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Going Digital: March 2012

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Welcome to the latest Going Digital, Manga Bookshelf’s monthly feature focusing on manga available for digital viewing or download. Each month, the Manga Bookshelf bloggers review a selection of comics we’ve read on our computers, phones, or tablet devices, to give readers a taste of what’s out there, old and new, and how well it works in digital form.

This month, Melinda checks in on the iPad manga scene, while Sean takes a look a a recent JManga release for your web browser. Device, OS, and browser information is included with each review as appropriate, to let you know exactly how we accessed what we read.


iOS

Manga on the iPad: 18 month check-in

It’s been a year and a half since New York Comic Con 2010, where Yen Press announced the launch of their new iPad app. Viz followed soon after, and quickly rose to the head of the class thanks to their quickly growing catalogue and significantly lower pricing. Fast forward to NYCC 2011, where Kodansha USA finally joined the game, followed by Digital Manga Publishing a few months later.

For me, the success (or failure) of any manga app can be boiled down to three basic components: functionality, selection, and price. So now, 18 months after manga first began trickling onto the iPad, how are publishers faring on these three key issues?

Functionality

All four of the major manga apps began with strong functionality right out of the gate. Their (very similar) layouts are all fairly intuitive, with easy access to each publisher’s catalogue as well as the user’s own library of purchased manga. Each app offers high-quality images, and the ability to read in single or double page-view, as well as the ability to zoom in on (and out from) any single panel with ease. Of these apps, only Kodansha Comics’ displayed any functionality issues at launch time, with its progressive images that stall readability from page to page. Unfortunately, this issue appears to remain unresolved at the time of this writing, making Kodansha Comics’ app the least visually attractive of the manga apps to-date.

It’s worth noting here, too, that while both Viz and DMP both have browser-based stores as well, so far only Viz’s app allows for cross-platform purchases, while eManga customers must buy again to read their purchased volumes on the iPad.

Selection

Viz far outshines its mainstream competitors in this category, with over fifty titles available to-date (and more being added all the time), including super-popular titles like Naruto and One Piece, as well as more eclectic fare like House of Five Leaves and Saturn Apartments. Though I’m still hoping to see some of Viz’s out-of-print shoujo licenses show up here one day (e.g. Please Save My Earth, Banana Fish, Basara) there’s no denying that Viz is blowing everyone else away when it comes to selection on this platform. Recent additions like Hikaru no Go suggest that Viz indeed views its various digital platforms as a means for introducing long-running, completed series to new readers, and I certainly hope to see that continue.

DMP started out with a very strong catalogue, particularly for fans of its Juné and Digital Manga Guild imprints, but new additions have stalled since their recent issues with Apple censors, and it’s difficult to know at this point what the future of their app might be. BL fans can still pick up over fifty different titles (several with multiple volumes) at the time of this writing, ranging from newer releases like An Even More Beautiful Lie, Seven Days, and Blue Sheep Reverie, to older titles like Maiden Rose and Il Gatto Sul G. Though many more DMP/DMG titles are currently available to iPad readers by way of Amazon’s Kindle app (which has had its rocky moments, too), issues like image quality and reading direction make this option less than ideal.

While Yen Press’ catalogue is relatively small (25 titles as of this writing), it does have the advantage of being the only real source for Korean manhwa among these publishers to-date. Manga Bookshelf favorites like Time and Again and 13th Boy are both being released by Yen Press on this platform, and I certainly hope this will be a continuing trend. Though Yen’s manhwa licensing seems to have come to a halt over the past year or so, it would be a real treat to see series like Forest of Gray City or Very! Very! Sweet make a reappearance on the iPad so that they can be discovered by new readers. OEL series are another highlight of Yen’s app, including critical successes like Nightschool and Soulless: The Manga. Yen’s manga selection is less impressive, with titles Yotsuba&! and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya standing as its heaviest hitters.

Bringing up the rear in this category again is Kodansha Comics, whose catalogue has still not expanded beyond the four series it launched with (Arisa, Fairy Tail, Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, and Until the Full Moon) even after six months.

Price

Here, again, Viz leads the pack, with prices starting at $4.99 a volume for Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat series, $5.99 for IKKI and Signature series, and between $6.99-$8.99 for oversized or omnibus releases. Though I still think that $5 a volume is too high to encourage real bulk purchases, it remains the best price out there for manga on the iPad. Kodansha Comics’ volumes sell for $4.99 apiece as well, though it’s worth mentioning that they ran a $2.99 special for Fairy Tail when the app first launched—a price I absolutely would pay for bulk purchases of a series I had interest in reading.

Both Yen Press and DMP lag in this category, with single volumes going for $6.99-$8.99 apiece—sometimes significantly more than print prices online—and $12.99 for larger volumes. Though BL readers, in particular, are accustomed to paying more for their habit, thrifty shoppers who are willing to put up with the downsides of the Kindle app can pretty much always get the same books for less by going that route—and have their purchase available on their other compatible devices as well, including their computers. I will admit that though I was fairly depressed not to be able to purchase Keiko Kinoshita’s You & Tonight through DMP’s far superior iPad app, it’s awfully nice to have it available on both my iPad and my laptop via Amazon’s Kindle app.

Bottom Line

Viz is the clear winner on the iPad overall, performing well in all three categories of functionality, selection, and price. DMP’s app is promising, and should they manage to resolve their issues with Apple and find a way to better serve cross-platform customers, they could become a digital powerhouse for BL fans, despite a significantly less attractive price point. Yen Press’s app lags in both selection and price, though it does hold a particular allure for manhwa fans. (Will we ever see NETCOMICS in the iPad app game?) And though Kodansha Comics does well when it comes to pricing, its dinky selection and less-than-optimum readability diminish its worth significantly.

What do you suppose this year’s New York Comic Con will bring? – Melinda Beasi


Web Browser

Anesthesiologist Hana Vol. 2 | By Nakao Hakua and Kappei Matsumoto | Futabasha, Manga Action | JManga.com | Windows XP, Firefox 11.0
Volume Two of this medical series continues to pummel our heroine with exhausting daily living. I’d say crises, but she’s an anesthesiologist, so to a certain degree this is what she does. She has professors teaching a class putting her on the spot to embarrass her, the hospital changing to more of a trauma unit center (meaning longer hours), and most of all a new doctor in the unit, Hiura, who is a complete and utter jerk to her He’s constantly yelling at her and forcing her to step up her game, and is rude to her other colleagues… especially Dr. Kobayakawa, the troubled young doctor Hana hit it off with last volume. Of course, those familiar with this type of manga will know immediately that he is the sort of person that doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He dislikes Kobayakawa for his fear and wasted potential, and is so hard on Hana because of her increasing skills and pluck – he teaches by rudeness, basically.

He also, in yelling at Hana, basically notes that her breasts are big, something this manga never really allows us to forget. There’s no gratuitous shower scene here, but instead we get a new trauma doctor, Kenshi, who simply walks up, marvels at her breasts, and starts to fondle them. My jaw dropped briefly, and I am once again reminded of the huge sexual harassment gulf between here and Japan, in that Hana didn’t slug him. Yes, this is supposed to take place in the mid-90s rather than the time it was written, but sheesh. This doctor later gets a nice moment where he tries to teach Hana a basic truth – patients die, and that doctors simply have to accept this and try to save the next one just as hard – but he can’t read her as well as Hiura, so it doesn’t really take. In any case, if his schtick of groping Hana becomes his running gag, I can’t say I’ll be too fond of him.

There’s a lot of medical stuff going on here, and like the first volume if the reader doesn’t want to wade through some jargon they may be in trouble..That said, it’s not too difficult, and the basic premise remains the same – a doctor’s life is very hard, and every day is a struggle to wonder if it’s worth it. Especially given that these are anesthesiologists, so they don’t have the ‘these are my life-saving hands!’ aspect that, say, heart surgeons would. Hana, like the heroine of Nao Go Straight, can be too empathic at times – something contrasted with the new trauma doctors introduced towards the end. The best chapters were the two-parters, one dealing with the patient who loses his life, as I’d mentioned, and the other with how anesthesiologists have immense trouble with morbidly obese people. Hiura wants to harness Hana’s passion, and avoid having her become like Kobayakawa. Can he do it? To be continued! -Sean Gaffney

Disclosure: Melinda Beasi is currently under contract with Digital Manga Publishing’s Digital Manga Guild, as necessitated for her ongoing report Inside the DMG. Any compensation earned by Melinda in her role as an editor with the DMG will be donated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

A Bride’s Story, Vols. 2-3

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Around the age of ten, I had a brief but intense love affair with historical fiction. It began with Little House in the Big Woods — required reading for all American girls of a certain age — and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I then discovered Johnny Tremain, made an unsuccessful attempt to read The Last of the Mohicans — way over my head, I’m afraid — and devoured Summer of My German Soldier.

The books that had the greatest claim on my heart, however, were Lois Lenski’s American regional novels: Strawberry Girl, Cotton in My Sack, Blue Ridge Billy, Mama Hattie’s Girl, and Shoo-Fly Girl. Looking back on these books now, I can see that they weren’t as meticulously crafted as Roll of Thunder or Johnny Tremain; Lenski’s writing was, at times, pedestrian, and her characterizations thin. What Lenski did well, however, was help young readers imagine what it was like to live in rural areas before television, telephones, and electricity were fixtures of the American home. Her books were filled with vivid descriptions of everyday activities: baking pies, picking crops, making dresses from patterns, canning vegetables, feeding chickens, washing clothes. From my sheltered point of view, Lenski’s characters led exotic, fascinating lives: who wouldn’t want to turn a bolt of calico into an actual dress, or spend the day picking berries? (The answer turns out to be me, as I flunked Home Economics.)

Though I’ve read my share of historical novels in the intervening years, I’ve seldom loved those books with the same fierce intensity as I did Strawberry Girl. Some of that disenchantment could be chalked up to adolescence: as a teenager, music superseded books as my most important form of escapism, and I read far fewer novels. And some of my disenchantment reflected my academic training: as a college student, I majored in History, taking courses that gave me the tools for exploring other places and times. Reading A Bride’s Story, however, reminded me how powerful good historical fiction can be.

A Bride’s Story depicts everyday life in a long-ago setting — in this case, Central Asia in the nineteenth century, where the fictional Eihon clan herd sheep and make textiles. To give readers a better understanding of the period, Kaoru Mori devotes entire chapters to describing how her characters live. In chapter 6 of A Bride’s Story, for example, Mori documents “oven day,” a communal event in which women prepare and bake bread. Mori captures the scene in meticulous detail, showing us how the women shape and stamp the dough into elaborate patterns. At the same time, however, Mori uses this gathering to explore the social dynamic within the Eihon clan; though none of the women are overtly hostile to new bride Amir, her inexperience and outsider status make it all but impossible for her to join the circle.

Other rituals are depicted with similar care. In chapter 10, for example, British anthropologist Henry Smith observes the Eihon women embroidering linen. Smith is a clever device: he serves as a natural reader surrogate, neatly anticipating the reader’s questions about the materials and cultural significance of the patterns. His questions serve another equally important purpose: they prompt Balkirsch, the clan matriarch, to identify the author of each design, explaining who she was and where she came from, in the process giving an informal history of the village.

Even in volume three, which introduces a new romantic subplot, Mori continues to document everyday activities in painstaking detail. Once again, Henry Smith serves as our eyes and ears, this time during a brief stay with two women he meets on the road to Ankara. Mori does a superb job of contrasting these women’s existence with the Eihons’: unlike the Eihons, who live in a thriving village, these women live alone on the edge of a vast plain, occupying two modest yurts with little in the way of possessions. Talas, the younger woman, must do the work of two people, grinding grain by hand, spinning wool, preparing meals, and tending a flock of sheep, following them on foot for miles each day. Though her face is youthful, her body language is not; in stark contrast to the physically robust Amir, Talas’s stooped shoulders and downcast eyes suggest the physical toll her daily labors exert.

Though Mori punctuates these moments of quiet reflection with dramatic, juicy scenes — a nighttime raid on the Eihon compound, an interrogation by Cossack soldiers, an angry confrontation between suitors — A Bride’s Story is at its best when it focuses on women’s daily lives. As this reviewer observes, Mori is not critiquing Central Asian society so much as depicting it in its full complexity. Mori never shies away from showing us how vulnerable women are in a patriarchal culture, as Talas’ situation demonstrates: without a father to arrange a new marriage for her, her late husbands’ relatives may claim her as property.

At the same time, however, Mori recognizes that women find small but meaningful ways to exercise their agency in such cultures, carving out a sphere of influence for themselves. She celebrates their wisdom and resilience, honoring their hard work by documenting it in minute detail. Perhaps that’s why I love A Bride’s Story so much; like Strawberry Girl and Little House in the Big Woods, A Bride’s Story helps me imagine what my daily life as a woman would have been like, warts and all, had I been born in another place and time. Highly recommended.

Review copy of volume three provided by Yen Press.

A BRIDE’S STORY, VOLS. 2-3 • BY KAORU MORI • YEN PRESS • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

A Bride’s Story, Vols. 2-3

by

Around the age of ten, I had a brief but intense love affair with historical fiction. It began with Little House in the Big Woods — required reading for all American girls of a certain age — and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I then discovered Johnny Tremain, made an unsuccessful attempt to read The Last of the Mohicans — way over my head, I’m afraid — and devoured Summer of My German Soldier.

The books that had the greatest claim on my heart, however, were Lois Lenski’s American regional novels: Strawberry Girl, Cotton in My Sack, Blue Ridge Billy, Mama Hattie’s Girl, and Shoo-Fly Girl. Looking back on these books now, I can see that they weren’t as meticulously crafted as Roll of Thunder or Johnny Tremain; Lenski’s writing was, at times, pedestrian, and her characterizations thin. What Lenski did well, however, was help young readers imagine what it was like to live in rural areas before television, telephones, and electricity were fixtures of the American home. Her books were filled with vivid descriptions of everyday activities: baking pies, picking crops, making dresses from patterns, canning vegetables, feeding chickens, washing clothes. From my sheltered point of view, Lenski’s characters led exotic, fascinating lives: who wouldn’t want to turn a bolt of calico into an actual dress, or spend the day picking berries? (The answer turns out to be me, as I flunked Home Economics.)

Though I’ve read my share of historical novels in the intervening years, I’ve seldom loved those books with the same fierce intensity as I did Strawberry Girl. Some of that disenchantment could be chalked up to adolescence: as a teenager, music superseded books as my most important form of escapism, and I read far fewer novels. And some of my disenchantment reflected my academic training: as a college student, I majored in History, taking courses that gave me the tools for exploring other places and times. Reading A Bride’s Story, however, reminded me how powerful good historical fiction can be.

A Bride’s Story depicts everyday life in a long-ago setting — in this case, Central Asia in the nineteenth century, where the fictional Eihon clan herd sheep and make textiles. To give readers a better understanding of the period, Kaoru Mori devotes entire chapters to describing how her characters live. In chapter 6 of A Bride’s Story, for example, Mori documents “oven day,” a communal event in which women prepare and bake bread. Mori captures the scene in meticulous detail, showing us how the women shape and stamp the dough into elaborate patterns. At the same time, however, Mori uses this gathering to explore the social dynamic within the Eihon clan; though none of the women are overtly hostile to new bride Amir, her inexperience and outsider status make it all but impossible for her to join the circle.

Other rituals are depicted with similar care. In chapter 10, for example, British anthropologist Henry Smith observes the Eihon women embroidering linen. Smith is a clever device: he serves as a natural reader surrogate, neatly anticipating the reader’s questions about the materials and cultural significance of the patterns. His questions serve another equally important purpose: they prompt Balkirsch, the clan matriarch, to identify the author of each design, explaining who she was and where she came from, in the process giving an informal history of the village.

Even in volume three, which introduces a new romantic subplot, Mori continues to document everyday activities in painstaking detail. Once again, Henry Smith serves as our eyes and ears, this time during a brief stay with two women he meets on the road to Ankara. Mori does a superb job of contrasting these women’s existence with the Eihons’: unlike the Eihons, who live in a thriving village, these women live alone on the edge of a vast plain, occupying two modest yurts with little in the way of possessions. Talas, the younger woman, must do the work of two people, grinding grain by hand, spinning wool, preparing meals, and tending a flock of sheep, following them on foot for miles each day. Though her face is youthful, her body language is not; in stark contrast to the physically robust Amir, Talas’s stooped shoulders and downcast eyes suggest the physical toll her daily labors exert.

Though Mori punctuates these moments of quiet reflection with dramatic, juicy scenes — a nighttime raid on the Eihon compound, an interrogation by Cossack soldiers, an angry confrontation between suitors — A Bride’s Story is at its best when it focuses on women’s daily lives. As this reviewer observes, Mori is not critiquing Central Asian society so much as depicting it in its full complexity. Mori never shies away from showing us how vulnerable women are in a patriarchal culture, as Talas’ situation demonstrates: without a father to arrange a new marriage for her, her late husbands’ relatives may claim her as property.

At the same time, however, Mori recognizes that women find small but meaningful ways to exercise their agency in such cultures, carving out a sphere of influence for themselves. She celebrates their wisdom and resilience, honoring their hard work by documenting it in minute detail. Perhaps that’s why I love A Bride’s Story so much; like Strawberry Girl and Little House in the Big Woods, A Bride’s Story helps me imagine what my daily life as a woman would have been like, warts and all, had I been born in another place and time. Highly recommended.

Review copy of volume three provided by Yen Press.

A BRIDE’S STORY, VOLS. 2-3 • BY KAORU MORI • YEN PRESS • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Is This A Zombie?, Vol. 1

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Here’s a tip for aspiring manga artists: if you’re going to spoof a genre, your jokes should be poking fun at said genre’s conventions, not slavishly adhering to them. Is This a Zombie? wants to be a send-up of magical girl manga and harem comedies, but focuses so heavily on panty shots, “accidental” nudity (of the “whoops, my clothes disintegrated!” variety), and girl fights that it’s easy to forget that the story is supposed to be a cheeky riposte to Cutie Honey, Sailor Moon, Love Hina, and Negima!

The other great problem plaguing Is This a Zombie? is focus. From the opening pages of volume one, a reader might reasonably conclude that the main plot revolves around teenager Ayumu Aikawa’s quest to find out who killed him. The sudden arrival of Haruna, a self-proclaimed “magikewl girl” who wears a maid’s costume and carries a pink chainsaw, complicates the picture, however. By means never fully explained, Haruna’s powers are accidentally transferred to Ayumu, who undergoes a full Sailor Moon-style transformation into a dress-wearing, weapon-wielding magical girl in the presence of other supernatural beings.

If Haruna’s arrival provided genuine comic relief, or advanced the plot in a meaningful way, the resulting horror-magical girl mishmash might not seem so incongruous. The lame cross-dressing jokes, however, do almost nothing for the story except reveal Shinichi Kimura’s steadfast belief that if a man in a frilly dress is hilarious, then a male magical girl in a frilly dress is exponentially funnier. And if the guy-in-a-dress gags weren’t tired enough, Kimura gives Ayumu a full-fledged harem that includes Eu, a necromancer, and Sera, a vampire ninja. True to harem comedy form, the three girls live with Ayumu, clamoring for Ayumu’s attention, bickering with each other during meals, and seeking his approval on outfits. Whatever “comedy” results from their competition is of a meager sort; Kimura seems to think that that the girls’ catty put-downs have sufficient zing to generate laughs. (They don’t.)

The artwork does little to enhance the story’s comedic tone. Ayumu is as generic a hero as they come, with a carefully tousled mop of hair, a standard-issue high school uniform, and a nose that’s ever-so-slightly larger than the female characters’. Of the three magical girls, only Sera is drawn as a mature teen; Eu and Haruna each look about ten or eleven years old. The girls’ youthful appearance would be less unsettling if they kept their clothing on, but Haruna’s frequent costume failures put an icky, exploitative spin on a sight gag that’s clearly meant to be sexy.

The backgrounds and action scenes have the same perfunctory quality as the character designs. All of the settings — cemeteries, schoolrooms, apartments — look the same, a collection of simple, square shapes that barely establish the location. And while that means the fight scenes are lean and mean, unburdened with excessive detail, it also means that the combat seems to be taking place in an alternate universe from the main story, one that lacks any meaningful visual continuity with the other scenes.

I wish I could find something to like about Is This a Zombie?, as the story wants to be the Naked Gun of manga spoofs, a naughty but good-natured comedy that invites readers to laugh at tired tropes. The resulting story, however, feels a lot more like Epic Movie, a scattershot, semi-exploitative grab-bag of superhero jokes, Pirates of the Caribbean gags, and sword-and-sandal send-ups; substitute “zombie manga,” “harem comedies,” and “magical-girl manga” for the aforementioned genres, and you’d have Is This a Zombie? in all its awfulness.

Review copy provided by Yen Press. Volume one will be available on March 27th.

IS THIS A ZOMBIE?, VOL. 1 • STORY BY SHINICHI KIMURA, ART BY SACCHI, CHARACTERS BY KOBUICHI – MURIRIN • YEN PRESS • 172 pp. • RATING: MATURE (NUDITY, LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE)

Is This A Zombie?, Vol. 1

by

Here’s a tip for aspiring manga artists: if you’re going to spoof a genre, your jokes should be poking fun at said genre’s conventions, not slavishly adhering to them. Is This a Zombie? wants to be a send-up of magical girl manga and harem comedies, but focuses so heavily on panty shots, “accidental” nudity (of the “whoops, my clothes disintegrated!” variety), and girl fights that it’s easy to forget that the story is supposed to be a cheeky riposte to Cutie Honey, Sailor Moon, Love Hina, and Negima!

The other great problem plaguing Is This a Zombie? is focus. From the opening pages of volume one, a reader might reasonably conclude that the main plot revolves around teenager Ayumu Aikawa’s quest to find out who killed him. The sudden arrival of Haruna, a self-proclaimed “magikewl girl” who wears a maid’s costume and carries a pink chainsaw, complicates the picture, however. By means never fully explained, Haruna’s powers are accidentally transferred to Ayumu, who undergoes a full Sailor Moon-style transformation into a dress-wearing, weapon-wielding magical girl in the presence of other supernatural beings.

If Haruna’s arrival provided genuine comic relief, or advanced the plot in a meaningful way, the resulting horror-magical girl mishmash might not seem so incongruous. The lame cross-dressing jokes, however, do almost nothing for the story except reveal Shinichi Kimura’s steadfast belief that if a man in a frilly dress is hilarious, then a male magical girl in a frilly dress is exponentially funnier. And if the guy-in-a-dress gags weren’t tired enough, Kimura gives Ayumu a full-fledged harem that includes Eu, a necromancer, and Sera, a vampire ninja. True to harem comedy form, the three girls live with Ayumu, clamoring for Ayumu’s attention, bickering with each other during meals, and seeking his approval on outfits. Whatever “comedy” results from their competition is of a meager sort; Kimura seems to think that that the girls’ catty put-downs have sufficient zing to generate laughs. (They don’t.)

The artwork does little to enhance the story’s comedic tone. Ayumu is as generic a hero as they come, with a carefully tousled mop of hair, a standard-issue high school uniform, and a nose that’s ever-so-slightly larger than the female characters’. Of the three magical girls, only Sera is drawn as a mature teen; Eu and Haruna each look about ten or eleven years old. The girls’ youthful appearance would be less unsettling if they kept their clothing on, but Haruna’s frequent costume failures put an icky, exploitative spin on a sight gag that’s clearly meant to be sexy.

The backgrounds and action scenes have the same perfunctory quality as the character designs. All of the settings — cemeteries, schoolrooms, apartments — look the same, a collection of simple, square shapes that barely establish the location. And while that means the fight scenes are lean and mean, unburdened with excessive detail, it also means that the combat seems to be taking place in an alternate universe from the main story, one that lacks any meaningful visual continuity with the other scenes.

I wish I could find something to like about Is This a Zombie?, as the story wants to be the Naked Gun of manga spoofs, a naughty but good-natured comedy that invites readers to laugh at tired tropes. The resulting story, however, feels a lot more like Epic Movie, a scattershot, semi-exploitative grab-bag of superhero jokes, Pirates of the Caribbean gags, and sword-and-sandal send-ups; substitute “zombie manga,” “harem comedies,” and “magical-girl manga” for the aforementioned genres, and you’d have Is This a Zombie? in all its awfulness.

Review copy provided by Yen Press. Volume one will be available on March 27th.

IS THIS A ZOMBIE?, VOL. 1 • STORY BY SHINICHI KIMURA, ART BY SACCHI, CHARACTERS BY KOBUICHI – MURIRIN • YEN PRESS • 172 pp. • RATING: MATURE (NUDITY, LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE)

Comic Conversion: Soulless

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Soulless | Novel: Gail Carriger / Orbit Books | Manga: REM / Yen Press

Twenty-five-year-old spinster Alexia Tarabotti has a a few problems. First, she’s a spinster, and being a half-Italian in Victorian England isn’t helping. Second, she’s a preternatural, a human without a soul. And third, a vampire has just died–and it might be her fault! Alexia finds herself in the middle of a mystery involving vampire hives, royalty, and scientists, as rove vampires and lone werewolves are disappearing. In the midst of it all, Lord Maccon, the werewolf pack leader and head of the Bureau of Unnatural Registry, is taking a decided interest in her, and not just because of her preternatural powers. It’s enough to overwhelm any lady–but Alexia is out to prove that she’s much more formidable than that.

Soulless, written by Gail Carriger, is the first novel in the Parasol Protectorate, a paranormal romance/mystery series from Orbit Books. The story takes place in a Victorian England where werewolves, vampires and ghosts are not only real, but are a part of every day society. Last July, Yen Press debuted the manga adaptation of this series in Yen Plus magazine, and has just recently released the first volume in the series, trusting the artist REM (Vampire Kisses) to bring Carrriger’s steam punk supernatural romance to life.

Two pages into the Soulless novel I found myself utterly delighted with the prose. Taking on a distinct Victorian tone, Carriger uses the slight sarcasm you get from a Jane Austen novel to describe a surprise vampire battle. This creates some hilariously fancified lines (“For his part, the vampire seemed to feel that their encounter had improved his ball experience immeasurably.”) and amusing quips (“to put the pudding in the puff”) that plastered a grin on my face from the start. Of course, it pretty quickly feels like Carriger’s laying it on too thick, but luckily she seems to find a happy medium, and the tone evens out.

Soulless is a pretty steamy book, and while like most romances the “amorous activities”, as Alexia calls them, can get out of hand (making out in a jail cell? Really?) the love story never completely overshadows the mystery. The characters themselves are a treat: Alexia is smart and sharp-tongued, and despite the historical and cultural hindrances is a pretty inspiring female character. Lord Maccon is a little more one-dimensional as a gruff werewolf with a soft spot for a certain spinster, but it’s adorable to watch him fumble with human vs. werewolf courting. Members of Alexia’s immediate family fall flat: her sisters are foolish, her step-father is disconnected, and her mother is arrogant (by the end I don’t see why she would stoop to marrying an Italian in the first place). But other side characters liven up the story, with the flamboyant-but-formidable vampire Lord Akeldama, Alexia’s mildly eccentric friend Miss Hisselpenny, and Maccon’s perceptive Beta Professor Lyall, allowing our main pair to vent their thoughts while still showing plenty enough personality to make them interesting on their own.

The characters are just as appealing in the manga, with REM’s art style helping to enhance that. Akeldama is still exceptionally flamboyant, with outfits and mannerisms just as fancy and theatrical as I imagined. His exuberant, italicized dialogue is cut down a bit, but his sly smiles and occasional shift to a super-deformed look gives him the energetic feel of a mischievous child. Lord Maccon maintains his roughness in dialogue, though REM gives him a cleaner look than I would have pictured. Still, his care and interest in Miss Tarabotti is both more amusing (an arrow leads his gaze right down Alexia’s cleavage), and more endearing. REM also seems to know enough not to let text boxes overwhelm the art. Because of this, the occasional heavy-handedness of Carriger’s Victorian prose is eliminated, leaving us only with the delightful bits (“I say!” says Alexia as a vampire tries to kill her. “We have not been introduced!”).

The pacing of the comic is generally very even, with a good balance between the supernatural mystery and the romantic plot. On a couple of occasions REM chose to cut scenes out. Much of the deletion has little affect on either the flow or understanding of the story, like when Alexia’s mother and half-sisters return from a shopping trip: while it’s interesting in that it deepens the reasons for Alexia’s dislike of her own family, all this scene does is emphasize her sisters’ frivolousness and her mother’s condescension, things we’ve picked up on well enough. This scene is not missed, but another, when pudgy scientist Mr. MacDougal takes Alexia on a carriage ride, is a little more noticeable. While the book has him taking her around town as he explains his scientific theories, the comic only shows the end of the ride, when he drops Alexia off, and she merely comments that he had some “interesting theories on the soul.” Readers may be able to guess the conversation based on the dinner from a few pages earlier, but the main problem lies in the abruptness of the scene, giving the distinct feeling of something having been hacked out.

Both versions of Soulless had a couple of missteps in pacing that momentarily jarred me out of the story, and the romance scenes didn’t always have the best timing, considering the other tensions going on. But I easily jumped right back into the flow, and the romance is sexy enough to make up for the occasional poor placement. Soulless could have gone the route of many a paranormal romance novel, making the supernatural plot nothing more than a cheap gimmick, but Carriger manages to create not only an enticing romance but also an engrossing mystery and a fleshed out, believable fantasy world. REM’s art style and sense of panel layout gives us an adaptation that’s just as enjoyable, so in this case I say pick your favorite medium – you can’t go wrong either way.

Soulless: The Manga, Vol. 1

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Soulless is saucy in the best possible sense of the word: it’s bold and smart, with a heroine so irrepressible you can see why author Gail Carriger couldn’t tell Alexia Tarabotti’s story in just one book.

As fans of Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate novels know, Alexia is a sharp-tongued woman living in Victorian London — or rather, a steampunk version of Victorian London in which vampires and werewolves co-exist with the “daylight” (read: “human”) world. As she would in the real nineteenth-century England, Alexia faces pressure to marry, a prospect complicated by her age — she’s twenty-six — her ethnicity — her father was Italian — and her prodigious intellect. Alexia has one additional strike against her, albeit one that doesn’t affect her marriageability: she’s soulless, a “preternatural” being who can neutralize the vampires and werewolves’ power, temporarily reducing them to mortal form.

Plot-wise, Soulless is an agreeable mishmash of Young Sherlock Holmes, Underworld, and Mansfield Park, with a dash of Jules Verne for good measure. The basic storyline is a whodunnit: Alexia becomes the prime suspect in a string of supernatural disappearances around London, and must collaborate with Lord Collan Maccon, a belligerent werewolf detective, to clear her name. What they discover in the course of their investigation is a grand conspiracy worthy of an Indiana Jones movie, complete with evil scientists, vampire “hives,” sinister-looking laboratories, and a golem; all that’s missing is the Ark of the Covenant and a few Nazi generals.

At the same time, Soulless is a romance. Alexia would make a swell Austen heroine, as she faces the kind of obstacles to marriage that would elicit sympathy from the Dashwood girls and Fanny Price. The greatest of these hurdles isn’t her name or her age, however; it’s Alexia’s firm conviction that marriage should not be a socially or financially expedient union, but a true partnership. Paging Elizabeth Bennett!

Given how many genres are present in the text — it’s a crime procedural, a thriller, an urban fantasy, a comedy of manners, and a bodice ripper — it’s astonishing how well all the tropes mesh. Some of that success can be attributed to the dialogue. The characters’ peppery exchanges are an affectionate parody of British costume dramas; substitute “soulless” for “penniless,” and Alexia could easily be a character in Sense and Sensibility. A few passages strain too hard for effect — would anyone have really chosen “comestibles” over “food” when complaining about a party? — but for the most part, Carriger finds a convincing tone that’s neither faux-archaic nor casually contemporary.

Soulless’ other great strength is its appealing cast of characters. Alexia and Maccon are clearly the stars of this imaginary universe; anyone who’s read Middlemarch or Emma will immediately recognize that Alexia and Maccon are The Main Couple, as they spend most of volume one denying their mutual attraction and trading zingers. (“I may be a werewolf and Scottish, but despite what you may have read about both, we are not cads!” Maccon declares in a fit of Darcy-esque pique.) In the spirit of the best nineteenth-century novels, however, Carriger situates her lovebirds inside a vibrant community, albeit one inhabited by grumpy werewolves and flamboyant vampires in lieu of parsons, baronets, and virtuous maidens. Though these supporting characters don’t always get the screen time they deserve, Lord Akeldama, Professor Lyall, and Ivy Hisselpenny enliven the narrative with sharp observations and sound advice for Alexia and Maccon.

Manga artist Rem, best-known for her work on Vampire Kisses, does a fine job of translating Carriger’s prose into pictures. Though Rem’s attention to period detail is evident in the characters’ sumptuous costumes and lavishly furnished parlors, her meticulousness extends to the action sequences as well. An early fight between Alexia and a vampire is expertly staged, making effective use of dramatic camera angles and overturned furniture to capture the intensity of their struggle. Rem also manages to fold many of Carriger’s steampunk flourishes — zeppelins, steam-powered carriages, “glassicals” — into the story without overwhelming the eye; if anything, I found the subtlety of the steampunk elements an improvement on the novel, where the object descriptions sometimes felt like tangents.

The only drawback to the artwork is Alexia herself. In the novels, Carriger describes her as plain and full-figured; in the manga, however, Rem depicts Alexia as a buxom, wasp-waisted babe with a pouty mouth and a pretty face. That transformation is certainly in keeping with manga aesthetics — even the plainest young characters are usually pleasing to the eye — but not with the source material; as a reader, one of the real pleasures of Soulless is watching the heroine triumph on the strength of her character and brains, not the size of her bust.

On the whole, however, Rem has succeeded in taking a justifiably popular novel and making it work in a different medium on its own terms; readers new to Carriger’s work will be as enchanted with this cheeky, fun adaptation as her hardcore fans. Recommended.

Review copy provided by Yen Press. Volume one of Soulless: The Manga will be released in March 2012.

SOULLESS: THE MANGA, VOL. 1 • STORY BY GAIL CARRIGER, ART AND ADAPTATION BY REM • YEN PRESS •  208 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (VIOLENCE, SEXUAL SITUATIONS, NUDITY)

Soulless: The Manga, Vol. 1

by 17 Comments

Soulless is saucy in the best possible sense of the word: it’s bold and smart, with a heroine so irrepressible you can see why author Gail Carriger couldn’t tell Alexia Tarabotti’s story in just one book.

As fans of Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate novels know, Alexia is a sharp-tongued woman living in Victorian London — or rather, a steampunk version of Victorian London in which vampires and werewolves co-exist with the “daylight” (read: “human”) world. As she would in the real nineteenth-century England, Alexia faces pressure to marry, a prospect complicated by her age — she’s twenty-six — her ethnicity — her father was Italian — and her prodigious intellect. Alexia has one additional strike against her, albeit one that doesn’t affect her marriageability: she’s soulless, a “preternatural” being who can neutralize the vampires and werewolves’ power, temporarily reducing them to mortal form.

Plot-wise, Soulless is an agreeable mishmash of Young Sherlock Holmes, Underworld, and Mansfield Park, with a dash of Jules Verne for good measure. The basic storyline is a whodunnit: Alexia becomes the prime suspect in a string of supernatural disappearances around London, and must collaborate with Lord Collan Maccon, a belligerent werewolf detective, to clear her name. What they discover in the course of their investigation is a grand conspiracy worthy of an Indiana Jones movie, complete with evil scientists, vampire “hives,” sinister-looking laboratories, and a golem; all that’s missing is the Ark of the Covenant and a few Nazi generals.

At the same time, Soulless is a romance. Alexia would make a swell Austen heroine, as she faces the kind of obstacles to marriage that would elicit sympathy from the Dashwood girls and Fanny Price. The greatest of these hurdles isn’t her name or her age, however; it’s Alexia’s firm conviction that marriage should not be a socially or financially expedient union, but a true partnership. Paging Elizabeth Bennett!

Given how many genres are present in the text — it’s a crime procedural, a thriller, an urban fantasy, a comedy of manners, and a bodice ripper — it’s astonishing how well all the tropes mesh. Some of that success can be attributed to the dialogue. The characters’ peppery exchanges are an affectionate parody of British costume dramas; substitute “soulless” for “penniless,” and Alexia could easily be a character in Sense and Sensibility. A few passages strain too hard for effect — would anyone have really chosen “comestibles” over “food” when complaining about a party? — but for the most part, Carriger finds a convincing tone that’s neither faux-archaic nor casually contemporary.

Soulless’ other great strength is its appealing cast of characters. Alexia and Maccon are clearly the stars of this imaginary universe; anyone who’s read Middlemarch or Emma will immediately recognize that Alexia and Maccon are The Main Couple, as they spend most of volume one denying their mutual attraction and trading zingers. (“I may be a werewolf and Scottish, but despite what you may have read about both, we are not cads!” Maccon declares in a fit of Darcy-esque pique.) In the spirit of the best nineteenth-century novels, however, Carriger situates her lovebirds inside a vibrant community, albeit one inhabited by grumpy werewolves and flamboyant vampires in lieu of parsons, baronets, and virtuous maidens. Though these supporting characters don’t always get the screen time they deserve, Lord Akeldama, Professor Lyall, and Ivy Hisselpenny enliven the narrative with sharp observations and sound advice for Alexia and Maccon.

Manga artist Rem, best-known for her work on Vampire Kisses, does a fine job of translating Carriger’s prose into pictures. Though Rem’s attention to period detail is evident in the characters’ sumptuous costumes and lavishly furnished parlors, her meticulousness extends to the action sequences as well. An early fight between Alexia and a vampire is expertly staged, making effective use of dramatic camera angles and overturned furniture to capture the intensity of their struggle. Rem also manages to fold many of Carriger’s steampunk flourishes — zeppelins, steam-powered carriages, “glassicals” — into the story without overwhelming the eye; if anything, I found the subtlety of the steampunk elements an improvement on the novel, where the object descriptions sometimes felt like tangents.

The only drawback to the artwork is Alexia herself. In the novels, Carriger describes her as plain and full-figured; in the manga, however, Rem depicts Alexia as a buxom, wasp-waisted babe with a pouty mouth and a pretty face. That transformation is certainly in keeping with manga aesthetics — even the plainest young characters are usually pleasing to the eye — but not with the source material; as a reader, one of the real pleasures of Soulless is watching the heroine triumph on the strength of her character and brains, not the size of her bust.

On the whole, however, Rem has succeeded in taking a justifiably popular novel and making it work in a different medium on its own terms; readers new to Carriger’s work will be as enchanted with this cheeky, fun adaptation as her hardcore fans. Recommended.

Review copy provided by Yen Press. Volume one of Soulless: The Manga will be released in March 2012.

SOULLESS: THE MANGA, VOL. 1 • STORY BY GAIL CARRIGER, ART AND ADAPTATION BY REM • YEN PRESS •  208 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (VIOLENCE, SEXUAL SITUATIONS, NUDITY)

Durarara!!, Vol. 1

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Story by Ryohgo Narita, Art by Akiyo Satorigi, Character Design by Suzuhito Yasuda | Published by Yen Press

Here is the sum total of my Durarara!! knowledge prior to reading volume one of the manga:

1. It is based on light novels.
2. There is an anime.
3. People were really excited about the license.

It turns out that those light novels are by the creator of Baccano!, another exclamatory property with an anime that I’ve never seen, but which has been praised by various reputable sources. So, even though I knew nothing about Durarara!! itself, I was definitely curious.

In the space of six pages, three concepts and one narrative conceit are efficiently introduced. Time for another list!

1. Inside a pharmaceutical laboratory, a speaker (presumably male) promises a girl in a tank that he will “get us out of here.”
2. A trio of anonymous hands chat about the Tokyo neighborhood of Ikebukuro and the twenty-year-old urban legend of the Black Rider.
3. Timid fifteen-year-old Mikado Ryuugamine moves to Ikebukuro to reconnect with a childhood friend and attend high school.

Each of these threads will be developed and expanded upon in the volume to come, with some slight overlap but so far not much. Because of that, I’ll address them separately.

1. We learn the least about this subplot in this volume, but it appears to have something to do with Seiji, a boy in Mikado’s class, who lives with his possibly evil sister. Seiji briefly has a stalker who sees something she shouldn’t, and I wonder if that doesn’t tie in with the next item on our list.

2. We see the anonymous chatters a few times throughout the volume and it soon becomes clear that Mikado is one of them and I’m pretty sure the Black Rider is another. Seriously, the Black Rider is the most awesome thing about the volume. A competent fighter with a body seemingly comprised of shadows, the Black Rider takes courier jobs around Ikebukuro, dispatches thugs efficently, and lives with a “shut-in doctor” who would not be averse to a romantic relationship even though the Black Rider has no head.

3. Mikado, alas, is not so interesting, though the fact that he came to town because he wanted something strange and exciting to happen to him is at least somewhat encouraging. He reconnects with his friend, Kida, meets some of Kida’s otaku friends, and is warned against associating with various unsavory people, including someone named Shizuo, who hasn’t really appeared yet but looks kind of awesome, and Izaya, an informant with bleak ideas about the afterlife who extorts money from those who intend to kill themselves.

There are some series that bombard one with so much information that one ends up frustrated. If I were more astute, I might be able to pinpoint how, exactly, the creators of Durarara!! manage to avoid this pitfall, but they do. Granted, there is a lot going on, but the exposition is sure-handed, leaving one with the expectation that all will eventually make sense. Perhaps it’s the light-novel foundation that inspires this confidence, though that is certainly no guarantee of quality.

“Weird but intriguing” is my ultimate verdict for this volume, and I look forward to the second volume very much. It’s a stylish title, one that’s more cool than profound at this stage, and I realize that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but it pushed the right buttons for me so I’ll definitely be back for more.

Durarara!! is published in English by Yen Press. The series is complete in Japan with four volumes.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

The Best Manga of 2011: The Manga Critic’s Picks

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The usual gambit for introducing a year-end list is to remark on the abundance of good titles, acknowledge the difficulty in choosing just ten (or five, or three), and comment on the overall state of the industry. And while I certainly debated what to include on my list, I’ll be honest: 2011 yielded fewer contenders for Best Manga than any other year I’ve covered. The dearth of new titles was attributable to publishers’ financial prudence; companies released fewer books, licensed fewer series, and focused on repackaging older content for budget-conscious consumers. And though I selfishly wish that more new material had been released this year, I think manga publishers have done an excellent job of responding to their biggest challenges: a sluggish economy, digital piracy, and Borders’ bankruptcy.

So what titles made my 2011 list? My top ten are below, along with my list of favorite continuing series, favorite finales, and favorite guilty pleasures.

10. BREATHE DEEPLY (Yamaaki Doton; One Peace Books)

Part sci-fi thriller, part coming-of-age story, this engrossing drama examines the relationship between two young men: Sei, who grew up in a world of privilege, and Oishi, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Both Sei and Oishi fall in love with Yuko, a sickly girl whose incurable illness inspires her suitors to become medical researchers. In less capable hands, Breathe Deeply might have been a mawkish paean to the purity of young love, but the husband-and-wife team of Yamaaki Doton have a keen ear for dialogue; the interactions between Yuko and her two suitors are tinged with an authentic mixture of adolescent anxiety, sexual longing, and braggadocio. Clean, expressive artwork and well-rounded characters help sell the story, especially in its final pages. One of 2011’s best surprises.

9. THE SECRET NOTES OF LADY KANOKO (Ririko Tsujita; Tokyopop)

Kanoko, the sardonic heroine of The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko, is a student of human behavior, gleefully filling her notebooks with detailed observations about her classmates. Though Kanoko would like nothing more than to remain on the sidelines, she frequently becomes embroiled in her peers’ problems; they value her independent perspective, as Kanoko isn’t the least bit interested in dating, running for student council, or currying favor with the alpha clique. Kanoko’s sharp tongue and cool demeanor might make her the mean-girl villain in another shojo manga, but Ririko Tsujita embraces her heroine’s prickly, opinionated nature and makes it fundamental to Kanoko’s appeal. It’s a pity TOKYOPOP didn’t survive long enough to finish this three-volume series, as it’s one of the best shojo titles in recent memory.

8. WANDERING SON (Takako Shimura; Fantagraphics)

In her thoughtful review of volume one, Michelle Smith praised Takako Shimura’s deft use of perspective: “The main thing I kept thinking about while reading Wandering Son… is how things that seem insignificant to one person can be secretly, intensely significant to someone else.” Shimura’s ability to dramatize each character’s unique point of view is one of the reasons Wandering Son never feels preachy, even though the topic suggests an Afterschool Special; we are always exquisitely aware of the subtle but important changes in the way each character views herself, as well as her fears and hopes.

7. PRINCESS KNIGHT (Osamu Tezuka; Vertical, Inc.)

What Osamu Tezuka’s New Treasure Island (1946) was to shonen, his Princess Knight (1953-56) was to shojo: both were long-form adventure stories with cinematic flair. Neither could be said to be the “first” shonen or shojo manga, but both had a profound influence on the artists who came of age in the 1940s and 1950s, offering a new storytelling model for them to emulate. Viewed through a contemporary lens, Princess Knight hasn’t aged quite as well as New Treasure Island, as it’s saddled with some woefully antiquated notions of gender. At the same time, however, it’s easy to see why this story appealed to several generations of Japanese girls: Sapphire gets to eat her cake and have it too, having swashbuckling adventures *and* winning the hand of Prince Charming. —Reviewed at Manga Bookshelf on 11/21/11 and The Manga Critic on 12/19/10

6. TANK TANKURO: GAJO SAKAMOTO, MANGA’S PRE-WAR MASTER, 1934-35 (Gajo Sakamoto; Press Pop)

Almost twenty years before Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy took flight in the pages of Shonen Kobunsha magazine, Gajo Sakamoto’s Tank Tankuro enchanted Japanese youngsters with his monster-fighting exploits and cool gadgets. Though the series’ propaganda intent is impossible for contemporary readers to ignore — Tank fights the Chinese, who are portrayed in less-than-flattering terms — Presspop’s new anthology demonstrates that Sakamoto’s artistry has aged more gracefully than his storylines. Sakamoto’s work is packaged in a handsome, hardcover edition that includes thoughtful extras: a contextual essay by translator Sunsuke Nakazawa, an interview with Sakamoto’s son, and an article by Sakamoto himself, discussing the character’s origin.

5. STARGAZING DOG (Takashi Murakami; NBM/Comics Lit)

Consider yourself warned: Stargazing Dog is a five-hanky affair. The two interconnecting vignettes that comprise this slim volume explore the bond between Happie, a shiba inu, and Daddy, his owner. When Daddy loses his job, his home, and his family, he and Happie hit the road in search of a new life. Though the outcome of Happie and Daddy’s journey is never in doubt — we learn their fate in the opening pages of the book — Murakami draws the reader into their story with an honest and unsparing look at the human-dog compact that may remind cinephiles of Vittorio de Sica’s Umberto D. —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 12/23/11

4. ONWARDS TOWARD OUR NOBLE DEATHS (Shigeru Mizuki; Drawn & Quarterly)

In this blistering indictment of Japanese militarism, Shigeru Mizuki draws on his own experiences during World War II to tell the story of a platoon stationed in Papua New Guinea. The soldiers face a terrible choice: fight a hopeless battle, or face execution for treason. Like many war stories, Onwards Toward Our Noble Deaths documents the tremendous human sacrifice of modern armed conflict: gruesome injuries, senseless deaths, devastated landscapes. What lends Mizuki’s narrative its special potency is his depiction of the senior officers; their perverse dedication to their mission turns them into tyrants, more concerned with saving face than saving their own soldiers’ skins. Essential reading for anyone interested in World War II.

3. THE DROPS OF GOD (Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto; Vertical, Inc.)

As Oishinbo handily demonstrated, a skilled writer can fold a considerable amount of educational detail into a story without reducing it to a textbook. The Drops of God follows a similar template, imparting highly specialized information about wine with the same natural ease that Law & Order illustrates the inner workings of a crime investigation. At the same time, however, Drops is a delicious soap opera, filled with domineering fathers, mustache-twirling villains, evil beauties, eccentric oenophiles, and down-on-their-luck restauranteurs. Even if the reader isn’t the least bit interested in wine, he’ll find the drama as irresistible as an episode of Dynasty. —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 12/16/11

2. A ZOO IN WINTER (Jiro Taniguchi; Fanfare/Ponent Mon)

Drawing on his own experiences, Jiro Taniguchi spins an engaging tale about a young man who abandons a promising career in textile design for the opportunity to become a manga artist. Though the basic plot invites comparison with Bakuman, Taniguchi does more than just document important milestones in Hamaguchi’s career: he shows us how Hamaguchi’s emotional maturation informs every aspect of his artistry — something that’s missing from many other portrait-of-an-artist-as-a-young-man sagas, which place much greater emphasis on the pleasure of professional recognition than on the satisfaction of mastering one’s craft. Lovely, moody artwork and an appealing cast of supporting characters complete this very satisfying package.  —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/28/11

1. A BRIDE’S STORY (Kaoru Mori; Yen Press)

A Bride’s Story, which takes place on the banks of the Caspian Sea, explores the relationship between Amir Halgal, a nineteen-year-old nomad, and Karluk Eihon, the eldest son of sheep herders. Though their marriage is one of political expedience, Amir is determined to be a good wife, doing her utmost to learn her new family’s customs, befriend the members of their extended clan, and earn her new husband’s respect. Kaoru Mori is as interested in observing Amir’s everyday life as she is in documenting the growing conflict between the Halgal and Eihon clans, yet A Bride’s Story is never dull, thanks to Mori’s smart, engaging dialogue; as she demonstrated in Emma and Shirley, Mori can make even the simplest moments revealing, whether her characters are preparing a manor house for the master’s return or skinning a freshly killed deer. By allowing her story to unfold in such a naturalistic fashion, A Bride’s Story manages to be both intimate and expansive, offering readers a window into life along the Silk Road. —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/24/11

HONORABLE MENTIONS

As in previous years, I had difficulty limiting myself to just ten titles, so I compiled a list of manga that didn’t quite make my best-of list, but were thoroughly enjoyable:

So now I turn the floor over to you, readers: what were your favorite new manga of 2011?

The Best Manga of 2011: The Manga Critic’s Picks

by 27 Comments

The usual gambit for introducing a year-end list is to remark on the abundance of good titles, acknowledge the difficulty in choosing just ten (or five, or three), and comment on the overall state of the industry. And while I certainly debated what to include on my list, I’ll be honest: 2011 yielded fewer contenders for Best Manga than any other year I’ve covered. The dearth of new titles was attributable to publishers’ financial prudence; companies released fewer books, licensed fewer series, and focused on repackaging older content for budget-conscious consumers. And though I selfishly wish that more new material had been released this year, I think manga publishers have done an excellent job of responding to their biggest challenges: a sluggish economy, digital piracy, and Borders’ bankruptcy.

So what titles made my 2011 list? My top ten are below, along with my list of favorite continuing series, favorite finales, and favorite guilty pleasures.

10. BREATHE DEEPLY (Yamaaki Doton; One Peace Books)

Part sci-fi thriller, part coming-of-age story, this engrossing drama examines the relationship between two young men: Sei, who grew up in a world of privilege, and Oishi, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Both Sei and Oishi fall in love with Yuko, a sickly girl whose incurable illness inspires her suitors to become medical researchers. In less capable hands, Breathe Deeply might have been a mawkish paean to the purity of young love, but the husband-and-wife team of Yamaaki Doton have a keen ear for dialogue; the interactions between Yuko and her two suitors are tinged with an authentic mixture of adolescent anxiety, sexual longing, and braggadocio. Clean, expressive artwork and well-rounded characters help sell the story, especially in its final pages. One of 2011’s best surprises.

9. THE SECRET NOTES OF LADY KANOKO (Ririko Tsujita; Tokyopop)

Kanoko, the sardonic heroine of The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko, is a student of human behavior, gleefully filling her notebooks with detailed observations about her classmates. Though Kanoko would like nothing more than to remain on the sidelines, she frequently becomes embroiled in her peers’ problems; they value her independent perspective, as Kanoko isn’t the least bit interested in dating, running for student council, or currying favor with the alpha clique. Kanoko’s sharp tongue and cool demeanor might make her the mean-girl villain in another shojo manga, but Ririko Tsujita embraces her heroine’s prickly, opinionated nature and makes it fundamental to Kanoko’s appeal. It’s a pity TOKYOPOP didn’t survive long enough to finish this three-volume series, as it’s one of the best shojo titles in recent memory.

8. WANDERING SON (Takako Shimura; Fantagraphics)

In her thoughtful review of volume one, Michelle Smith praised Takako Shimura’s deft use of perspective: “The main thing I kept thinking about while reading Wandering Son… is how things that seem insignificant to one person can be secretly, intensely significant to someone else.” Shimura’s ability to dramatize each character’s unique point of view is one of the reasons Wandering Son never feels preachy, even though the topic suggests an Afterschool Special; we are always exquisitely aware of the subtle but important changes in the way each character views herself, as well as her fears and hopes.

7. PRINCESS KNIGHT (Osamu Tezuka; Vertical, Inc.)

What Osamu Tezuka’s New Treasure Island (1946) was to shonen, his Princess Knight (1953-56) was to shojo: both were long-form adventure stories with cinematic flair. Neither could be said to be the “first” shonen or shojo manga, but both had a profound influence on the artists who came of age in the 1940s and 1950s, offering a new storytelling model for them to emulate. Viewed through a contemporary lens, Princess Knight hasn’t aged quite as well as New Treasure Island, as it’s saddled with some woefully antiquated notions of gender. At the same time, however, it’s easy to see why this story appealed to several generations of Japanese girls: Sapphire gets to eat her cake and have it too, having swashbuckling adventures *and* winning the hand of Prince Charming. –Reviewed at Manga Bookshelf on 11/21/11 and The Manga Critic on 12/19/10

6. TANK TANKURO: GAJO SAKAMOTO, MANGA’S PRE-WAR MASTER, 1934-35 (Gajo Sakamoto; Press Pop)

Almost twenty years before Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy took flight in the pages of Shonen Kobunsha magazine, Gajo Sakamoto’s Tank Tankuro enchanted Japanese youngsters with his monster-fighting exploits and cool gadgets. Though the series’ propaganda intent is impossible for contemporary readers to ignore — Tank fights the Chinese, who are portrayed in less-than-flattering terms — Presspop’s new anthology demonstrates that Sakamoto’s artistry has aged more gracefully than his storylines. Sakamoto’s work is packaged in a handsome, hardcover edition that includes thoughtful extras: a contextual essay by translator Sunsuke Nakazawa, an interview with Sakamoto’s son, and an article by Sakamoto himself, discussing the character’s origin.

5. STARGAZING DOG (Takashi Murakami; NBM/Comics Lit)

Consider yourself warned: Stargazing Dog is a five-hanky affair. The two interconnecting vignettes that comprise this slim volume explore the bond between Happie, a shiba inu, and Daddy, his owner. When Daddy loses his job, his home, and his family, he and Happie hit the road in search of a new life. Though the outcome of Happie and Daddy’s journey is never in doubt — we learn their fate in the opening pages of the book — Murakami draws the reader into their story with an honest and unsparing look at the human-dog compact that may remind cinephiles of Vittorio de Sica’s Umberto D. —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 12/23/11

4. ONWARDS TOWARD OUR NOBLE DEATHS (Shigeru Mizuki; Drawn & Quarterly)

In this blistering indictment of Japanese militarism, Shigeru Mizuki draws on his own experiences during World War II to tell the story of a platoon stationed in Papua New Guinea. The soldiers face a terrible choice: fight a hopeless battle, or face execution for treason. Like many war stories, Onwards Toward Our Noble Deaths documents the tremendous human sacrifice of modern armed conflict: gruesome injuries, senseless deaths, devastated landscapes. What lends Mizuki’s narrative its special potency is his depiction of the senior officers; their perverse dedication to their mission turns them into tyrants, more concerned with saving face than saving their own soldiers’ skins. Essential reading for anyone interested in World War II.

3. THE DROPS OF GOD (Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto; Vertical, Inc.)

As Oishinbo handily demonstrated, a skilled writer can fold a considerable amount of educational detail into a story without reducing it to a textbook. The Drops of God follows a similar template, imparting highly specialized information about wine with the same natural ease that Law & Order illustrates the inner workings of a crime investigation. At the same time, however, Drops is a delicious soap opera, filled with domineering fathers, mustache-twirling villains, evil beauties, eccentric oenophiles, and down-on-their-luck restauranteurs. Even if the reader isn’t the least bit interested in wine, he’ll find the drama as irresistible as an episode of Dynasty. –Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 12/16/11

2. A ZOO IN WINTER (Jiro Taniguchi; Fanfare/Ponent Mon)

Drawing on his own experiences, Jiro Taniguchi spins an engaging tale about a young man who abandons a promising career in textile design for the opportunity to become a manga artist. Though the basic plot invites comparison with Bakuman, Taniguchi does more than just document important milestones in Hamaguchi’s career: he shows us how Hamaguchi’s emotional maturation informs every aspect of his artistry — something that’s missing from many other portrait-of-an-artist-as-a-young-man sagas, which place much greater emphasis on the pleasure of professional recognition than on the satisfaction of mastering one’s craft. Lovely, moody artwork and an appealing cast of supporting characters complete this very satisfying package.  —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/28/11

1. A BRIDE’S STORY (Kaoru Mori; Yen Press)

A Bride’s Story, which takes place on the banks of the Caspian Sea, explores the relationship between Amir Halgal, a nineteen-year-old nomad, and Karluk Eihon, the eldest son of sheep herders. Though their marriage is one of political expedience, Amir is determined to be a good wife, doing her utmost to learn her new family’s customs, befriend the members of their extended clan, and earn her new husband’s respect. Kaoru Mori is as interested in observing Amir’s everyday life as she is in documenting the growing conflict between the Halgal and Eihon clans, yet A Bride’s Story is never dull, thanks to Mori’s smart, engaging dialogue; as she demonstrated in Emma and Shirley, Mori can make even the simplest moments revealing, whether her characters are preparing a manor house for the master’s return or skinning a freshly killed deer. By allowing her story to unfold in such a naturalistic fashion, A Bride’s Story manages to be both intimate and expansive, offering readers a window into life along the Silk Road. –Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/24/11

HONORABLE MENTIONS

As in previous years, I had difficulty limiting myself to just ten titles, so I compiled a list of manga that didn’t quite make my best-of list, but were thoroughly enjoyable:

So now I turn the floor over to you, readers: what were your favorite new manga of 2011?

Comic Conversion: Witch & Wizard

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Witch & Wizard | Novel: James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet / Grand Central Publishing | Manga: Svetlana Chmakova / Yen Press

One minute Whit Allgood is falling asleep in front of the TV, the next an army is breaking down his door, brandishing guns and dragging his sister Wisty out of her bed. But the biggest shock for Whit and Wisty comes when they’re accused of being a wizard and a witch by the New Order—the all new government that’s taken over the whole country—and are sentenced to death. As they struggle to survive in their jail cell, the siblings discover that they do have special powers, from telekinesis to bursting into flames. Even after they manage to break out, thanks to the help of a ghostly friend, Whit and Wisty still have to find their parents, and they might have to break back into jail to do it.

Witch & Wizard is one of the latest series to come out of the James Patterson novel mill, this time written in conjunction with Gabrielle Charbonnet. Though there was already a graphic novel adaptation from IDW, Yen Press decided to come out with their own version of the dystopian novel using artist Svetlana Chmakova, creator of Dramacon and Night School, to create Witch & Wizard: The Manga. Both versions of the story have their flaws, but one might be more worth your time than the other.

Let’s start with the novel. One good thing you can immediately say about Witch & Wizard is that it gets right into the action. The story has barely started before the New Order troops are breaking down the Allgoods’ door. It doesn’t slow down much from there, even when the siblings are locked in prison, as they deal with sadistic jailers and have to fight a pack of mad dogs for food and water. The short chapters (most only last 1 or 2 pages) help create the illusion that you are speeding through the book. But even with all the rapid action, the story can get pretty clunky at times. You’ll start the next chapter, and suddenly Whit and Wisty are somewhere else, or there’s someone new in the scene who wasn’t there before. And the short chapters, while helping you feel like the book is a fast read, hurt the overall smoothness of the longer, more dramatic scenes.

Whit and Wisty are certainly fun characters, with their wisecracks, determination, and magical powers. Wisty in particular has an entertaining, sarcastic tone. But unfortunately, it’s all surface. Though the story is in first person for both characters, you never feel like you get truly, deeply in their heads. Even when the story pauses for inner thoughts it’s pretty generic, like how awful or cool or sad something is. Then there is the villain, The One Who Is The One, who should be dark and terrifying… but for some reason, Patterson and Charbonnet have him spouting some of the weirdest lines. They range from awkward – “I can even shut your sister up!” – to just plain goofy – “TRICKS ARE FOR KIDS!” – and really diminish the fear readers should have of this all-powerful villain.

Now we come to Yen Press’s manga adaptation by Svetlana Chmakova. The visual aspect of the comic actually helps with the clunky-ness in the book. New character appearances are less sudden, and we see the transition from one place to another, so there’s no flipping back a page to see how Whit and Wisty suddenly got from point A to point B. Chmakova’s art also helps to brighten up some of the less-than-stellar character personalities. Sure, the villains are just as one-dimensional as in the novel, with their little dark beetle eyes, but other characters seem more human in her hands. Whit wears a blank look of shock when he discovers that Celia is a ghost, and Wisty’s range of expressions, from cartoonish excitement at living in a fancy department store to the dark, narrow-eyed look when she casts her angry spells, make this witch even more fun and exciting than her novel version.

Despite the pace of the original, cuts were needed to fit the whole story into a single graphic novel. We miss out on some interesting shows of magic, like when Wisty floats in her sleep, or Whit speeds himself up to handily defeat some guards. But the comic also does away with some bits I didn’t care for, most obviously The One’s horrible, cheesy lines. The One still isn’t as dark and foreboding as I would like (you can always go creepier) but at least his dialogue doesn’t make me cringe.

The Witch & Wizard novel has a lot of problems that I have a hard time overlooking. While the pacing is nice and quick, the novel persistently trips itself up with awkward breaks and sudden shifts in location. And the plot, while a decently done fight-the-power dystopian, can get repetitive, takes unnecessary turns, and ends so abruptly I’m honestly surprised Patterson and Charbonet didn’t add in a couple more chapters to smooth things out. Chmakova’s adaptation doesn’t escape the plot issues of the original, but in streamlining the plot to fit into a single graphic novel she manages to toss out some of the minor chinks, resulting in an easier flow. When you combine that with art that is much more expressive than Patterson’s prose, overall you get a more enjoyable read. It’s still not perfect, but Witch & Wizard the manga improves enough on the original to be worth your money.

My Girlfriend’s a Geek, Vols. 1-3

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By Rize Shinba (manga) and Pentabu (story) | Published by Yen Press

The good news is that I liked My Girlfriend’s a Geek more than I expected to. The bad news is that I’m not sure if I should feel particularly good about that.

Taiga Mutou is a penniless college student in need of a part-time job. When he spots Yuiko Ameya—who fits his ideal of the “big sis-type”—in the office of one prospective employer, he devotes himself to getting hired and thereafter attempts to find opportunities to engage her in conversation. He’s largely unsuccessful until a bit of merchandise goes missing and she helps him look for it. They talk a bit more after that, but it’s not until she sees him in a pair of glasses that she really begins to take notice.

At first, Taiga is puzzled but pleased that certain things about him meet with Yuiko’s approval—in addition to the glasses she also appreciates his cowlick and has an unusual level of interest in his methods for marking important passages in his textbooks. When he finally asks her out and she confesses that she’s a fujoshi (“Is that okay with you?”) he’s so exuberant that he agrees without really understanding what that entails.

From that point on, My Girlfriend’s a Geek is essentially a series of situations in which Yuiko’s fujoshi ways make Taiga uncomfortable, and here is where my conflicted feelings begin. On the one hand, it’s absolutely true that Yuiko did try to warn him and that she shouldn’t have to pretend to be someone she isn’t. On the other hand, she is so caught up in her BL fantasizing that she never considers Taiga’s feelings, and even ceases to refer to him by his actual name. Taiga is always the one doing the compromising, and when it seems like Yuiko might be on the verge of doing something nice for him, it usually turns out that she has some self-serving motive.

And what if Yuiko’s character was male? How would this read then? She frequently concocts scenarios in which Taiga is getting it on with his friend Kouji and expresses the desire to take pictures of them together. If she was a male character saying such things to his girlfriend this would be the epitome of skeavy behavior! I seriously wonder whether she likes Taiga for himself at all, but that’s not to say he’s blameless here, either, because it’s hard to see what he could like about her except that she fits the bill for the cute older woman he’s always wanted to date.

All that said, there is still quite a bit to like about this series. For one thing, it’s often quite amusing, especially Taiga’s reactions to Yuiko’s flights of fangirl and the fictional shounen sports manga (with shades of Hikaru no Go and The Prince of Tennis) that Yuiko is obsessed with. For another, it does occasionally touch on what it’s like to discover that someone you fancy has this bizarre secret that you’ve got to try to cope with if you want to stay together. Taiga occasionally laments how far apart they are emotionally, and though we’ve yet to really see inside Yuiko’s head, her attempts to sustain a real-life relationship remind me some of Majima in Flower of Life, another hard-core otaku with a moe fixation.

There’s only two more volumes of this series and I plan to keep reading, but I hope that these characters will manage to achieve more of an equal relationship. Even if Yuiko could just learn to see Taiga’s exasperation and take some genuine step to engage him on a serious personal level, then I’d be happy.

My Girlfriend’s a Geek is published in English by Yen Press. The fourth volume has just come out (to be featured in this week’s Off the Shelf!) and the fifth and final volume is due in December 2011. They have also released the two-volume novel series upon which the manga is based.

Review copies provided by the publisher.

Bloody Monday, Vol. 1

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To judge from all the shonen manga I’ve read, the fate of the world rests in teenage boys’ hands: not only do they have the power to kill demons and thwart alien invasions, they’re also blessed with the kind of superior intelligence that makes them natural partners with law enforcement. Bloody Monday is a textbook example of the teen-genius genre: high school student Fujimaru Takagi dabbles in crime-solving, hacking into secure networks and decoding encrypted files on behalf of the Public Security Intelligence Agency. (Naturally, he works for the PSIA’s super-secret “Third-I” division, which is “comprised solely of elites.”) Fujimaru’s deductive skills are put to the ultimate test when his father is falsely implicated in a murder. To find the real killer, Fujimaru must uncover the connection between his father and the “Christmas Massacre,” a terrorist attack that left thousands of Russian civilians dead, their bodies covered in boils.

In the right hands, Bloody Monday might have been good, silly fun, 24 for the under-twenty-four crowd. The script, however, is pointed and obvious, explaining hacker culture and internet technology to an audience that has grown up on the world-wide web: are there any fifteen-year-olds who don’t grasp the basics of computer viruses? The characters, too, seem impossibly dim, thinking out loud, missing obvious connections, and reminding each other how they’re related, whether they’re fellow reporters for the school newspaper or siblings. Small wonder they don’t realize that their school has been infiltrated by an enemy agent.

The art is more skillful than the script, with polished character designs and detailed backgrounds. The adults actually look like adults, not teenagers with unfortunate laugh lines, while the scenes aboard the Transsiberian Railroad convey the harshness of the Russian landscape. Though artist Kouji Megumi nevers misses an opportunity to show us an attractive woman in her underwear — and really, what well-trained assassin doesn’t snuff a target or two while wearing only a matching bra-and-panty set? — the fanservice never overwhelms the plot. The action sequences, too, are well-staged, using swift cross-cuts and imaginative camera angles to heighten the suspense.

In the end, however, the slick visuals aren’t enough to compensate for the flat-footed storytelling. A plot as potentially interesting and complex as Bloody Monday‘s should challenge the reader to arrive the solution independently, not spoon-feed it; too often, the story seems to have been written in boldface, depriving the reader of an opportunity to guess the outcome of the story for herself.

BLOODY MONDAY, VOL. 1 • STORY BY RYOU RYUMON, ART BY KOUJI MEGUMI • KODANSHA COMICS USA • 200 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

Cage of Eden, Vol. 1

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a trans-Pacific flight encounters turbulence, and before any of the passengers can shout “J.J. Abrams!” — or “William Golding!” for that matter — the plane crash-lands an uninhabited tropical island, far from civilization’s reach. In some variations of the story, the island itself poses the greatest danger to survivors, harboring monsters or malevolent spirits. In other versions, the survivors’ own fear and narcissism proves more deadly than any jungle-dwelling creatures, as the rude wilderness strips away the survivors’ veneer of humanity.

In Cage of Eden, Yoshinobu Yamada combines these two survival narratives to tell the story of a high school holiday gone horribly wrong. Cage’s teen heroes crash-land in a prehistoric forest populated by long-extinct animals: saber-toothed tigers, horse-sized birds. These big, hungry predators aren’t the only threat to the students’ safety, however. Yarai, the class delinquent, seizes the opportunity to act on his darkest impulses, terrorizing his peers and the doomed flight’s captain. Only Akira, a small, self-described loser, and Mariya, a bespectacled, anti-social genius, have the skills and the smarts to outwit both enemies.

Though the story unfurls at a good clip, the execution is a little creaky. The opening chapter is a choppy information dump, as Yamada introduces the principal characters, delineates their relationships, and reveals the purpose of their plane trip. Once on the island, Mariya’s computer proves shockingly durable — it boots up without protest, despite plunging 35,000 feet — and helpfully equipped with a searchable database of extinct animals. (“Even without internet, I can still access program files,” Mariya solemnly informs an incredulous Akira.) The characters speak fluent exposition, frequently explaining things to one another that are readily obvious from Yamada’s crisply executed drawings. Worse still, the intelligent dialogue is reserved for the male characters; the few female characters’ primary role is to be menaced, rescued, and ogled, though not necessarily in that order.

However obvious the script or ubiquitous the cheesecake — and yes, the fanservice is executed with all the subtlety of a tap-dancing hippopotamus — Cage of Eden has a cheerful, B-movie vibe that’s hard to resist. The monsters are rendered in loving detail, down to their sinews and feathers and claws; as they tear across the page, it’s not hard to imagine how terrified the characters must be, or how fast they need to run in order to escape. The setting, too, is a boon, offering Yamada numerous places to conceal a dangerous animal or booby trap. Even the characters are effective. Though drawn in broad strokes, Akira is a sympathetic lead; he’s prone to self-doubt after years of being a bench warmer, an academic failure, a mama’s boy, and a second banana to the most popular student in his class. That the island provides him a chance to prove his worth isn’t surprising — that’s de rigeur for the genre — but Akira’s mixture of humility and bravery is refreshing, helping distract the reader from the absurdity of his action-movie heroics.

I won’t make any grand claims for Cage of Eden: on many levels, it’s dumber than a peroxide blonde, with characters doing and saying things that defy common sense. Yet Yoshinobu Yamada demonstrates a genuine flair for writing popcorn-movie manga, populating the island with scary-looking monsters and staging thrilling action sequences that temporarily erase the memory of the clumsy dialogue and panty shots. Cage of Eden is the perfect beach read for the final days of August: it’s fun and fast-paced, placing few demands on the sun-addled reader.

CAGE OF EDEN, VOL. 1 • BY YOSHINOBU YAMADA • KODANSHA COMICS USA • 200 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)