11 June 2014 Leave a Comment

The Summit of the Gods, Volume 3

The Summit of the Gods, Volume 3Author: Baku Yumemakura
Illustrator: Jiro Taniguchi
U.S. publisher: Fanfare/Ponent Mon
ISBN: 9788492444335
Released: June 2012
Original release: 2002
Awards: Angoulême Prize, Japan Media Arts Award

Based on an award-winning novel by Baku Yumemakura, The Summit of the Gods is a five-volume manga series written by Yumemakura and illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi. The manga itself has also won several awards, including a Japan Media Arts Excellence Award and an Angoulême Prize for Artwork among other honors. The Summit of the Gods, Volume 3 was originally released in 2002 in Japan. The English-language edition was published ten years later in 2012 by Fanfare/Ponent Mon. The Summit of the Gods is one of my favorite manga that Taniguchi has worked on, not to mention one of my favorite manga series in general. It’s an engaging story with compellingly flawed characters and its artwork is fantastic. Two years passed between the release of the second English volume and the third. Though I wish it could be published more quickly, The Summit of the Gods is a series worth waiting for. The books have a larger trim size than most other manga being released, which allows Taniguchi’s artwork to really shine, and the hefty page count allows the storytelling room to breathe, too.

Makoto Fukamachi has returned to Nepal, continuing his search for the legendary mountain climber Jouji Habu, who is now going by the name of Bikh Sanp. Habu may have found the camera carried by George Mallory on his last, fateful ascent of Mount Everest. The camera and its film could hold the answer to one of the climbing world’s greatest mysteries: who the first person to stand on the summit of Everest was. While researching the camera, Fukamachi became more and more interested in Habu himself, but finding a man who doesn’t want to be found proves to be an extremely difficult task. It is only after Ryoko Kishi arrives in Kathmandu that Fukamachi is able to make any headway with his investigation. Her brother died in a climbing accident, and Habu carries a tremendous amount of guilt because of it, but Ryoko was also one of the people closest to Habu in Japan. However, even she hasn’t heard from him in more than three years. As Fukamachi and Ryoko’s search for Habu progresses, others become curious about him and the camera as well, which only complicates matters further.

Compared to previous volumes in the series, except for the opening chapter which focuses on the many failed attempts to reach the summit of mount Everest before success was achieved, The Summit of the Gods, Volume 3 devotes less time to mountain climbing and more time to Fukamachi’s investigation and its unfortunate fallout. The emphasis in this volume has moved from the mountains and the wilderness to the surrounding cities and villages. While I do miss the drama and grandeur of nature so expertly captured in Taniguchi’s artwork, his portrayal of Kathmandu, Patan, and the various Sherpa villages is equally impressive in the amount of detail included. The city- and villagescapes are just as important as the landscapes. Aspects of Nepalese politics and culture are incorporated into the series as well. But even though climbing isn’t always at the forefront of this volume of The Summit of the Gods, it still plays and extremely important role in the story and it is vitally important to the characters as well.

While Fukamachi may be the protagonist of The Summit of the Gods, the series is really more about Habu and his story. As he has proved time and again, Habu is an incredible climber. In the third volume he pulls off an astonishing rescue—scaling a cliff with one arm while carrying another person—that leaves the others in awe of him. This is not the first, and I am sure it will not be the last, amazing feat that Habu performs. He is so singly devoted to and passionate about climbing that he has made many sacrifices in his life just so that he can continue to push himself to his limits. When it is finally revealed, the ultimate goal that Habu has set his sights on is enormous, beyond anything that anyone else has ever seriously considered attempting. Habu both intimidates and inspires Fukamachi, forcing Fukamachi to evaluate and reevaluate himself and his own capabilities and desires. The Summit of the Gods, Volume 3 is a critical turning point in the development of the series’ characters and plot, bringing a resolution to one story arc and beginning the next.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged: , , , , , ,
9 June 2014 2 Comments

My Week in Manga: June 2-June 8, 2014

My News and Reviews

Three posts last week! The first was the announcement of the Oi, Oishinbo! manga giveaway winner, which also includes a list of some of the food manga that has been licensed in English. And speaking of food manga, last week I reviewed Fumi Yoshinaga’s What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Volume 2. I’m really enjoying the series and am thrilled that it’s being released in English. I also reviewed Blade of the Immortal, Volume 29: Beyond Good and Evil by Hiroaki Samura, which is pretty much the beginning of the end of the series. I love Blade of the Immortal, so I’m interested to see how Samura will wrap everything up and who, if anyone, will survive its conclusion.

Things have been a bit hectic in my life lately, so I’ve not been able to pay attention to all of the news and announcements recently, but I did catch a few things on Vertical’s Twitter account. Apparently, its warehouse is down to the last 24 copies of Message to Adolf, Part 1 and it may or may not be reprinted. So, if you want a copy, you should probably grab it sooner rather than later. Adolf was my introduction to Osamu Tezuka, and it remains one of my favorite works by him. Also, Vertical was at AnimeNEXT and made a new license announcement—Dream Fossil: The Complete Short Stories of Satoshi Kon. Though it wasn’t perfect, I enjoyed Kon’s Tropic of the Sea a great deal, so am looking forward to this collection as well as the other Kon manga announced by Dark Horse a couple of months ago.

Quick Takes

Monster Soul, Volume 1Monster Soul, Volume 1 by Hiro Mashima. For readers intimidated by the length of Fairy Tail or Rave Master, Mashima’s two-volume Monster Soul sets a much lower bar for entry to his work. During the Human-Monster War, the Black Airs were an elite group of exceptionally powerful monsters. Now that the war is over, and the monsters have lost, they mostly try to keep to themselves. But with human poachers, a ghost with an agenda, and another monster picking a fight, trouble seems to find them anyway. Monster Soul is somewhat episodic, but Mashima does seem to be developing some sort of underlying plot. Since the series is only two volumes long though, it probably can’t be particularly convoluted or in-depth. That being said, I’m not entirely sure what direction Monster Soul will be taking. The story moves along very quickly, there are numerous fights, and the characters are boisterous. I wasn’t blown away, but the first volume of Monster Soul could be entertaining.

Otomen, Volume 16Otomen, Volumes 16-18 by Aya Kanno. I’m not sure that Otomen really needed to be eighteen volumes long, but I enjoyed every volume of it. The series just makes me so incredibly happy. It can be ridiculous and eyeroll-worthy at times, usually deliberately so, but I love it. The characters, while they don’t have much depth, are incredibly endearing. Kanno plays around with gender roles and expectations in Otomen, that’s one of the major points of the series, but never in a denigrating way. The not-so-subtle message of Otomen is that it is just fine to be whoever it is you are. These final three volumes find Asuka and many of the others in their last year of high school. They begin drifting apart for various reasons, the biggest being the influence of Asuka’s mother, and it is heartbreaking to see. Kanno has never hesitated to make use of well-worn tropes and plot developments in Otomen—frequently the series verges on parody because of that—but I was a little unsure about the memory loss arc. Ultimately though, the series ends in a very satisfying way.

The Seven Deadly Sins, Volume 1The Seven Deadly Sins, Volumes 1-2 by Nakaba Suzuki. Back in my undergrad days I took a fantastic course that focused on the use and portrayal of the seven deadly sins in music and literature, and so Suzuki’s The Seven Deadly Sins manga immediately caught my attention. At first, I was a little uncertain about The Seven Deadly Sins. It took a few chapters to really grow on me, and when present Meliodas’ lecherous tendencies still seem more like a tired cliché rather than any sort of legitimate character development, but the series has great potential. The Seven Deadly Sins are a group of extremely talented warriors who may be the only ones capable of stopping the Holy Knights from destroying Britannia. It isn’t yet known why the group goes by “The Seven Deadly Sins,” or what sins the members have committed to earn their monikers, but I’m assuming that will be revealed sometime in the future. The Holy Knights are the ones being framed as the series’ villains, but the Sins aren’t entirely good, either, which I appreciate. With interesting characters and epic battles, I’m looking forward to reading more.

The Sleep of ReasonThe Sleep of Reason: An Anthology of Horror edited by C. Spike Trotman. Edited by the same person who has been coordinating the new Smut Peddler anthologies, The Sleep of Reason collects twenty-six short horror comics. Some of the creators (like Jason Thompson and Carla Speed McNeil, among others) I was already familiar with, but there were plenty of other contributors whose work I was encountering for the very first time. That’s one of the things I love about anthologies like The Sleep of Reason—they introduce me to new artists that I want to follow. I also love being exposed to so many different styles of art and storytelling. There is some blood, death, and gore in The Sleep of Reason, but the collection isn’t a splatter fest and relies much more heavily on the psychological aspects of horror rather than on violence. As with any anthology, some of the stories are stronger than others. I’m not sure that I even completely understood some of them, but they all were eerie, disconcerting, and creepy. The Sleep of Reason is a great collection; definitely recommended for fans of horror.

Filed Under: Features, My Week in Manga Tagged: , , , , , , ,
8 June 2014 Leave a Comment

Blade of the Immortal, Volume 29: Beyond Good and Evil

Blade of the Immortal, Volume 29Creator: Hiroaki Samura
U.S. publisher: Dark Horse
ISBN: 9781616553371
Released: May 2014
Original release: 2011
Awards: Eisner Award, Japan Media Arts Award

Beyond Good and Evil is the twenty-ninth volume in the English-language release of Hiroaki Samura’s award-winning manga Blade of the Immortal. Published by Dark Horse in 2014, Beyond Good and Evil is equivalent to the twenty-eighth volume of the Japanese edition of Blade of the Immortal released in 2011. Blade of the Immortal is a long-running series. The collected volumes of the manga first began to be released in Japan in 1994 while the first collection in English was published in 1997. Personally, I discovered Blade of the Immortal in 2007 and have been reading it ever since. The series is now in its final volumes and is drawing closer and closer to its conclusion. Since I’m fond of Blade of the Immortal, I’m both excited and saddened to see it end. Beyond Good and Evil is the beginning of the series’ last battle as all of the surviving characters are brought together to face one another and to confront their destinies.

The members of the Ittō-ryū who were escaping Edō by way of the Mito road have been annihilated. They put up a magnificent fight against Habaki Kagimura’s Rokki-dan and there were casualties on both sides, but in the end it was the Ittō-ryū that was brought closest to its demise. A very small group of the Ittō-ryū’s most elite warriors, including its leader Anotsu Kagehisa, still remain and are on the run. They stayed behind in Edō long enough to wreak havoc at the city’s castle before fleeing, hoping to reunite with the rest of the Ittō-ryū at the port of Hitachi before sailing for Satsuma. But with their companions dead, a few unexpected allies, and no small number of enemies, Anotsu’s carefully laid plans will have to change. As for Habaki, who has very little left to lose, he is willing to do anything that it takes and to commit any atrocity necessary in order to ensure that Anotsu and the remaining Ittō-ryū members, as well as anyone who might lend them their aid, are completely wiped out.

One of the things that has always impressed me about Blade of the Immortal is its complex, morally grey characters. The protagonists and antagonists of the series are constantly shifting, making it difficult to strictly categorize them as being good or bad guys; they are simply extremely flawed people. The confrontation between Habaki and Anotsu and the rest of the survivors has been building over the last few volumes. They all finally meet again, likely for the last time, in Beyond Good and Evil. It’s an aptly named volume. None of the characters are entirely in the right and they are all guilty of countless deaths. There is no turning back for them and they must see their chosen paths through to the end, even knowing that there is a strong possibility that they will fail or have failed already. Anotsu, Habaki, and the others may or may not survive, but even if they do, survival does not necessarily mean victory.

With the final battle of Blade of the Immortal approaching, one might expect it to be a heroic showdown of epic proportions, except for the fact that there aren’t really any heroes in the manga. Instead, the atmosphere surrounding the characters and their confrontation is one of inevitability and futility. There will be a battle and because those who have managed to survive for this long are the most skilled fighters it will be intense. However, very little will be accomplished by the skirmish except for perhaps mutual destruction. The Ittō-ryū barely exists anymore and it is very unlikely that Anotsu’s hopes and dreams of restoring the way of the sword to Japan will come to fruition. For Habaki, destroying the Ittō-ryū won’t allow him to regain his lost honor or to erase his heinous deeds. At one point both men were fighting to change Japan and to right the wrongs that they saw in their society, but their ideals and ambitions may come to nothing in the end.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged: , , , , ,
6 June 2014 2 Comments

What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Volume 2

What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Volume 2Creator: Fumi Yoshinaga
U.S. publisher: Vertical
ISBN: 9781939130396
Released: May 2014
Original release: 2008

Fumi Yoshinaga’s series What Did You Eat Yesterday? is a manga which I have been hoping would be released in English for years. Happily, Vertical stepped up and recently began publishing the series. In addition to featuring a fairly realistic portrayal of a gay couple in contemporary Japan (two forty-something men who are living together), What Did You Eat Yesterday? also includes plenty of delicious food. I read and enjoyed the first volume a great deal and so was looking forward to reading the second as soon as I could get it into my hands. What Did You Eat Yesterday, Volume 2 was originally released in Japan in 2008 while Vertical’s English-language edition was published in 2014. The series is currently eight volumes long and is still being serialized, so I’m hoping and expecting to be able to enjoy the manga for some time yet. It makes me extraordinarily pleased to know that Vertical is releasing What Did You Eat Yesterday?. So far, the publisher has done a fine job with it.

Shiro Kakei and Kenji Yabuki have been living together for the last three years or so and have known each other for a little while longer than that. It’s an arrangement that works well for them. Shiro happily cooks the meals for the household while Kenji, unlike some of Shiro’s past flames, is more than willing to help out with the chores. Kenji also happens to be an appreciative audience for Shiro’s culinary creations. Shiro has a passion for food and derives great pleasure in preparing delicious meals as frugally as possible. Entire menus can be inspired by a single ingredient that just happens to be on sale at the time and he is very careful not to let anything go to waste. Granted, there seems to be only so many different ways for a person to use celery. But with a little help from his coworkers and friends, not to mention his natural creative talent in the kitchen, Shiro is usually able to figure something out. And generally Kenji doesn’t take too much convincing to happily eat whatever it is Shiro comes up with.

There are two major aspects to What Did You Eat Yesterday?: the characters and their lives, and the food itself. I feel the series does best when these two things are working in tangent to tell the stories, but quite frequently the meals and their preparation seem to be separate elements entirely. Shiro has the habit of narrating every step as he is cooking. This means that each chapter includes at least one recipe detailed enough that it could be replicated, but people who more interested in the manga’ stories will likely find it to be tedious. However, those sections can easily be skimmed by readers who don’t care for the cooking minutia without too much being lost from the narrative or plot of What Did You Eat Yesterday?. In general, Yoshinaga’s beautiful illustrations of the food and Shiro’s techniques are more than enough to follow along with what is happening in the kitchen. In some cases, the time spent and the complexities of the recipes are actually used make a point: the extra effort put into a meal imbues it with additional value and meaning for those preparing and eating it.

I do love the food in What Did You Eat Yesterday?, but I love the characters and the stories that Yoshinaga is telling even more. In this volume I was particularly delighted to learn how Shiro and Kenji first met and started living together. (One of my favorite moments is Shiro recognizing that Kenji’s not even his “type,” but that he is still incredibly lucky to have him.) I also appreciate how the two of them have important relationships outside of each other. Their friends, families, and coworkers all have their roles to play in the series. A major theme that becomes apparent in the second volume of What Did You Eat Yesterday? is communication. Usually it’s Kenji that needs to be verbally heard; Shiro tends to be more reserved, expressing himself more through his cooking than through words, but he knows when he needs it Kenji will be there to listen to him, too. I’m looking forward to learning more about the series’ characters and their relationships in the next volume of What Did You Eat Yesterday? immensely.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged: , , ,
4 June 2014 Leave a Comment

Manga Giveaway: Oi, Oishinbo! Winner

Oishinbo, A la Carte: Japanese CuisineAnd the winner of the Oi, Oishinbo! manga giveaway is…AshLynx!

As the winner, AshLynx will be receiving a copy of Oishinbo, A la Carte: Japanese Cuisine by Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki. Oishinbo is one of the most successful and well-known food manga out there (at least in Japan), so for this giveaway I asked that people tell me a little about their own favorite food manga. Check out the giveaway comments for everyone’s responses. As usually, I’ve also taken the giveaway as an opportunity to compile a list. Below you’ll find some food-centric manga, as well as a few manga where food isn’t the focus but still plays an important role.

Some of the food manga licensed in English:
Antique Bakery by Fumi Yoshinaga
The Drops of God written by Tadashi Agi and illustrated by Shu Okimoto
Eat For Your Life! by Shigeru Tsuchiyama
Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma written by Yuto Tsukuda, illustrated by Shun Saeki
Gente by Natsume Ono
Iron Wok Jan by Shinji Saijyo
Kitchen Princess written by Miyuki Kobayashi, illustrated by Natsumi Ando
Mixed Vegetables by Ayumi Komura
Moyasimon: Tale of Agriculture by Masayuki Ishikawa
Neko Ramen by Kenji Sonishi
Noodle Fighter Miki by Jun Sadogawa
Not Love but Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy! by Fumi Yoshinaga
Oishinbo, A la Carte written by Tetsu Kariya, illustrated by Akira Hanasaki
Project X: Cup Noodle written by Tadashi Kato, illustrated by Akira Imai
Ristorante Paradiso by Natsume Ono
Seiwa High School Bento Club! by Umitamako
Takasugi-San’s Obento by Nozomi Yanahara
Toriko by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro
What Did You Eat Yesterday? by Fumi Yoshinaga
Yakitate!! Japan by Takashi Hashiguchi

I love food, and I love manga, so food manga is a great combination for me. Thank you to everyone who shared their favorites; now we all have something to tide us over until the next manga giveaway!

Filed Under: Giveaways, Lists, Unshelved Tagged: , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »