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A First Look at YashaHime: Demon Half-Princess

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For a brief moment in the early 2000s, Rumiko Takashashi’s InuYasha was the shonen franchise in America. It was a constant presence on cable television, where it anchored Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim line-up, and a commercial success for VIZ Media, which issued and re-issued the series in formats ranging from flipped floppies to deluxe, three-in-volumes. By the time InuYasha finished its run in 2008, readers had moved on to other franchises, but InuYasha was an important series for the North American comics market, as it helped reveal an underserved population of teens who weren’t particularly interested in Batman or Captain America, but were interested in reading comics about characters their own age.

InuYasha also demonstrated that teen girls were just as enthusiastic about action, adventure, and horror comics as their male counterparts, especially if the series featured well-rounded female characters. To be sure, plenty of shonen manga included at least one Tough Female Character™, but InuYasha’s three female leads were defined less by their ass-kicking abilities and more by their agency and teenage insecurities. Equally important, Kagome, Sango, and Kikyo weren’t drawn for the male gaze; they were depicted as normal young women, making it easier for teen girls to identify with the characters’ struggles and triumphs.

It seems fitting, then, that the new InuYasha spin-off puts girls front and center. YashaHime: Princess Half-Demon is a “next generation” sequel that focuses on the original characters’ offspring—in this case, the teenage daughters of InuYasha and his big brother Sesshomaru. This time around, however, Sesshomaru’s twins Towa and Setsuna are the leads and InuYasha’s kid Moroha is the brash, impetuous foil to her sterner, more reticent cousins.

The good news is that YashaHime faithfully adheres to the spirit of the original series, with its characteristic mixture of romance, slapstick, horror, and action; anyone worried that the new series might try too hard to differentiate itself from InuYasha will be happy to see that the new show keeps the focus on demon-fighting, quests, and camaraderie. The bad news is that the first episode is so compressed that the new heroines barely make an impression on the viewer, as their introductions are overshadowed by clumsy bits of exposition, cameo appearances by the original series’ main characters, and a showdown between a demon and the old gang.

In an effort to create even more continuity between the original series and the sequel, the second episode reveals that Towa was raised by Kagome’s younger brother Sota in present-day Tokyo. Towa’s introductory scenes are so focused on explaining her backstory that her distinctive choice of clothing—a schoolboy’s uniform—initially seems like an afterthought: “better for fighting,” Towa tells us in a voice-over. That detail turns out to be an important clue about how Towa sees herself, as she complains that “girls must be feminine and boys must be masculine,” a distinction that Towa finds as restrictive as the clothes she’s expected to wear. Towa’s gender presentation is addressed in a ham-fisted way—her younger sister pleads with Towa to be more “girly” and “cute”—but the writers’ willingness to address Towa’s fierce rejection of gender binaries suggests that YashaHime may explore some interesting new thematic territory.

The only truly disappointing aspect of YashaHime is the animation, a flaw that’s most evident in YashaHime‘s stiffly executed fight scenes. The sharp contrast in the rendering of the characters and the backgrounds never persuasively creates the illusion of people jumping, flying, and running through three-dimensional space, a problem compounded by the unimaginative use of color. The flatness of the imagery is even more obvious when YashaHime and InuYasha are viewed side-by-side, as the original series employed a softer, more nuanced palette that gave the picture plane more depth and the characters’ bodies more weight. The one bright spot is YashaHime‘s character designs: Moroha, Towa, and Setsuna bear just enough resemblance to their parents to make it easy for the reader to see the father-daughter connection, even though each girl has her own unique look. That attention to detail extends beyond their physical appearance, too, influencing the way they move, talk, and twitch their noses when they catch wind of a demon.

If I sound a little ambivalent about YashaHime, I am: it shows considerable promise, but hasn’t quite escaped the long shadow of its parent series or found the right pacing for the kind of stories it wants to tell. I’m reserving final judgment until the relationships between Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha are more clearly delineated—after all, it was the complex web of feelings and friendships that made InuYasha compelling as much as its demon-of-the-week adventures. Here’s hoping the sequel will embrace that approach, too.

Episodes 1-2 of YashaHime: Princess Half-Demon are currently streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Hulu. New episodes air on Saturdays.

The Way of the Househusband, Vols. 2-3

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The Way of the Househusband has the rhythms of a good sitcom: it has a simple, well-defined premise, a few lead characters with strong personalities, and an episodic formula that’s flexible enough to create endless opportunities to tell the same joke in new and surprising ways. In the first volume, for example, almost every storyline revolved around Tatsu’s fanatical dedication to his role as stay-at-home spouse, whether he was bargain hunting at the grocery store or racing to the train station with his wife’s lunchbox. The mere sight of him in an apron, track suit, and aviator glasses was a good sight gag made better by Tatsu’s sheer cluelessness; he never seemed to realize that people were staring at him in the checkout line and the butcher’s shop.

Volumes two and three find Tatsu in equally incongruous situations. In chapter 10, for example, he joins the neighborhood housewives’ aerobics class, flashing his terrifying yakuza sneer every time the instructor commands her charges to “smile,” while in chapter 16, Tatsu demonstrates a hidden talent for spiking and setting when he joins the ladies’ volleyball team. One of the series’ best running jokes is the women’s casual acceptance of Tatsu. Though most civilians find him a terrifying oddity, the neighborhood ladies’ association looks at Tatsu as one of their own; they include him in activities, offer him tips on how to run his household more efficiently, and even help him impress a former boss with an impromptu display of culinary prowess.

Perhaps the most important development in volumes two and three, however, is the introduction of Tatsu’s old enemies, all of whom are genuinely bewildered by his retirement from the knee-capping business. These exchanges thrum with the comic energy of a Damon Runyon story as Tatsu schools his fellow yakuza tips on stain removal and dessert making. That Tatsu discusses his career change without apology or explanation is a nice touch, as it throws his opponents off their game and reinforces the idea that he likes being a stay-at-home husband.

My only concern about The Way of the Househusband is that Tatsu’s wife is more a collection of moods and preferences than a fully persuasive character. Miku is marked by extremes: she has an intense, child-like obsession with Poli-Cure, an anime whose core fanbase is about ten years old, but is also a fierce workaholic whose resists Tatsu’s efforts to pamper her with scented candles and scalp massages. Though the gags built around her personality usually land, it sometimes feels like they’d be funnier if we understood a little more about how Miku and Tatsu met, or what keeps them together. From time to time, author Kousuke Oono hints the two have more in common than meets the eye–Miku is handy with a knife and a bat, too–but a little more attention to her character would be welcome.

That said, The Way of the Househusband remains consistently funny three volumes into its run, offering a fresh take on that most timeless of sitcom premises: the fish out of water. Recommended.

VIZ Media provided a review copy of volume two.

THE WAY OF THE HOUSEHUSBAND, VOLS. 2-3 • STORY AND ART BY KOUSUKE OONO • TRANSLATION BY SHELDON DRZKA AND AMANDA HALEY, ADAPTATION BY JENNIFER LEBLANC • VIZ MEDIA, LLC • RATED T+, FOR OLDER TEENS (SUGGESTED VIOLENCE, YAKUZA JOKES)

Persona 5, Vol. 1

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If David Letterman was still compiling his nightly Top 10 lists, he’d have a field day with Persona 5, a veritable catalog of Things You Find In a Video Game Comic. There are lead characters who are thinly disguised reader surrogates, bumbling from one scenario to the next; characters whose primary function is to explain the rules of play; bad guys who telegraph their villainy so flamboyantly they make Dr. Evil look staid; and, of course, power-ups and flash-booms aplenty. Persona 5 is at its best when its teen hero squares off with volume one’s most fully realized villain, a vainglorious gym teacher who swans around in a cape and Speedo, and at its worst when it tries to address serious social issues: bullying, suicide.

In bridging the gap between console and page, artist Hisato Murasaki hews closely to the main storyline of the original game. The player/reader surrogate is Akira Kurusu, a Good Samaritan whose efforts to rescue a woman from a violent partner backfire spectacularly, forcing him to move out of his parents’ house and start over at a new high school. Within minutes of arriving at Shujin Academy, Akira meets Ryuji Sakamoto, a former track star with bleach blonde hair and a chip on his shoulder. (Yes, he’s the school “delinquent.”) An app on Akira’s phone whisks the two from the school campus to a dungeon where their classmates are imprisoned and tortured by Kamoshida, a former Olympic volleyball player who now coaches Shujin’s teams.

You don’t have to be a gamer to imagine what happens next: Akira and Sakamoto meet a character who helpfully explains what’s going on, providing them with just enough information to bust out of their cell and make a run for safety. The fact this character is a small, talking cat with a sardonic streak helps camouflage his expository function, but Morgana’s dialogue seldom rises above the level of info-dump or pointed observation; when he’s not explaining what a “persona” is or how the real world relates to the “castle” where Kamoshida reigns, Morgana is expressing amazement at Akira’s extraordinary powers. (In one particularly on-the-nose moment, Morgana even reminds Akira and Sakamoto that he “gave you a bunch of information earlier.”)

The combat is handled competently, though Murasaki leans heavily on sound effects and great clouds of smoke to suggest what’s happening; in almost every scene in which Akira channels his new-found power, we’re treated to several panels of “zwoooosh” and “fooooom” superimposed on dark patches of screen tone. Akira’s transformations from ordinary teen to Arsene, the “Pillager of Twilight,” are treated in a similar fashion, cutting between close-ups of Akira’s face and portentous statements superimposed over fiery backgrounds. The character designs, by contrast, are more crisply rendered; each character has an expressive face that clearly reveals his motivation and personality without shading into cartoonish exaggeration. Kamoshida, in particular, is a terrific creation, with a Brillo pad of hair, a broad, flat nose, and a hairless chest framed by a cape. Murasaki does a fine job of making his villain both ridiculous and menacing, framing his character’s malicious, gleaming eyes with a formidable browline, and capturing Kamoshida’s arrogance through his swaggering movements.

When Persona 5 addresses the harm that Kamoshida causes through his abuse of power, however, the storyline veers into Afterschool Special territory. A subplot involving a star volleyball player is a sincere, if clumsy, attempt to show how Kamoshida wields his authority to silence critics and compel students to do his bidding. When Shiho commits suicide, Akira and Sakamoto confront Kamoshida, proclaiming their outrage in bald statements, only to be out-maneuvered by the coach, who tries to pin Shiho’s death on them. And just in case we’re not convinced that Kamoshida is bad news, he helpfully tells himself out loud that “Ugh, this is gonna be such a pain to smooth over,” a comment that’s conveniently overheard by our protagonists. About the only thing missing from this episode is another adult stepping in with statistics about teacher-student bullying, or advice on what to do if your coach is harassing you.

The workmanlike quality of this passage is indicative of Persona 5‘s biggest problem: the story is an unimaginative addition to the teen vigilante genre. Gamers might find the manga moderately entertaining, but firing up the ole PlayStation for another round would be more enjoyable than slogging through this flat, colorless version. File under Not My Thing.

VIZ Media provided a review copy. To read a preview of volume one, click here.

PERSONA 5, VOL. 1 • ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY ATLUS • ART AND STORY BY HISATO MURASAKI • TRANSLATED BY ADRIENNE BECK • VIZ MEDIA • RATED T+ (OLDER TEEN) • 216 pp.

Junji Ito’s No Longer Human

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Of all the famous works of literature to get the Classics Illustrated treatment, Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human is an odd choice. Its protagonist is Oba Yozo, a tortured soul who never figures out how to be his authentic self in a society that places tremendous emphasis on hierarchy, self-restraint, and civility. Over the course of the novel, he binges, gambles, seduces a string of women, joins a Communist cell, attempts suicide, and succumbs to heroin addiction, all while donning the mask of “the farcical eccentric” to conceal his “melancholy” and “agitation” from the very people whose lives he ruins.

Though the novel is filled with incident, its unreliable narrator and relentless interiority make it difficult to effectively retell in a comic format, as Junji Ito’s adaptation demonstrates. Ito’s No Longer Human is largely faithful to the events of Dazai’s novel, but takes Dazai’s spare, haunting narrative and transforms it into a phantasmagoria of sex, drugs, and death. In his efforts to show us how Yozo feels, Ito leans so hard into nightmarish imagery that the true horror of Yozo’s story is overshadowed by Ito’s artwork—a mistake, I think, as Ito’s drawings are too literal to convey the nuance of what it means to exist, in Peter Selgin’s words, in a state of “complete dissociation… yet still capable of feeling.”

In Ito’s defense, it’s not hard to see what attracted him to Dazai’s text; Yozo’s narration is peppered with the kind of vivid analogies that, at first glance, seem ideally suited for a visual medium like comics. But a closer examination of the text reveals the extent to which these analogies are part of the narrator’s efforts to beguile the reader; Yozo is, in effect, trying to convince the reader that his mind is filled with such monstrous ideas that he cannot be expected to function like a normal person. There’s a tension between how Yozo describes his own reactions to the ordinary unpleasantness of interacting with other people, and how Yozo describes the impact of his behavior on other people—a point that Ito overlooks in choosing to flesh out some key events in the novel.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Yozo’s brief affair with Tsuneko, a destitute waitress. After hitting rock bottom financially and emotionally, Yozo persuades her to join him in a double suicide pact. Dazai’s summary of what happens is shocking in its brevity and matter-of-factness:

As I stood there hesitating, she got up and looked inside my wallet. ‘‘Is that all you have?” Her voice was innocent, but it cut me to the quick. It was painful as only the voice of the first woman I had ever loved could be painful. “Is that all?” No, even that suggested more money than I had — three copper coins don’t count as money at all. This was a humiliation more strange than any I had tasted before, a humiliation I could not live with. I suppose I had still not managed to extricate myself from the part of the rich man’s son. It was then I myself determined, this time as a reality, to kill myself.

We threw ourselves into the sea at Kamakura that night. She untied her sash, saying she had borrowed it from a friend at the cafe, and left it folded neatly on a rock. I removed my coat and put it in the same spot. We entered the water together.

She died. I was saved.

As Ito recounts this event, however, Tsuneko’s death is caused by a poison so painful to ingest that she collapses in a writhing heap, eyes bulging and tongue wagging as if she were in the throes of becoming a monster herself. Yozo’s reaction to the poison, by contrast, is to plunge into a hallucinatory state in which a parade of ghostly women mock and berate him, an artistic choice that suggests Yozo feels shame and guilt for his actions—and a reading of Dazai’s text that makes Yozo seem more deserving of sympathy than he does in Dazai’s novel:

Throughout this vignette, Yozo’s contempt for Tsuneko creeps into the narrative, even as he assures the reader that she was the first woman he truly loved. Yozo’s disdain is palpable, as is evident in the way he off-handedly introduces her to the reader:

I was waiting at a sushi stall back of the Ginza for Tsuneko (that, as I recall, was her name, but the memory is too blurred for me to be sure: I am the sort of person who can forget even the name of the woman with whom he attempted suicide) to get off from work.

Only a few episodes capture the spirit of Dazai’s original novel, as when Yozo’s father gives an inept speech to a gathering of businessmen and community leaders. Ito skillfully cross-cuts between three separate conversations, allowing us to step into Yozo’s shoes as he eavesdrops on the attendees, servants, and family members, all of whom speak disparagingly about each other, and the speech. By pulling back the curtain on these conversations, Ito helps the reader appreciate the class and power differences among these groups, as well as revealing that this episode was a turning point for Yozo: the moment when he first realized that adults maintain certain masks in public that they discard in private. Though such a moment would undoubtedly trouble a more observant child—one need only think of Holden Caulfield’s obsession with adult “phoniness”—this discovery plunges Yozo into a state of despair, as he cannot imagine how anyone reconciles their public and private selves in a truthful way.

Ito also wisely restores material from Dazai’s novel that other adaptors—most notably Usamaru Furuya—trimmed from their versions. In particular, Ito does an excellent job of exploring the dynamic between Yozo and his classmate Takeichi, the first person who sees through Yozo’s carefully orchestrated buffoonery:

Just when I had begun to relax my guard a bit, fairly confident that I had succeeded by now in concealing completely my true identity, I was stabbed in the back, quite unexpectedly. The assailant, like most people who stab in the back, bordered on being a simpleton — the puniest boy in the class, whose scrofulous face and floppy jacket with sleeves too long  for him was complemented by a total lack of proficiency in his studies and by such clumsiness in military drill and physical training that he was perpetually designated as an ‘‘onlooker.” Not surprisingly, I failed to recognize the need to be on my guard against him.

As one might guess from this passage, Yozo’s terror at being discovered is another critical juncture in the novel. “I felt as if I had seen the world before me burst in an instant into the raging flames of hell,” he reports, before embarking on a campaign to win Takeichi’s trust by “cloth[ing his] face in the gentle beguiling smile of the false Christian.” Though Ito can’t resist the temptation to draw an image of Yozo engulfed in hell fire, most of Yozo’s fear is conveyed in subtler ways: a wary glance at Takeichi, an extreme close-up of Yozo’s face, an awkwardly placed arm around Takeichi’s shoulder:

What happens next in Ito’s version of No Longer Human, however, is indicative of another problem with his adaptation: his decision to add new material. In Dazai’s novel, Takeichi simply disappears from the narrative when Yozo moves to Tokyo for college, but in Ito’s version, Yozo cruelly manipulates Takeichi into thinking that Yozo’s cousin Setchan is in love with him—a manipulation that ultimately leads to Takeichi’s humiliation and suicide. That violent death is followed by a gruesome murder, this time prompted by a love triangle involving Yozo, his “auntie,” and Setchan, who becomes pregnant with Yozo’s child. Neither of these episodes deepen our understanding of who Yozo really is; they simply add more examples of how manipulative and callous he can be, thus blunting the impact of the real tragedy that unfolds in the late stages of his story.

Ito’s most problematic addition, however, is Osamu Dazai himself. Ito replaces the novel’s original framing device with the events leading up to Dazai’s 1948 suicide, encouraging us to view No Longer Human as pure autobiography through reinforcing the parallels between Dazai’s life and Yozo’s. And while those parallels are striking, the juxtaposition of the author and his fictional alter ego ultimately distorts the meaning of the novel by suggesting that the story documents Dazai’s own unravelling. That’s certainly one way to interpret No Longer Human, but such an autobiographical reading misses Dazai’s broader themes about the burden of consciousness, the nature of self, and the difficulty of being a full, authentic, feeling person in modern society.

VIZ Media provided a review copy. You can read a brief preview at the VIZ website by clicking here. For additional perspectives on Junji Ito’s adaptation, see Serdar Yegulalp‘s excellent, in-depth review at Ganriki.org, Reuben Barron‘s review at CBR.com, and MinovskyArticle’s review at the VIZ Media website.

JUNJI ITO’S NO LONGER HUMAN • ORIGINAL NOVEL BY OSAMU DAZAI • BASED ON THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY DONALD KEENE • TRANSLATED AND ADAPTED BY JOCELYNE ALLEN • VIZ MEDIA • RATED M, FOR MATURE AUDIENCES • 616 pp.

Short Takes: No Guns Life and Ryuko

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This month’s Short Takes column checks in with two previously-reviewed series: No Guns Life, a sci-fi thriller whose principled hero sounds like Sam Spade and looks like a Remington; and Ryuko, a thriller starring a yakuza assassin who’s hell-bent on avenging her mother’s kidnapping.

No Guns Life, Vol. 2
Story and Art by Tasuku Karasuma
Translation by Joe Yamazaki; Adaptation by Stan!
VIZ Media, 224 pp.
Rated T+ (Older Teens)

After a decent, if predictable, first volume, Tasuku Karasuma finds his groove in volume two of No Guns Life, maintaining a brisk pace while allowing his characters’ personalities to emerge more fully. Though the action occasionally pauses for the characters to expound on important plot developments, these dialogues are less of a drag on the story than they were in volume one; here, they add badly needed layers of  complexity to a familiar noir plot line. Better still, Karasuma introduces several new characters who push the narrative in a more interesting direction, hinting at the power and secrecy of the Berühen Corporation, as well as the general public’s mixed feelings about living alongside cyborgs. If Karasuma engages in a little too much fanservice, or relies too heavily on speedlines and sound effects to enliven his fight scenes, No Guns Life is still entertaining enough to make all but the most discriminating reader root for Juzo to succeed. Recommended.

VIZ Media provided a review copy. Click here to read my review of volume one.

Ryuko, Vol. 2
Story and Art by Eldo Yoshimizu
Translation by Motoko Tamamuro and Jonathan Clements
Titan Comics, 226 pp.
No rating (Best suited for older teen and adult readers)

Paging the exposition police! The second volume of Ryuko has all the swagger of the first, but leans more heavily into Talking Points Conversation to help expedite its resolution. In some respects, these exchanges are a welcome development, as they clearly—one might say baldly—delineate the various factions’ interest in the Golden Seal, an object whose significance was glossed over in volume one. These passages also help the reader untangle the complex web of relationships among the characters, making it easier to grasp why Ryuko forges an alliance with an avowed enemy and why US military forces are trying to manipulate the outcome of her feud with the Sheqing-Ban. These conversations would feel less forced if the pacing were more even, but the two-volume format is too compressed for such an ambitious, labyrinthine plot to unfold at a reader-friendly pace.

Volume two’s chief attraction is the same as volume one’s: the artwork. Eldo Yoshimizu has a flair for staging car chases, fist fights, gun battles, and dramatic escapes, immersing the reader in the action with his creative use of perspective and fastidious attention to detail; Ryuko’s leopard-print catsuit is practically a character in its own right. In less capable hands, this maximalist approach might be overwhelming, but Yoshimizu’s layouts have a strong narrative pull that leads the eye across the page at the speed of the action, creating an almost cinematic experience. The final confrontation between Ryuko and evil American operatives is a show-stopper involving a motorcycle stunt so outrageous that even Jackie Chan would be impressed with its audacity. None of the story makes much sense, but Yoshimizu’s energetic, bold, and—yes—sexy artwork is cool enough to carry the day. Recommended.

Click here to read my review of volume one. 

Cats of the Louvre

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Weird. Uncanny. Melancholy. Beautiful. Those were just a few of the adjectives I jotted down while reading Taiyo Matsumoto’s Cats of the Louvre, the latest volume in the museum’s ongoing graphic novel series. Like Nicholas De Crécy’s Glacial Period and Jiro Taniguchi’s Guardians of the Louvre, Cats of the Louvre is less an illustrated guide to the museum than a story that happens to take place within its walls—in this case, the attic, where a colony of cats have taken up residence. Through a series of eighteen vignettes, Matsumoto gradually reveals that the cats’ primary caretaker—an elderly night watchman—has dedicated his life to searching the museum for his missing sister, who disappeared into one of the paintings when she was a child.

The key to finding Arrieta turns out to be Snowbébé, a kitten who frequently escapes from the attic to roam the galleries, hiding inside canvases to avoid detection. Snowbébé’s gift is both an essential plot point and an opportunity for Matsumoto to luxuriate in the smaller details of his favorite paintings, as is evident in a lovely, strange sequence that unfolds inside Henri Lerambert’s The Funeral Procession of Love (1580). From a modern viewer’s standpoint, Lerambert’s painting seems a little kitschy, with its parade of cherubs, poets, and philosophers strolling under the watchful eye of the goddess Diana:

Once Snowbébé steps into the painting, however, the landscape comes to life in unexpected ways: the flowers grin, the animals speak, and the laws of gravity disappear. In one brief but delightful sequence, for example, Snowbébé and Arrieta cavort across the ceilings and walls of a temple, while in another they board Diana’s chariot for a ride through the Milky Way. Yet for all the joyful (and weird) imagery, there’s a wistful quality to these two chapters, as Snowbébé slowly realizes that he cannot remain inside the Parade forever; his presence has disturbed the painting’s equilibrium, bringing storm clouds and disrupting the flow of time itself, forcing him to choose between staying with his new friend, or returning to the “cold and smelly and noisy” world of the Louvre.

What prevents Snowbébé’s odyssey from seeming twee or precious is Matsumoto’s studied primitivism; his characters’ mask-like faces, oddly proportioned bodies, and grotesque smiles are genuinely unnerving, creating a surreal atmosphere in which the boundaries between reality and imagination are blurred. Nowhere is this tendency more obvious than in the way he draws Snowbébé and his friends: the cats look like animals to their caretakers, but assume a humanoid form when interacting with each other. In Matsumoto’s hands, they look more like people in cat costumes than pussycats, with their essential feline features—ears, whiskers, tails, elongated limbs—rendered in an exaggerated fashion that gives them a faintly alien appearance.

Matsumoto’s depiction of the Louvre is more straightforward, recreating iconic works with fidelity to the originals, whether he’s drawing a lesser-known genre painting or a genuinely famous sculpture. His rendition of the physical environment—the claustrophobic, dusty garret where the cats live, the grand staircases and hallways that lead to the galleries—is similarly precise, helping the reader envision the sheer size and opulence of the museum. As a result, the Louvre transcends its basic function as a setting, taking on the qualities of a living, breathing organism whose vaulted ceilings and majestic columns invite comparisons with dinosaurs or whales:

And while all the comics in the Louvre Collection have done an admirable job of depicting the museum, Cats of the Louvre approaches its subject matter without didacticism or pedantry; though Matsumoto’s human characters express strong feelings about art, those conversations spring organically from the story. Equally important, Cats of the Louvre has its own personality; unlike Hirohiko Araki’s Rohan at the Louvre, which recycled ideas and characters from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Matsumoto’s story stands on its own, capturing his unique response to the museum and its collection. But the best reason to read Cats of the Louvre is its hero Snowbébé, whose quest to find his place in the world invites us to see the Louvre through fresh eyes, as a place of danger and sadness, but also of wonder, magic, and possibility. Recommended.

A review copy was provided by VIZ Media. To read a short preview, click here.

CATS OF THE LOUVRE • STORY AND ART BY TAIYO MATSUMOTO • TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL ARIAS • RATING: TEEN • 432 pp.

The Drifting Classroom Signature Edition, Vol. 1

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In a 2009 interview with Tokyo Scum Brigade, Kazuo Umezu acknowledged that his debt to Osamu Tezuka went beyond storyboarding and character designs. Tezuka “didn’t pull any punches for children or dumb down his works,” Umezu explained. “He dealt with complicated themes and let the readers work it out on their own.” The 1972 classic The Drifting Classroom reveals just how profoundly Umezu absorbed this lesson. Though it ran in Weekly Shonen Sunday, a magazine aimed at grade schoolers, Umezu’s work was bleak, subversive, and weirdly thrilling, depicting a nightmarish world where kids resorted to violence and deception to survive.

The Drifting Classroom begins with a freak accident in which a rift in the space-time continuum sends the Yamato Elementary School and its occupants into the distant future. Initially, the students and teachers believe that they are the sole survivors of a devastating nuclear attack, and the area immediately surrounding the school supports their hypothesis: it’s a barren wasteland with no water, plants, or signs of human habitation save a pile or two or non-degradable trash. As the school’s occupants realize the severity of the crisis, panic sets in. Teachers and students engage in a brutal competition for dwindling supplies while attempting to solve the mystery of what happened to them. And when I say “brutal,” I mean it: the body count in volume one is astonishing, with murders, mass suicides, fist fights, knife fights, and rampaging monsters culling the herd at a breathtaking rate.

It’s sorely tempting to compare The Drifting Classroom to The Lord of the Flies, as both stories depict school children creating their own societies in the absence of adult authority. But Kazuo Umezu’s series is more sinister than Golding’s novel, as Classroom‘s youthful survivors have been forced to band together to defend themselves against their former teachers, many of whom have become unhinged at the realization that they may never return to the present. Umezu creates an atmosphere of almost unbearable dread that conveys both the hopelessness of the children’s situation and their terror at being abandoned by the grown-ups, a point underscored by one student’s observation that adults “depend on logic and reason to deal with things.” He continues:

When something happens and they can’t use reason or logic to explain it, they can’t handle it. I don’t think they were able to accept that we’ve traveled to the future. You know how adults are always saying that kids are making things up? It’s because they only know things to be one way. Kids can imagine all kinds of possibilities. That’s why we’ve managed to survive here.

That speech is delivered by The Drifting Classroom‘s plucky protagonist Sho, a sixth grader who becomes the children’s de facto leader. When we first meet Sho, he’s behaving petulantly, pouting over his mother’s decision to throw away his marbles. The intensity of his anger is drawn in broad strokes, but it firmly establishes him as an honest-to-goodness ten year old, caught between his desire to play and his parents’ desire to mold him into a responsible teenager. Once transported to the future, Sho’s strategies for scavenging supplies or subduing a rampaging teacher are astute but not adult; there are flourishes of imagination and kid logic guiding his actions that remind us just how young and vulnerable he is. As a result, Sho’s pain at being separated from his parents, and of losing his comrades, is genuinely agonizing.

Umezu’s artwork further emphasizes the precarity of Sho’s situation. Sho and his classmates have doll-like faces and awkwardly proportioned bodies that harken back to Umezu’s work for shojo magazines such as Sho-Comi and Shoujo Friend, yet their somewhat unnatural appearance serves a vital dramatic function, underscoring how small they are when contrasted with their adult guardians. The adults, on the other hand, initially appear normal, but descend into monstrous or feckless caricatures as their plight becomes more desperate. Only Sho’s mother—who is stuck in the present day—escapes such unflattering treatment, a testament to her devotion, courage, and imagination; while her husband and friends have accepted the official story about the school’s fate, Sho’s mother is open to the possibility that Sho may be reaching across time to communicate with her.

Like his character designs, Umezu’s landscapes are willfully ugly, evoking feelings of disgust, fear, and anxiety that are almost palpable, whether he’s drawing an abandoned building or a garden filled with grotesquely misshapen plants. The area just outside the school gates, for example, resembles the slopes of an active volcano, with sulfurous clouds wafting over a rocky expanse that seems both frozen and molten—an apt metaphor the characters’ state of mind as they first glimpse their new surroundings:

Though The Drifting Classroom‘s imagery still resonates in 2019, its gender politics do not, as an egregious subplot involving a sadistic girl gang demonstrates. When the gang attempts to seize control of the school, a classmate urges Sho to oppose them on the grounds that girls are fundamentally unsuited for leadership roles. (“Women are made to give birth and rear children so they can’t think long term,” Gamo helpfully opines.) Umezu’s goal here, I think, is to suggest that girls are as capable of violence and cruelty as boys, but the dialogue suggests the gang’s behavior is a symptom of innate irrationality instead of a genuine and logical response to a desperate situation. Making matters worse is that the few sympathetic female characters are consigned to stereotypically feminine roles that give them little to do besides scream, run, and comfort the younger children; even Sakiko, the smartest girl in the class, never gets a chance to solve a problem or offer a useful opinion.

Yet for all its obvious shortcomings, The Drifting Classroom is a thoughtful meditation on adult hypocrisy, exposing all the ways that adults manipulate and terrorize children for their own convenience. “Adults are humans, children are animals,” a cafeteria worker tells Sho and his friends. “That’s why adults have the power of life and death over kids.” That Sho and his followers cling to their humanity despite the adults’ selfish behavior reminds us that children are innocent but not naive; Sho and his friends are clear-eyed about their teachers’ failings, yet choose to persevere. Recommended.

This is a greatly expanded–and reconsidered–review of The Drifting Classroom that appeared at PopCultureShock in 2006. VIZ Media provided a review copy. Read a free preview here.

THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY KAZUO UMEZZ • TRANSLATED BY SHELDON DRZKA • ADAPTED BY MOLLY TANZER • RATED T+, FOR OLDER TEENS (VIOLENCE, HORROR, GORE) • 744 pp.

The Way of the Househusband, Vol. 1

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If you’ve seen Lillehammer or My Blue Heaven, you’ll immediately recognize the foundation on which The Way of the Househusband is built: a mafia don or hit man renounces his old life and joins the ranks of ordinary civilians working nine-to-five jobs, mowing lawns, and attending school plays. Predictably, the transition from whacking rivals to whacking weeds is a bumpy one, as the former criminal discovers that the skills he acquired in his old line of work haven’t fully equipped him for a more prosaic existence; seemingly benign interactions at the principal’s office or the post office are fraught with peril, as they’re guided by unfamiliar social codes. Then, too, there’s the specter of his old life—the possibility that a former associate might recognize him or seek him out for one last job.

The Way of the Househusband covers all of this well-spaded ground, earning its laughs by putting fresh twists on familiar scenarios. Its protagonist, the stone-faced Tatsu, is a former yakuza boss-cum-househusband who spends his days making elaborate bento boxes for his wife and scouring the grocery store for bargains. As is standard for this particular fish-out-of-water genre, Tatsu’s sangfroid is sorely tested by the minor annoyances of civilian life: a visit from the neighborhood association president, a trip to the mall.

When a knife salesman knocks on Tatsu’s door, for example, author Kousuke Oono teases the idea that his characters’ interactions might end in violence or a harrowing demonstration of Tatsu’s knife-wielding skills. Instead, Tatsu has an opportunity to show off his culinary prowess, winning over the understandably nervous salesman with his “patented hamburger steak plate.” The salesman’s rhapsodic expression and interior monologue put the gag over the top, as the salesman identifies the dish’s secret ingredient—“minced fish paste”—and muses that its flavor “takes me back to my hometown.”

Strong artwork is essential to selling a slapstick premise like Househusband’s, and for the most part, Oono succeeds. Oono’s characters have distinctive appearances that makes it easy to “read” their comic function–the suspicious neighbor, the former crime associate–but Oono never relies on this technique alone, often giving bit players an unexpected moment of steeliness or resourcefulness that nudges the joke in an unexpected direction. The salesman, for example, looks like a soft, middle-aged man, but turns out to be stronger, pushier, and more determined than his initial reaction to Tatsu might suggest, quickly recovering his composure after Tatsu answers the door wearing a bloody apron. (“I was just, uh, doin’ a little butcherin’,” Tatsu explains sheepishly.)

Appearance-wise, Oono does a great job of making Tatsu look utterly incongruous with his surroundings. With his pencil-thin mustache, scarred face, and aviator sunglasses–not to mention his black suit and tattoos–Tatsu cuts a striking figure in the supermarket and on the street. Oono invigorates this obvious sight gag by swathing Tatsu in housewife “drag,” outfitting him in a kerchief and apron emblazoned with a shiba inu to further emphasize just what a fish out of water Tatsu is. That same attention to detail extends to the way that Tatsu moves; Oono draws him like a human cobra whose sinewy, explosive movements strike terror into his enemies’–and his neighbors’–hearts.

Sheldon Drzka and Jennifer LeBlanc’s skillful adaptation of the script is the icing on the cake, giving every character a distinctive voice, and every exchange the pleasant zing of a good Saturday Night Live or Key & Peele sketch–no mean feat, given the cultural specificity of the jokes.

As good as the script and art are, however, I have a sneaking suspicion that Way of the Househusband might run out of gas after three or four volumes unless Oono pivots the storyline in a new direction–say, by introducing a baby into the picture, or revealing that Tatsu’s hard-charging wife has a secret past of her own. But for now, I’m happy to continue reading any series that pits a former yakuza boss against a Roomba and a frisky cat, or depicts a manly man going to extreme lengths to ensure that his wife has a tasty lunch. In the immortal words of Paris Hilton, that’s hawt. Recommended.

VIZ Media provided a review copy. Read a free preview here.

THE WAY OF THE HOUSEHUSBAND, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY KOUSUKE OONO • TRANSLATION BY SHELDON DRZKA, ADAPTATION BY JENNIFER LEBLANC • VIZ MEDIA, LLC • 166 pp. • RATED T+, FOR OLDER TEENS (SUGGESTED VIOLENCE, YAKUZA JOKES)

The Right Way to Make Jump

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Most books about the manga industry fall into one of two categories: the how-to book, which offers advice on how to draw proportionate characters, plan a storyboard, and buy the right pens; and the how-I-became-an-artist story, which charts the emotional ups and downs of breaking into the manga biz. The Right Way to Make Jump takes a different approach, pulling back the curtain on the production process.

Our guide to the manga-making process is Takeshi Sakurai, a spazzy, anxiety-ridden thirty-year-old who traded his dreams of becoming a professional manga-ka for a more predictable, less demanding life as an onigiri chef. Out of the blue, Sakurai receives a call from his former editor Momiyaxx-san about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to “create a non-fiction manga” that explains “how Jump is made.” After much hand-wringing and angst—and a friendly nudge from his cheerful, patient wife—Sakurai accepts the assignment, embarking on a series of factory tours and interviews to learn the nuts-and-bolts of publishing an issue of Weekly Jump. His odyssey takes him to a paper mill at the foot of Mt. Fuji, the editors’ bullpen at Shueisha headquarters, and VIZ’s corporate office in San Francisco, where Sakurai gets a first-hand look at how Jump is localized for different markets.

The book is cheekily divided into ten “arcs,” each of which focuses on a specific production step. The most interesting sections focus on the manufacturing process, explaining why Jump uses colored paper and how the magazines are cut, assembled, and bound. For readers who love the Discovery Channel—and I count myself among them—these early chapters are a blast, as they are studded with weird, wonderful facts about paper and machinery. (Among the most interesting: Jump paper dust plays an important role in Tokyo’s sewage treatment program.) The later chapters, by contrast, are less effective, as the editorial staff’s answers to potentially interesting questions are couched in polite, vague language that offers little insight into what they do; you’d be forgiven for rolling your eyes when a Jump staffer offers an essentialist justification for not hiring female editors, or chalks up the order of each issue to ‘intuition.’

Where The Right Way really shines is in Sakurai’s use of clever visual analogies to help the reader grasp the most  intricate parts of the manufacturing process. In “Platemaking,” for example, Sakurai creates a muscle-bound figure who represents the resin plate, a key element in the printing process:

The figure’s transformation neatly embodies the basic principles of creating a positive from a negative by comparing the process to suntanning—something that readers of all ages can relate to from personal experience.

As informative as such passages are, The Right Way can be a frustrating reading experience. Some chapters are briskly executed, achieving a good balance between education and entertainment, while others focus too much on slapstick humor, unfunny exchanges between Sakurai and Momiyaxx-san, and shameless plugs for Weekly Jump. Sakurai’s sardonic tone—expertly captured by translator Emily Taylor—helps mitigate some of these issues, but can’t always goose the tempo when Sakurai frets and fumes about meeting his deadlines; joking about your own shortcomings can be an effective strategy for ingratiating yourself to the reader, but not when you’re using those jokes to pad your weekly page count.

The overall structure of the book, too, leaves something to be desired. Though the first chapters focus on how the magazine is printed, the later chapters tackle a seemingly random selection of topics—Jump Festa, recycled paper stock, cover design, reader contests—suggesting that no one anticipated how long The Right Way would run in Weekly Jump. A topic-of-the-week approach is fine when readers wait for each new installment, but it makes for a chaotic, sometimes repetitive reading experience when collected in a single volume. The most logical strategy for organizing the tankubon edition would have been to start with the editorial process and end with the printing; not only does sequential presentation have obvious explanatory value, it also lends the material a compelling narrative arc, something that The Right Way to Make Jump sorely lacks.

Despite these shortcomings, I’d still recommend The Right Way to Make Jump, as it offers an all-too-rare glimpse of manga publishing’s less glamorous aspects, highlighting the contributions of professionals whose efficiency, creativity, and diligence have made Weekly Jump into a global phenomenon.

THE RIGHT WAY TO MAKE JUMP • ART AND STORY BY TAKESHI SAKURAI • TRANSLATED BY EMILY TAYLOR • VIZ MEDIA • 208 pp. • RATED T, FOR TEENS

Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, Vol. 1

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One occupational hazard of reviewing manga is the powerful sense of déjà vu that a middle-of-the-road series can induce. I experienced just such a flash while reading Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, a pleasant, decently executed shojo series that hit so many familiar beats I was tempted to pull out a bingo card and tick off the stock characters and situations as I plowed through volume one.

As in other supernatural romances — think InuYasha and The Water Dragon’s Bride — the plot is set in motion by the heroine’s abduction to the kakuriyo, or spirit realm. There, Aoi learns that her late grandfather was capable of traveling between the kakuriyo and utsushiyo (human world), a skill that gramps exploited to run up a tab at a supernatural B&B. Gramps pledged Aoi as collateral, promising her hand in marriage to Odanna, the inn’s proprietor. Odanna is — wait for it — a handsome jerk with an attitude so condescending that Aoi can barely stand to be in the same room with him. He’s also an ogre. (A real ogre, not a metaphorical one.)

Indignant at the prospect of marrying a monster, Aoi instead vows to settle her grandfather’s accounts by working at the inn, a vow made more complicated by the other demons’ refusal to hire human staff for even the most menial tasks. The creators have used Aoi’s predicament as an opportunity to graft elements of a cooking manga onto the main plot by furnishing Aoi with culinary skills so impressive that even denizens of the kakuriyo are wowed by her omelet rice and chicken stew. The inclusion of these scenes feels perfunctory, however, as they add little to our understanding of who Aoi is; if anything, these interludes serve mostly to foreshadow the inevitable moment in volume two or five when Aoi finally persuades the inn’s chef to update his menu with Japanese comfort food.

The real pleasure in reading Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits is the parade of ayakashi (spirits). The supporting cast seem to have stepped out of a Hyakki Yagyō scroll: there are kappas and tengus and oni, no-faced women and nine-tailed foxes, all drawn in a style that explicitly references the work of Utagawa Yoshiiku and Kawanabe Kyosai. When interacting with Aoi, these spirits morph into preternaturally elegant humans swathed in Edo-era couture. It’s an effective gambit, allowing illustrator Waco Ioka to emphasize her strengths — fabrics, textures, masks — while offering a plausible explanation for the demons’ uncanny appearance. (Looking through one of gramps’ photo albums, Aoi notes that the ayakashi‘s “faces look fake, like they’re pasted on.”)

Yet for all the joys of seeing the Night Parade of 100 Demons come to life in such a stylish fashion, I was so aware of the plot mechanics that I could never fully embrace Kakuriyo as a story. Someone less steeped in the conventions and cliches of shojo manga, however, might well find Kakuriyo a charming introduction to one of the medium’s most ubiquitous and appealing genres: the supernatural romance.

The verdict: Librarians working with middle school readers might find Kakuriyo a good addition to their graphic novel collection, as it’s largely free of provocative content (e.g. strong language, sexuality) but will feel more “adult” to readers in grades 6-8 than other T-rated romances.

A review copy was supplied by VIZ Media.

KAKURIYO: BED & BREAKFAST FOR SPIRITS, VOL. 1 • ART BY WACO IOKA, ORIGINAL STORY BY MIDORI YUMA, CHARACTER DESIGN BY LARUHA • TRANSLATED BY TOMO KIMURA • RATED T, FOR TEENS (FANTASY VIOLENCE) • 196 pp.

Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, Vols. 1-2

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What if the world ended not with a bang or a whimper, but a shrug of the shoulders and a TL;DR? That’s the question at the heart of Inio Asano’s Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, a dark comedy about alien invasion.

Asano buries the lede, however, initially framing his story as a coming-of-age drama about Kadode and Oran, two girls on the cusp of adulthood. We learn about the aliens’ arrival in bits and pieces, through a 2-chan thread, a news bulletin, a string of text messages, and a sign tallying the day’s casualties. We also learn that Kadode’s father — a journalist — disappeared in the immediate aftermath of the attack, an event that has pushed Kadode’s mother to the brink of insanity.

The dramatic impact of these revelations is muted by Asano’s attention to the mundane rhythms of Kadode and Oran’s life: they study for tests, shoot the shit with friends, horse around with Oran’s older brother, and play video games until the wee hours of the morning, marking time until they graduate from high school. Like most teenagers, Kadode and Oran are morbidly curious about sex, fixating on a young teacher who does a poor job of establishing professional boundaries with his students. In private conversations, the girls tease each other about seducing Mr. Watarase, but when Kadode finds herself alone with him, she’s awkward and nervous, unable to carry out her plan. It’s to Asano’s credit that nothing happens between teacher and student, as he recognizes that Kadode’s interest is not in having sex with her teacher but in speculating what it would be like — in essence, she’s trying on the idea of an adult relationship, not actively seeking one.

A similar tension between maturity and inexperience plays out in other aspects of Asano’s narrative. Kadode, for example, is deeply invested in Isobeyan, a manga starring a dim-witted girl and a time-traveling Mushroomian with an “interdimensional pouchette” that yields amazing inventions: a brain bulb, a pair of skeleton specs. Though this manga-within-a-manga offers Asano an opportunity to showcase his technical virtuosity — Isobeyan looks like a Fujiko F. Fujio original — Isobeyan also highlights Asano’s knack for creating convincing teen characters, sympathetically portraying Kadode’s interest in kiddie manga as a survival tactic; she clings to Isobeyan because its jokes and stories offer her the consistency that’s otherwise missing from her chaotic home life.

Running in tandem with these domestic interludes are scenes of the media, government, and big business co-opting the invasion through incessant television coverage, carefully orchestrated public memorials, and merchandise, all promoting the idea that Tokyo should “never forget” about the tragedy while simultaneously encouraging residents to move on with their lives. Both volumes of Dead Dead Demon thrum with the activity of radio and television newscasts; through voice-overs and field reports, we learn the official version of events, but not what really happened on the ground. That same element of hollow reassurance informs a rally celebrating the successful demonstration of a new weapon. As people begin gathering, a chant of “Nippon!” ripples through the crowd. “Why are they all yelling ‘Nippon’?” one girl asked. “I dunno,” her friend replies, “But this is fun, so who cares?”

Asano’s art plays a vital role in suggesting the way in which the ordinary and extraordinary can coexist side-by-side. In this particular image, for example, Asano draws the undercarriage of the mother ship — its cannons, landing gear, and exhaust ports — with the same shapes and lines as he uses for the city below; it’s as if we’re viewing Tokyo on the surface of a pond, upside down and slightly murky:

Then, too, there’s a tension between the hard, industrial precision of such imagery and the soft vulnerability of the principal characters, as is conveyed by this panel in which Kadode and Oran’s view of the sky is completely blocked by the mother ship:

Though Asano’s character designs are naturalistic, capturing that liminal state between adolescence and adulthood with physical accuracy, Kadode and Oran’s faces are preternatually elastic, registering the full gamut of teenage emotions with outsized intensity. Many of the adults, by contrast, resemble Noh characters with impassive, mask-like faces that make them look… well, cartoonish, emphasizing the degree to which deception and denial have robbed them of their ability to express the fear, uncertainty, and hopelessness that the invasion has undoubtedly stirred in them. It’s a technique that Asano has used in other series — most notably Goodnight, Pun-Pun — and it works beautifully here, underscoring the absurdity of the characters’ situation.

What makes Dead Dead Demon more than just a stylish exercise in nihilism is the way in which Asano recognizes the lengths to which people will go to preserve their routines and personal comforts. Asano doesn’t frame that act as heroic resistance or conscious choice, but an atavistic need for order, especially in the aftermath of a catastrophe. For Kadode and her friends, though, that quest for normalcy takes a slightly different form, as they’re not yet old enough to have their own homes, jobs, and families; the things they cling to — like pop music and video games — offer only temporary comfort, pushing them to seek deeper answers about the alien invasion.

Lest Dead Dead Demon sound like a Terribly Serious Manga, it’s worth noting that Asano never falls into the misery porn trap that made Goodnight, Punpun such a punishing experience. Dead Dead Demon is nimble, funny, and sad, buoyed by a vivid cast of characters and a densely layered plot that allows Asano to explore weighty questions without casting a pall over the reader. For my money, it’s his best work to date, the ideal showcase for his phenomenal artistry and mordant wit. Highly recommended.

DEAD DEAD DEMON’S DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION, VOLS. 1-2 • STORY & ART BY INIO ASANO • TRANSLATION BY JOHN WERRY • VIZ MEDIA • RATED M, FOR MATURE AUDIENCES (VIOLENCE AND SEXUALITY)

Short Takes: Black Torch and Demon Slayer

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It’s been a while since I added a new Shonen Jump title to my pull list. Don’t get me wrong: I love One-Punch Man and The Promised Neverland, but I find that many shonen titles overstay their welcome (usually around the fourth or fifth tournament arc). Still, it’s hard to resist the allure of a great shonen series, especially if it has snazzy art and a great hook, so I decided to check out two recent debuts: Black Torch and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaba, both of which draw inspiration from Japanese folklore.

Black Torch, Vol. 1
Story and Art by Tsuyoshi Takaki
VIZ Media, 200 pp.
Rated Teen+, for older teens (violence)

Black Torch suffers from an unusual problem: it has a terrific introductory chapter with emotionally resonant scenes, followed by two chapters that seem stale in comparison.

The opening pages introduce us to Jiro Azuma, a sensitive young man who has an unusual talent: he can hear animals’ thoughts. At the urging of his childhood dog, Jiro uses his gift to help animals in need, whether it’s a crow hassled by people or a kitten trapped in a tree. A chance encounter with a wounded mononoke, however, turns his life upside down, pitting him against his grandfather, a ninja with serious monster-hunting skillz. Alas, the revelation that gramps belonged to the Oniwabanshu, a top-secret government agency that kills demons, pushes the story in a more obvious, less interesting direction. These scenes hit all-too-familiar beats as the bureau’s mission and personnel are fleshed out, one antagonistic exchange at a time. Only the fight sequences provide relief from these info-dump conversations; they’re briskly choreographed affairs, notable both for their inventive use of perspective and sparing use of screen tone, speed lines, and sound effects. The same crisp, minimalist approach informs the character designs, giving Black Torch a distinctive look that’s not fully matched by its Tokyo Ghoul-by-way-of-Bleach plotting. Your mileage may vary.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 1
Story and Art by Koyoharu Gotouge
VIZ Media, 192 pp.
Rated Teen, for readers 13 and up (fantasy violence)

Demon Slayer‘s plot is set in motion by a tragedy: the hero returns home from an errand only to discover that a demon slaughtered his family. One sibling clings to life but shows signs of becoming a demon herself, putting Tanjiro in a terrible bind: should he kill her now, or risk being killed in a week, a month or a year when her transformation is complete? Though the series’ dark tone feels au courant, in keeping with Jump Plus titles like Fire Punch, Koyoharu Gotouge’s line work and character designs are pleasingly retro, the kind of art you might have found in a Reagan-era issue of Weekly Shonen Jump. Gotouge’s bodies and heads are sometimes a little awkwardly drawn, and his demons too obviously fashioned from screen tone, but the artwork’s lack of polish makes Tanjiro seem more vulnerable when confronting monsters that are bigger, meaner, and more cunning than he is. I’m not sure that Demon Slayer is headed anywhere new, but Tanjiro is the kind of hero I’d like to see more often: a frightened but determined character who seems like a real person confronting the impossible, rather than a resolutely optimistic kid whose pluck carries the day. Recommended.

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, Vol. 1

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Since one in four Americans suffer from insomnia, it seems like there’s a natural market for Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, a manga about a character so determined to get a good night’s sleep that she’d risk death or dismemberment for forty winks. Sleepy Princess plays the title character’s insomnia for laughs, however, turning the heroine’s quest for the perfect mattress into a light-hearted romp, rather than an expensive ordeal involving black-out curtains, melatonin, and meditation videos. That the story is fun and breezy is nothing short of a miracle, though older readers may experience a twinge of jealously at Princess Syalis’ ability to fall asleep anywhere, anytime once she has the right gear.

Author Kagiji Kumanomata handles the set-up with great economy: in just two pages, we learn the Demon King has kidnapped Syalis in a bid to conquer the human world. Though the Demon King stashes Syalis in a dungeon populated by fearsome beasts, Syalis quickly sizes up the situation and makes it work to her advantage. “Since I’m hostage, the Demon King has no intention of harming me,” she notes. “I have no duties to take care of here… And the food’s pretty tasty!” The one drawback to her new digs? “I haven’t been able to get a good night’s rest since I was brought here!” she exclaims.

A chance encounter with teddy demons leads to her first epiphany: her captors’ fur is the ideal stuffing for a comfy pillow. Before long, Syalis is roaming the castle in search of softer sheets, mosquito netting, and a more natural light source, the better to regulate her body’s circadian rhythms. Her dogged efforts to sleep longer or more soundly confound her jailers, who are astonished at how brazenly she takes what she needs; Syalis dies at least three times in her quest for the perfect sleep accessories. (Don’t worry; a handsome demon cleric is on hand to resurrect her mangled body.)

As with other one-joke manga, Sleepy Princess occasionally strains for laughs; an episode involving poison mushrooms falls flat, as does a spoof of Princess Knight. The chapters’ brevity helps keep the story from bogging down in bad jokes, as does Kumanomata’s consummate attention to detail; there’s always something funny happening, even if the gags are buried in the background or lurking on the edges of the page. An artful adaptation by Annette Roman helps bridge the translation divide, as do Susan Daigle-Leach’s marvelous sound effects. (If you’ve ever wondered what a posse of demon teddy bears might sound like, she’s got you covered.) Best of all, Kumanomata has barely scratched the surface when it comes to insomnia, leaving the door open for future quests, from finding the right bedtime snack to finding the right temperature for sleeping. Recommended.

SLEEPY PRINCESS IN THE DEMON CASTLE, VOL. 1 • BY KAGIJI KUMANOMATA • TRANSLATION BY TETSUICHIRO MITAYKI • ADAPTATION BY ANNETTE ROMAN • TOUCH-UP ART AND LETTERING BY SUSAN DAIGLE-LEACH • VIZ MEDIA • 174 pp. • RATED TEEN (13+) FOR FANTASY VIOLENCE

Kenka Bancho Otome: Love’s Battle Royale, Vol. 1

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For a manga based on a dating game, Kenka Bancho Otome is far better than it ought to be. It’s a fast-paced, loose-limbed story that’s both cheerfully stupid and mildly subversive, buoyed by its deliciously queer premise: a girl goes undercover in an all-boys’ high school where her androgynous beauty and lethal karate chops inflame her classmates’ hearts.

The plot is set in motion by an accidental encounter between Hinako Nakayama, an orphan, and her long-lost twin Hikaru, whom she rescues from the path of an oncoming car. In the aftermath of the accident, Hikaru cajoles his sister into impersonating him for a day, lending her his school uniform and dropping her at the campus gates. Hinako soon realizes the folly of her brother’s request, however; Shishiku Academy is more like Rock ’n’ Roll High School than prep school, as its entire curriculum—if one could call it that—centers on fighting. Making matters worse is that everyone wants to fight Hinako because they believe she’s the heir apparent to the Onigumo crime family. She isn’t, of course, but Hikaru is, a detail he conveniently omitted when roping her into his charade. 

If you’ve read more than one shojo comedy, you know what happens next: Hinako befriends and beguiles the best-looking delinquents at the school, from Totomaru, an earnest cutie who’s prone to nosebleeds and blushing, to Kira, a tousle-haired bishonen with a sensitive side. Author Chie Shimada has the good graces to keep the hot guys and fist-fights coming — the better to distract from the thinness of the plot —and the imagination to add small but delightful quirks to her main characters’ personalities. Her best running gag is Hikaru, who seems more at home impersonating his sister than inhabiting his own skin; though his temper suggests he’d be a ruthless crime boss, his obvious joy in looking pretty and flirting with Miraku, Shinsiku Academy’s resident idol, add a fresh dimension to the identity-swapping formula. 

As you might expect, the artwork is more serviceable than memorable. Shimada proves capable of drawing a variety of familiar bishonen types — lanky guys with ponytails, serious guys with glasses — though the pro forma nature of the character designs occasionally makes it difficult to parse the fight scenes. (All those artfully coiffed young men have the same lanky, spike-haired silhouette.) Then, too, there are riotously busy pages where Shimada’s screentone is so thick and smudgy it’s almost palpable; the phrase “applied with a trowel” comes to mind.

Still, the Shishiku gang’s bonhomie is hard to resist, carrying the reader past the story’s creakier moments. So, too, is Hinako’s sincerity; her journey towards self-actualization is both touching and amusing, as she discovers that she might, in fact, be a more natural bancho than her twin. That she wins her fellow delinquents’ admiration with a mean right hook and a roundhouse kick is less important than the fact they appreciate her for her pluck, kindness, and thirst for justice — a nuance that elevates Kenka Bancho Otome from otome rehash to actual story. Recommended.

KENKA BANCHO OTOME: LOVE’S BATTLE ROYALE, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY CHIE SHIMADA • ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY SPIKE CHUNSOFT • VIZ MEDIA • 194 pp. • RATED T, FOR TEENS (13+)

The Promised Neverland, Vol. 2

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The first volume of The Promised Neverland was a masterclass in how to launch a series: the plotting was intricate but the brisk pacing and well-timed twists prevented an exposition-heavy story from sagging under the weight of its own ambition. Of necessity, volume two unfurls at a slower clip than the first, as the principal trio of Emma, Ray, and Norman work through the logistics of escaping Gracefield Manor, weighing the pros and cons of each element in their intricate plan. Kaiu Shirai also expands the cast to include other stakeholders, dedicating several chapters to Krone, Mother’s new subordinate, and Don and Gilda, two high-achieving students who haven’t yet learned the true purpose of Gracefield Manor.

These character moments are one of the great strengths of volume two. Krone, for example, turns out to be more resourceful than we might have guessed from her brief introduction in volume one; Shirai and Posuka Demizu use a woodland game of tag to reveal Krone’s formidable strength, speed, and cunning, establishing her as yet another major obstacle to escape. In other passages, Shirai peels away the outer layers of her principal characters, complicating the reader’s understanding of who they are, what motivates them to escape, and with whom their true allegiance lies — a necessary corrective to the first volume, which portrayed Emma, Ray, and Norman as just a little too smart, too capable, and too thoughtful to fully register as twelve-year-olds.

Volume two hits an occasional speed bump when characters discuss the escape plan. One overly deliberate scene, for example, finds Roy and Norman in full Scooby Doo mode, explaining how they figured out there was a mole among the residents. And volume two’s physical depiction of Krone is, frankly, uncomfortable, as some of her facial features have been exaggerated in ways that recall the iconography of blackface minstrelsy. Despite these lapses, The Promised Neverland remains suspenseful thanks, in no small part, to Demizu’s brief but horrific dream sequences; these suggestive images — a swirl of bodies, teeth, and monstrous eyes — provide a potent reminder of what’s at stake if the kids don’t escape Mother’s clutches.

The Promised Neverland, Vol. 2
Story by Kaiu Shirai, Art by Posuka Demizu
Translated by Satsuki Yamashita
VIZ Media; 192 pp.
Rated T, for Teen