Home Archives for Manga Moveable Feast
24 October 2012 Leave a Comment

Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1

Creator: Saiko Takaki
Original story: Hideyuki Kikuchi
U.S. publisher: Digital Manga
ISBN: 9781569708279
Released: November 2007

My introduction to the works of Hideyuki Kikuchi was through Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1, Saiko Takaki’s manga adaptation of Kikuchi’s light novel of the same name. I first read Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1 after borrowing it from my local library; later, Digital Manga would send me a copy as part of a Kikuchi care package. It seemed appropriate to give Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1 another, closer look for the October 2012 Manga Moveable Feast which focused on vampire manga. The Vampire Hunter D manga adaptation is an interesting project. Coordinated by Digital Manga with Kikuchi’s direct involvement, the goal is for each volume of the original Vampire Hunter D series of novels to be adapted. (So far, six of the more than twenty novels have received the treatment.) Takaki was personally selected by Kikuchi to work on the project and is responsible for illustrating and adapting the novels as manga. Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1 was simultaneously released worldwide in 2007.

After nearly annihilating themselves in a nuclear holocaust, the remnants of human society now struggle to survive in a world filled with mutants and monsters, the most powerful of which is a race of vampires known as the Nobility. But even the Nobility’s reign of terror can’t last forever; thousands of years later the vampires themselves are now also in decline. Even though their control over the world is slipping away, the Nobility are still extremely dangerous and are a threat to what is left of humankind. Doris Lang, a beautiful young woman from the frontier town of Ransylva, has been bitten by one of the Nobility, putting her life at great risk. To save herself, she hires a vampire hunter known only as “D.” Although appearing as a young man, D is a dhampir—the son of a human mother and one of the Nobility. Reviled by both vampires and humans, D is in an unusual position. His heritage grants him superhuman skills and power, making him an ideal vampire hunter and nearly as dangerous as the Nobility.

Takaki’s artwork in Vampire Hunter D is well-suited for the story. It’s darkly beautiful, striking, and yet disconcerting. (Although, perhaps, not always as horrifying as I might hope.) At times the art is vaguely reminiscent of the work of Yoshitaka Amano, the illustrator for the Vampire Hunter D novels. Great care has been taken with the character designs, especially D’s. He is the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome—easily the prettiest character in the manga. I particularly liked the attention given to the details of his attire. A brooding anti-hero who rarely smiles, the more terrifying side of D’s dhampir nature is rarely seen. It’s easy to forget how dangerous he really is as he plays the part of the “good guy” well. But occasionally there is a glimpse of fangs and malice as he struggles to control his desires.

While I wasn’t overly impressed by Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1 when I read it for the first time, the manga has grown on me after subsequent readings. Since I haven’t yet read the original Vampire Hunter D novel, I can’t comment on how the manga compares or even how it works as an adaptation. However, I do think it is fairly successful as its own work. The story is quickly paced but there are leaps and potential inconsistencies in the plot that require readers to fill in what happened themselves. (This is actually something I’ve seen in other works by Kikuchi, so it wouldn’t surprise me if this issue comes directly from the source material.) Still, there is plenty that I like about Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1: it’s post-apocalyptic setting, D himself, the mix of traditional vampire lore and advanced technology, the interesting powers granted to the mutants. In the end, I do want to read more of the Vampire Hunter D manga and maybe even give the original novels a try.

Thank you to Digital Manga for providing a copy of Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1 for review.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged: , , , , ,
19 September 2012 2 Comments

Sand Chronicles, Volume 1

Creator: Hinako Ashihara
U.S. publisher: Viz Media
ISBN: 9781421514772
Released: January 2008
Original release: 2003
Awards: Shogakukan Manga Award

Sand Chronicles, Volume 1 by Hinako Ashihara was originally published in Japan in 2003. The English-language edition of the manga was initially published by Viz Media’s Shojo Beat magazine (issues twenty-six through twenty-nine) before being released as a collected volume in 2008. When September 2012’s Manga Moveable Feast focusing on Shojo Beat manga was announced, I immediately thought of the Shogakukan Manga Award-winning Sand Chronicles. One of the best contemporary shoujo series that I have ever read, Sand Chronicles is also one of my favorite shoujo manga period. The series is complete in ten volumes, although the main story finishes with the eighth. The final two volumes consist of epilogue-like side stories. While not absolutely critical for a satisfying conclusion, the “extra” stories round out the series and the characters nicely.

Twenty-six years old and about to be married, Ann Uekusa is preparing to move to America with her soon-to-be husband when memories from her adolescence come crashing back. After her parents divorced when she was twelve, Ann and her mother moved from Tokyo to the rural village of Shimane. Living with her grandparents in a small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business will take some getting used to, but Ann quickly makes friends with the other kids her age. After a rough beginning, she hits it off particularly well with Daigo Kitamura and even manages to befriend the more reserved Fuji Tsukishima and his younger sister Shika. Those friendships become even more important to Ann when tragedy strikes her family. The events that occur during the winter of Ann’s twelfth year will have profound effects on her for the rest of her life.

I am quite fond of Ashihara’s artwork in Sand Chronicles and find it to be very effective. There are two things she does particularly well in the manga. Her backgrounds, settings, and natural landscapes are beautiful and detailed, giving Shimane and the surrounding area a real sense of place. Ashihara captures the changes of seasons well, too, easily shifting from the snowy mountainsides in the winter to the summer storms in the woods. But perhaps most importantly, Ashihara’s art style allows her characters to be incredibly expressive. They show sadness and pain as well as laughter and joy. A glance or simple gaze can carry a significant amount of meaning even when the characters aren’t able to verbally express their feelings. This is particularly important in a series like Sand Chronicles in which the characters’ personal emotions and inner turmoil are just as important as their outward actions. Ashihara is able to convey and capture both the inner and outer aspects of the story and her characters through her artwork.

The overall tone I get from the first volume of Sand Chronicles is one of melancholy but not of overwhelming sadness. Sand Chronicles is a series that tugs at the heartstrings but at the same time I didn’t feel emotionally manipulated by it. This is one of the reasons that Sand Chronicles works so well for me. Some of the more climactic moments tend be a little melodramatic, but the emotions and feelings being expressed are honest and real. The characters, too, are well-developed and multi-faceted, even contradictory to some extent, lending to their authenticity and realism. They all have personal histories that explain their individual quirks and behaviors; they are who they are for a reason. Ann may exhibit strength, but she also shows signs of fragility, something that is true for many of the characters in Sand Chronicles. Their pasts inform their presents which in turn influence their futures, a theme that recurs throughout the volume and the series—something that Ashihara never forgets.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged: , , , , ,
17 September 2012 2 Comments

My Week in Manga: September 10-September 16, 2012

My News and Reviews

I posted two reviews last week here at Experiments in Manga. First was for Strawberry Panic: The Complete Novel Collection written by Sakurako Kimino with illustrations by Namuchi Takumi. I was introduced to the Strawberry Panic yuri franchise through the manga, which was never completed. The novels are utterly ridiculous and yet highly entertaining. The other review was part of my Blade of the Immortal review project—Blade of the Immortal, Volume 13: Mirror of the Soul. I’m still loving the series. Mirror of the Soul focuses on Anotsu who I find to be an incredibly compelling character.

This week is the Shojo Beat Manga Moveable Feast, hosted by Manga Report! All of the quick takes below feature Shojo Beat manga and anime. On Wednesday, I’ll be posting an in-depth review of the first volume of the manga series Sand Chronicles by Hinako Ashihara. I think Sand Chronicles is one of the best contemporary shōjo manga series out there; it’s certainly one my favorites.

This past Friday, I had the opportunity to see Kataoka Ichiro, a professional benshi, in action. It was very cool. The University of Michigan’s Center for Japanese Studies hosts two film series every year. This fall, the series is focusing on the silent films by Ozu Yasujiro which are being shown accompanied by live music and benshi. With the exception of the opening night, the films and performances are free and open to the public. If you’re in Southeast Michigan on a Friday evening between September 14 and November 9, I highly recommend checking the series out. Can’t make it to the films? Kataoka’s interview on arwulf-arwulf’s “Face the Music” radio show is worth listening to, too.

I am absolutely thrilled with Nozomi Entertainment’s most recent license announcement—The Rose of Versailles. Hopefully, the acquisition of the anime series means that the manga may be within reach for English-reading audiences. The series is infamous for being unlicensable, but maybe there could now be a chance. Either way, I’m very happy that The Rose of Versailles anime will be available next year.

The Hooded Utilitarian, a cultural criticism blog that largely focuses on comics (including manga, from time to time), is celebrating it’s fifth anniversary with a roundtable called the Anniversary of Hate. So far, two of the posts have focused on manga: Jason Thompson’s From Habibi to Tezuka, With Ono In Between and Kate Dacey’s Peace and Hate. Some of the comments on these posts are also very intriguing and worth reading.

Quick Takes

Dengeki Daisy, Volumes 5-8 by Kyousuke Motomi. I used to consider Dengeki Daisy a guilty pleasure of mine. Well, I’ve gotten over the guilt and now just enjoy myself. I find the series absolutely hilarious. Sure, it has it’s serious and melodramatic scenes, but it never fails to make me laugh. However, the eight volume has a drastically different tone (Motomi even admits as much). The volume delves into Kurosaki’s past and is understandably more somber, but it still contains moments of humor. Kurosaki’s guilt has been hinted at and its revelation has been built up to from the beginning of the series. Even though I wasn’t entirely convinced, for the most part I found myself satisfied with explanation.

Library Wars: Love & War, Volume 8 by Kiiro Yumi. Library Wars still isn’t as good as I want it to be, but I enjoy the manga enough to keep reading and I love the basic premise of the series. The resolution of book burning incident from previous volume is fairly anticlimactic, but as a result Iku finally realizes that Dojo is her prince. This gives Yumi plenty of opportunity to draw “jittery Iku” as Iku processes this development. The results are quite amusing. I’ve actually never been exceptionally fond of Iku as the main character (her incompetence as a librarian frustrates me), but she is growing on me and I appreciate her enthusiasm. Still, I tend to prefer almost any other character in Library Wars over Iku. I’m particularly fond of the romance developing between Tezuka and Shibasaki.

Otomen, Volumes 1-5 by Aya Kanno. Asuka Masamune is the epitome of manliness—strong, handsome, cool-headed, chivalrous. However, his hobbies, which he desperately tries to keep hidden, are less than manly. He loves cute things, sewing, cooking, and shōjo manga. Asuka is an otomen—a girly guy. Otomen relies heavily on gender expectations, stereotypes, shōjo tropes and cliches. Although the gender-bending nature of the characters and their interests are the source of the series’ humor, the manga doesn’t make fun of characters themselves. The series is lighthearted fun with the message that it’s okay to be who you are even when defies expectation. I am really enjoying Otomen and look forward to reading more.

Honey and Clover, Box Set 1 directed by Ken’ichi Kasai. I haven’t actually read the Honey and Clover manga, but I’ve heard great things about it and it’s anime adaptation. The series revolves around a group of friends who are students at an art college in Tokyo. We never really see their initial friendships develop, which makes me feel like I’m missing out on something. It is clear that their bonds are strong ones, though. Despite this, there is also a lot of loneliness in Honey and Clover. But there’s also plenty of humor, too, including the most epic game of Twister I’ve ever seen. While I’m not in a huge rush to finish the series, I did enjoy the time I spent with the characters of Honey and Clover. Their quirkiness is probably why I liked them so well.

Filed Under: My Week in Manga Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
31 August 2012 Leave a Comment

Random Musings: Dealing with the Dead in The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service and The Embalmer

Out of all the unusual talents that the characters in Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki’s horror manga The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service hold, the skill that is considered to be the strangest also happens to be one of the more realistic. Keiko Makino is an embalmer, an oddity in Japan where bodies are generally cremated soon after death, largely rendering their preservation unnecessary. In fact, the only other embalmer that I have ever encountered in a manga as a main character is Shinjyurou Mamiya from Mitsukazu Mihara’s series The Embalmer. (Granted, there are several important secondary characters in both of these series who are also embalmers.)

Because Makino and Mamiya share the same profession, they also happen to share a few other things in common. It is now possible to study mortuary science in Japan, but both Makino and Mamiya traveled abroad to America in order to study embalming. I’m not sure if Makino’s school is ever specifically mentioned in The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, but Mamiya attended the Pittsburgh College of Mortuary Science (a real place, although it’s now known as the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science). Mamiya and Makino also both have ties to American military bases in Japan. Mamiya’s father was an embalmer in the American military and their family lived on a base for a time. In Makino’s case, her skill as an embalmer is occasionally called upon by the Americans when they are shorthanded. Because there are so few embalmers in Japan and because embalming is an unfamiliar process there, both Makino and Mamiya are seen as rather odd and strange. They, and their profession, are often misunderstood and in some cases even reviled.

Embalming primarily serves three functions: the preservation of a body over time (slowing its decomposition), the restoration of a body’s appearance, and the sanitization and disinfection of a body to help prevent the spread of disease. All three of these functions are seen to varying degrees in both The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service and The Embalmer, but for vastly different purposes. Generally, Makino is mostly concerned with preservation—the corpses need to last long enough for their souls to finally be put to rest—and public health (or at least the health of her and her cohorts). One the other hand, Mamiya places an emphasis on the actual restoration of the body. For the most part, embalming in The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is done for the corpse’s sake while embalming in The Embalmer is done for the sake of the loved ones left behind. It’s an interesting distinction between the two series, basically amounting to revenge versus comfort. Both approaches bring closure but in very, very different ways. After all, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is a supernatural horror manga and The Embalmer is a more realistic, psychological drama.

It’s probably not too surprising, but there is more of a focus on embalming in The Embalmer than there is in The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. This does make a fair amount of sense seeing as Makino is part of ensemble cast while Mamiya is a primary protagonist. The Embalmer explores many different aspects of embalming, including Mamiya’s training and schooling. Of the two series, The Embalmer comes across as a more serious portrayal of the profession. Embalming plays a critical role not just as part of Mamiya’s life but as a part of the entire series. In The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Makino’s skills almost come across as a gimmick, which is keeping perfectly in line with the tone of the series as a whole. Often her knowledge of embalming is somehow applied to an entirely different trade, such as serving as a makeup artist on a film set. Although the depiction of embalming isn’t as thorough in The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, the realistic aspects of the profession are still incorporated into the manga. While the group doesn’t always take full advantage of her knowledge, Makino and her skills are vital assets to the Kurosagi team.

The Embalmer and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service are two completely different series, but their inclusion of embalmers and embalming creates some fascinating parallels. I find it incredibly interesting how similar themes can be used in entirely different ways to create manga that are so divergent but that still share crucial elements.

This post is a part of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Manga Moveable Feast.

Filed Under: Random Musings Tagged: , , , , , ,
25 August 2012 1 Comment

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Volume 1

Author: Eiji Otsuka
Illustrator: Housui Yamazaki
U.S. publisher: Dark Horse
ISBN: 9781593075552
Released: August 2006
Original release: 2002

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is a horror manga series written by Eiji Otsuka and illustrated by Housui Yamazaki, both of whom have worked on other horror-like manga—MPD Psycho and Mail, respectively. The first volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service was originally published in Japan in 2002, the English-language edition being released by Dark Horse in 2006. The series is currently ongoing and is available through volume fifteen in Japan; Dark Horse has so far released twelve volumes. I initially started reading The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service for two reasons. The series was first brought to my attention because the covers are so distinctive and striking and they caught my eye. But perhaps more importantly, I was already familiar with Otsuka’s work on MPD Psycho (which interestingly enough, end us up crossing over with The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service) and wanted to read more of his manga. Because The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service was selected for August 2012’s Manga Moveable Feast, I wanted to revisit the series.

Kuro Karatsu may not know it, but he is haunted or perhaps even possessed by a ghost. What he does know is that the dead can speak to and through him. After being roped into volunteering to pray for suicides found in the Aokigahara forest along with a few other students from his Buddhist university, Kuro discovers that he is not the only one with a unique skill. Makoto Numata, a tough guy with a sensitive soul, is a dowser. Except, instead of finding water, he is able to find dead bodies. The cute and petite Keiko Makino studied embalming and mortuary science in America, a profession with very little demand in Japan. Yuji Yuta is a relatively quite guy, but the alien he channels through a sock puppet is more than foulmouthed enough to make up for it. And then there’s the mastermind Ao Sasaki who has brought them all together. She is determined to find a profitable scheme that will put all of their talents to good use. And thus, the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is born—a group of nearly unemployable students putting the dead to rest on their own terms.

Although I have read The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service before, I had forgotten how funny the series actually is. It’s not so much a horror manga as it is a supernatural-horror-mystery manga with a heavy dose of a very dark sense of humor. Which isn’t to say the horror element isn’t an important part of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, because it certainly is. The series just somehow manages to be very good-natured about it, mostly due to the quirkiness of its cast and great dialogue. While the first volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service doesn’t show the development of the group’s friendship, it is obvious from their interactions with one another and their banter that they all get along well. I find their relaxed, nonchalant attitude when dealing with the dead to be very amusing. They act as though nothing is out of the ordinary. Sure, death is a natural part of life, but normally corpses don’t move of their own volition. The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service doesn’t let that phase them, though.

The first volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service collects four different stories. While the stories do make small references to one another and continue to reveal more about the characters and their histories, they all stand completely on their own. As might be expected from a horror series, many of the stories end up being fairly gruesome and rather disturbing. Although Yamazaki shows some restraint in the artwork, there is still plenty of blood and guts in The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. Frankly though, the gore and corpses tend to be less terrifying than most of the living that Kuro and the others end up having to face on behalf of the dead. The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is a strange mix of humor and horror—both psychological and grotesque—but Otsuka and Yamazaki make it work. The manga is entertaining, engaging, and has a great cast of characters. I really enjoyed my reread of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Volume 1.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged: , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »