: Calibur, Mai Tanaka’s Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School, Kakashi Oniyazu’s Though You May Burn to Ash, and Ryousuke Asakura’s Val X Love.

As for crowdfunding efforts, Digital Manga will be launching its most recent Juné Kickstarter sometime later today in an effort to publish print editions of some of Psyche Delico’s manga which were previously only released digitally. (This is in addition to recently announced print licenses of Psyche Delico’s Even a Dog Won’t Eat It and Choco Strawberry Vanilla.) Another Kickstarter project to keep an eye on is Retrofit Comic’s Spring 2017 collection which includes Yuichi Yokoyama’s Iceland. (In general Retrofit Comics releases some great books, but this will be the publisher’s first manga to be translated.) Finally, the wonderful people behind Queer Japan are currently raising funds for the film’s post-production as well as some of the non-profit organizations featured in the documentary.

Quick Takes

Dawn of the Arcana, Volume 7Dawn of the Arcana, Volumes 7-13 by Rei Toma. I enjoyed the first part of Dawn of the Arcana a great deal and so was looking forward to reading the rest of the series. As the manga progresses it becomes less reliant on the standard fantasy tropes that form its base, although it never escapes them entirely. However, even considering this, Dawn of the Arcana is still a satisfying and enjoyable series. The story’s most dramatic plot twist I guessed at long before it was actually revealed, but there were still developments and directions that the story took that managed to surprise me. At times it felt like Dawn of the Arcana was only scratching the surface, as if the manga was only providing a summary version of a much more complicated narrative. The characters and story have depth to them, but not everything is thoroughly and completely explored, much of the more nuanced interpretations being left to the readers to form. I really liked Dawn of the Arcana. It can be heartbreaking–the characters’ struggling with circumstances that have no easy resolutions–but also thrilling as they find ways to take control of their own fates.

Murciélago, Volume 1Murciélago, Volume 1 by Yoshimurakana. I was forewarned about the violence, gore, and otherwise explicit nature of Murciélago, so I was well aware of what I was getting myself into by picking up the manga. Murciélago is ridiculous, absurd, extreme, over-the-top, and a great deal of fun if someone doesn’t have a problem with the series’ aforementioned blood and brutality. Interestingly, the risqué lesbian sex scenes which both open and close the first volume, while being deliberately lewd, scandalous, and outrageous are also entirely consensual and in a way are bizarrely one of the more wholesome aspects of the manga. The lead of Murciélago is Kuroko Koumori, a dangerous, murderous, and lecherous woman who has been sentenced to death for her crimes. Kuroko is a monster and is portrayed as such. (She’s an awful person, but I really like her as a character.) The only reason that she’s still alive is that the police have indefinitely postponed her execution in order to take advantage of her impressive skills as an assassin. So, yeah, Murciélago definitely isn’t a series for everyone, but I certainly plan on reading more of it.

Triton of the Sea, Omnibus 2Triton of the Sea, Omnibus 2 (equivalent to Volumes 3-4) by Osamu Tezuka. It has been a very long time since I read the first half of Triton of the Sea. So long ago in fact that I had forgot that I hadn’t actually finished the series yet. Fortunately, the manga was pretty easy to pick up again. I seem to like Triton of the Sea best when the story centers its focus on family. In the first omnibus, it was Triton’s relationships with his human family that really captured my attention and in the second it was his experiences as a new father that most delighted me. (It probably didn’t hurt that the baby merfolk were super cute.) Triton of the Sea is also a story of revenge. Triton is determined destroy the Poseidon clan for the sake of his people who have been nearly driven to extinction, his desire for retribution blinding him from seeing other courses of action that might allow the two clans to establish a lasting peace. This of course only serves to continue the cycle of violence that puts him and his loved ones in danger. Triton of the Sea isn’t Tezuka’s strongest or most notable work, but I did appreciate the themes that Tezuka was exploring with the series.

Wandering Island, Volume 1Wandering Island, Volume 1 by Kenji Tsuruta. The premise of Wandering Island is fairly simple: Mikura Amelia is a pilot for an air delivery service based in the Izu Islands that she and her grandfather established together. When he unexpectedly passes away, she understandably takes it pretty hard. While in mourning she discovers package among her grandfather’s belongings with an address on it that shouldn’t exist, leading Mikura to become obsessed with a search for a mysterious, disappearing island. Although there are some wonderful scenes of Mikura in flight, there’s not really much action in Wandering Island. Instead, the manga is rather leisurely paced with a contemplative and melancholic feel to it. Wandering Island is also beautifully illustrated, Tsuruta’s artwork being one of the series’ highlights. I love how Tsuruta is able to capture a sense of place and the people who live there. I’m not sure when or if the second volume of Wandering Island will be published in English (the Japanese edition itself isn’t even scheduled to be released until next month), but I would definitely like to see it translated.

Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains PureHorses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure: A Tale That Begins with Fukushima by Hideo Furukawa. Fukushima has been on my mind lately which reminded me of the fact that I had yet to read Furukawa’s Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure, one of the first major literary responses to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters associated with March 11, 2011. The work is rather curious, but it’s also worthwhile and powerful. In part it’s a sequel of sorts to Furukawa’s novel Seikazoku (The Holy Family), which hasn’t actually been released in English. However, familiarity with that earlier work isn’t at all necessary. Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure also delves into the history of Fukushima as a whole, both before and after 2011. But perhaps most importantly, it’s an incredibly personal memoir. Though he was away at the time, Furukawa was originally from Fukushima. Soon after the disasters struck, he traveled back to the area in order to witness the aftermath of the events himself. A fair amount of the volume is devoted to Furukawa’s profound experiences while on that trip, combining fiction, history, and biography in a compelling way.

Filed Under: FEATURES, My Week in Manga Tagged With: dawn of the arcana, Hideo Furukawa, Kenji Tsuruta, manga, Murciélago, Nonfiction, Novels, Osamu Tezuka, Rei Toma, Triton of the Sea, Wandering Island, Yoshimurakana

The Best and Worst Manga of 2015

January 6, 2017 by Katherine Dacey

After a two-year hiatus from blogging, I donned my critic’s cap again in 2015. I’ve enjoyed writing my quasi-weekly column, but composing a year-end list reminded me why I stepped off the reviewing treadmill in 2012: mediocre books! This year yielded a veritable bumper crop of so-so manga, titles that were competently executed but otherwise unmemorable thanks to an abundance of generic characters, cliché settings, and predictable plot twists; you’d be forgiven for feeling that you’d read many of 2015’s debuts before, even if the artists were new to the US market.

Lurking among the paint-by-number romances and boy-saves-world titles, however, were a few gems. I’ve done my best to highlight the titles that made me feel something, whether that feeling was love, hate, or a mixture of both. To that end, I’ve included my nominees for the worst manga of 2015 alongside the books that made me laugh and cry.

Yowamushi-Pedal-Volume-1Best New Series: Yowamushi Pedal
By Wataru Watanabe • Yen Press
You know the rap on sports manga: American readers won’t buy it, and don’t like it. Yowamushi Pedal might just change that, however, thanks to a story that plays well across the nerd-jock divide. Onoda, the hero, is a self-professed otaku whose weekly bike rides into Akihabara have transformed him into a secret Lance Armstrong clone. Though Onoda wants to revive his school’s anime club, his amazing hill-climbing skills and stamina get noticed by more seasoned riders, all of whom convince Onoda to join the cycling team. The series’ races are nail-biting, page-turning affairs, but it’s the in-between stuff that makes Yowamushi Pedal work. Onoda doesn’t just discover a new skill; he discovers a community of people who share his passion for riding and respect his talent. In short, Yowamushi Pedal is a coming-of-age story in which a bike becomes the nerdy hero’s vehicle—pun intended—for self-actualization.

One-Punch ManBest New Shonen Series: One-Punch Man
By ONE and Yusuke Murata • VIZ Media
One-Punch Man is the ultimate have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too manga. On the surface, it’s an affectionate spoof of shonen clichés that pokes fun at goofy costumes, over-the-top training sessions, and speech-prone villains. On a deeper level, however, One-Punch Man is a great adventure series about an ordinary but strong-willed individual who sets out to rid his city of monsters, only to discover that there’s a much greater threat to mankind than the lobster-men and were-lions that roam the streets. The result is a sincere, gut-bustingly funny manga that reads like a Silver Age superhero comic, splats and all.

Horimiya_cover1Best New Romance Manga: Horimiya
By Hero and Daisuke Hagiwara • Yen Press
Horimiya is one of 2015’s most pleasant surprises, a teen rom-com that avoids cliché situations by focusing on the characters’ lives outside school. At first glance, its lead characters look like opposites: Kyouko is the class queen, while Izumi is a quiet loner. When they bump into each other off campus, however, they quickly realize they have more in common than their carefully constructed identities would suggest–a realization that leads to friendship and flirtation. In less imaginative hands, Kyouko and Izumi’s budding romance would be subjected to endless tests–school plays, beach trips, hot transfer students–but the authors resist the urge to trot out these over-used scenarios, relying instead on more ordinary settings for comedic (and dramatic) grist. It’s the perfect antidote to the wacky misunderstandings that drive the plots of Cactus’ Secret, Special A, and a dozen similar titles.

Cat_DiaryBest New Gag Manga: Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu
By Junji Ito • Kodansha Comics
Draw a Venn diagram that shows the overlap between Junji Ito fans and cat lovers, and you’ve found the small but perfect audience for Junji Ito’s Cat Diary, a collection of anecdotes about Ito’s beloved pets Yon and Mu. Though the manga’s jokes explore familiar terrain, Ito’s exaggerated reaction shots are priceless, capturing the mixture of love and disgust that cats inspire in their owners. (Imagine Edvard Munch drawing a gag manga about cats, and you get the general idea.) Ito is refreshingly honest about the way animals change the dynamic between people, too; in some of the manga’s most memorable scenes, Ito and his fiancée compete fiercely for their cats’ affection, plying Yon and Mu with toys, treats, and cuddles. Though the prevailing tone is campy, Ito’s obvious affection for his cats helps prevents the Diary from becoming too arch.

ludwig_kansiBest Historic Title: Ludwig B.
By Osamu Tezuka • DMP, Inc.
Left unfinished at the time of Osamu Tezuka’s death, Ludwig B. is a fictionalized biography of Beethoven. Tezuka only completed two volumes, but oh, those two volumes! Tezuka draws evocative scenes of Beethoven at the keyboard, using striking visual metaphors to convey the sound of Beethoven’s music. Tezuka also does a good job of capturing the dynamic between Beethoven and his father, revealing the extent to which Johann’s drinking, gambling, and stage-parenting cast a long shadow over Beethoven’s adult life. Purists should note that Tezuka takes frequent liberties with the historical record, creating a mustache-twirling villain named Franz Kreuzstein to serve as a foil for the young, determined Beethoven. If you’re not offended by such creative license, however, Ludwig B. offers an interesting glimpse into Beethoven’s development as a composer, and Tezuka’s lifelong fascination with Beethoven.

planetesBest Reprint Edition: Planetes
By Makoto Yukimura • Dark Horse
Listen up, manga publishers: if you’re going to do a new edition of a fan favorite, Dark Horse’s two-volume omnibus of Planetes is a swell example of how to do it right. The story has a crisp new translation, full-color pages, and a bigger trim size that gives Makoto Yukimura’s artwork room to stretch out. Better still, the new edition collects more chapters in each volume, allowing newcomers to read far enough into Planetes for Yukimura’s episodic character studies to gel into a more coherent story about space travel and social inequality; by the time newbies reach the end of volume one, they’ll be hooked, too.

sakamotoBest Manga I Thought I’d Hate: Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto
By Nami Sano • Seven Seas
In theory, Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto is a one-note samba: the titular character is handsome, good at everything, and unfailingly logical in all situations. In practice, however, Haven’t You Heard? is the Goldberg Variations of gag manga, taking stock scenes and putting a bizarre twist on them. The secret? Sakamoto is just a little too perfect, behaving more like a well-programmed android than a flesh-and-blood person. His peculiar brand of sangfroid confounds enemies and admirers alike; no one can decide if he’s cool or crazy, or where his loyalties might lie, making it impossible to predict how he’ll respond to each new challenge.

jojo_phantom_blood1Worst Manga I Thought I’d Love: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 1: Phantom Blood
By Hirohito Araki • VIZ Media
At the risk of becoming the Armond White of manga critics, I’m nominating Hirohito Araki’s bone-crunching, chest-thumping saga for Most Exhausting New Series of 2015. That’s because Phantom Blood is a prime example of all-caps theater, the sort of manga in which every word balloon is filled with emphatic punctuation, and every plot twist seems like the brainchild of six teenage boys hopped up on Mountain Dew. In small doses, this more-is-more approach to storytelling can be amusing, but in longer installments, the cumulative effect of so much narrative excess is numb resignation; I didn’t feel entertained so much as punched in the face. (Reviewed at Manga Blog on 5/22/15.)

mizuki_hitlerMost Disappointing Manga: Shigeru Mizuki’s Hitler
By Shigeru Mizuki • Drawn & Quarterly
Shigeru Mizuki’s Hitler is one of the artist’s lesser works, uncomfortably see-sawing between character study and history lesson in its efforts to show us the man behind the Third Reich. Mizuki’s signature blend of cartoonish figures and photo-realistic backgrounds have been deployed to powerful effect in Non Non Ba and Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths. Here, however, Shigeru’s hybrid style is a poor match with the subject; seeing Hitler reduced to a crude caricature makes it all too easy to view the book as a curiosity, rather than a serious meditation on evil. The virtual absence of the Holocaust is an even greater shortcoming; Shigeru Mizuki’s Hitler never grapples with the Fuhrer’s most disturbing legacy save for one blurry image of stacked corpses. Perhaps Mizuki felt the subject was too complex to explore in this biography, but it’s hard to imagine any dramatization of the Fuhrer’s life that fails to examine his virulent anti-Semitism.

* * * * *

So what are other folks saying about 2015’s best titles? My Manga Bookshelf colleagues just posted their Pick of the Year, with Ash Brown posting a separate, more detailed run-down of his favorite titles at Experiments in Manga. At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, Brigid Alverson has posted separate lists for her favorite new and continuing series.

This article originally appeared at MangaBlog on December 30, 2015.

Filed Under: Classic Manga Critic, Manga, Manga Critic, Recommended Reading Tagged With: BEST MANGA, Dark Horse, DMP, Drawn & Quarterly, Osamu Tezuka, Seven Seas, VIZ, yen press

My Week in Manga: September 5-September 11, 2016

September 12, 2016 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week was a relatively quiet week at Experiments in Manga (granted, that’s true of most weeks these days), but the winner of to Tokyo Ghoul giveaway was announced. The post also includes a list of some of the manga available in English which feature half-humans of one type or another. Elsewhere online, there were plenty of interesting things posted: Massive and gay manga were featured at Edge Media Network, and it sounds like we should be seeing more of Jiraya’s work in English later this fall; Alice Nicolov wrote an article on queer representation in manga for Dazed and Confused Magazine; Nami Sato, the creator of Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto was interviewed for the first time in either English or Japanese; and Publishing Perspectives posted some of the highlights of a conversation with Allison Markin Powell and Hiromi Kawakami about Japanese literature translation. Also, the Kickstarter project for Power & Magic, a queer fantasy comics anthology about witches of color (which looks like it should be fantastic), was recently launched.

Quick Takes

Attack on Titan: Before the Fall, Volume 8Attack on Titan: Before the Fall, Volume 8 written by Ryo Suzukaze and illustrated by Satoshi Shiki. It’s been a while since I’ve read Suzukaze’s Before the Fall light novels so I may be misremembering, but the novel adaptation seems to include characters and storylines not found in the original. It also expands on some of worldbuilding and characterizations of the franchise as a whole, so readers interested in the most comprehensive Attack on Titan experience will want to read the manga even if they’ve already read Suzukaze’s novels. Sharle, while still managing to come across as a stereotypical maiden in distress at times, is a more well-rounded and independent character in the manga. Her brother plays a more prominent and slightly more sympathetic role as well although he’s still one of the main human antagonists (and an ass). The Titans actually don’t even make an appearance in this volume and are barely mentioned as the manga focuses on the conflict and intrigue among the military, political, and religious factions. Overall, it’s an exciting volume with some interesting twists. Unfortunately it suffers some from Shiki prioritizing cool-looking panels and scenes over continuity and logical plot developments. (I’m sorry, if someone is going to daringly scale a wall to sneak into a city, they really shouldn’t be attempting the maneuver above the few guards that are present unless there’s a good reason for it.)

Devil Survivor, Volume 6Devil Survivor, Volume 6 by Satoru Matsuba. I wasn’t especially enamored with the first volume of Devil Survivor and so haven’t really been following the manga very closely. However, the series had potential, and I’m glad to see that the sixth volume delivers on that promise. The Devil Survivor manga is based on a video game in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, one of many adaptations from the megaseries to have recently been translated in English. Probably my biggest criticism of the first volume of Devil Survivor was that it read too much like a video game and not enough like a manga. If the sixth volume is anything to judge by, the series has greatly improved in that regard. While the video game elements are still readily clear, the manga seems to be focusing more on plot and characters. I actually really like the underlying story and find some of the characters to be interesting as well. The artwork is serviceable, understandably keeping close to the designs of the video games, but the way Matsuda draws the more well-endowed women can be a bit awkward to say the least. Many of the demons invading Tokyo look pretty good, though. The sixth volume is a turning point in the story as the series enters its final arc. Important revelations are made, a major boss battle is fought, and already dangerous situations become even more dangerous as the characters prepare to do all that they can to survive and save Tokyo from destruction.

The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Manga and AnimeThe Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Manga and Anime by Toshio Ban. While I certainly understand why Stone Bridge Press chose to release the entirety of The Osamu Tezuka Story in a single volume, the book is huge, amounting to over nine hundred pages of material. Most of the volume consists of Ban’s manga, but it also includes an excellent introduction by the translator (and friend of Tezuka) Frederick L. Schodt and one of the most exhaustive lists of Tezuka’s work that I’ve seen in one place. I’ve read my fair share of works examining the life and career of Tezuka so I wasn’t especially surprised by anything in the manga, but The Osamu Tezuka Story provides one of the most comprehensive, engaging, and accessible biographies. The manga, which is largely chronological, is divided into three parts which delve into Tezuka’s childhood, his entry into manga, and the expansion of his career into anime. Commissioned following Tezuka’s death in 1989, the biography incorporates many of Tezuka’s own words taken from his essays and earlier interviews. Ban, who was one of Tezuka’s sub-chiefs in the manga department, adopts an illustration style very similar to that of Tezuka and excerpts from some of Tezuka’s manga and anime are also used. The Osamu Tezuka Story reveals just how remarkable and influential a creator Tezuka was and is highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of Japan’s manga and anime industries.

Our Little SisterOur Little Sister directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda. I’m not sure when (or if) Our Little Sister will receive a home video release, but I recently had the opportunity to see the film in a theater. Our Little Sister is actually a live-action adaptation of Umimachi Diary (the title more literally translates to “Seaside Town Diary”), an award-winning ongoing manga series by Akimi Yoshida who some will likely recognize as the creator of Banana Fish. I’ve seen one other film by Kore-eda (Like Father, Like Son) which is similar in both theme and tone to Our Little Sister. Both films, despite intense interpersonal drama, are fairly quiet and gentle without becoming saccharine and focus on the complexities of familial relationships. In the case of Our Little Sister, the story primarily follows three sisters whose father left their mother for another woman more than fifteen years ago and whose mother largely left them behind to be raised by their grandmother. After their father dies they meet their half-sister, the daughter of his second wife (out of three), for the first time while at the funeral. For a variety of reasons, they invite her to live with them. While this does cause some raised eyebrows and strain in the family, both immediate and extended, the decision is ultimately a healing one as all four sisters grow closer as they pull together their fragmented lives. Our Little Sister is simply a lovely film. (And I’d certainly be interested in reading the original manga, too!)

Filed Under: FEATURES, My Week in Manga Tagged With: attack on titan, Devil Survivor, film, manga, Osamu Tezuka, Ryo Suzukaze, Satoshi Shiki, Shin Megami Tensei, Toshio Ban

The Manga Revue: Brave Dan and FukuFuku: Kitten Tales

March 5, 2016 by Katherine Dacey

Do you own a cat tea cosy? Is there an enormous feline jungle gym in your living room? Have you lost entire afternoons to watching YouTube videos of cats opening doors, playing pianos, and riding Roombas? If you answered “yes” to at least one of the following questions, this week’s column is for you, as I’ll be reviewing two cat-centric comics: Osamu Tezuka’s Brave Dan–a boy-and-his-tiger story–and Kanata Konami’s FukuFuku: Kitten Tales–a manga about cats doing normal cat things.

brave_danBrave Dan
By Osamu Tezuka
Rated Teen, for readers 13 and up
Digital Manga Publishers, Inc., $15.95

Brave Dan begins as a rollicking adventure: Kotan, an orphaned Ainu boy, befriends Dan, a “man-eating” tiger, and embarks on a quest with him to find a valuable treasure. The pair dodges bullets, escapes from a helicopter, and tangles with guardian spirits in their search for the tomb of an ancient Ainu warrior. As the story enters its final act, however, a darker subplot emerges, one in which Dan is forced to confront the wisdom of associating with humans.

Though Tezuka makes frequent reference to Kotan’s Ainu heritage, this plot strand is more window dressing than serious thematic element; Kamuiroji’s tomb looks more like a set from a Flash Gordon or Tarzan serial than an authentic expression of Ainu culture. (Granted, it’s a pretty nifty tomb; Indiana Jones would have had a field day exploring it.) Tezuka is on firmer ground when staging a chase or a fight. In one memorable scene, for example, Dan plunges into a lake to save Kotan from an enormous spider-demon. Tezuka captures the fluidity and speed of Dan’s attacks with a few carefully chosen “snapshots” of him tumbling and twisting in the water, struggling to crush the monster with his paws. Small details–such as the trail of bubbles from each of Dan’s legs–remind us that in this underwater setting, Dan has a fleeting window of opportunity to save his friend. By the time that he and Kotan burst to the lake’s surface, we’re gasping for air, too–a testament to Tezuka’s ability to transport the reader to the scene of the action.

Tezuka’s artwork also plays an important role in garnering sympathy for Dan, establishing the tiger’s bravery, intelligence, and unwavering loyalty to Kotan. Though Tezuka can’t resist some ham-fisted touches–Dan actually shakes his paw at the sky in one scene–Dan’s essential tigerness is never compromised. The emphasis on Dan’s animal nature reminds us that his friendship with Kotan can only exist apart from human society; kind and smart as Dan may be, adults perceive him as a threat, to be killed or contained in a zoo.

The bottom line: If you still bear scars from reading The Yearling and Old Yeller, be warned: Dan is as doomed as those other noble animal protagonists. Less sensitive souls, however, can enjoy Brave Dan as both a gonzo adventure story and a meditation on the perils of interspecies friendships. Recommended for readers ten and up.

Fuku Fuku Kitten TalesFukuFuku: Kitten Tales, Vol. 1
By Kanata Konami
All Ages
Vertical Comics, $10.95

FukuFuku: Kitten Tales is perfectly calibrated to elicit an “awwww” and a chuckle on every page. The title character–a spunky calico–does predictably cute things: she falls asleep in odd places, escapes from a sudsy bath, plays with her food, and snatches a fish from the table. Unlike Chi, star of Konami’s other hit manga, FukuFuku doesn’t voice her thoughts about her new owner, or the strangeness of her new surroundings; she simply does what she pleases. Konami’s minimalist artwork captures the nuances of FukuFuku’s moods surprisingly well, however, as Konami bends and stretches the kitten’s moon-shaped face into an astonishing range of smiles, scowls, and grimaces. Absent a plot or a deeper sense of how FukuFuku sees her world, the story hits fewer emotional notes than Chi’s Sweet Home, focusing almost exclusively on the kind of ordinary cat behavior that’s been documented copiously on YouTube. You may find that the vignettes–charming as they are–have a sameness about them that prevents them from being genuinely funny or surprising.

The bottom line: As with Chi’s Sweet Home, Konami demonstrates a talent for drawing winsome kitties doing winsome things. She’s also cornered the market on disdainful feline reaction shots.

Reviews: ANN columnist Rebecca Silverman posts an early review of Inio Asano’s critically lauded drama Goodnight Pun-Pun, while Seth Hahne, host of Good OK Bad, tackles another Asano work: A Girl on the Shore.

Mark Pelligrini on vol. 3 of AKIRA (AiPT!)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 7 of Blood Lad (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Adrienne on vol. 1 of Bloody Mary (Heart of Manga)
Sean Gaffney on The Boy and the Beast (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Julie on The Cinderella Solution (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Julie on Crowns and a Cradle (Manga Maniac Cafe)
ebooksgirl on vol. 1 of FukuFuku: Kitten Tales (Geek Lit Etc.)
Karen Maeda on vol. 1 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 2: Battle Tendency (Sequential Tart)
Wolfen Moondaughter on vol. 23 of Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (Sequential Tart)
Nick Creamer on vol. 3 of My Hero Academia (Anime News Network)
David Brooke on vol. 5 of One-Punch Man (AiPT!)
Ash Brown on vol. 1 of Persona 4 (Experiments in Manga)
Jordan Richards on vol. 1 of Pokemon Adventures (AiPT!)
Sheena McNeil on vol. 2 of QQ Sweeper (Sequential Tart)
Wolfen Moondaughter on vol. 1 of Gakyuu Hotei: School Judgment (Sequential Tart)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 3 of Umineko When They Cry Episode 5: End of the Golden Witch (Anime News Network)
Austin Lanari on issue no. 13 of Weekly Shonen Jump (Comic Bastards)

Filed Under: MANGABLOG, REVIEWS Tagged With: Brave Dan, Classic Manga, DMP, FukuFuku, Kanata Konami, Manga Review, Osamu Tezuka, Vertical Comics

The Best and Worst Manga of 2015

December 30, 2015 by Katherine Dacey

After a two-year hiatus from blogging, I donned my critic’s cap again in 2015. I’ve enjoyed writing my quasi-weekly column, but composing a year-end list reminded me why I stepped off the reviewing treadmill in 2012: mediocre books! This year yielded a veritable bumper crop of so-so manga, titles that were competently executed but otherwise unmemorable thanks to an abundance of generic characters, cliché settings, and predictable plot twists; you’d be forgiven for feeling that you’d read many of 2015’s debuts before, even if the artists were new to the US market.

Lurking among the paint-by-number romances and boy-saves-world titles, however, were a few gems. I’ve done my best to highlight the titles that made me feel something, whether that feeling was love, hate, or a mixture of both. To that end, I’ve included my nominees for the worst manga of 2015 alongside the books that made me laugh and cry.

Yowamushi-Pedal-Volume-1Best New Series: Yowamushi Pedal
By Wataru Watanabe • Yen Press
You know the rap on sports manga: American readers won’t buy it, and don’t like it. Yowamushi Pedal might just change that, however, thanks to a story that plays well across the nerd-jock divide. Onoda, the hero, is a self-professed otaku whose weekly bike rides into Akihabara have transformed him into a secret Lance Armstrong clone. Though Onoda wants to revive his school’s anime club, his amazing hill-climbing skills and stamina get noticed by more seasoned riders, all of whom convince Onoda to join the cycling team. The series’ races are nail-biting, page-turning affairs, but it’s the in-between stuff that makes Yowamushi Pedal work. Onoda doesn’t just discover a new skill; he discovers a community of people who share his passion for riding and respect his talent. In short, Yowamushi Pedal is a coming-of-age story in which a bike becomes the nerdy hero’s vehicle—pun intended—for self-actualization.

One-Punch ManBest New Shonen Series: One-Punch Man
By ONE and Yusuke Murata • VIZ Media
One-Punch Man is the ultimate have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too manga. On the surface, it’s an affectionate spoof of shonen clichés that pokes fun at goofy costumes, over-the-top training sessions, and speech-prone villains. On a deeper level, however, One-Punch Man is a great adventure series about an ordinary but strong-willed individual who sets out to rid his city of monsters, only to discover that there’s a much greater threat to mankind than the lobster-men and were-lions that roam the streets. The result is a sincere, gut-bustingly funny manga that reads like a Silver Age superhero comic, splats and all. (Reviewed at Manga Blog on 6/12/15.)

Horimiya_cover1Best New Romance Manga: Horimiya
By Hero and Daisuke Hagiwara • Yen Press
Horimiya is one of 2015’s most pleasant surprises, a teen rom-com that avoids cliché situations by focusing on the characters’ lives outside school. At first glance, its lead characters look like opposites: Kyouko is the class queen, while Izumi is a quiet loner. When they bump into each other off campus, however, they quickly realize they have more in common than their carefully constructed identities would suggest–a realization that leads to friendship and flirtation. In less imaginative hands, Kyouko and Izumi’s budding romance would be subjected to endless tests–school plays, beach trips, hot transfer students–but the authors resist the urge to trot out these over-used scenarios, relying instead on more ordinary settings for comedic (and dramatic) grist. It’s the perfect antidote to the wacky misunderstandings that drive the plots of Cactus’ Secret, Special A, and a dozen similar titles.

Cat_DiaryBest New Gag Manga: Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu
By Junji Ito • Kodansha Comics
Draw a Venn diagram that shows the overlap between Junji Ito fans and cat lovers, and you’ve found the small but perfect audience for Junji Ito’s Cat Diary, a collection of anecdotes about Ito’s beloved pets Yon and Mu. Though the manga’s jokes explore familiar terrain, Ito’s exaggerated reaction shots are priceless, capturing the mixture of love and disgust that cats inspire in their owners. (Imagine Edvard Munch drawing a gag manga about cats, and you get the general idea.) Ito is refreshingly honest about the way animals change the dynamic between people, too; in some of the manga’s most memorable scenes, Ito and his fiancée compete fiercely for their cats’ affection, plying Yon and Mu with toys, treats, and cuddles. Though the prevailing tone is campy, Ito’s obvious affection for his cats helps prevents the Diary from becoming too arch. (Reviewed at Manga Blog on 12/12/15.)

ludwig_kansiBest Historic Title: Ludwig B.
By Osamu Tezuka • DMP, Inc.
Left unfinished at the time of Osamu Tezuka’s death, Ludwig B. is a fictionalized biography of Beethoven. Tezuka only completed two volumes, but oh, those two volumes! Tezuka draws evocative scenes of Beethoven at the keyboard, using striking visual metaphors to convey the sound of Beethoven’s music. Tezuka also does a good job of capturing the dynamic between Beethoven and his father, revealing the extent to which Johann’s drinking, gambling, and stage-parenting cast a long shadow over Beethoven’s adult life. Purists should note that Tezuka takes frequent liberties with the historical record, creating a mustache-twirling villain named Franz Kreuzstein to serve as a foil for the young, determined Beethoven. If you’re not offended by such creative license, however, Ludwig B. offers an interesting glimpse into Beethoven’s development as a composer, and Tezuka’s lifelong fascination with Beethoven.

planetesBest Reprint Edition: Planetes
By Makoto Yukimura • Dark Horse
Listen up, manga publishers: if you’re going to do a new edition of a fan favorite, Dark Horse’s two-volume omnibus of Planetes is a swell example of how to do it right. The story has a crisp new translation, full-color pages, and a bigger trim size that gives Makoto Yukimura’s artwork room to stretch out. Better still, the new edition collects more chapters in each volume, allowing newcomers to read far enough into Planetes for Yukimura’s episodic character studies to gel into a more coherent story about space travel and social inequality; by the time newbies reach the end of volume one, they’ll be hooked, too.

sakamotoBest Manga I Thought I’d Hate: Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto
By Nami Sano • Seven Seas
In theory, Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto is a one-note samba: the titular character is handsome, good at everything, and unfailingly logical in all situations. In practice, however, Haven’t You Heard? is the Goldberg Variations of gag manga, taking stock scenes and putting a bizarre twist on them. The secret? Sakamoto is just a little too perfect, behaving more like a well-programmed android than a flesh-and-blood person. His peculiar brand of sangfroid confounds enemies and admirers alike; no one can decide if he’s cool or crazy, or where his loyalties might lie, making it impossible to predict how he’ll respond to each new challenge. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 8/7/15.)

jojo_phantom_blood1Worst Manga I Thought I’d Love: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 1: Phantom Blood
By Hirohito Araki • VIZ Media
At the risk of becoming the Armond White of manga critics, I’m nominating Hirohito Araki’s bone-crunching, chest-thumping saga for Most Exhausting New Series of 2015. That’s because Phantom Blood is a prime example of all-caps theater, the sort of manga in which every word balloon is filled with emphatic punctuation, and every plot twist seems like the brainchild of six teenage boys hopped up on Mountain Dew. In small doses, this more-is-more approach to storytelling can be amusing, but in longer installments, the cumulative effect of so much narrative excess is numb resignation; I didn’t feel entertained so much as punched in the face. (Reviewed at Manga Blog on 5/22/15.)

mizuki_hitlerMost Disappointing Manga: Shigeru Mizuki’s Hitler
By Shigeru Mizuki • Drawn & Quarterly
Shigeru Mizuki’s Hitler is one of the artist’s lesser works, uncomfortably see-sawing between character study and history lesson in its efforts to show us the man behind the Third Reich. Mizuki’s signature blend of cartoonish figures and photo-realistic backgrounds have been deployed to powerful effect in Non Non Ba and Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths. Here, however, Shigeru’s hybrid style is a poor match with the subject; seeing Hitler reduced to a crude caricature makes it all too easy to view the book as a curiosity, rather than a serious meditation on evil. The virtual absence of the Holocaust is an even greater shortcoming; Shigeru Mizuki’s Hitler never grapples with the Fuhrer’s most disturbing legacy save for one blurry image of stacked corpses. Perhaps Mizuki felt the subject was too complex to explore in this biography, but it’s hard to imagine any dramatization of the Fuhrer’s life that fails to examine his virulent anti-Semitism.

* * * * *

So what are other folks saying about 2015’s best titles? My Manga Bookshelf colleagues just posted their Pick of the Year, with Ash Brown posting a separate, more detailed run-down of his favorite titles at Experiments in Manga. At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, Brigid Alverson has posted separate lists for her favorite new and continuing series.

Filed Under: MANGABLOG, REVIEWS Tagged With: Best Manga of 2015, Dark Horse, DMP, Drawn & Quarterly, Junji Ito, Kodansha Comics, Osamu Tezuka, Seven Seas, Shigeru Mizuki, viz media, yen press

My Week in Manga: December 7-December 13, 2015

December 14, 2015 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Okay! Last week I submitted my promotion dossier at work, which means I’ll be able to start paying more attention to Experiments in Manga again. I still have a few other life things preoccupying me at the moment, but I’m hoping to get back to my normal posting schedule by the beginning of the new year if not before. That being said, I only posted one in-depth review last week. Soji Shimada’s classic mystery novel The Tokyo Zodiac Murders was recently re-released in English, which seemed as good an excuse as any to get around to reading it. According to this interview with Shimada, if The Tokyo Zodiac Murders does well, the next book in the series might be translated, too, which I would definitely like to read.

As for other interesting things found online: Seven Seas’ ten-day licensing spree has now wrapped up. (The new license tag on Seven Seas’ tumblr is probably still the easiest place to see them all at once.) Out of all the announced titles the one I’m most curious about is Ichiya Sazanami’s Magia the Ninth which features master composers as demon hunters with music-based magic. (Sazanami is the creator of Black Bard which I likewise couldn’t resist because of the combination of music and magic.) And in case you need to catch up on all of the anime, manga, and light novel licenses announced in 2015, Reverse Thieves has you covered. Also of note, Manga Brog has translated an excerpt of an interesting interview of Kentaro Miura, the creator of Berserk.

Quick Takes

Captain Ken, Volume 1Captain Ken, Volumes 1-2 by Osamu Tezuka. I think that I’ve mentioned here before that I happen to have a particular fascination with Mars, which was one of the primary reasons that I was interested in reading Captain Ken. Of course, it didn’t hurt that series was also created by Tezuka. (Though granted, I would love to see more classic manga that isn’t by Tezuka released in English.) Captain Ken is basically a western in space—Mars has been deliberately developed to be reminiscent of the American Southwest, the primary mode of transportation is by (robotic) horse, and the Martians have met with the same tragic fate as the Native Americans. The series is an odd mashup of science fiction and western genre tropes and American history, including references to World War II and the dropping of the atomic bomb. (The portrayal of Americans, perhaps justifiably, isn’t especially flattering.) Captain Ken explores the same themes of anti-war and anti-discrimination found in many of Tezuka’s other manga. Overall, it’s an entertaining adventure story with a rather bittersweet ending.

Cross Game, Omnibus 6Cross Game, Omnibuses 6-8 (equivalent to Volumes 12-17) by Mitsuru Adachi. I still don’t have much of an interest in baseball when it comes to real life, but I’m completely invested in the sport when it comes to Cross Game. I’ve come to care tremendously about the characters in the series and, because baseball is incredibly important to so many of them, by proxy the baseball is important to me as well. Cross Game‘s last three omnibuses focus on the final year of high school baseball for Ko and his classmates. In fact, the eighth omnibus is almost entirely devoted to a single game—the last opportunity for the Seishu team to make Wakaba’s dream of seeing them play at summer Koshien a reality. They’ve worked hard as a team and have several players who are individually impressive as well, but that never guarantees a win. I’ve watched the Cross Game anime series, which turns out to have been a very faithful adaptation, so I knew how things would end. Even so, the manga is incredibly engaging and has a ton of heart. I never expected to be so taken with a baseball manga, but Cross Game is excellent.

U Don't Know MeU Don’t Know Me by Rakun. After a somewhat dubious beginning, I ended up really enjoying U Don’t Know Me. Plot-wise there’s a lot packed into this one-volume boys’ love manhwa and the characterization is quite good as well. Seyun and Yoojin are childhood friends who have only recently come to realize that they share feelings for each other which are much more lustful in nature. While the manhwa is primarily about Seyun and Yoojin and the evolution of their friendship into a romance, their relationships with their friends and families are also extremely important to the story. Context is provided for their love for earch another and the implications of that love. My favorite part of U Don’t Know Me was actually the response of the boys’ parents upon discovering their sons’ intimate relationship. Initially they were shocked and upset, but they ultimately give their love and support and are very involved in ensuring the well-being of both young men. The realistic portrayal of this sort of positive acceptance seems to be something of a rarity in boys’ love, so it makes me particularly happy when I see it.

Filed Under: FEATURES, My Week in Manga Tagged With: Captain Ken, cross game, manga, manhwa, Mitsuru Adachi, Osamu Tezuka, Rakun

US Manga Market on the Rebound

July 21, 2015 by Katherine Dacey

Deb Aoki rounds up the major manga news from Anime Expo and San Diego Comic-Con, while Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid weigh in on the overall state of the comics industry. The good news: the manga market has rebounded from the late 2000s, when a glut of product and the collapse of Borders forced several publishers to shut down.

Over at Comic Book Resources, Brigid Alverson interviews Tokyopop founder Stu Levy about the company’s new business plan, which consists of three key components: “licensed Japanese manga, graphic novels based on brands, and new products based on Tokyopop’s existing global manga properties.”

Going to Otakon? Ed Chavez hinted that Vertical Comics may have three or four licensing announcements. In other Vertical news, all seventeen volumes of Black Jack are now available in ebook form.

Crunchyroll just launched five new manga series, including Scum’s Wish, The Morose Mononokean, and Princess Jellyfish.

DMP’s latest Kickstarter campaign successfully funded print editions of Osamu Tezuka’s Storm Fairy, Crime and Punishment, and Unico.

Tokyo Ghoul tops this week’s New York Times Manga Best Sellers, while Attack on Titan tops ICv2’s list of the Top 10 Manga Franchises of Spring 2015. Also making the ICv2 cut are long-time favorites Death Note and Naruto and relative newcomer Sword Art Online.

Are you a Dorohedoro fan? If so, keep your eyes peeled for the first issue of Marvel’s Ant-Man: The Last Days; Q Hayashida provided the cover art. (Issue ships on 8/15.)

Justin Stroman talks to several Digital Manga Guild localizers about their experiences–good and bad–working for DMP.

The folks at ALC Publishing have translated Rica Takashima’s article “Japan: Fertile Ground for the Cultivation of Yuri,” which originally appeared in the December 14th issue of Eureka.

News from Japan: Creator Masaya Hokazono (Inugami) just launched Osoroshi Ya (Dreadful Shop), a new website for manga horror enthusiasts. Natsuki Takaya is hard at work on a sequel to Fruits Basket. Beginning September 4th, a new chapter will be posted every week at the HanaLaLa website. The end is near–for Orange, Cross H, and Grendizer Giga, that is.

Reviews: At Kaleo, Henry Ma reviews the latest chapters of Bleach, and offers predictions for the next installment. Ash Brown posts short reviews of After I Win, Alice in the Country of Hearts: My Fanatic Rabbit, and Aquarion Evol.

Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Akuma no Riddle (Okazu)
Chris Beveridge on vol. 1 of The Complete Chi’s Sweet Home (The Fandom Post)
Rebecca Silverman on vols. 1-3 of Demon From Afar (ANN)
Anna N. on vol. 2 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part One: Phantom Blood (The Manga Report)
Helen on Kitchen Princess (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Megan R. on Kujibiki Unbalance (The Manga Test Drive)
Matthew Warner on The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (The Fandom Post)
Kristin on vol. 1 of Maid-Sama (Comic Attack)
Jon Parrish and Luke Thompson-Moritz on vol. 3 of Peepo Choo (Comic DNA)
Sean Gaffney on vols. 17-18 of Ranma 1/2 (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Matthew Warner on vol. 11 of Sankarea: Undying Love (The Fandom Post)
Jeff Alford on Trash Market (Run Spot Run)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 1 of Twin Star Exorcists (ANN)
Jocelyn Allen on Wagamama Chie-chan (Brain vs. Book)

Filed Under: MANGABLOG Tagged With: attack on titan, crunchyroll, dmg, DMP, fruits basket, Marvel, Osamu Tezuka, Stu Levy, Tokyopop, Vertical Comics

My Week in Manga: November 3-November 9, 2014

November 10, 2014 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week at Experiments in Manga the winner of the Sherlock Bones manga giveaway was announced. As usual, I took the opportunity to compile a list of manga as well, in this case a list of manga available in English that feature detectives or other crime solvers. I also posted two reviews last week. The first review was of No. 6, Volume 9, the final volume of Hinoki Kino’s No. 6 manga adaptation. I’m happy to report that the manga has a much less rushed and much more complete ending than the anime adaptation had. And for something completely different, I also reviewed Ivan Morris’ translation of The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon last week. It may have been written in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but it’s still an engaging and enjoyable work.

Interesting reading found elsewhere online included a look at some of the most completely collected manga series in Japan, many of which have been licensed in English in whole or in part. (I was happy to see some of my personal favorites, like Parasyte and Hikaru no Go on the list.) Brigid Alverson has a nice overview of the current state of the manga industry in North America for School Library Journal. And over at A Case for Suitable for Treatment, Sean Gaffney has a roundup of some of the recent manga licenses from various publishers. There are also two surveys that are going on right now. Viz has its Fall 2014 Anime and Manga Survey and Vertical has its first ever light novel survey. Last but not least, Khursten Santos of Otaku Champloo has an excellent writeup of the Manga Futures conference recently held in Australia.

Quick Takes

Black Jack, Volume 14Black Jack, Volumes 14-17 by Osamu Tezuka. It’s a shame that much of Black Jack has gone out of print. Fortunately, Vertical announced just last week that it will be publishing ebooks of all its Tezuka manga, so readers who missed Black Jack in print will at least be able to read it digitally. Even though Black Jack isn’t my favorite Tezuka manga, I enjoy the series immensely and Black Jack is one of my favorite Tezuka characters. He can be a bit of a bastard, but there’s usually a reason for it and it tends to mostly be a cover for his extraordinary compassion. He’s also amazingly skilled. Some of the stories in Black Jack are fairly improbable although still highly entertaining while others are actually quite realistic. (Tezuka’s medical training comes in very handy for Black Jack.) Plastic surgery, specifically surgeries that are intended to change or hide a person’s identity, are particularly prominent in these final volumes. It provides an interesting contrast to Black Jack himself who rarely denies who he is. The seventeenth volume in Vertical’s edition of Black Jack also includes a handy guide to the publication history of the individual chapters.

Black Rose Alice, Volume 2Black Rose Alice, Volume 2 by Setona Mizushiro. I absolutely loved the first volume of Black Rose Alice and I remained captivated by the second. It’s a strange, dark, and disconcerting series. Mizushiro’s vampires are completely different from any other type of vampire that I’ve come across in fiction. I do like that, but it’s also challenging since readers can’t rely on an already established mythos or assume what it actually means to be a vampire; Mizushiro has to explain it all. I’m not sure that I actually understand everything that is going on with the vampires yet, but I’m assuming that more will be revealed as the series progresses. One thing is certain, though: they are definitely very creepy. In exchange for the life of the young man with whom she is in love, Azusa has entered into an agreement with a nest of vampires. Out of the four vampires, she must choose one to procreate with after which they will both die. The relationship dynamics are bizarre, and honestly a little discomforting, but very compelling as the vampires vie for her affections. It’s not as simple as choosing one of the vampires; in order to fulfill her agreement, she will actually have to come to love them. I’m really looking forward to reading more of Black Rose Alice.

Same DifferenceSame Difference by Nozomu Hiiragi. Tsuburaya and Ozaki are the elite of the elite, and both adored by the women at the company where they work. (So much so that the ladies literally swoon in their presence.) However, Ozaki isn’t used to sharing the attention, and so decides to make Tsuburaya fall in love with him, unintentionally falling for Tsuburaya in the process. Out of the two of them, Ozaki is more muscular and crude while Tsuburaya is more elegant and refined. Despite arguably being the more masculine and aggressive of the pair, Ozaki is often the one being out-maneuvered by Tsuburaya in their seemingly antagonistic relationship. It’s not that Tsuburaya dislikes Ozaki–quite the opposite, actually–it’s just that he has a sadistic streak and enjoys making the other man squirm. Same Difference is definitely played for laughs more than romance. Apparently the manga is actually an ongoing series that’s currently up to three volumes in Japan, which I hadn’t realized while reading it. Unfortunately, only the first volume has been licensed in English at this point. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind reading more of the series. It doesn’t have the most subtle, nuanced, or realistic characters or story, but it’s amusingly ridiculous and doesn’t take itself seriously at all.

Filed Under: FEATURES, My Week in Manga Tagged With: black jack, Black Rose Alice, manga, Nozomu Hiiragi, Osamu Tezuka, Setona Mizushiro

Manga Giveaway: Triton of the Sea Giveaway Winner

October 1, 2014 by Ash Brown

Triton of the Sea, Volume 1And the winner of the Triton of the Sea manga giveaway is…Haley S.!

As the winner, Haley will be receiving a copy of the first omnibus in Osamu Tezuka’s series Triton of the Sea. About a year ago, I came to the realization that I had read quite a few manga that featured merfolk of one sort or another. And so for this giveaway, I was interested in learning about all of the mermaids and mermen that other people had come across while reading manga. I’ve complied a list below of manga that feature merfolk, but be sure to check out the giveaway comments for more details on some of them.

Some of the manga in English featuring merfolk:
Castle of Dreams by Masami Tsuda
Children of the Sea by Daisuke Igarashi
A Centaur’s Life by Kei Murayama
Berserk by Kentaro Miura
The Earl and the Fairy by Ayuko
Legendz written by Rin Hirai, illustrated Makoto Haruno
Mermaid Saga by Rumiko Takahashi
Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls by Okayado
Moon Child by Reiko Shimizu
One Piece by Eiichiro Oda
Pichi Pichi Pitch written by Michiko Yokote, illustrated by Pink Hanamori
Princess Mermaid by Junko Mizuno
Selfish Mr. Mermaid by Nabako Kamo
Triton of the Sea by Osamu Tezuka
Tropic of the Sea by Satoshi Kon

I was a little lenient with the definition of merfolk above (mostly because I wanted an excuse to include Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea) and I’m certain that it’s not a comprehensive list, either. But, it should be a good place to start if you’re looking for some mermen or mermaids in manga. Thank you to everyone who participated in this month’s giveaway; I hope to see you all again for the next one, too!

Filed Under: UNSHELVED Tagged With: manga, Osamu Tezuka, Triton of the Sea

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