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17 December 2012 4 Comments

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

My News and Reviews

The end of the month and the end of the year seem to be approaching very quickly. But even with the chaos which accompanies that, I posted two in-depth reviews last week. First up was my review for The Twelve Kingdoms, Volume 2: Sea of Wind by Fuyumi Ono. I’m really enjoying the series; I’ll definitely be reading (and reviewing) the rest of the novels that were translated into English before Tokyopop’s implosion. I also reviewed Hiroaki Samura’s Blade of the Immortal, Volume 16: Shortcut. My Blade of the Immortal review project is steadily progressing. At the rate the series is being published in English, I should be caught up in less than a year. Next week, beginning on December 26, is this month’s Manga Moveable Feast. This Feast will be focusing on Hikaru no Go and other game manga. I have a couple of things in mind that I’m working on, including a review of the first volume of Hikaru no Go. Elsewhere online, Comics Alliance has a fabulous introduction to the work of Shotaro Ishinomori—Shotaro Ishinomori Is A Big Deal: An Action-Packed Primer For New Readers.

Quick Takes

Blood Sucker: Legend of Zipangu, Volumes 5-7 written by Saki Okuse and illustrated by Aki Shimizu. I enjoyed the first four volumes of Blood Sucker and so was looking forward to reading more. The long, multi-volume flashback finally comes to an end with volume five. I’ll admit, I found the earlier volumes more compelling. It seems like important plot points and developments were either forgotten or lost along the way. But I still like Blood Sucker. It’s quickly paced and packed with gory action. The artwork is good, too, but occasionally difficult to follow during fights. Only seven of the twelve volumes of Blood Sucker were published in English, but it’s still probably worth tracking down for fans of vampires or action-horror.

Fist of the Blue Sky, Volumes 1-4 written by Nobuhiko Horie and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. Fist of the Blue Sky is a prequel to Fist of the North Star. The protagonist, Kenshiro Kasumi, is the uncle and namesake of Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star. The two series are vaguely similar in tone with over-the-top scenarios, gang warfare, and fantastical martial arts, except that Fist of the Blue Sky largely takes place in Shanghai in the 1930s instead of in a post-apocalyptic world. Kenshiro has a sort of Indian Jones vibe going on at the beginning, but that seems to be quickly left behind as the series progresses. Fist of the Blue Sky ended in Japan with twenty-two volumes, four of which were released in English before Raijin folded.

Please Save My Earth, Volumes 1-7 by Saki Hiwatari. So far, I’m loving Please Save My Earth, the shoujo science fiction epic. Seven students in Japan discover that they are the reincarnations of seven alien researchers who died on the moon. This might seem like a silly premise for a story, but the manga is actually very engrossing. At first the students are fascinated and excited about their shared history, but slowly the guilt, memories, and emotions from their past lives begin to intrude upon their current lives, causing all sorts of difficulties for them. Sometime, the results are tragic. The artwork is a little rough at first, but steadily improves. I’m really looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

Seven Days: Friday-Sunday written by Venio Tachibana and illustrated by Rihito Takarai. Seven Days is an absolutely beautiful story; I enjoyed it immensely. Because I loved the manga so much, a part of me wishes that there was more—it’s only two volumes long—but another part of me is completely satisfied. Seven Days is a fairly quiet and somewhat melancholy manga. In the first volume, Shino asked Seryou out almost accidentally. It was a joke and he certainly didn’t expect him to say yes. They’re only guaranteed to date for one week, and now that that one week is drawing to a close, both of them are conflicted. They’ve gotten to know each other better and neither one of them wants their relationship to end, but it can’t continue on like it has been, either.

Black Lagoon, Episodes 1-12 directed by Sunao Katabuchi. I was late to the Black Lagoon anime party and so missed out on the series’ initial release, which is why I’m so glad that both seasons are now available on DVD again. At this point, I think that I still slightly prefer the manga, but the anime adaptation is great. I was particularly impressed by the quality of the animation and sound design. Black Lagoon is a lot of fun, with violent and foul-mouthed protagonists, plenty of explosions and gun battles, and a dark sense of humor. I don’t find it to be particularly compelling as a story, but it is highly entertaining. I’m really enjoying watching the series.

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6 August 2012 2 Comments

My Week in Manga: July 30-August 5, 2012

My News and Reviews

I had three posts for you all last week here at Experiments in Manga. First was the announcement of the Love Hina Giveaway Winner which also includes a brief list of some of the harem and reverse harem manga that have been licensed in English. I also posted July’s Bookshelf Overload. I managed to restrain my impulse buys over the last month (for the most part). And finally, I reviewed Frederik L. Schodt’s The Astro Boy Essays. I actually haven’t read or watched much Astro Boy, but Schodt’s book is a fantastic introduction to Astro Boy and Osamu Tezuka.

Many boys’ love fans celebrated “Yaoi Day” on August 1st, or 8/01. (With a little Japanese wordplay, 801 can be pronounced as “yaoi.”) I saw a lot of love for est em last week, and for a good reason—she’s a fantastic creator. Jocelyne Allen translated and posted a portion of her interview with est em from 2010 at her site Brain Vs. Book. Over at Otaku Champloo, Khursten Santos had a special spotlight on est em. And, while not part of the yaoi day celebrations, Jason Thompson’s House of 1000 Manga featured est em a few weeks back.

Also! The call for participation for August’s Manga Moveable Feast has been posted! Later this month the manga blogging community will be taking a closer look at Eiji Ōtsuka and Housui Yamazaki’s The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.

Quick Takes

Fist of the North Star: Master Edition, Volumes 7-9 written by Buronson and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. Gutsoon Entertainment was only able to publish nine volumes of Fist of the North Star before going defunct. I would absolutely love to see more of the series available in English. When I first started reading Fist of the North Star, it seemed like the series was heading towards a bad-guy-of-the-week sort of story. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I was very happy to see it evolve an engaging overarching plot. Plus, I love the gloriously over-the-top martial arts. These last few English volumes further develop Kenshiro and his brothers’ backstories and introduces one of the primary antagonists of the series.

My Cute Crossdresser by Mitohi Matsumoto. A part of Digital Manga’s new hentai imprint Project-H, My Cute Crossdresser falls into the genre known as otokonoko. Generally written for a male audience, otokonoko features cross-dressing guys, often in somewhat compromising situations (it is ecchi, after all). I quite enjoyed My Cute Crossdresser. For the most part, the sexual content is actually fairly mild. The first and longest story, “Raising Decoy,” in which a guy dresses as a girl to catch gropers on the train in order to bring them to justice, ends up being rather sweet. “Spilled Milk” and “Leo and the Night Sky of Summer” are partially excuses for suggestive crossplay. The collection also includes “An Angel’s Flight” and “Actress.” The volume is fun and even a bit fluffy.

Sexy Voice and Robo by Iou Kuroda. It’s difficult for me to adequately capture my response to reading Sexy Voice and Robo, or to even describe what this manga actually is about. It’s a strange and rather unusual story, but I found it be appealing and immensely enjoyable. Nico, aka “Sexy Voice,” is a bright fourteen-year-old girl who wants to be spy when she grows up, or maybe a fortuneteller. She finds other people intensely fascinating and can’t help but meddle in their affairs, often putting herself in some very dangerous situations as a result. The endearing and hapless “Robo,” who is frequently caught up in her escapades, is one of many men she met while working for a tele-club dating scam.

Tactics, Volumes 1-2 by Sakura Kinoshita and Kazuko Higashiyama. First published by ADV Manga, then Tokyopop, and now available through JManga, Tactics is one of the few manga that I’ve read that takes place during Japan’s Taishō era. Kantarou is a young folklorist who is occasionally called upon to exorcise yokai that are causing problems for people. The plot moves a little too quickly at times and is nearly as hyperactive as its protagonist. The stories tend to be fairly benign even when they include slightly more menacing elements. Personally, I prefer my yokai tales to have a little more bite to them, but there were parts of Tactics that were genuinely fun. I was particularly amused by the tengu Haruka’s extreme attachment to his rice bowl.

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11 June 2012 Leave a Comment

My Week in Manga: June 4-June 10, 2012

My News and Reviews

For most of last week I was in Nashville for a conference for work, which means I didn’t get nearly as much manga and anime in as I would have liked. Hauling large stacks of books through airports isn’t particularly fun, so I didn’t take much with me. Still, I managed to find time to get some reading in before I left. I also managed to post an in-depth review of The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition while I was away, the latest manga offering from One Peace Books. The Read or Die Giveaway Winner was announced last week as well. The post shares some favorite book loving characters and series, too, so please check it out.

Some exciting licensing news! Drawn & Quarterly will be releasing Shigeru Mizuki’s GeGeGe no Kitaro in early 2013. Rumor has it that it will be a “best of” collection, but no specific details on the publication have been released yet. Elsewhere online, CBLDF reported that both a manga and an anime have survived being challenged under Tokyo’s Youth Healthy Development Ordinance amendment. Although I’m not familiar with either work, this makes me very happy. And over at Yuri no Boke, Katherine Hanson has great a post about Yuri Characters Who Are Out To Family Members in Manga, which includes a couple of titles that are available in English.

Quick Takes

Fist of the North Star: Master Edition, Volumes 4-6 written by Buronson and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. I really do love this series. Post-apocalyptic, shirt exploding, martial arts mayhem, with a brooding hero…I can’t help but like it. I particularly enjoyed these volumes because they delve further into Kenshiro’s past. The overall story is starting to feel more cohesive and less “fight-of-the-week.” I also really liked Rei. He’s a great addition to the cast. He’s just as much of a badass as Kenshiro, but more emotionally unstable. Their personalities play off of each other nicely. I personally prefer the more realistic fights (and I use that term very loosely) in which Kenshiro’s opponents aren’t outrageously over-the-top.

Let Dai, Volumes 11-15 by Sooyeon Won. Let Dai is relentless and emotionally exhausting. The story is melodramatic, the narrative and dialogue is extravagant, and a lot of it is unbelievable, but the thoughts and feelings that the manhwa expresses are incredibly real. The scenes where Jaehee and Dai’s parents confront them about their sexuality hit very close to home for me. Let Dai is an epic. The characters actually grow and change as the story progresses. Events from the first volume that set everything into motion are never forgotten and are played through to the very end of the series. The youths in Let Dai have to face tragic circumstances, some of their own making, but society, adults, and even their own families have failed them, too.

Tokyo Zombie by Yusaku Hanakuma. I’ve read several of Hanakuma’s short manga, but Tokyo Zombie is the first book length work of his that I have read (it also happens to be his first long-form manga). Tokyo Zombie is a darkly comedic homage to the zombie genre, specifically zombie films. The manga incorporates and plays with many of the tropes that would be expected from a zombie story. Hanakuma also throws in plenty of his own quirky elements—pig surfing and professional wrestling, for example. Violent and grotesque, the manga quickly earns its “adults only” label. Hanakuma’s art style is deliberately crude, but it’s also rather charming somehow. Either way, it fits Tokyo Zombie perfectly.

Black Rock Shooter directed by Shinobu Yoshioka. The Black Rock Shooter franchise began with a single illustration by Ryohei Fuke. It went on to inspire music, video games, manga, and anime, including this eight episode series that aired on noitaminA. I probably wouldn’t have picked up the series had not someone made me sit down and watch the first three episodes. I didn’t think I would be interested in the life dramas of middle school girls, but I found the series to be oddly compelling even if its symbolism was terribly obvious. There is reality, but then there is psychological fantasy, too. The series has three major animation styles. The first one introduced is a visual feast that I’d really like to experience somehow other than streaming (my connection couldn’t keep up.)

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30 April 2012 4 Comments

My Week in Manga: April 23-April 29, 2012

My News and Reviews

Last week was the Viz Signature Manga Moveable Feast, hosted by Kate Dacey at The Manga Critic. In addition to last week’s quick takes, I took a closer look at Q Hayashida’s Dorohedoro, Volume 1 for the Feast. If you don’t mind graphic violence (which I don’t), the series is well worth checking out. It’s a little weird and has great art and memorable characters. The giveaway for April has also been posted. This time around I’m giving away the first volume of I’ll Give It My All…Tomorrow by Shunju Aono (which happens to be a Viz Signature title). As usual, the giveaway is open worldwide. And there’s still a couple of days left to submit your entries! If you’re not sure about the series, The Manga Critic has a few reasons why I’ll Give It My All…Tomorrow is the one of the best manga you’re not reading.

On to some cool things online! The second Aniblog Tourney is well underway. The voting for the first round finished up recently. Experiments in Manga has been matched up with Shameful Otaku Secret! for the second round of voting which will begin on May 1st. (Hello to all of you tourney folk who may be visiting Experiments in Manga for the first time, and welcome back to all of you who have wandered by this way before.) Only three manga-centric blogs (Heart of Manga, Kuriousity, and Shades of Grey) made it through the first round of voting. However, some manga blogs, including Experiments in Manga, were seeded into the second round and haven’t been voted on yet. I’m interested in seeing how Experiments in Manga, which isn’t particularly well known and hasn’t been around for long, will fare.

Elsewhere online, Vertical mentioned on Twitter that they expect to have at least five new licenses to announce this summer. I always enjoy Vertical’s manga and novel releases, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what they have in store. Manga creator Moto Hagio was recently awarded the Purple Ribbon Medal of Honor. Deb Aoki has a great article about the medal at About.com: Manga. I also came across an interview with Hagio from 2005 conducted by manga translator and shoujo aficionado Matt Thorn.

Quick Takes

20th Century Boys, Volumes 7-9 by Naoki Urasawa. I’ll admit it—Naoki Urasawa is one of the of the reasons I developed an obsession with manga. 20th Century Boys the most recent of Urasawa’s works to be released in English and I’m loving it. Granted, it can be a bit frustrating that every time the Friend is about to be revealed Urasawa cuts away, but otherwise he does a fantastic job of generating suspense. In fact, he can create some incredibly intense and exciting scenes. Urasawa also handles a large cast well; I like how he brings in new characters to interact with the players that have already been established. He’s dealing with a couple of different timelines, but they’re slowly coming together nicely.

A Bride’s Story, Volumes 2-3 by Kaoru Mori. If I had to describe A Bride’s Story in one word, it would be “gorgeous.” Mori’s artwork is marvelous to behold. The amount of detail she devotes to each panel is astounding but never overwhelming. The story, too, is lovely. Reading the manga I’m torn between lingering over the artwork and turning the pages to find out what happens next. The first volume was fairly quiet, but the second volume has significantly more conflict as Amir’s family comes to reclaim her, by force if necessary. In the third volume the story actually begins to follow Mr. Smith, the linguist staying with the Eihon family. I liked Smith as a secondary character but I wasn’t sure how well I would like him as a lead. It didn’t take long for Mori to convince me.

Fist of the North Star: Master Edition, Volumes 1-3 written by Buronson and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. Fist of the North Star is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which people are struggling to survive, fighting over the most meager of resources. Enter Kenshiro, a dark hero who wanders the land protecting the innocent. Even though Kenshiro’s martial art of Hokuto Shinken may seem to be nearly invincible, he still takes quite a beating from time to time as he faces more and more powerful foes. But he’s calm and collected and enough of a badass that he tends to come out on top in the end. I really enjoyed Fist of the North Star; I’ll definitely be tracking down the couple of volumes that I have missing from the series.

The Book of Bantorra, Episodes 1-13 directed by Toshiya Shinohara. It only took two words for me to pick up The Book of Bantorra: Armed Librarians. As a librarian myself, I can’t help but love kickass and fantastic portrayals of my profession. Unfortunately, beyond the basic premise of the series which I really liked, I found The Book of Bantorra to be rather disappointing. For one, the narrative is a mess. Perhaps it makes more sense to someone who’s had the opportunity to read the novels upon which the anime is based. Plot developments seem to come out of nowhere and often aren’t explained adequately. Neither are the characters’ motivations. Still, as much as The Book of Bantorra frustrates me, I will be following the series through to the end.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi directed by David Gelb. At the age of 85, Jiro Ono is considered to be one of the greatest sushi masters in the world. His skill and passion for his work is readily apparent in Gelb’s debut documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi. The film shows the absolute care and thoughtfulness that goes into every detail of making sushi: the cooking of the rice, the selection of the fish, the presentation of the meal, the development and honing of techniques, and more. Making sushi is frequently compared to making music and this is nicely reflected in the film’s soundtrack. Orchestral works and concertos are expertly paired with beautiful imagery of the sushi’s creation. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a wonderful film.

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