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Strobe Edge, Vol. 2

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Strobe Edge, Vol 2 by Io Sakisaka

I liked the first volume of Strobe Edge well enough, but I was hoping that the second volume would be a tiny bit more interesting, in order to justify my wanting to keep following the series. I wasn’t disappointed, as the second volume dropped the emphasis on the heroine Ninako’s naivety in favor of some standard shojo plot elements with an emphasis on the characters’ emotions and just enough of a twist to produce some unexpected moments.

Ninako is back at school after summer vacation, wondering how to deal with the fact that she confessed her feelings to laconic yet secretly super-nice heartthrob Ren on the last day of school. Ren turned her down nicely, mentioning his girlfriend. Ninako practices how to say hello to him and reflects that their first encounter will likely be as difficult for the rejector in addition to the rejectee. Unfortunately word of Ninako’s daring has spread and she is known throughout the school as “girl who confessed to Ren on the train platform.” Her friends try to comfort her, but Ninako finds a slightly unwelcome distraction in the person of Ando, a flighty womanizer who seems fascinated by her indifference to him and her continued love for Ren even after being rejected. The unlikely trio gets thrown together in doing some committee work for school, and while Ando might have a habit of trying to collect as many girls’ cell phone numbers as possible, he does exhibit some genuine friendship and sensitivity to Ninako when she’s placed in an awkward situation.

Strobe Edge isn’t the type of shojo manga that challenges conventions, but it is extremely well-executed. I couldn’t find anything to quibble with the artwork, and the pained expressions Ninako sometimes makes as she navigates the storm of teenage romance offsets some of the expected shojo prettiness. There were plenty of humorous elements too, as Ninako is initially embraced by a secret society at school that is comprised solely of girls that Ren has rejected. I continue to enjoy the fact that most of the characters are genuinely nice and sympathetic. A bonus story in this volume focuses on the way Ren and his girlfriend Mayuka began their relationship, and it was fun to see a different aspect of those characters told from Mayuka’s side. I wish more manga had side stories that served as a supplement to the main plot, as opposed to publishing unrelated short stories by the same author in the back of a volume just to fill it out. Strobe Edge is perfect comfort reading for anyone who wants to read a well-done shojo manga that keeps things on the light and fluffy side.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Box Set

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I’m just going to talk about the packaging and quality of this box set, because I think most people are familiar with the story and wonderful art found in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Nausicaä is a manga classic, and it totally deserves the deluxe treatment it gets in this collected edition. This is a two volume set that comes in cardboard box with a glossy cover. The set comes with a folded two-sided Nausicaä poster as well. The hardcover volumes are a mega-sized 10+ inches tall, ensuring the reader can appreciate the full details of Hayao Miyazaki’s art. The covers for each volume are matte, with an image of Nausicaä on the front and some grey and blue tinted abstract designs featuring the flora and fauna from Nausicaä’s world, giving the covers the look of an antique book. I pulled out my Viz Select Comics editions from way back in 1988 when Viz was releasing monthly comics with flipped art, and the reproduction size of the art was the same. I have always regretted not having a complete run of Nausicaä in the larger size. I filled in my collection of the later half of the series with a couple of the Perfect Collection volumes and I thought that the art suffered a little bit from being printed smaller.

The paper used for the box set is a good matte quality, and the ink used is a softer black which I think makes the backgrounds of the story seem even more dreamy and fairy-tale like. The translation here is the same Studio Proteus translation for the series that has been used in the past, but the lettering has been redone and looks much more smooth, compact, and easy to read. There are glossy color plates in front of each volume, which include character portraits as well as maps rendered in the lovely muted color palette I expect to see used for Nausicaä. I think that out of all the deluxe editions of manga that I’ve seen, this is by far the nicest.

I originally had this box set on my wishlist for the holidays, and then got wind of a coupon at Barnes and Noble and picked it up for $22.00, which I consider to be basically free. At slightly below $40 on Amazon currently, this is still an extremely good deal. If you have the money to spare to treat yourself to this set or can make some pointed hints to people who might be buying you presents, I think this is truly a great addition to any manga fan’s library.

07 Ghost, Vol. 1

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07 Ghost, Vol. 1 by Yuki Amemiya and Yukino Ichihara

I’m always a little curious about license rescues, and I hadn’t read 07 Ghost when it was released earlier by GoComi. I was even more interested when I saw that in Japan the series ran in Monthly Comic Zero Sum, the same magazine that features Saiyuki Reload and Loveless. In manga genre terms, I suppose that 07 Ghost is josei, although it would be a bit hard to tell from the trade dressing that Viz provided, as it isn’t released under any of the Viz sub-imprints and it is labeled as being for teen readers. 07 Ghost is one of those titles that I can see appealing to a wide variety of readers, as it features a nice combination of world-building, a solid protagonist, magical battle scenes, and perky nuns.

Teito Klein is an orphan going to school in an militarized area. Teito and his fellow students are trained in a form of magical combat called Zaiphon, which uses hand gestures to evoke energy. Teito’s acerbic nature and favored status by one of his instructors ensures that he’s just about the least popular student at the Barsburg Military Academy, but he does have a best friend named Mikage whose sunny disposition contrasts with Teito’s more brooding personality. Teito is An Orphan With A Forgotten Past, and when he starts getting flashbacks to memories from his previous life he begins to think that Barsburg isn’t the right place for him anymore. He confronts Aya, who he suddenly remembers as having killed his father. Aya says that Teito is a “slave from Raggs” and puts him in chains. Teito manages a daring escape and winds up in District 7, the City of God. District 7 is filled with handsome priests and pretty but interchangeable nuns. Teito starts to adjust to a different way of life.

There’s a ton of plot explored in this first volume, but overall I thought that the pacing and world building aspects of 07 Ghost were handled very well. Teito’s journey serves as a way to introduce the tricky geopolitical issues of his world, and the fantasy and action aspects of the manga are visually striking. In District 7, the religious order believes in seven ghosts that serve as guardians against evil. The guardians are depicted as hooded figures with dramatic scythes inscribed with runes. When the unconventional priests battle their spells are also depicted as sweeping scythes that cut across the panels of the manga. This results in some action scenes that are a bit more pretty than coherent, but it was still not to hard to follow what was going on. A large cast of characters are introduced but aside from Teito and Mikage the most prominent person from District 7 is Frau, the cynical priest who rescues Teito and sticks around to make sarcastic comments and protect him occasionally. There’s a bit of a Saiyuki vibe with Frau and Teito’s relationship, which makes sense given the source magazine for the manga.

When I finished 07 Ghost I wanted to see what would happen next with Teito’s story. While Teito’s amnesias-orphan status isn’t particularly novel, I enjoyed seeing the world he lives in and it was fun to read a fast-paced fantasy manga. I feel like many of the series I’ve been reading recently develop much more slowly, so 07 Ghost‘s storytelling pace was a nice contrast. The attractive art, fighting priests, and hints of a larger magic/spiritual system to explore all have me looking forward to the next volume. I can see why Viz chose to put out this series again. It has plenty of commercial appeal, but is still quirky enough to be genuinely intriguing.

Review copy provided by the publisher

The Future Is Japanese: Science Fiction Futures and Brand New Fantasies from and about Japan

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Editor: Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington
Publisher: Viz Media
ISBN: 9781421542232
Released: May 2012

I have been impatiently waiting for The Future Is Japanese: Science Fiction Futures and Brand New Fantasies from and about Japan, edited by Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington, ever since the anthology was first announced. I already adore Viz Media’s Japanese speculative fiction imprint Haikasoru and will buy and read anything it publishes. However, I was particularly excited about The Future Is Japanese because it is Haikasoru’s first original publication. (I also hope that it isn’t the last.) I was thrilled when the book was finally released in 2012. The anthology collects thirteen stories from creators both East and West (primarily Japanese and American). All but two of the stories were being published for the first time. Just looking at the table of contents I was very pleased with what I saw. Most of the contributors to The Future Is Japanese are already award-winners in their own rights; those whose works with which I wasn’t already familiar I at least recognized by name. As an added bonus, the book’s cover illustration is by Yuko Shimizu, one of my favorite artists. The Future Is Japanese had a lot going for it from the very start.

After a foreword by Masumi Washington and an introduction by Nick Mamatas, The Future Is Japanese begins strongly with Ken Liu’s short story “Mono no Aware,” a meditation on impermanence wrapped in a science fiction tale of humanity’s survival at the edge of space. The next two stories were probably my least favorite in the collection although there were moments in each that I enjoyed tremendously. “The Sound of Breaking Up” by Felicity Savage starts as one story and ends up being an entirely different one. This frustrated me because I was more interested in the first. David Mole’s mecha tale “Chitai Heiki Koronbīn” ends too abruptly for my taste and seemed like it should be the introduction to a longer work. (Granted, one that I would like to read.) These are followed by “The Indifference Engine” by Project Itoh which explores war, hatred, and prejudice. Originally published in 2007, the story confirmed the fact that I want to read everything written by Itoh. The next story was one of my personal favorites in the anthology, “The Sea of Trees” by Rachel Swirsky, a haunting tale about death, ghosts, and letting go. Toh EnJoe’s story “Endoastronomy,” which follows next, has a philosophical and intellectual bent to it, something I enjoy about and have come to expect from his work.

The next selection, “In Plain Sight” by Pat Cadigan deals with the complications caused by artificial and augmented realities. The Future Is Japanese continues with “Golden Bread” by Issui Ogawa. I happen to be fond of Ogawa’s longer works and was not disappointed with his short story. Next is Catherynne M. Valente’s contribution, “One Breath, One Stroke” which is about yokai that live close to the human world. Written in a delightful but fragmented style, the work creates more of a mood rather than a cohesive story. Ekaterina Sedia’s near future and slightly melancholic tale “Whale Meat” follows. Next in the anthology is a selection from the extremely prolific Hideyuki Kikuchi. I actually preferred “Mountain People, Ocean People” over many of the other works of his that I have read. Following next is “Goddess of Mercy” by Bruce Sterling, one of the longer stories in the collection it is about the pirates and darkness that settle on Tsushima island after Japan is destroyed. The Future Is Japanese concludes with “Autogenic Dreaming: Interview with the Columns of Clouds” by TOBI Hirotaka. Originally published in 2009, the story won a Seiun Award in 2010. A complex story featuring a digitization project that has unexpected consequences, “Autogenic Dreaming” particularly appealed to my information science background.

As with most short story collections, how much a reader will enjoy each individual work in The Future Is Japanese will depend on personal preferences. Although I wasn’t blown away by the anthology, personally I found The Future Is Japanese to be a very satisfying read. The short story can be a difficult form to master, but even the works that I found problematic had their strong points. The stories do all tend to be serious in tone, but the collection covers a nice range of speculative fiction from fantasy to science fiction to horror. The Future Is Japanese also has a good balance between Western and Japanese authors. Appropriately enough for the anthology’s theme, even the Western works show Japanese influence, whether stemming from the writers’ personal interests or from the creators having lived in or visited Japan. Overall, The Future Is Japanese is a solid anthology that was well worth the wait.

Genkaku Picasso, Volume 1

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Creator: Usamaru Furuya
U.S. publisher: Viz Media
ISBN: 9781421536750
Released: November 2010
Original release: 2009

After a seven year drought, Genkaku Picasso became the first in a (very small) flood of new titles by Usamaru Furuya to be translated into English. The first volume of Genkaku Picasso was released in Japan in 2009; the entire series was originally serialized in the manga magazine Jump SQ between 2008 and 2010. The English edition of Genkaku Picasso started publication in 2010. Once again, it was Viz Media that brought Furuya’s work to English-reading audiences, having previously published Short Cuts and excerpts from his debut manga, Palepoli. I’ve had Genkaku Picasso sitting on my shelf for quite some time, but it’s only now for the Usamaru Furuya Manga Moveable Feast that I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. Furuya is well known for his work in underground and alternative manga, but Genkaku Picasso is one of his more mainstream series.

Hikari Hamura, nicknamed Picasso by his classmates (much to his frustration), would much prefer that everyone would just leave him alone to his drawing. However, after a strange accident leaves him with the even stranger ability to visualize the contents of another person’s heart, Picasso must learn to use his artistic talents to help others or else he’ll rot away. Drawing what he sees, he can dive into the artwork and their subconscious. The problem is that the visions aren’t particularly straightforward. That and Picasso doesn’t really feel like reaching out to others and is much more comfortable keeping to himself. It’s not easy, and there tends to be quite a few misunderstandings, but Picasso doesn’t seem to have much of a choice. He might not want to, but he has to get to know his classmates better even if he does find them and the prospect terribly annoying.

One of the things that impresses me the most about Furuya’s work as whole is that he deliberately creates a particular aesthetic to fit an individual manga and story. In the case of Genkaku Picasso, Furuya primarily uses two different art styles. The first, representing reality, is a more mainstream, slightly stylized manga style which utilizes screentone and such. The other is based on the approach of pencil sketches and includes hand shading techniques and crosshatching. Used for Picasso’s artwork and the characters’ subconsciouses, it is also a reflection of Furuya’s own fine arts background. I find it interesting that the more realistic style is used to capture the unreal in Genkaku Picasso while the comic style is used to show the ordinary. Granted, even Picasso’s “ordinary” is slightly off-balance and surreal, which the artwork helps to show.

I wouldn’t exactly say that I was disappointed with the first volume of Genkaku Picasso, but I didn’t find it nearly as captivating or compelling as the other works of his that I have read. I really like the premise of the series, but after one volume I haven’t been convinced by the manga itself, yet. I feel like it wants to be deep and profound, but the first volume somehow comes across as superficial, even when Picasso is delving into the supposed darkness of other people’s hearts. The problems are resolved too quickly and easily. Still, there are plenty of elements in Genkaku Picasso that I enjoy. Although there hasn’t been much real development yet, I do like the characters. Picasso and his classmates Sugiura and Akane make an amusing trio (quartet if you count Chiaki). Genkaku Picasso also has a quirky sense of humor that shows up frequently. Picasso’s social awkwardness (mostly self-imposed) and bluntness is delightfully endearing. So while I may not have been overwhelmed by the first volume of Genkaku Picasso, it does intrigue me and I do want to continue on with the series.

Going Digital: Viz Media & Square Enix

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It’s the weekend of San Diego Comic Con, which for manga fans generally means a flurry of excitement over new license announcements (Sean has the lowdown over at his blog, if you haven’t been there already). The announcements that excited me most this weekend, however, were those to do with various publishers’ digital initiatives, including some pretty impressive-sounding details about Jmanga, a massive web-based project involving most of Japan’s major manga publishers, expected to launch in August.

The cry for browser-based manga portals (as opposed to device-specific mobile apps) has been loud and clear from much of the manga blogosphere, and nearly everyone can agree that providing legal digital manga on the platform most easily available to the largest number of people is the best chance publishers have of fighting against widespread piracy. Though it’ll be a while before we’ll see what Jmanga really has to offer, I thought I’d take the chance to check out a couple of newer web-based initiatives available now, from Japanese publisher Square Enix and American publisher Viz Media.

Square Enix Manga Store

One of Jmanga’s Japanese holdouts, of course, is Square Enix, who launched their own digital manga website back in December with mostly negative reviews from the manga blogging community, who felt that the prices were too high and the interface too cluttered and difficult to navigate. I’m a huge fan of many Square Enix manga, but with first volumes of older series going for $5.99 apiece, there wasn’t much impetus for checking out Square Enix’s manga store when it first launched. This week, however, a Comic-Con special offering a free volume of selected manga just for clicking “Like” on their Facebook page was enough to finally lure me in.

After doing my duty on Facebook, I clicked over to the main site to get my free manga, and encountered possibly the most maddening registration/login process I’ve dealt with in years. Though I’d apparently created an account back when they first launched (which I discovered when my chosen username was already in use), even after going through their process to recover my password, I then had to log in at least three times, on three different pages, before even getting to the page where I could actually pick out my free manga.

Once I’d chosen my volume, I then was told I had to download special software to view it, called “Keyring FLASH.” This is not a concept I’m particularly fond of, since it requires that the user always be on their own home computer in order to view the manga they’ve purchased. Even if someone has already paid for manga from Square Enix, if they are accessing the internet from a library/school/work/public computer or a shared computer where they don’t have administrator privileges, they will be unable to access what they’ve bought. The application isn’t exactly lightweight either, downloading as a 40 MB disc image for installation. By the time I’d finally managed to jump through Square Enix’s registration hoops, picked up my manga, and installed the software to view it, I was so tired of the whole thing, I decided to leave the reading for later. This was a mistake.

Picking up later, the most immediately troublesome thing about the Square Enix manga storefront, is that, from the front page, there’s no obvious way to log in to your account. In fact, it seems you have to click into the store first, not the most intuitive setup, at which point a “Log In” button finally appears. Clicking on the “Members” button on the front page, which might seem like the obvious choice, is a grave error, as it actually takes you back to the Square Enix main site, where a “Members” login button in the middle of the page leads only to confusion and chaos, as being a “Member” apparently has nothing at all to do with the manga store. Use only the “Log In” button above the navigation bar. Just trust me on this.

If you’ve managed to log in to the manga store, you’ll see a page with your “bookshelf” on it, and images of the series you’ve purchased volumes of. Clicking on the icon for the series will take you away from your bookshelf and onto the main page for that item in the store, so you must click on the icon for the volume number you want to read instead.

Once in the site’s manga viewer, there are two size choices for reading your manga. On my 1920 x 1080-resolution screen, those choices worked out to be either “way too small to read” or “twice as tall as my maximum browser window,” the latter with the option of using the mouse to pan up and down each page in order to read it all, which reverts back to the too-small size every time a page is turned, requiring a click on the toolbar to magnify the page each time. I would have taken a screen shot of this, just to display the basic layout, but an attempt to do so resulted in an angry popup informing me that a capture application had been “ditected,” [sic] turning the page blank. Even an attempt to screencap the error just generated another error, demonstrating the real purpose of the Keyring FLASH application as nothing more than clunky DRM.

In the end, I came away feeling blind, exhausted, technologically frustrated, and pretty sure that Square Enix believes I am a thief, none of which gave me much inspiration to continue on. I possibly wanted to die, definitely wanted to get that software off my computer, and ultimately did not read the free volume of manga I’d gone through so much to obtain. I doubt very much I’ll be using their manga store again, and I’m afraid I can’t recommend it.

Vizmanga.com

After my experience with Square Enix, the idea of trying to navigate yet another online manga portal was difficult to stomach, but Viz Manga’s new initiative, Vizmanga.com, was a bit too enticing to ignore. Working in sync with Viz’s mobile apps, Vizmanga.com offers the opportunity to buy volumes of digital manga via any one of its available portals, and then read those volumes using any of them, with the user’s purchased manga always available for download on any supported device.

I already had an account through Viz’s iPad app, so I was able to log in on the website (from the front page, natch) using that pre-existing account. From there, though, I immediately feared another Square Enix nightmare. Though my account name was definitely correct, and I’d logged in successfully, on the page where the manga I’d purchased previously on the iPad should have appeared, I simply received a message letting me know I hadn’t yet purchased any.

My heart sank. I grasped around for any kind of help, and at first all I could find was a “Feedback” button on the left-hand side. I sent off a quick message using that button, but since it appeared to be intended for general customer feedback kind rather than support, I didn’t expect (nor did I receive) a response. Then I clicked around to this page, linked from the storefront’s “Buy it once, read it anywhere” image. At the bottom of that page was an e-mail address for the app’s technical support, so I sent off an e-mail to that address as well. After doing that, I received a response very quickly from Viz’s VP of Digital Publishing, Brian Piech, directly addressing my problem (no automated help desk response here), confirming what I’d said already and asking for a few more details. And though it took the better part of a day to fix whatever was wrong with my account, I received frequent updates on the situation from Brian, who stayed on the case with Viz’s engineers until the issue was resolved. Similarly, an inquiry about a pricing error in Viz’s iPad app, sent to the same address, elicited an immediate response from Digital Marketing Director, Candice Uyloan, who apologized for the problem and e-mailed me back within an hour to let me know it had been fixed.

Though encountering technical difficulty with something newly launched is not particularly rare in the digital world, in my experience, swift, attentive tech support is, and I can’t possibly praise Viz’s digital team enough for the way they addressed my problems. My one complaint is that the app support e-mail address should be more clearly visible, ideally from any page on the site, but at least on the site’s front page.

Now, finally to the manga! Though Viz wasn’t giving away any manga, they’ve put everything on sale for 40% off until the end of the month, which gave me a great excuse to finally pick up the first double-sized edition of Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game, which I haven’t yet purchased in print, but has been loudly recommended by all of my favorite critics. After making the purchase on my iPad and calling up Cross Game from my “My Manga” page on Vizmanga.com (which I’ve only had to log into once, by the way, over the past three days), there was no special software to download, just a clean, easy-to-navigate viewer that loads quickly on the page. The fact that this viewer comes without any built-in accusations of piracy is definitely a bonus.

Though Viz’s default page size is larger than Square Enix’s, there is no tool built-in at all for enlarging the page, which is its only downside (See note at the end of the paragraph for correction on this). Both DMP’s eManga and Yen Press’ Yen Plus web viewers do a better job with viewing size than Square Enix or Viz. Fortunately, Viz’s standard size is fairly readable on my 1920 x 1080-resolution desktop monitor. My 1280 x 800-resolution laptop screen fares slightly less well, simply because the reader is taller than my maximum browser size, requiring me to scroll to see the full page, though of course this is at least consistent, page-to-page. Unlike Viz’s i0S apps, a two-page spread is the only reading option, which makes good sense on increasingly-dominant widescreen monitors, but may require horizontal scrolling on older CRTs or smaller netbooks. Edited to add: I’ve been informed by a commenter than if you hover over the top of the manga you will see an option to make the manga full-screen, and it appears to be true! I suggest that it might be a good idea to make this more obvious, since my curser never had occasion to hover there on its own, and this is not indicated anywhere on the page.

The best feature of all this, of course, is that my purchased manga is available for me to read on every digital device I own—my iPad, iPhone, and computer—allowing me to read it however I want. My device of choice will probably remain my iPad, which is more ideally suited to reading comics than either of my other devices, thanks to its size, screen resolution, touch screen, and rotating interface (see my earlier review for more details), but cross-platform availability is a boon for fans without iOS devices, and does remove some of the pinch from Viz’s regular pricing for those of us with multiple points of access. That said, I do hope that Viz might be able to see their way toward lowering those prices on a permanent basis, should the new web platform really take off.

All-in-all, Vizmanga.com appears to provide a well-supported, well-designed platform for digital manga, and an answer to many manga fans’ most earnest digital requests. Recommended.

All You Need Is Kill

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Author: Hiroshi Sakurazaka
Translator: Alexander O. Smith
U.S. publisher: Viz Media
ISBN: 9781421527611
Released: July 2009
Original release: 2004

I really don’t remember exactly when and where I first heard about Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s All You Need Is Kill but after I did it seemed to keep popping up everywhere I looked. It was even picked up by Warner Brothers to make into a live-action film. All You Need Is Kill was originally published in Japan as a light novel in 2004. The English edition, translated by Alexander O. Smith, was one of the very first books to be released by Viz Media’s Haikasoru imprint in 2009. I haven’ read much military science fiction but All You Need Is Kill certainly is that, complete with alien intelligence and battle suits. What particularly caught my interest in the novel was that the main character, Keiji Kiriya, dies during his first battle only to wake up in his bunk thirty hours before over and over again.

The battle on Kotoiushi Island would be pivotal in humanity’s war with the Mimics. If lost, the rest of Japan would follow, along with the technology that made it possible to fight against the constantly evolving invading force. Keiji is a Jacket jockey in the United Defense Force’s 301st Armored Infantry Division which was sent to reinforce the island. He doesn’t even make it through his first battle. Or his second. Or his third. Somehow stuck in a time-loop he is forced to live and die in the same battle again and again. The only thing he can do is learn to fight a little better and hope to survive a little longer each time. Rita Vrataski, member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, has killed more Mimics than any other person in the world. Known as the Full Metal Bitch, not that anyone would call her that to her face, she is formidable, efficient, and scary as hell on the battlefield. She is also one of the last hopes remaining to end the war and may be the only person who can help Keiji escape his fate.

Although All You Need Is Kill is primarily entertainment and not overly serious, Sakurazaka still works in some environmental, technological, and social commentary. At least for me, the story also had a convincing emotional impact. Repeatedly living through the horrors of war, your own death, and the death of your friends and those around you changes a person and Sakurazaka captures this quite well. I like Keiji a lot and was most interested in his story, told in the first person. The third quarter of the book, written in the third person, focuses on Rita and the background of the war with the Mimics. While interesting and certainly important, especially in understanding Rita and her history, I still looked forward to getting back to Keiji. Which is not to say that I didn’t like Rita, because I did. I liked most of the secondary characters as well; Keiji’s bunk-mate and veteran Yonabaru in particular amused me as much as he tended to annoy others in his platoon. I also appreciated the fact that not everyone was assumed to be straight (although pretty much all of them were.)

The translation Smith has done for All You Need Is Kill is great–it’s straightforward with a good flow that hits hard and fast. There is also a nice use of repeated phrases to emphasize the time-loop that Keiji’s stuck in. The original light novel was illustrated by Yoshitoshi ABe and it’s a pity that none of his art was included in the Haikasoru edition beyond the cover–I really would have liked to have seen more of his work. I enjoyed All You Need Is Kill even more than I was expecting to and was impressed by how much action and story Sakurazaka was able to fit into such a relatively short work (it comes in at just under 200 pages.) I’m really looking forward to picking up his only other work currently available in English, also released through Haikasoru, Slum Online.

Oh Viz, sweet Viz.

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When I first entered the world of manga, my opinion about Viz Media was largely influenced by what I was hearing from fans at the time in the corners of cyberspace I tended to frequent. Those fans viewed the company with disdain–as some sort of corporate behemoth with no respect for their needs and little reverence for the material they produced. Armed with this skewed perspective, though I recognized that Viz had the rights to a lot of really fantastic manga, I viewed their releases as cheap and utilitarian, and the company is a sort of necessary evil.

Looking back now, I have to laugh (and cringe) at my self-righteous “Damn The Man” outlook–as though a company Viz’s size could ever constitute “The Man.” Manga is a niche market in North America no matter how you look at it, and Viz’s relative success in that market is one of the few things that keeps it viable. “Cheap” volumes of popular, epic series can be more accurately described as affordable, and whatever missteps the company has made in terms of adaptation over the years are far outweighed …

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Viz Debuts Cactus’s Secret in March

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I admit I have a thing for cacti lately, thanks to SangEun Lee’s 13th Boy. Though there is no actual cactus in this manga, the title still caught my eye! See Viz’s press release below:

San Francisco, CA, FEBRUARY 9, 2009 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, will debut the fun shojo manga CACTUS’S SECRET on March 2nd. The new series, by Nana Haruta, will be published under the Shojo Beat imprint, is rated ‘T’ for Teens, and will carry an MSRP of $9.99 U.S. / $12.99 CAN.

Miku Yamada has a longtime crush on classmate Kyohei Fujioka. But no matter how many times she tries to show him how she feels, clueless Kyohei just doesn’t get it. Frustrated, Miku gives up on him, only to have him start calling her “Cactus” for being prickly when he’s around. …

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