Upcoming 11/16/2011

I feel vaguely like Tom Sawyer, sitting back and watching other people do my work for me, at least in terms of an evaluation of this week’s ComicList. Instead of hacking out my own rundown of the new arrivals, I’ll simply point out this week’s Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week post. By now, you all know how I feel about Manga Moveable Feast star Natsume Ono’s Tesoro (Viz), and you’re only a click away from seeing why Melinda Beasi and Kate Dacey share my enthusiasm for new volumes of Takehiko Inoue’s Real and Hisae Iwaoka’s Saturn Apartments.

You’re also only a click away from this week’s round of Bookshelf Briefs. This week’s theme, at least for me, is finding that I quite enjoyed two books in spite of their clear intent to pander to specific audiences that don’t generally include me. (Those would be the second volume of A Certain Scientific Railgun from Seven Seas and the first volume of Mr. Tiger and Mr. Wolf from Digital Manga.)

But wait! There’s more! The Manga Bookshelf Battle Robot also assembled for a new installment of Going Digital, in which I beg iPad users to give Oishinbo a chance.

 

Only Serious About You, Vol. 1

I suspect that Kai Asou might have been indulging in little irony when she titled Only Serious About You (Digital Manga Publishing), as her storytelling is extremely conscientious. She fleshes out every beat of the story, which makes it a little slow to start, but it proves to be a very rewarding strategy as the plot moves along.

Oosawa is a single father who works as a cook at a pub. He juggles his demanding job with the needs of his young daughter, Chizu. Yoshioka is a regular customer, a gay guy with a string of exes who can’t quite seem to entirely let go or fully commit. Oosawa finds Yoshioka’s romantic life baffling and his flirting irksome, but Yoshioka steps up when Chizu gets sick. He takes father and daughter into his home, and the visit is prolonged when Oosawa comes down with a fever himself.

There’s a degree of implausibility to the set-up, and I’ve never quite understood the dire import the Japanese seem to place on the common cold. Still, it forces Oosawa and Yoshioka into close proximity, and it allows Asou to explore Yoshioka’s true nature, which is much more generous and sensitive than his behavior in the pub suggested.

There’s also the pesky “suddenly possibly gay” gambit that crops up a lot in this category, but Asou’s meticulous approach helps smooth this over. This volume is much more about Oosawa getting to know Yoshioka as a person than it is about an instantaneous, inexplicable attraction. Both guys are fairly guarded for different reasons, and it’s very sweet to see Oosawa start to want to figure out what makes Yoshioka tick, then build on his understanding of his surprisingly dependable and compassionate new friend.

Readers might also wonder why Asou would place so much trust in a stranger, especially when it comes to the care of his daughter, but Asou makes that fairly easy to set aside. Oosawa is a very dedicated father, and the rendering of the challenges faced by a single parent feels very authentic. Low key as the story generally is, there’s a real sharpness to Asou’s portrayal of how one small thing can throw Oosawa’s life out of whack. It allows the reader to share in both his anxiety when things go wrong and his relief when thing work out.

The art is generically attractive. Asou clearly favors the lanky body type, but it’s easy to distinguish one character from another. (This isn’t always true, not just in yaoi but in just about any type of manga that features a large, primarily male cast.) She does a nice job with body language and day-to-day activities that help ground the work. There are also some funny little visual grace notes that any mangaka should have in her or his toolkit.

Asou gets little moments so right. In the beginning, this feels too scrupulous and mundane. As things progress, and as readers get to know the characters better, these articulated bits of life gain more weight. By the halfway point, I found myself smiling in recognition or indulging in a little wistfulness at how things were progressing. It’s quite a lovely experience – not particularly urgent and certainly not stylized, but definitely immersive in a very gentle way. I’m really looking forward to seeing how things turn out for these characters.

 

Previews review November 2011

It’s kind of an odd month in the Previews catalog from Diamond. There’s a lot of great stuff, but there’s very little immediately exciting debut material. (There is a fair amount of on-the-fence content, and I could certainly use your feedback on that front.) Let’s start with a few new editions of previously published material:

Dororo Complete Edition, written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka, Vertical, NOV11 1117: If you haven’t read this brilliant, Eisner Award winning piece of supernatural shônen, this will provide an excellent opportunity to pick up all three volumes in one shot. While it makes me sad that Tezuka ended this series early, the material he did finish is just magnificent: scary, sad, funny, bleak, gruesome… the whole package. This is one Tezuka title that I can recommend without any reservation or qualification.

Girl Genius Omnibus Vol. 1: Agatha Awakens, by Phil and Kaja Foglio, Tor Books, NOV11 1104: This web-to-print success story has been around for a while, and I’m glad to see it get some hardcover, prestige treatment. It’s about a mad scientist who learns that she’s even madder and more inventive than she suspected. Spunky, scrappy Agatha finds herself in a million different kinds of steampunk peril, and it’s great-looking, fast-paced fun.

Now, onto some less chunky but still worthy items:

A Treasury of 20th Century Murder: The Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti, written and illustrated by Rick Geary, NBM, NOV11 1052: I love these crime histories for their smart writing and great, detailed art, but I tend to wait for them to be available in paperback. It means I have to wait a bit to enjoy Geary’s take on highly controversial cases like this one, but I can be patient.

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 12, written by Eiji Otsuka and illustrated by Housui Yamazaki, Dark Horse, NOV11 0055: On the other hand, I can’t be any more patient with this title than the publication schedule demands, and damnation, does that schedule demand a lot of patience. Still, this is one of my very favorite Japanese comics ever, and I always get giddy at the prospect of enjoying more misadventures of a group of supernatural investigators.

We’ll wrap up with one on-the-fence item that I didn’t feel like wedging into this month’s poll:

Gentlemen’s Agreement Between a Rabbit and a Wolf, written and illustrated by Shinano Oumi, Digital Manga, NOV11 0962: As you know, I always like to investigate unknown boys’-love quantities before investing in them, so I’d appreciate any feedback either on this title or on Oumi’s work in general. This one sounds promising – a workplace romantic comedy about two guys who work for an advertising agency. The whole predator-prey framing is a little on the nose for me, but I’m certainly open to anything about grown-ups with jobs.

 

Upcoming 11/9/2011

Even if there was only one thing on this week’s Comic List, it would still be one of the best ever. Here’s why:

You know how something you anticipate for a really long time can end up being something of an anticlimax? The first volume of Osamu Tezuka’s Princess Knight (Vertical) is emphatically not one of those things. I read it over the weekend, and, if anything, it made me even happier than I thought it would. I’m going to review it on Friday, so I won’t go into too much detail now, but it’s pure Tezuka: entertaining as you could possibly wish, a little insane, a little sad, and incredibly fresh, even though it was created 65 years ago.

It’s hard for anything to hold up to that, but I’m also happy to see the tenth volume of Kou Yaginuma’s Twin Spica (Vertical). I like the characters a lot, and I love the fragile aesthetic Yaginuma creates to tell their stories.

I’m really hoping I’ll enjoy the first volume of Kai Asou’s Only Serious About You (Digital Manga), a boys’-love title that sounds like it matches a lot of my tastes in this category. It’s about a single father who works at a restaurant who becomes close to a flirty, seemingly frivolous customer.

You can see the Manga Bookshelf crew’s Pick of the Week here, and we formed the mighty battle robot to bust out a whole bunch of Bookshelf Briefs.

 

Upcoming 9/7/2011

As the Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week can testify, Viz is publishing enough manga this week to choke a horse. It’s even more crowded over at the ComicList than it is at Midtown Comics.

This gives me the opportunity to save another highlight for my own blog: the third three-volume omnibus of Yellow Tanabe’s Kekkaishi (Viz). I’ve been enjoying the heck out of this tale of young exorcists finding their places in the family business, and I fully expect to keep enjoying it, especially since it’s so inexpensive, relatively speaking.

On the shôjo front, there’s the 10th volume of Karuho Shiina’s funky, sweet Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (also Viz). Spooky-looking but sparkling-on-the-inside heroine Sawako decides to really express her feelings to down-to-earth dreamboat Kazehaya, which could turn out… any number of ways, to be honest.

Ah, but the ComicList offers a seinen option as well! Vertical releases the one-volume Velveteen & Mandala by Jiro Matsumoto. It’s about schoolgirls who cut class to battle zombies in a satirically dystopian future. As I noted in a recent Bookshelf Brief, this didn’t really work for me, but I think that the comic itself isn’t exactly in my taste spectrum. Fans of this kind of thing, and I know you are numerous, should be perfectly content. It originally ran in Ohta Shuppan’s Manga Erotics F, which has given me plenty of manga to enjoy, so I can hardly complain that this fifth-genre magazine doesn’t succeed for me every time.

Speaking of Bookshelf Briefs, this week’s column includes a brief look at a boys’-love title that I read thanks to your crowd-sourced feedback, Puku Okuyama’s Warning! Whispers of Love (DMP).

Elsewhere on the Manga Bookshelf mother ship, where all of our robot limbs wait gleaming in hangars between battles, I contribute a review to the inaugural Going Digital column. A reasonable price and the lack of a physical copy to clutter my shelves entices me to try the first volume of the classic Lone Wolf and Cub (Dark Horse) by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.

 

Slim… almost willowy… pickings

It’s time once again to guide me through the purchasing process of a new boys’-love and/or yaoi title from the latest Previews catalog. There’s only one candidate debuting this month.

Storm Flower, by Ruma Knjiki, originally published in Taiyo Tosho’s Hertz, one volume: Sagano and Hazime Itirou face off at school and in their private lives, where traditions such as flower arranging and tea ceremony carry heavy responsibilities. With the weight of these things and the accompanying dark emotions, love can only come in a storm… but is it a love that can survive?

Bickering, skinny high-school boys with chins so pointy they could put an eye out if they slipped while kissing? This would be a hard sell, to be honest. But I’m nominally open to the possibility. I still reserve the right not to bother. I can always reread Tea for Two.

 

 

Upcoming 8/31/2011

Hey, look up there! It’s the cover to my Pick of the Week! Haven’t seen one of those in a while, have we? Perhaps it bodes well for this week’s ComicList!

A week can’t be all bad when it features a new two-volume collection of Kaoru Tada’s quirky, funny Itazura na Kiss (Digital Manga), can it? Kotoko tries to hang on to the gains she’s made in her relationship with Naoki, and I think we can all guess how well that’s going to go for the poor dear.

Kodansha releases the 10th volume of Koji Kumeta’s sharp, satirical Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, promising lots of field trips and ultimately dispiriting life lessons!

And Viz rolls out a few Signature titles. The one I’m most eager to read is the fourth volume of Q Hayashida’s gritty yet strangely charming horror series, Dorohedoro. That book has really grown on me since its debut.

Sci-fi, romance, satire, and horror… a nice mix, in the end! What looks good to you?

 

MMF: Yoshinaga top five

I suppose that, since I asked others to pick their favorite Fumi Yoshinaga title, I should be willing to make the same impossible choice. It’s a thankless process, to be honest, since almost all of her works that have been published in English (which is almost all of them) assert their worth so forcefully. But, since I feel forced to do so, here are my five favorite works by Yoshinaga, in order:

  1. Antique Bakery, Digital Manga Publishing, four volumes, originally published in Shinkoshan’s Wings: As with many who left comments, this was my introduction to Yoshinaga, and it’s hard to get over your first time. A handsome straight guy opens a bakery and hires an irresistible gay guy to be his pastry chef. Additional employees of varying individual adorability hare subsequently hired, and Yoshinaga gives a glimpse into their complicated lives and those of their customers, friends, and families.
  2. Flower of Life, Digital Manga Publishing, four volumes, originally published in Shinkoshan’s Wings and later republished by Hakusensha: Yoshinaga dissects the milestones and tropes of school comedy with such precision and warmth that this series could easily have taken first place, though Antique Bakery gains an additional, slight edge by being about grown-ups. We follow a group of classmates and their teacher as they get to know outgoing (and blunt) Harutaro, a new student who missed a year due to leukemia treatment.
  3. Ichigenme: The First Class Is Civil Law, 801 Media, two volumes, originally published by Biblos: As I wrote in greater detail earlier this week, Ichigenme is at the very top of my list of favorite yaoi, tied with Saika Kunieda’s Future Lovers (Deux Press). What Yoshinaga has here is a fully fleshed-out tale of evolving love between grown-ups, funny, smart, and sexy as you could hope.
  4. All My Darling Daughters, Viz Signature, one volume, originally published in Hakusensha’s Melody: This is quite possibly my favorite fictional examination of a mother-daughter relationship, an all-too-often neglected dynamic. This collection of interconnected short stories isn’t limited to that topic, and Yoshinaga does a marvelous job throughout, but the best moments involve a grown woman whose relationship with her mother changes when the mother begins a new relationship with a much-younger man.
  5. Ôoku: The Inner Chambers, Viz Signature, currently serialized in Hakusensha’s Melody: It’s probably strange, if not blasphemous, to put Yoshinaga’s most critically acclaimed series last on this list, but it’s hard not to favor completed works over one that’s still ongoing, good as that series may be. And, don’t get me wrong, Ôoku is very, very good. This history-with-a-spoke-in-the-wheels saga looks at a feudal Japan where the male population was decimated by disease, leaving the women to assume power, with all of the intrigue, drama, and conflicted emotions that prospect suggests.

There. I’ve committed my list to blog. I actually feel liberated. And it should probably be noted that all of these titles are among my favorite manga published in English, period.

Uncontested races

I’m sad to announce that there won’t be any Previews-related polls this month. The boys’-love category offered a clear winner, and there weren’t enough dubious debuts to populate that slate. But here are the two books that might have “won” those contests, both of which will be dutifully pre-ordered and reviewed.

About Love, written by Narise Konohara, illustrated by Tomo Ootake, Digital Manga Publishing, originally published as Koi ni Tsuiete by Souryuusha, one volume:

Wedding co-ordinator Asaka could never forget his very first clients. When he meets up once more with that very same client, the man who spends his life arranging weddings for others unexpectedly learns a few things about love himself. Heartwarmingly bittersweet, this is the eagerly awaited English-language debut of mangaka Tomo Ootake!

I know nothing about how eagerly anticipated Ootake’s debut is or isn’t, but that cover is so pretty and expressive that it almost makes me cry. Plus, wedding planner manga! A dream fulfilled!

Love Hina Omnibus Volume 1, written and illustrated by Ken Akamatsu, Kodansha Comics, originally serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Shounen Magazine, originally published in English by Tokyopop:

When Keitaro Urashima fails his entrance exams to get into Tokyo University for the second time, he’s officially an unemployed and uneducated slacker. To make things worse, his parents have kicked him out of his house. Fortunately, his grandmother owns the fabulous Hinata Lodge and has agreed to take Keitaro in as caretaker. What he doesn’t know is that the lodge is actually a girl’s dorm and he’s the only guy around! Most guys would kill to live with five sexy ladies, but if Keitaro’s not careful, this job will kill him.

I know this series probably counts as a classic in terms of licensed manga, but I just never bothered with it. Now, Kodansha gives me a cheap-ish chance to introduce myself to this well-liked harem comedy. And I seriously didn’t want to run the risk of having to read the Tokyo Mew Mew omnibus. Cat-ears give me hives, unless they’re on an actual cat.

I’ll go through the rest of the month’s highlights tomorrow.

 

MMF: Bathtub manga

Whenever I think of Kazuya Minekura’s Wild Adapter (Tokyopop), an image pops into my mind: my bathtub. The water is hot and scented with some kind of mood-altering essential oil, possibly juniper, maybe rosemary, occasionally lavender. There is an alcoholic beverage perched on the edge of the tub to help me stay hydrated. And there is a volume of manga nearby.

Yes, I am a bathtub reader. It’s not my go-to hygiene technique, more an occasional indulgence. And, if you’re going to indulge, why not gild the experience? (My fondness for baths is such that I really, really want someone to license Mari Yamazaki’s Thermae Romae. Erica Friedman sent me the first two Japanese volumes, and I can’t read a character of the dialogue, but it looks terrific.)

Now, not just any manga will do. It needs to have a certain languid, moody quality. Ideally, it should be impregnated with feelings, even if those feelings are ambiguous. I love One Piece (Viz), but it is not bathtub manga. I’m impatient for the next volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Dark Horse), but it is not bathtub manga. A new volume of Bunny Drop (Yen Press) cannot come soon enough, but even it is not bathtub manga. Wild Adapter is bathtub manga.

Why is that? Well, it’s partly because, empirically good and ambitious as Wild Adapter is, it doesn’t wear its quality on its sleeve. It gives you the opportunity to believe that you’re indulging in a guilty pleasure, even though you’re actually seeing a spectacular piece of craftsmanship. That, right there, is what makes manga bathtub manga for me.

So, in celebration of the current Manga Moveable Feast, I thought I’d list some other titles that may achieve their fullest entertainment potential when paired with bubbles and booze:

Antique Bakery by Fumi Yoshinaga (Digital Manga): It’s very, very difficult to pick just one of Yoshinaga’s works for this list, because she’s all about the appearance of effortlessness. She can go very dark places in her storytelling, and she does so routinely in work like Ôoku: The Inner Chambers (Viz), but you’ll rarely see her congratulating herself on her daring. Darkness is a part of life, and it can consume a moment without warning, which is certainly a recurring motif in Antique Bakery. Of course, the primary adjectives the series suggests are “funny” and “sexy,” and there are tons of illustrations of beautiful desserts.

Emma by Kaoru Mori (CMX): If there’s a mangaka better than Mori at dissecting a single, seemingly trivial moment and turning it into something telling and revealing, I’m hard-pressed to think of one. Aside from Jiro Taniguchi’s The Walking Man (Fanfare/Ponent Mon), Emma may be one of the most leisurely manga I’ve ever encountered. There’s certainly a story here – a star-crossed romance between a domestic and a member of the emerging middle class – but it’s draped in such obsessive interest in the behaviors and values of the era in which its set that it scarcely matters if you find Emma and William’s relationship plausible or sympathetic. You can just lose yourself in the minutiae of their lives and still be really, really satisfied.

Genshiken by Kio Shimoku (Del Rey): A lot of nerd comedy is frantic and unfunny. Your average ugly duckling hero is thrown into humiliating misadventure, allowing the audience to laugh at them (and cringe at the parts of themselves that identify with the poor loser). That’s all well and good, and no one will ever go broke catering to the audience for that kind of material, but my nerd comedy of choice is pretty much embodied by Genshiken. I don’t think anyone would ever use the term “frantic” to describe it. It’s much more likely to be called “contemplative,” even “leisurely” and possibly “wistful.” Shimoku goes for neither shame comedy nor canonization with his cast of geeks. Instead, he takes them seriously as characters, which is to say he gives them highs and lows over a period of time and gives readers a clear and satisfying portrayal of their thoughts and feelings.

Nana by Ai Yazawa (Viz): Okay, the lead characters are sitting in a bathtub on the cover. A lesser blogger may simply rest his or her case based on the overwhelming evidence that image provides, but no! I will soldier on to say that it’s Yazawa’s facility for big, messy emotions writ achingly small and her feverish ability to convey a vibe that’s both stylish and strangely nostalgic that make Nana ideal for a good, long soak. She’s packed the book with fascinating, complex, sometime unlikable characters that interact in ways that are constantly surprising but make perfect sense. And, since they’re very often shown to be imbibing, you won’t have to drink alone.

Suppli by Mari Okazaki (Tokyopop): Of all the manga heroines who could use a good long soak in a buble-filled tub, I would have to rank Minami very near the top. She works too hard for an advertising agency that’s often unappreciative of her efforts. It would display an excess of delicacy to describe her love life as “messy.” And yet this manga is indulgent because it’s very beautifully drawn and because Minami’s trials feel so delicately true. She feels very much like someone you might know, and she’s definitely someone you wish well. And, since it seems likely that we may never see the remainder of this wonderful series, it’s nice to be someplace private where you can cry into your washcloth.

So, who’s with me? Are there any other bathtub manga readers out there? What are your titles of choice?