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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

sunny

My Week in Manga: April 7-April 13, 2014

April 14, 2014 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

With all of the various review project that I recently have had going on, it’s been a while since there’s only been two posts at Experiments in Manga for any given week. (Not counting the My Week in Manga feature.) Last week I posted a review of Chōhei Kambayashi’s science fiction novel Yukikaze. Although interesting from the start, it did take me a few chapters to really get into the book, but ultimately I was very impressed with the depth of Kambayashi’s ideas. The sequel Good Luck, Yukikaze has also been translated and released in English. I’ll be making a point of reading it, as well. My other post last week was a part of the Discovering Manga feature which explores some of the ways that I learn about and learn more about manga and the manga industry. This time around I talked about the site Organization Anti-Social Geniuses which has some great manga-related content–not just reviews, but articles and interviews, too. If you’re not already familiar with OASG, it’s definitely worth checking out.

As for other things worth checking out online: Justin Stroman’s most recent guest post at Manga Bookshelf focuses on manga adapters and the history of manga adaptation. Vertical is hinting at a new license. (A huge volume of 1980s manga, possibly in hardcover? Yes, please.) Manjiorin of Manga Connection has started her Swan review project. I recently finished reading all of Swan that was published in English. I absolutely loved the series, so am looking forward to reading her reviews. A Bento Books newsletter is now available for those interested in staying on top of Bento Books and its releases. The Kodansha Comics tumblr weighs in on piracy from a publisher’s perspective. And finally, Ryan Holmberg takes a look at 1930s shoujo manga with his article Matsumoto Katsuji and the American Roots of Kawaii.

Quick Takes

Beast & FeastBeast & Feast by Norikazu Akira. After a somewhat dubious first chapter, Beast & Feast ends up being a rather cute and sweet boys’ love manga, although it does seem a little odd to describe it using those words. Considering the seriousness of the yakuza storyline and the violence (mostly implied rather than seen), the manga can actually be surprisingly lighthearted. This is mostly due to the characters. Despite their differences, and despite the fact that Hyodo is a yakuza and Kazuha is a police detective, the two of them ultimately make a great couple and they care about each other tremendously. There’s also a fair amount of explicit sex. Hyodo’s sexual appetite is insatiable, making Beast & Feast a very apt title for the manga. While I wasn’t blown away by Beast & Feast, it was solidly entertaining in addition to having attractive artwork. I enjoyed the manga and its characters. So much so that I plan on picking up Honey Darling, the only other manga by Akira currently available in English. (Actually, now that I think about it, she also collaborated on Clan of the Nakagamis.)

Bride of Deimos, Volume 1Bride of Deimos, Volumes 1-7 written by Etsuko Ikeda, illustrated by Yuho Ashibe. There is something about shoujo horror that I find irresistible; maybe it’s just that so much of it seems to have close ties to Gothic literature and Romanticism and emphasizes the emotional and psychological aspects of the story. Bride of Deimos is an interesting example of this type of shoujo horror. It’s from the 1970s and so it also has that fabulous classic shoujo style, too. Only seven of the seventeen volumes were ever released in English. However, the manga tends to be mostly episodic, so it’s not as though the story feels terribly incomplete. I do wish more had been translated though; I ended up really enjoying the series. The framing story for Bride of Deimos focuses on Minako, a young woman whom the androgynously beautiful devil Deimos is determined to make his bride. Many of the individual tales in some way involve love and generally end very badly for those involved. Bride of Deimos somewhat strangely incorporates both Japanese and Greek mythology as well other elements of traditional Western horror and the supernatural.

Panorama of HellPanorama of Hell by Hideshi Hino. And then there’s Panorama of Hell, a horror manga of a completely different sort from 1982. As can probably be determined from the cover alone, Panorama of Hell is extremely gruesome, bloody, violent, and visceral. Panorama of Hell is legitimately terrifying and frightening, and probably one of the best horror manga that I have read. But because it is so graphic and disturbing, and because the humor is so exceptionally dark, Panorama of Hell is definitely not something that I would recommend to just anyone. It takes a reader with a strong heart and stomach to really appreciate the manga. Panorama of Hell is the story of an unnamed painter who has an obsession with blood which he uses in the creation of his artwork. The manga explores his paintings before turning to his family, his past, and all of the abuse and insanity which has had a tremendous influence on him. Hino mixes surreal imagery with historic events in Panorama of Hell. The results are hellish, driving home just how terrible reality can be. Some of Panorama of Hell is actually based on Hino’s life, which in itself is terrifying.

Sunny, Volume 2Sunny, Volumes 2-3 by Taiyo Matsumoto. Sunny is another manga that draws inspiration from the creator’s life. Set in Japan in the 1970s, Sunny can be almost overwhelmingly melancholic. Although there are heartwarming moments there are just as many scenes that are absolutely heartbreaking. Sunny follows the lives of the children at the Star Kids Home. Some are orphans, some have been completely abandoned by their parents, and some have only been temporarily separated from their families. The story also follows the adults in their lives, both those who are positive influences on the children and those who have caused them harm. The people at Star Kids Home, the children and the adults, form an odd sort of family with all of the benefits and disadvantages that that entails. Out of all of the manga by Matsumoto that has so far been released in English, Sunny is the most realistic and therefore probably the most readily accessible for a casual reader. It lacks much of the surrealism present in his other works. Instead Sunny relies even more heavily on the complexities of the characters and their relationships with one another.

Filed Under: FEATURES, My Week in Manga Tagged With: Bride of Deimos, Etsuko Ikeda, Hideshi Hino, manga, Norikazu Akira, sunny, Taiyo Matsumoto, Yuho Ashibe

Sunny, Vol. 1

June 4, 2013 by Anna N

It makes me feel good that there are still new series coming out from Viz in the Viz Signature imprint. Sunny by Taiyo Matsumoto is also an addition to the trend of nicely packaged manga hardcovers. With a slightly larger trim size (the same as the other IKKI titles) and color pages before most chapters, this is a volume that will delight manga collectors looking for something nicer than the average paperback. I’ve only read Blue Spring by Matsumoto before, I really need to get around to reading Tekkon Kinkreet.

Sunny is written in one of my favorite fiction formats – a collection of interrelated short stores with shifting main characters that are all tied together. The Sunny of the title of the book refers to a broken down old Nissan Sunny car that sits in the back of a group home for abandoned children. The Sunny is a secret hideout, place to stash porn and other illicit materials, and a means of escape for a group of kids that doesn’t have much security or fun in their daily lives. The volume opens with a brief glimpse of foster home chaos, quickly inter cut with a scene showing the imagination of Haruo, who sits in the car imagining that he’s bleeding out in the desert like a tragic movie tough guy. Haruo’s reverie is abruptly interrupted by Junsuke, an overly hyper snotty-nosed kid who eagerly announces that there’s a new arrival in the house. The readers of Sunny and the new kid Sei both get an abrupt introduction to the children’s home as Sei goes through the house and sits in the Sunny with Haruo and Junsuke. When Sei says that his mom is going to pick him up before summer Haruo says, “No way you’re goin home. You got dumped.”

Sunny captures Haruo’s frustration and anger about his own situation, combined with his helplessness about being able to change anything. Junsuke struggles with his instinct to grab anything shiny, even stealing from his classmates at times. While Haruo is a central viewpoint character, Sunny fluidly moves among different points of view, showing Megumu’s concern for a dead cat and the real-world concerns of older kid Kenji. While there’s a lot of hopelessness in the lives of the kids who live at the home, they also stick up for each other and come together when one of them goes missing.

Matsumoto has a scratchy pen and ink style in his drawings, which incorporate cartoonish elements like circles for rosy cheeks. Washes of ink in varying intensity and hand-drawn textures instead of screentones give Sunny a hand-crafted feel that stands out among more corporate glossy manga. Matsumoto’s detailed backgrounds firmly establish the neighborhood the kids live in, as well as the run-down environment of their house. Overall, Sunny is exactly what I’d expect from the Viz Signature line – a nuanced work that is set apart from more commercial manga due to its artistic and literary value .

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: SigIKKI, sunny, viz media

Off the Shelf: Sunny, Lone Wolf & Cub

June 2, 2013 by MJ and Michelle Smith 5 Comments

MJ: Good morning, Michelle! It’s been a while since we met here, just the two of us. I miss it!

MICHELLE: Me, too! I really enjoy talking about manga with you.

MJ: So, with a whole slew of debut volumes to catch up on, we’ve decided to spend the next few columns on mutual reads only, so we can give these books the attention they deserve. Michelle, would you like to introduce our first selection for this week?

sunny1MICHELLE: Sure!

Sunny is the latest series by Taiyo Matsumoto (Tekkonkinkreet, GoGo Monster) to be released in North America. Serialized in Shogakukan’s IKKI magazine, Sunny is a slice-of-life story about kids living together in a group facility. Their circumstances vary—some might be orphans, but it seems that most have parents who are unable to care for them for some reason—but one thing they have in common is the use of an old, broken-down Nissan Sunny as a kind of playhouse.

Junsuke is a snotty-nosed kid with a penchant for shiny things. Haruo is a white-haired boy whose play-time daydreams always involve being a cool, grown-up version of himself. Sei is the new kid, taciturn and utterly opposed to thinking of the facility as his new home. Episodic chapters ensue, and somehow Matsumoto uses quick, short scenes in such a way that the pace feels frenetic and leisurely at the same time. Hyper, but with that “we’ve got a few hours ’til dinnertime” quality, if that makes sense.

MJ: Oh, what a wonderful way to describe the general feel of this book! The book’s structure and pacing seem so in tune with a child’s sense of time—that feeling of impatience on top of the endless landscape of imagination. These kids have more reasons than most to escape into their fantasy worlds, but they spend just as much time being shuffled along the familiar routines of childhood. Meals, school, sleep, play—their daily lives are similar to most young kids, but with an edge of anxiety most of us were privileged to do without. And it’s these points of anxiety that make Sunny feel moving and real, and not a nostalgia piece in the slightest.

Some anxious moments that stood out for me were things like teenaged Megumu’s instinct to head for the nearby bridge when one of the home’s children goes missing, because being left to die in the river is actually her own worst fear, and young Junsuke’s desperate bouts of kleptomania. I was also very moved by Haruo’s fitful attchement to visiting adult Makio, the one person to whom he’s willing to confess that he dreads seeing his own mother because seeing her only makes not seeing her that much harder.

Also, while the Sunny itself is certainly central to the story, somehow it’s the kids’ time spent out of the Sunny that shows us who they are even more than their stolen moments alone with their imaginations. That’s not what I would have expected, but Matusmoto is so deft at revealing his characters through their actions, everything they do feels significant.

MICHELLE: There were so many things here that I loved. I love that Matsumoto depicts what it is that the kids are imagining, particularly Sei’s fantasy ride back to the place he considers his true home. I love the ridiculous song Junsuke makes up. I love the way Matsumoto’s art—not pretty but still oh-so-charming—delivers some poignant moments, like a subtle establishing shot showing the home as a place of warmth to go to when it gets dark (both literally and figuratively). I love that he never actually says “and this little kid is Junsuke’s brother,” but simply shows it through their physical similarity and interaction. And I love the whole bit at the end where said little kid, Shosuke, is intent on informing everyone he meets that he found some four-leaf clovers when, in fact, this is actually a lie.

You know a manga is exceptional when even the presence of a dead kitty isn’t something that upsets me (because the kitty is treated with the utmost respect).

MJ: The scene with Megumu, Haruo, and the kitty reminded me immediately of one of my favorite scenes from one of the later volumes of xxxHolic, in which Doumeki confides to Kohane that he’d decided to help Watanuki after having witnessed him standing alone in the rain, cradling a dead animal and wondering if he’d be left the same way one day. Yet as moving as the xxxHolic scene is, and as strongly as it affected me at the time, with Matsumoto’s straightforward storytelling in place of CLAMP’s self-conscious drama, I found that the scene in Sunny moved me more.

MICHELLE: I must admit that though I own other works by Matsumoto, I haven’t read them yet. I’m thinking that will have to change, and pronto. Because when I finished this volume, what I felt most was “I want more.”

MJ: I own no other works by Matsumoto, but I will soon. I felt the same way.

MICHELLE: Luckily, Sunny isn’t a oneshot—it’s up to three volumes in Japan so far—so eventually there will be more.

Speaking of renowned creators whose work we’d not read before, want to introduce our next selection?

MJ: Sure!

lwc1Moving swiftly from contemporary to classic, our second read this week was the first omnibus volume of Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima’s Lone Wolf and Cub, just released by Dark Horse Comics. Though this series first ran in Futabasha’s Weekly Manga Action in the early 1970s, and Dark Horse has been publishing its English-language editions since 2000, these new omnibus editions offer new readers a chance to experience Lone Wolf and Cub, and in a larger, easier-to-read format than Dark Horse’s original small-trim editions. This is a series I’d spotted many times in book stores and comic shops over the years, but never picked up, at least in part because of the small size. Now I feel rather silly about it, of course, because I’ve clearly been depriving myself!

The book opens by introducing us to Ogami Itto, a master samurai now traveling as a ronin along with his toddler son, Daigoro, known collectively to most as “Lone Wolf and Cub.” The story’s structure is largely episodic, but though early chapters focus on tales of Itto’s fearlessness and skill (as well as his terrifying reputation across Edo-era Japan), we later discover that he took the “assassin’s road” as a last-ditch attempt to clear his family’s name after being wrongly ousted as the shogun’s executioner. In fact, one of the most oddly chilling scenes in this omnibus is one in which he leaves it to his infant son to decide whether he’ll join his mother in the afterlife or accompany his father on his blood-soaked journey, based on whether the son chooses to crawl towards a bouncy-ball or a knife.

The series is action-packed and very compelling, filled with creative swordplay and expressive artwork that carefully depicts both the beauty and brutality of the era, but its greatest draw for me as a reader is Itto himself, whose sense of honor in combination with his unforgiving career path presents us with a protagonist as complicated and problematic as the era itself.

In a modern series, I think a character like Itto would be written as a sort of “assassin with a heart of gold.” He’d be someone we could root for wholeheartedly even when he killed—a sort of Edo-era Mal Reynolds. But Koike and Kojima’s protagonist is no such thing. He’s reliable, trustworthy, and eminently honorable, but he always gets the job done, no matter who it is he’s been sent to kill; he could never be considered merciful, and only occasionally compassionate. He defends those he believes to be vulnerable or in the right, but only so long as it doesn’t interfere with his mission. And he’s utterly unapologetic at every turn, even when it comes to the plight of his son. I find him fascinating.

MICHELLE: That would’ve been a great introduction even without the Firefly reference!

I’ve never read Golgo 13, but I do have to wonder whether Itto might be a comparable hero to that famously inscrutable lead, in that he is consistently shown to be a major badass. This is a guy who’ll commit a robbery to get himself sent to prison to be nearer to his target, and once he discovers that said target is on death row, he kills a bunch of his fellow prisoners in order to pursue his goal. He’s not just deadly with a sword, he is a brilliant strategist, and not above using Daigoro in his plans. (And he’s also able to satisfy the ladies even when his life is in jeopardy.)

At first, I was intimidated by the sheer size of the omnibus (over 700 pages!), but found that Kojima-sensei’s artistic style boded well for quick reading. The panel layout is simple, but Kojima does especially well with establishing a sense of time and place, and I quite loved the establishing shots we get for each new location Itto finds himself. My only complaint about the art is that a lot of the clients and other characters look like. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to remember seeing anyone in particular before, but usually there are clues in the text that help to dispel confusion.

Daigoro is the most endearing aspect of the story, as one might expect, but his presence for all these gory scenes is kind of disturbing. There’s one panel in particular in which he and his father are watching an opponent slowly topple, and once the guy finally goes down, Diagoro smiles. It made me wonder how warped he is gonna be! Of course, with all this bushido business, probably he’ll just be some hardened warrior who greets the concept of death casually.

MJ: Heh, yes, there’s a chapter late in the volume that gives us the beginnings of a look at the man Diagoro might one day be, in which he fearlessly attacks much older characters with a look that one describes as, “eyes that see between life and death… the eyes of a swordsman able to place his heart in the nothingness of mu.” Later, Itto asks his son if he’s going to be able to reap what he’s sown, as Daigoro has thrown an entire household into deadly turmoil. Somehow, I imagine he’ll grow to be an even scarier adult than his father, assuming he lives that long.

I, too, was intimidated by the length of this omnibus when I started, but I was stunned to find myself suddenly at the end, it read so easily. And it’s definitely worth the time! Most of my favorite stories were at the end of the volume.

MICHELLE: Yeah, that part about Daigoro’s eyes was rather creepy. I can’t help but feel bad that he’s been shaped by witnessing all this slaughter, yet cannot deny the appeal of watching his dad dispatch his enemies with such skillful ease. I guess probably the mangaka wanted us to feel this way.

MJ: Yes, I’m sure that’s the case. One of the things that I think makes this manga so interesting, is that its sense of morality is so clearly of another time and place. Often, modern storytellers will insert their own sensibilities into a period piece, either viewing it with rosy nostalgia or, perhaps, horror. But Koike and Kojima leave it entirely up to us to figure out how we feel about an era in which the value of a person’s life was viewed so differently than it would be today—and the value of death, for that matter. It can be hard to swallow at times, but it’s never sugar-coated.

I’m really grateful for the opportunity to delve into this series at last! It’s certainly worthy of its classic status.

MICHELLE: Well said! And I, too, am glad we decided to check this one out. As much as I love Takehiko Inoue, I actually enjoyed this more than Inoue’s Vagabond, and will probably keep reading it!

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: lone wolf and cub, sunny

Pick of the Week: Sunny & Other Stories

May 20, 2013 by MJ, Anna N, Michelle Smith and Sean Gaffney 1 Comment

potw5-20MJ: With the slew of Yen Press titles on Sean’s list this week, along with new volumes of series like Limit and Sailor Moon, it’d normally be pretty tough for me to choose a single pick. Fortunately Viz comes to the rescue with a title I absolutely can’t refuse, and that would be Sunny, the latest from mangaka Taiyo Matsumoto, author of Tekkonkinkreet and Blue Spring. This is one of my most-anticipated manga of the year so far, and a no-brainer as my Pick of the Week. I really can’t wait to read it.

ANNA: I’ll have to go with Sunny as well. I’m most excited about reading that.

MICHELLE: I’m going to award my pick to the low-key sci-fi charmer, Saturn Apartments, which comes to a close this week in its seventh volume. I’m somewhat behind on this tale of future window-washers and how their occupation affords them glimpses of the different strata of society, but I’m really looking forward to seeing how it turns out in the end.

SEAN: I’ll go with Sailor Moon once again. Of all the manga, these last two volumes are the ones I’m least familiar and comfortable with, and I seem to recall liking them less than the rest last time around. I look forward to finding new things to love about them in this new edition, as well as another visit with my favorite Sailor Senshi—which is to say, all of them.

What looks good to you this week?

Filed Under: PICK OF THE WEEK Tagged With: sailor moon, saturn apartments, sunny

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