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17 June 2013 6 Comments

My Week in Manga: June 10-June 16, 2013

My News and Reviews

Another week at Experiments in Manga, another couple of reviews. Kaori Ekuni’s award-winning novel Twinkle Twinkle was recently brought to my attention and so I decided to read it. (Vertical is celebrating it’s tenth year of publishing, and Twinkle Twinkle was the first book it ever published.) I absolutely loved Twinkle Twinkle. It’s a peculiar love story between a woman and her gay husband who mostly married to get their parents off of their cases. It’s one of the best things I’ve read recently. As part of my Blade of the Immortal review project, I took a look at Hiroaki Samura’s Blade of the Immortal, Volume 22: Footsteps. The volume marks the beginning of the final major story arc in the series. Blade of the Immortal has ended in Japan but there are still a handful of volumes that remain to be released in English.

And speaking of manga series ending, after ten and a half years Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son will be reaching its conclusion in Japan at the end of July. The fourth volume of the English-language edition of manga was recently released by Fantagraphics. I hope the entire series will be able to be translated as Wandering Son is a particularly important manga to me. Elsewhere online, there were a couple of podcasts of particular interest: Ed Sizemore returned with a one-time special episode of Manga Out Loud, which went on hiatus last year, and the Comic Books Are Burning In Hell podcast devoted an episode to Taiyo Matsumoto and his work. Also, Manga Xanadu’s podcast is now up to ten episodes! Oh, and one more thing—this week is the Skip Beat! Manga Moveable Feast!

Quick Takes

Cage of Eden, Volume 10 by Yoshinobu Yamada. I enjoy a good survival story, which is why I was looking forward to Cage of Eden when it was first released. Unfortunately, I found very little to like about the first volume and haven’t read any more of the series until now. The tenth volume is better than the first, but I’m still not convinced that Cage of Eden is worth my time even though I want it to be. By this point in the series the dialogue seems to have improved and there weren’t as many glaringly convenient coincidences and plot holes. The fanservice is still a bigger part of the manga than it really needs to be, though. Personally, I’m more interested in the action and mystery than I am in middle schoolers’ panties.

Godzilla: The Half-Century War by James Stokoe. Although I followed Stokoe’s Godzilla comic as it was being released in single issues, I still made a point to pick up the trade collection, too. I don’t have a particular interest in Godzilla, but I love Stokoe’s detailed and spectacularly colored artwork, which is what initially drew me to the comic. The Half-Century War is told from the perspective of Ota Murakami who in 1954 faces Godzilla as a member of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and becomes obsessed with the creature. The following chapters take place in different decades and locations: 1967 Vietnam, 1975 Ghana, 1987 Bombay, and 2002 Antarctica. The comic is pretty great with a quick pace and a good sense of humor. And Godzilla isn’t the only kaiju to make an appearance, either.

Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry Blossoms Pink by Milk Morinaga. After reading Morinaga’s yuri series Girl Friends, I knew I needed to read her earlier work Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry Blossoms Pink. Although overall the manga isn’t quite as sophisticated in its story as Girl Friends, it is just as sweet, charming, and romantic. In fact, I think I probably enjoyed Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry Blossoms Pink even more than I did Girl Friends. The omnibus collects two volumes and nearly a decade’s worth of stories about the young women who attend the all-girls high school Sakurakai. There’s love and romance, friendship and affection with just a touch of the bittersweet. It’s a wonderful yuri collection.

The Two Faces of Tomorrow by Yukinobu Hoshino. I loved Hoshino’s 2001 Nights, so I’ve made a point to track down more of his work available in English. The Two Faces of Tomorrow manga is actually an adaptation of British science fiction author James P. Hogan’s 1979 novel of the same name. Scientists have developed a highly advanced artificial intelligence system that could be an incredible boon to human society, but there are fears that system could gain sentience and then turn against its creators. And so what is supposed to be a carefully controlled experiment is staged on a space station. The Spartacus AI is deployed and then deliberately provoked in order to determine how it will react and evolve. For fans of classic science fiction, The Two Faces of Tomorrow is well worth checking out.

Un-Go directed by Seiji Mizushima. I really wanted to like Un-Go, but after only a few episodes I found myself incredibly bored by it. It poses as a mystery series, but fails to actually engage the viewers in any of the investigations. I did find it interesting that the anime is loosely based on the novels and stories of Ango Sakaguchi. I was also fascinated by Inga. Actually, one of the reasons I finished the series was that I hoped to learn more about Inga and Shinjūrō’s relationship and their history. Unfortunately, none of this is ever explored in any sort of detail. In the end, I was more curious about the characters backstories than I was in whatever they were currently doing. Un-Go didn’t really work for me.

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28 May 2012 4 Comments

My Week in Manga: May 21-May 27, 2012

My News and Reviews

Last week was the Oishinbo and Food Manga Moveable Feast, hosted by Khursten over at Otaku Champloo. Both of my posts last week had something to do with the Feast. First, I reviewed Oishinbo, A la Carte: Ramen & Gyōza, the third thematic Oishinbo collection to be released in English. I’m a foodie, so I really enjoy the series. My second post was Random Musings: Oishinbo and the Romance of Food in which I ramble on a bit about food, couples, and relationships.

Not too long ago, I read and reviewed Otaku Spaces,  written by Patrick W. Galbraith with photography by Androniki Christodoulou. Recently Néojaponisme posted a three part interview with Galbraith about the book and otaku in general. It’s lengthy, but a good read. Elsewhere online, David Letters has an engaging article about Crying Freeman, sex scenes, and such at 4thletter!—Cartoonishly virile, absurdly smooth: The Crying Freeman Story. Finally, RightStuf announced the next book in their print-on-demand manga service, the eighth volume of Bizenghast by M. Alice LeGrow.

Quick Takes

Bus Gamer: 1999-2001, The Pilot Edition by Kazuya Minekura. Toki, Nakajyo, and Kazuo are complete strangers that are hired to work together in a game of corporate espionage taken to the extreme. As far as I know, Minekura hasn’t been able to continue the Bus Gamer series although she has expressed interest in doing so. I’d love to see where she takes things; Bus Gamer has a solid start. The plot is a little bizarre, but I like the characters. I’m particularly fond of Kaz. He has some darkness in his past but has turned out to be very good natured and endearingly flaky. Although it’s only been hinted at so far, each of the young men have their own reasons for participating in what has become a deadly game.

Let Dai, Volumes 6-10 by Sooyeon Won. Dai absolutely terrifies me. Although no longer the leader of the Furies gang, he can still be incredibly violent. He does show brief moments of gentleness, but for the most part he scares the hell out of me (and quite a few of the other people in Let Dai.) And yet, he has this strange allure; people can’t help but be drawn to him, for better or, more often than not, for worse. One of the things that makes Let Dai so compelling, and so difficult to turn away from even though it’s almost traumatizing to read, is the complexity of the characters’ relationships and interactions. Some of the power dynamics are very strange. Occasionally the series can be a little melodramatic and angsty, but the resulting tragedies are very realistic.

Wonton Soup, Volumes 1-2 by James Stokoe. I was recently introduced to some of Stokoe’s current illustrations and was so smitten that I immediately sought out any and all of his published works, which is how I discovered his short series Wonton Soup. Johnny Boyo is famous for his culinary talent but he left that life behind to become a space trucker instead. Wonton Soup is a pretty gimmicky series, one of the characters even comes out and declares it as such, but there are some moments of brilliant entertainment mixed in. I much preferred the first volume to the second simply because it focuses slightly more on Boyo’s crazy cuisine. Ultimately, there’s not much substance to Wonton Soup, but Stokoe’s art is great.

Bodacious Space Pirates, Episodes 1-11 directed by Tatsuo Satō. Don’t let the title or the length of the skirts fool you, Bodacious Space Pirates is not at all the fanservice fest it looks like it might be. Instead, it’s an entertaining coming-of-age space opera that focuses on characters and storytelling. If anything, the story might be a little too innocent; the crew of the Bentenmaru are some of the nicest, most wholesome pirates I’ve ever seen. Still, I’m enjoying the show tremendously. Marika, a first-year in high school, discovers that she is the daughter of a space pirates after her father passes away. Even more surprisingly, she has been selected to succeed him as captain. Bodacious Space Pirates was such a fun, pleasant surprise. I’ll most likely pick up Sentai’s release.

Gin Tama, Collection 1 (Episodes 1-13) directed by Shinji Takamatsu. I’m a fan of Hideaki Sorachi’s original Gin Tama manga, so I was surprised how long it took me to warm up to the anime adaptation. Both series are quirky with plenty of absurd humor. The sheer amount of Japanese cultural references makes them a hard sell for a casual audience since they’re not immediately accessible. Additionally, the first two episodes of the anime require that the viewers already be familiar with the manga in order to make any sense of it at all. But eventually, the anime started to work for me. I found myself laughing at the jokes, even the ones that I already knew, and I genuinely had a good time watching the show.

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