22 January 2013 Leave a Comment

Moyoco Anno Manga Moveable Feast: Roundup One

© Moyoco Anno

Welcome to the first Moyoco Anno Manga Moveable Feast roundup!

Here at Experiments in Manga, I kicked things off with an introduction to Moyoco Anno and the Feast. I followed this up with my usual My Week in Manga column, featuring quick takes of all of Anno’s manga currently available in English.

I was also thrilled to host an excellent guest post written by Erica Friedman of Okazu (among other places)—How a Non-Manga Fan Got Me Into Sakuran:

It was [Kiyoha’s] anger that appealed to me most. That white-hot rage against the universe and all the people in it. Recently I was involved in a discussion about how tediously psychopaths were written these days in fan media. Kiyoha’s genuine hatred for every single person around her read more realistically to me than anything I’d seen in ages.

Over at Manga Xanadu, Lori Henderson also took a look at Sakuran. I was particularly happy to see Lori’s comments on the relationship between Kiyoha and Seiji; it’s an important relationship that is often left out of the reviews of Sakuran that I’ve read:

But beyond the usual lover/client relationships, Kiyoha has a deeper one with Seiji, a clerk who has worked at Tamagiku since she first arrived as a child. He has watched her grow, and seen her through all of her trials. There was never anything actually said between the two of them, other than Kiyoha’s sniping and Seiji’s retorts, but just through expressions and actions, a strong connection can be seen between Seiji and Kiyoha.

And that’s what we have so far! If I’ve missed your or someone else’s contribution, please let me know so that I can add it to the archive. I’ll also make sure to mention it on Thursday during the next roundup. Until then, please continue to enjoy the Feast!

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21 January 2013 Leave a Comment

Guest Post: How a Non-Manga Fan Got Me Into Sakuran

As host of the Moyoco Anno Manga Moveable Feast, I am delighted to welcome Erica Friedman to Experiments in Manga as a guest writer. Thank you, Erica, for your contribution to the Feast!

Erica Friedman is the founder of Yuricon and ALC Publishing—she is devoted to bringing fans of yuri together. Erica reviews yuri and shoujo-ai manga and anime as well as other comics with lesbian themes at her blog Okazu. She can also be found on Twitter @OkazuYuri.

* * *

“In your wanderings, can you look for this for me?”

That was the message I received on Facebook from a friend. She’s asked for me to look for random things in Japan before this message, but when I looked at the “this” I was shocked – she wanted me to look for a manga? She has no interest in manga. None whatsoever.

“I like the art,” was her reply to my question. Oh well, now *that* made sense. My friend is an artist – an exceptionally talented one, I might add. Okay, no problem, I’ll look for the book. It was clearly Anno Moyocco’s art, but I otherwise knew nothing about it. I missed out on the Happy Mania! mania when Tokyopop printed it, and although I’d certainly encountered her work in some of the Josei manga magazines I read, I’d never been a fan.

The manga, as it turned out, was well out of print. I never expected to find it for her. One day I wandered into a used manga store, turned the corner and there it was, one of the Kodansha deluxe editions, old, but still with gorgeous paper, with colored edges. I flipped through it, bought it and gave it to her without anymore thought to the contents. Anno’s art was not for me.

And then, out of the blue, Vertical licensed Sakuran. So I contacted my friend with the news, expecting her to say she wasn’t interested in the book in English. I guess I just expected her interest to end with the art, loopy as it appeared to be. But, to my surprise, she said she was interested, so I got her volume 1. And with her permission, I read it before I gave to her.

I loved it. The character was amazing, the story harsh and unsympathetic (all things I had come to expect from Anno.) But about halfway into the book there’s a series of color pages, in which the color washes away leaving only blues. It was, for me, a moment of blinding recognition of Anno’s mastery.

A few years ago, I did a lecture at the Brooklyn Museum of Art about the Ghost in the Shell: Innocence movie. At that time they were running an exhibit of Utagawa art. It was at this exhibit I learned about Prussian Blue and Ultramarine, two colors that completely changed Japanese art forever. (Incidentally, these colors helped inform my understanding of Murakami Haruki’s art which was also on exhibit at the BMA, and of Nakamura Ching’s GUNJO, the title of which means “ultramarine.”)

So there, as the color leeches out of the color pages, we are left staring at a what has to be seen as shockingly good late 19th century print. In a flash, Anno’s style made perfect sense to me. As I read the cold, calculating instructions on how to perform successful oral sex on a man, I became a fan.

I’m having a hard time summing up my feelings about Sakuran, so I turned to my friend who is completely responsible for this review. She nailed it.

“I enjoyed her nonstop and often inexplicable anger and her near-sociopathic disregard for everyone around her. On the other hand, I often wondered why she didn’t just walk out of there and go out on a world-conquering spree on her own. She certainly seemed to have enough bad-assery and blind force of will to make such a move, but I guess traditional Japanese class distinctions were too overwhelming. I also really, really liked her appalling table manners; particularly in that oh-so-proper Japanese setting.”

Yes, that was it. It was her anger that appealed to me most. That white-hot rage against the universe and all the people in it. Recently I was involved in a discussion about how tediously psychopaths were written these days in fan media. Kiyoha’s genuine hatred for every single person around her read more realistically to me than anything I’d seen in ages.

Skilled execution, combined with ferocious misanthropy. No wonder I love this book. Thanks, Meryl, for turning me into an Anno fan.

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21 January 2013 Leave a Comment

My Week in Manga: January 14-January 20, 2013

My News and Reviews

The Moyoco Anno Manga Moveable Feast has begun! This month’s Feast is being hosted right here at Experiments in Manga, so expect to see more content than usual this week (including a guest post!) beginning with some quick takes of Anno’s manga available in English below. To start things off, I posted an introduction to the Feast on Sunday. For more information about how to contribute to the Feast, please check out the Call for Participation. I’m looking forward to the Feast and hope you all are, too! I will be doing my best as host, so please enjoy.

Although I was busy preparing for the Feast last week, I was still able to post a couple of reviews. The next review in my Blade of the Immortal review project was posted—Blade of the Immortal, Volume 17: On the Perfection of Anatomy. Hiroaki Samura doesn’t progress the plot much in this volume, but it features some very important character development. I also reviewed Miyuki Miyabe’s fantasy novel The Book of Heroes. I had previously read Brave Story and so was looking forward to reading The Book of Heroes. The novel actually frustrated me as a story, but I loved the ideas and concepts that Miyabe explored in it.

Elsewhere online, the Toronto Comics Art Festival announced the list of featured guests for 2013 which includes mangaka Gengoroh Tagame and Taiyo Matsumoto among some other fantastic creators. I finally have a passport, so I’m hoping that I can actually go to TCAF this year. Over at Narrative Investigations, Helen has a nice review of Saki Hiwatari’s Please Save My Earth, Volume 1 which she won during last month’s giveaway here at Experiments in Manga. (This month’s giveaway will be posted next week, so stay tuned!)

Quick Takes

Flowers & Bees, Volumes 1-7 by Moyoco Anno. Masao Komatsu desperately wants a girlfriend but is hopelessly unpopular. Believing his problems stem from his unattractiveness, he becomes a slave to beauty and improving himself. Flowers & Bees is frequently crass, rude, and raunchy, its humor often bordering on inappropriate. It’s not a series for the easily offended, but it is hilarious. I prefer Flowers & Bees when it is being manic and outrageous. The second half of the series calms down a little once Komatsu begins to settle into an real relationship. Granted, that relationship isn’t without its problems. There’s also actually some legitimate fashion and dating advice to be found in Flowers & Bees.

Happy Mania, Volumes 1-11 by Moyoco Anno. Happy Mania was the first manga by Anno to be released in English. It was also one of the first josei manga to be published in North America. The series follows Kayoko Shigeta and her crazed pursuit of true love, or at least the perfect boyfriend. Happy Mania is often ridiculous and absurd; I don’t think there’s a single healthy relationship in the entire series. Shigeta is an incredibly self-absorbed and selfish character, but I still ended up liking her. Unfortunately, every time she looks like she might get her life together, something gets in the way (usually herself.) In some ways, the ending might be a little disappointing, but it is very much in keeping with Shigeta’s character. And in that way, it’s perfect.

Sakuran: Blossoms Wild by Moyoco Anno. Taking place in the Yoshiwara pleasure district of Edo, Sakuran is one of the few period pieces that Anno has created. The manga is about Kiyoha, a girl who is sold to a brothel as a maid, eventually becoming one of the district’s highest ranking courtesans. The portrayal of sex work in Sakuran isn’t idealized or romanticized. Overall, I think the manga is one of Anno’s strongest works in English; it’s certainly her most serious, although it’s not without humor. Plus, Sakuran is the only manga of Anno’s available in English that features her gorgeous color artwork. Anno is currently working on a sequel to Sakuran; hopefully Vertical will be able to license it, too.

Sugar Sugar Rune, Volumes 1-8 by Moyoco Anno. In 2005, Anno won the Kodansha Manga Award for best children’s manga for her series Sugar Sugar Rune. Arguably, it is her most widely popular and well known series, appealing to both younger and older readers. One of the things that I like best about Sugar Sugar Rune is its huge cast. The wide range of characters all exhibit distinct personalities and stylish designs and each play their own role in the increasingly complex story. Chocolat and Vanilla are two young witches and best friends competing to become the next queen of the Magical World by collecting hearts in the Human World. Meanwhile, war is threatening to break out between two rival factions in the Magical World, putting everyone in danger.

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20 January 2013 Leave a Comment

Moyoco Anno Manga Moveable Feast: An Introduction

© Moyoco Anno

Welcome, everyone, to the Moyoco Anno Manga Moveable Feast!

The first Manga Moveable Feast of the year begins today, January 20, and will end on Saturday, January 26. The Feast gives the manga blogging community an opportunity to examine together a particular creator. This month we will be focusing on the mangaka Moyoco Anno and her work. Experiments in Manga will be hosting this Feast.

Who is Moyoco Anno? 
Moyoco Anno was born in Tokyo, Japan on March 26, 1971. Her uncle who lived with her family was a mangaka, and so Anno became familiar with the industry at a young age. Anno herself began submitting manga to magazines at the age of fifteen before making her professional debut in 1989 with her work “Totally Funky Guys.” For a time Anno was an assistant to the influential mangaka Kyoko Okazaki, but she has since become a successful mangaka in her own right. Several of her works have been adapted into film, anime, and television dramas. In 2002 she married Hideaki Anno of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame.

Anno took a long hiatus from story manga due to health reasons in 2008. However, she continued to create essay manga and manga for newspaper serialization. Happily, Anno returned to story manga again in 2011. Anno is a versatile creator, but her works often share some similarities: they explore themes of love (but not always romance), they feature strong characterizations (and frequently feisty women), and they have an appeal that extends beyond their primary audiences. Anno is also a fashion writer and fashion is an important element in her manga as well.

Website: Moyoco Anno Official Site
Twitter: @anno_moyoco

Anno’s Manga in English
Moyoco Anno was introduced to English-reading audiences ten years ago in 2003 when Tokyopop released the first volume of her eleven-volume series Happy Mania. The eleventh volume of Happy Mania was released in 2004. Happy Mania was one of the first, if not the first, josei manga—manga created with an adult female audience in mind—to have ever been published in English.

Later in 2003, Viz Media released the first of seven volumes of Anno’s first seinen series—manga for a primarily male audience—Flowers & Bees. Viz would finish releasing the series in 2005. Also in 2005, the now defunct Del Rey Manga began publishing Sugar Sugar Rune, the shoujo series that earned Anno the Kodansha Manga Award for best children’s manga that same year. The eighth and final volume of Sugar Sugar Rune was released in 2008. Anno’s work was featured in the exhibition “KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime + Manga + Video Games” at the Vancouver Art Gallery, also in 2008.

After six years of non-stop Anno, it was four long years until any more of her works were released in English. Vertical thankfully ended the drought by publishing Sakuran: Blossoms Wild in 2012. Anno was also a spotlight guest at the New York Comic Con in 2012. And here we all are in 2013, ten years after Anno was first published in English, examining and celebrating her and her work for the Manga Moveable Feast.

At the time of this Feast, only two of Anno’s works are currently in print in English: Flowers & Bees and Sakuran. (Three, if you count the anthology Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators which includes Anno’s short work “The Song of the Crickets.”) Happy Mania is still fairly easy to find, but some of the later volumes of Sugar Sugar Rune getting to be a little pricey. Fortunately, there’s promise that we’ll be seeing more Anno from Vertical in the future, although no details have yet been released. Regardless, I’m very excited.

Feasting at Experiments in Manga
If you were around last year for the Usamaru Furuya Manga Moveable Feast, you should already have a pretty good idea how I’ll be running things. There will be new content relating to the Feast every day at Experiments in Manga. Once again, my focus will be on in-depth reviews—I’ll be writing about Sakuran and the first volume of each of Anno’s series available in English, as well as the anthology Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators. And, like last year, I also have at least one guest post lined up!

There will be three roundup posts during the Feast (one on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.) The Feast ends on Saturday, but I’ll be writing a final sendoff post on Sunday. The roundups will highlight other participants’ contributions to the Feast. Throughout the Feast I will also be updating the archive page (which has already been populated with pre-Feast content.)

It will be a very lonely and boring Feast if I’m the only person posting content, so I encourage you all to take part. I would love to see as many people participate as possible. Please notify me of any contributions by e-mail at phoenixterran(at)gmail(dot)com or via my Twitter account (@PhoenixTerran). I’ll will include any posts that I know about in the roundups as well as in the archive. And, if you’re on Twitter, I’m encouraging the use of the #AnnoMMF hashtag for this Feast.

All right everyone, that’s enough from me for now. Please dig in and enjoy the Feast!

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18 January 2013 1 Comment

The Book of Heroes

Author: Miyuki Miyabe
Translator: Alexander O. Smith
U.S. publisher: Viz Media
ISBN: 9781421540832
Released: November 2011
Original release: 2009

The Book of Heroes is the second novel by Miyuki Miyabe that I have read. My introduction to her work was through her novel Brave Story and its various adaptations. The two novels share many similarities with each other: both were initially serialized in newspapers, both are fantasy stories featuring a young protagonist, and both were translated into English by Alexander O. Smith, just to name a few examples. But The Book of Heroes and Brave Story are each very much their own work. After its serialization, The Book of Heroes was released as a completed novel in 2009. Haikasoru, Viz Media’s Japanese speculative fiction imprint, first published Smith’s English translation of The Book of Heroes in 2010 in a hardcover edition. The novel was subsequently released as a paperback in 2011, which is the edition I picked up. Because I enjoyed Brave Story I was looking forward to reading The Book of Heroes.

Yuriko Morisaki, a fairly average girl in the fifth grade, was dozing off in science class when she receives terrible news: her older brother, who she adores, has gone missing after stabbing two of his classmates. Her family can hardly believe that Hiroki could be capable of such an act. They are desperate to find him and to understand what happened. Soon after Hiroki’s disappearance, Yuriko stumbles across a magical book in his room, one that may be able to help her find her brother. Suddenly, Yuriko is no longer an ordinary girl as she is swept into a world of story and magic. It is revealed to Yuriko that her brother and her very reality are in danger. The responsibility of rescuing them has fallen to her. She’s not without help and over time she gains some valuable allies, but Yuriko’s journey will be a very challenging one.

For me, The Book of Heroes worked better as a sort of philosophical exercise rather than as a novel. I absolutely loved the world building. I found the universes that Miyabe created to be fascinating and intellectually stimulating. I enjoyed thinking about the worlds in The Book of Heroes and loved the importance placed on books and stories—stories that hold tremendous amounts of power and that can quite literally change the world and reality; a reality that in turn can alter and affect those stories; and the grave repercussions that this system creates as a result. The ideas and concepts that Miyabe was exploring in The Book of Heroes were thrilling. But I found actually reading The Book of Heroes to be somewhat of a slog. Yuriko’s story felt terribly unfocused for much of the novel.

As often as The Book of Heroes frustrated me as a narrative (which was actually quite often), Miyabe pulls everything together beautifully in the end. In the beginning something just didn’t quite feel right about how things were progressing in The Book of Heroes. Yuriko, too, seemed to be frustrated and aware of this. Eventually, all is revealed to both Yuriko and the novel’s readers in the final chapter, appropriately titled “The Truth.” It was this chapter and the epilogue that follows it that made all of my frustration with The Book of Heroes worth it. The ending is fairly open-ended, but I thought it was very appropriate and very satisfying. The Book of Heroes is more complex and layered than it might first appear; Miyabe mixes reality and fantasy, light and darkness, in a very compelling way.

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