My Week in Manga: July 17-July 23, 2017

My News and Reviews

Although I’ve started to include Quick Takes of novels as part of the weekly My Week in Manga feature, it’s been a little while since I’ve actually written and in-depth review of a novel here at Experiments in Manga. However, last week featured my review of Tomoyuki Hoshino’s ME, one of my most anticipated literary releases of 2017. Much like the rest of Hoshino’s work available in translation, ME is challenging and can demand quite a bit from the reader, but I found it to be worth the effort. The novel is an incredibly surreal but thought-provoking exploration of identity, self, and society. Hoshino’s fiction definitely isn’t for everyone, but I hope to see even more of it translated in the future.

Last week there were also some manga-related licensing announcements made at the San Diego Comic Con. Among other things, Udon Entertainment has picked up Virginia Nitōhei’s manga adaptation of Otherwordly Izakaya “Nobu,” will be adding Romeo & Juliet, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Adventures of Huckleberry Fin to its Manga Classics line, and will be releasing Mega Man MasterMix, a full-color edition of Hitoshi Ariga’s Mega Man Megamix. Vertical Comics will be publishing Kinoko Natsume’s Chi’s Sweet Adventure, a spin-off of Konami Kanata’s Chi’s Sweet Home. And finally, Viz Media announced that it would be releasing Tsuyoshi Takaki’s Black Torch, Inio Asano’s Dead Dead Demon’s Dededededestruction (I’m definitely interested in this), Aka Akasaka’s Kaguya-sama: Love is War, and Koyoharu Gotouge’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.

Elsewhere online, a recent episode of the Manga Mavericks podcast provides an overview of the licensing news from Anime Expo in addition to digging into Kabi Nagata’s My Lesbian Experience in Loneliness and Gengoroh Tagame’s My Brother’s Husband. Over at The OASG, Krystallina expresses some valid concerns and criticisms of Digital Manga’s most recent crowdfunding efforts. And speaking of crowdfunding campaigns, there have been several less dubious projects that have caught my eye recently: Deer Woman is an anthology featuring comics created by Native and Indigenous woman which are inspired by traditional Deer Woman stories; Gothic Tales of Haunted Love is a collection of full-color gothic romance comics; and then of course there’s Sparkler Monthly Magazine: Year 5 which is particularly important to me. With every year that passes Sparkler Monthly just keeps getting better and better. I’ve featured a small selection of some of the magazine’s content before, but there’s so much more that I’ve never even mentioned here and it’s all great stuff. Please consider contributing to the campaign if you’re able!

Quick Takes

After Hours, Volume 1After Hours, Volume 1 by Yuhta Nishio. Recently there has been a notable surge of yuri and other lesbian-themed manga being released in English, mostly by Seven Seas, although other publishers have been licensing some as well. After Hours, for example, is the first yuri title from Viz Media if not ever at least in a very long time. That certainly caught my attention, but even more so was the fact that After Hours is not a schoolgirl manga and is instead about adult women (although the cover art does make Emi in particular look fairly young). Emi is invited out to a club by her friend but is generally left to fend for herself once she’s there. That’s when Kei more or less comes to her rescue. The two women hit it off and Emi ends up going home with Kei that night, one thing leading to another. It’s incredibly refreshing that Emi and Kei’s mutual attraction isn’t treated like an aberration or made out to be like it’s a big deal simply because they’re both women. After that first night their relationship continues to naturally develop, largely without angst, as they get to know each other better, Kei introducing Emi to her friends, the local music scene, and her passion as a DJ. The release of second volume of After Hours hasn’t been publicly announced yet, but there is no question that I’ll be picking it up; I absolutely loved the first volume and look forward to reading more.

Blindsprings, Volume 1Blindsprings, Volume 1 by Kadi Fedoruk. Sadly, I was unable to contribute to the Blindsprings Kickstarter campagin which raised funds to release the first print volume of the webcomic, so I was thrilled when I had the chance to pick up an early copy and chat a little with Fedoruk at this year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival. In addition to first five chapters of the comic, the first volume also includes twenty-six pages of bonus content, artwork, and character profiles. Blindsprings is a beautifully illustrated, full-color comic with an engaging story, a diverse cast of characters, and an intriguing, complex, and well-developed world. (I especially appreciate how a variety of genders and sexualities are naturally and unobtrusively incorporated into the story.) Princess Tamaura is about to complete her 300-year agreement to serve the as an Orphic priestess for the sake of her sister, but her contract with the Spirits is broken when she is “rescued” against her will by a young man determined to prove a point. Tammy is torn from her sanctuary and thrust into a modern world in which Orphic traditions and their practitioners are harshly oppressed, the Academists and their magic now largely in control of what was her homeland. But there are still those who resist, and Tammy soon finds herself caught up in the conflict.

Tokyo Ghoul: PastTokyo Ghoul: Past written by Shin Towada Sui Ishida and illustrated by Sui Ishida. Viz Media doesn’t publish many novels outside of its Haikasoru imprint, but considering the popularity of Ishida’s Tokyo Ghoul manga series, it’s not too surprising that Towada’s trilogy of light novels were released as well. Although Past is Towada’s third Tokyo Ghoul novel (well, technically it’s more of a collection of vaguely-related short stories), the volume serves as a prequel to Tokyo Ghoul as a whole, the six chapters delving into the backstories of many of the Tokyo Ghoul‘s prominent characters. Despite taking place before the main series, Past is definitely not an introduction. It is intended for readers who are already invested in the franchise–a few of the stories don’t absolutely require prior knowledge in order to follow them, but others are nearly incomprehensible without at least some basic familiarity with Tokyo Ghoul. The general premise of Past is great, the volume allowing fans of Tokyo Ghoul the chance to spend more time with and gain a better understanding of some of the characters, especially as Past is able to tell stories that wouldn’t have immediately fit in the primary series. It’s unfortunate then that the actual writing is frustratingly awful much of the time with drama and angst frequently favored over plot developments that make logical sense.


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Comments

  1. On Kickstarter for me, Monsterkind is having its volume 2 Kickstarter right now, so that was a must for me! Picked up vol 1 at a con and have been following it ever since, basically.

    Still waiting on my Blindsprings Kickstarter though, seems to be a delay with getting everything ready. Also eagerly awaiting my Tezuka books to arrive (the Under the Air, Crater, Melody of Iron, and Record of the Glass Castle one, I think we’ve got a while yet to go on Wonder 3’s). Where am I going to fit more Tezuka books? My Tezuka shelf is completely full right now as is! I can fit one thin book and that’s it! Guess I’ll figure out something….

    I also need to prepare for Otakon! Less than 3 weeks to go for that!

    • Ash Brown says

      Oh, thanks for mentioning Monsterkind! I hadn’t come across that particular comic yet, and it looks like something that I would probably enjoy.

      I hope the Blindsprings rewards ship soon! (I actually feel a little guilty that I got a copy before most of those who pledged to the campaign.) The paperback turned out beautifully, so I’m assuming that everything else will look great, too.

      My manga and book collection is definitely in need of a review. I’ve been meaning to do another large library donation, which will at least temporarily help with shelf space, but I haven’t had the opportunity to really go through everything yet. (There are still a lot of boxes left to be unpacked as we finish building shelves.)

      I hope you enjoy your time at Otakon! I’ve never been, but I know quite a few people who go. :)

  2. I love Blindsprings! Haven’t read the webcomic in a while, but I did back the Kickstarter to snag those gorgeous wallpapers.

    I’m far more interested in After Hours now that I know it’s about two adult women. I struggle to enjoy schoolgirl yuri, but I’m always down for something with a more mature romance.

    • Ash Brown says

      I hadn’t even heard of Blindsprings until I happened across the Kickstarter. I’m really glad I did, though! I enjoyed the first volume immensely and absolutely plan on reading more.

      I’m really glad that more yuri is being translated, but I’m not nearly as interested in high school romances as I am in love stories between adults. (That goes for boys’ love and other romance genres, too.) I hope After Hours does well and that more series like it are licensed.

  3. I’m glad you decided to read After Hours. I have to admit I was floored by this title. The story is so familiar to many audiophiles/groupies in the West that most people would shrug it off as though it were common place. However, running in Hibana, as a slice of life Seinen alongside such titles as Dorohedoro, Shimanami Tasogare and Ono Natsume’s Kozure Doushin is really quite unheard of. Even just a couple years ago you would just never find any stories describing homosexuality in a Shogakukan publication. Even their gender benders weren’t especially notable. The only LGBT titles I can even point to are Heart of Thomas and Shiroi Heya no Futari and those were published half a century ago…

    • Ash Brown says

      I was floored as well! I didn’t really know what to expect from the manga going in, but it was a fantastic first volume. Also, thank you for that additional information! Although I probably should, I don’t very often pay much attention to the original magazine something was serialized in, but that can provide important (or at least interesting) context.

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