My Week in Manga: September 23-September 29, 2013

My News and Reviews

There were a few different things going on at Experiments in Manga last week. First off is the Arisa manga giveaway. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, so you still have a little time to enter for a chance to win the first and eleventh volumes of Natsumi Ando’s Arisa. The most recent Library Love feature was posted last week, too, which is basically a collection of quick takes of manga that I’ve borrowed from my local library. My quest to read all of Edogawa Rampo’s material available in English also continued. This time I took a look at The Edogawa Rampo Reader, which is a nice introduction to his life and work. The volume collects eighteen of his short stories and essays from over a span of thirty years.

A few interesting things found online: Brigid Alverson interviewed Charles Brownstein of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund about its new manga guide which will be released later this year. (I reviewed Manga: Introduction, Challenges, and Best Practices not too long ago and found it to be a great resource.) And speaking of the CBLDF, Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen was recently highlighted as part of the Using Graphic Novels in Education feature. Finally, Vertical made some licensing announcements at Anime Weekend Atlanta: Tetsuya Tsutui’s manga Prophecy (interestingly enough, Tsutui approached Vertical directly about the license) and Shinobu Hashimoto’s biographical novel Compound Cinematics: Akira Kurosawa and I.

Quick Takes

Arisa, Volume 8Arisa, Volumes 8-11 by Natsumi Ando. The true King has been revealed! As has that person’s motivations and back story, which are suitably dark and dramatic. Arisa and its characters are all pretty twisted—the King isn’t the only one with serious issues. The most stable character in Arisa is probably Tsubasa, but sometimes I wonder about her, too. It’s not just anyone who would pretend to be someone else, after all. At times Arisa can be extraordinarily over the top with its action and melodrama, but that’s probably one of the reasons I find the series so absorbing. Some of it comes across as unintentionally ridiculous, though. But for every development that’s laughable, there’s another that is effectively disturbing. Arisa is a series that’s really easy to tear through. Despite all of the twists and turns in its plot (or maybe because of them) the manga reads very quickly. With only one volume left to go in the series, I’m very curious to see how things will play out.

Black Jack, Volume 7Black Jack, Volumes 7-9 by Osamu Tezuka. Every once in a while I get the urge to read a bunch of Black Jack. Since the series is fairly episodic, it’s easy to pick up even if it’s been a while since I’ve read any of the manga. There were a couple of things that particularly struck me about these volumes. First of all, Black Jack should really stay away from cliffs as he seems to have a habit of falling off of them. Secondly, since Black Jack is an unlicensed doctor, it probably shouldn’t be too surprising that he would have a tendency to become involved with criminals. Often this works out quite well for him—he is able to demand his high prices and the other parties want to keep things quiet, too. However, on occasion Black Jack’s association with organized crime comes back to bite him and he ends up a little worse for wear. As always, I adore Black Jack as a character. I enjoy how much of a bastard he can be while still maintaining a strong sense of integrity.

Cyborg 009Cyborg 009 written by F. J. DeSanto and Bradley Cramp and illustrated by Marcus To and Ian Herring. Working closely with Ishimori Productions, Cyborg 009 is a single-volume, hardcover graphic novel adapting Shotaro Ishinomori’s Cyborg 009 manga with a Western audience in mind published by Archaia. The comic is in full-color with updated character designs closer to some of the more recent anime adaptations than the original manga. Actually, the artwork was one of my favorite things about the Cyborg 009 graphic novel. Story-wise it would have benefited from either being a little more focused or a little bit longer. As it is, the graphic novel is very compressed and not all of the plot lines introduced are adequately developed. But it is fun and quickly paced, not to mention beautifully presented; hopefully it will encourage readers to seek out the original material. Also of note: the back cover indicates that Cyborg 009 is “Ishimori Universe Book 1.” I know that I’d be very interested in seeing more collaborations between Archaia and Ishimori.

The Day I Become a ButterflyThe Day I Become a Butterfly by Sumomo Yumeka. Although The Day I Become a Butterfly was released under Digital Manga’s Juné imprint, two of the six collected stories aren’t at all boys’ love and a few of the others could be argued not to be as well. Yumeka describes the short manga in The Day I Become a Butterfly as inexplicable (she also admits to not liking them), but I think I would call them poetic. Instead of being straightforward narratives, the stories are quiet and almost impressionistic. They tend to be fairly introspective and melancholy; the desire for acceptance from others is a recurring theme throughout the volume. Yumeka’s artwork is lovely, although some of the character designs seem to be reused from one story to the next. Normally this might not be much of a problem, but because some of the stories in The Day I Become a Butterfly are interrelated it was sometimes confusing when the characters from an unrelated story looked like some of the recurring characters.

AkagiAkagi, Episodes 1-13 directed by Yuzo Sato. I love mahjong and Akagi is one of the mahjong series. I was thrilled when Crunchyroll picked up the anime for streaming. (I hold no illusions—mahjong manga and anime is very niche and unlikely to ever receive a physical release in North America.) Watching Akagi has actually improved my game a bit. It has also taught me how to cheat…not that I would. People who are at least vaguely familiar with mahjong will probably get more out of Akagi than those who aren’t, but it’s not necessary to understand the minutia of mahjong to enjoy the anime. The series can be surprisingly brutal at times and the games are intense—high stakes, crooked cops, yakuza, violence, manipulation. A huge emphasis is put on the psychological elements of the game. Akagi is a brilliant player and absolutely ruthless, both at the table and away from it. He seems to be afraid of nothing and is extremely ballsy. I’m really looking forward to watching the series’ second half.

My Week in Manga: February 18-February 24, 2013

My News and Reviews

Last week was the Naoki Urasawa Manga Moveable Feast. Organization Anti-Social Geniuses did a great job hosting. For my contribution to the Feast, I reviewed the first of Urasawa’s works to be released in English: Pineapple Army. The volume collects ten stories from the eight-volume series Pineapple Army written by Kazuya Kudo and illustrated by Urasawa that focuses on the exceptionally capable Jed Goshi, a Japanese-American Vietnam war veteran. As promised, I also posted a review of Persona: A Biography of Yukio Mishima by Naoki Inose and Hiroaki Sato. It is easily the most comprehensive single-volume work on Mishima currently available in English. It’s a huge volume, but well worth the effort it takes to read it if, like me, you have an established interest in Mishima.

I’ve made a few updates to the Resources page. The Manga Critic has now been absorbed by Manga Bookshelf and so no longer has its own entry. I did come across a newish blog that looks to be quite interesting, What Is Manga?, which is described as “a regular interrogation of what Japanese “comics” are and are not.” A couple of publisher websites have also disappeared: Bandai Entertainment and Icarus Comics. However, I did add Drawn and Quarterly (which was missing for some reason) and the newly established Chromatic Press to the list.

Elsewhere online, Gen Manga has launched a Kickstarter project for the print run of Sorako, one of the magazine’s stronger stories. A fascinating conversation between Igarashi Daisuke (Children of the Sea, etc.) and Taiyo Matsumoto (Tekkon Kinkreet, etc.) made its way onto Tumblr. The newest installment of Jason Thompson’s House of 1000 Manga focuses on Kingyo Used Books which unfortunately (but probably not surprisingly) has been canceled in English. I was also  sad to learn about the passing of Donald Richie, an influential writer and lover of Japan.

Quick Takes

Cyborg 009, Volume 7 by Shotaro Ishinomori. There is something about Cyborg 009 that makes me really happy to read it. Volume seven concludes part five of the series, which features the showdown between the zero-zero cyborg prototypes and the Myutos cyborgs. Initially I wasn’t overly impressed by the Myutos cyborgs. Their designs are inspired by Greek mythology, which seemed to be a rather strange and not entirely convincing combination. However, I quickly got over it and just enjoyed the story and its nearly non-stop action. The fights don’t just boil down to who happens to have the better or stronger superpower. Cleverness, teamwork, and character are just as important.

Eyeshield 21, Volumes 8-10 written by Riichiro Inagaki and illustrated by Yusuke Murata. Eyeshield 21 is definitely not the most realistic sports manga. Although there are a few serious-minded themes, Inagaki and Murata revel in the more absurd and humorous elements of the series. I think that’s really what makes the series work for me. That and Murata’s dynamic and engaging artwork. These three volumes wrap up the America story arc with the Deimon Devil Bats facing off against the NASA Aliens. Eventually the team ends up in the United States for a few days of utterly ridiculous summer training. Yes, Eyeshield 21 is over-the-top and hardly believable, but it is highly entertaining.

Rabbit Man, Tiger Man Volume 1 by Akira Honma. After rescuing the life of Nonami, a yakuza boss, timid Uzuki suddenly discovers that he’s caught the attention of a very dangerous man. Admittedly, the basic premise of the manga isn’t particularly original; I’ve read plenty of other boys’ love stories with a similar setup. Even so, Rabbit Man, Tiger Man has a nice mix of humor and drama and I’m quite fond of the characters. I particularly liked Nonami. He’s a tough guy, but he also has a very sweet nature. His underling Taka is pretty great, too. I actually quite enjoyed this first installment of Rabbit Man, Tiger Man. I’ll most likely be picking up the next volume at some point.

VS Aliens by Yu Suzuki. In addition to being one of Gen Manga’s debut stories, VS Aliens was also the first story in the magazine to be collected in its entirety in a single volume. Unlike a few of the other Gen Manga collections, there is no additional material included in VS Aliens that didn’t originally appear during its initial serialization. One day, Kitaro is approached by Segawa, one of his classmates, who seems to be convinced that another girl in their class, Sakuma, is an alien. Not wanting to hurt either of the girls’ feelings, Kitaro tries his best to figure out what’s going on. But that may turn out to be a little more difficult than he realizes. VS Aliens is a rather silly manga but an enjoyable piece of fluff and an amusing, quick read.

My Week in Manga: October 29-November 4, 2012

My News and Reviews

Over the past weekend, I posted the first in-depth manga review for November—Yaya Sakuragi’s Bond of Dreams, Bond of Love, Volume 1 published by Viz Media’s new boys’ love imprint Sublime. I’m a fan of Sakuragi’s work and so was very happy to have more of it published in English. Bond of Dreams, Bond of Love isn’t my favorite manga by her, but I still enjoyed it. Last week I also posted October’s Bookshelf Overload. I had a little too much fun on ebay last month, so I’ll be trying to curb my impulse buys for at least the rest of the year. Finally, the most recent manga giveaway is going on. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, so there’s still time to enter for a chance to win the first seven issues of the original English-language release of Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. I didn’t realize it until now, but as can be seen by the quick takes below, I spent last week reading a bunch of out of print manga. Most, except for a few of the Cyborg 009 volumes, are still fairly easy to find, though. (Fortunately, Comixology plans on releasing all of Cyborg 009 and the rest of Shotaro Ishinomori’s works digitally.)

Quick Takes

Angel Nest by Erica Sakurazawa. Apparently, Angel Nest is the second book in a loosely related three-volume series. I haven’t read the other two, but Angel Nest stands on its own, so it doesn’t really matter. The four-story collection takes its name from the first and longest story, which I actually found it to be the least interesting one out of the bunch. (Although, I did get a kick out of the angel’s preference for gin.) In “God Only Knows,” a gay man tries to hook up his straight best friend with a girl. “Tea Time” follows a woman who finds comfort in a tour guide when her boyfriend seems to have abandoned her. And in “A Gift from the Heavens,” a young man finds unexpected companionship after stealing a car on a whim.

Broken Blade, Volumes 1-3 by Yunosuke Yoshinaga. It took a little while to grow on me, but I ended up quite liking the first three volumes of Broken Blade. Unfortunately, the rest of the series is unlikely to ever be licensed in English. (But at least we have the anime adaptation.) Rygart Arrow is one of the very few people born without the ability to control magic, making him somewhat of an outcast, but he may also be the key to his country’s survival as the continent becomes embroiled in war. I did have some difficulty telling the different golem designs apart, which didn’t help during the fairly frequent mecha battles, but the worldbuilding and multi-faceted characters in Broken Blade are great. I particularly liked the intrigue surrounding the leadership of the various factions.

Cyborg 009, Volumes 1-6 by Shotaro Ishinomori. I’m not sure why it took me this long to get around to reading Cyborg 009, but I’m glad that I finally did. (Now I just need to track down the rest of the English volumes.) A group of misfits from all over the world are kidnapped and coerced into serving as human guinea pigs for the Black Ghost organization’s experimental cybernetic enhancements. After escaping, the zero-zero series is constantly being pursued by increasingly more advanced cyborgs. However, it’s the prototypes’ remaining humanity that allows them to prevail. Cyborg 009 is almost all non-stop action; the confrontations occur everywhere from deep sea trenches to outer space.

Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President, Volume 1 by Kaiji Kawaguchi. As election day approaches in the United States, I thought it would be appropriate to give Eagle a try. The manga takes place during the 2000 American presidential election. Takashi Jo, a Japanese reporter, is personally selected by presidential candidate Senator Kenneth Yamaoka to serve as his foreign correspondent. Jo eventually comes to realize that Yamaoka may very well be his father. Having a bastard son is the type of scandal that could ruin Yamaoka’s chance of being elected. Even though I have very little interest in politics and therefore found portions of Eagle to be rather tedious, the manga is well-written and I’m curious to see where Kawaguchi might go with the story.

Truly Kindly by Fumi Yoshinaga. Truly Kindly is an enjoyable but somewhat peculiar collection of boys’ love stories from Yoshinaga. I’m not sure how these seven stories ended up being collected together since there doesn’t appear to be an overarching theme. Some are very serious in tone, others are romantic, and some tend towards the goofier side of things. The first three stories are modern tales (two take place in Japan and one in the United States) while the rest are period and historical pieces. Truly Kindly also includes the story “A Butler’s Proper Place” which takes place during the French Revolution (a time period favored by Yoshinaga) and is the basis for another of her works, Lovers in the Night.