This week’s license request comes courtesy of Michelle (Soliloquy in Blue) Smith, frequent and always welcome Manga Bookshelf contributor.

Whenever I ponder license requests, in addition to a few classics that always make the list, I’m often drawing upon creators whose current work I enjoy. Sometimes this strategy backfires—neither Portrait of M & N nor Tsubasa: Those with Wings was as good as their creators’ more famous series—but still I persist. And that is why I would love to see Crazy for You (an earlier series by Karuho Shiina, the mangaka behind Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You) licensed for US release.

I first read about Crazy for You (complete in six volumes) on Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page, which is rich with license request fodder. Here’s some of what she had to say about it:

This story revolves around the tangled relationships between a group of five friends. The focus is on a a cute, naive girl named Sachi (or “Sa-chan”). Sachi is silly and innocent and friendly. She had a very “genuine” personality. What you see is what you get. Sachi doesn’t have a boyfriend, but would like one (going to an all-girls school makes finding a boyfriend difficult), so when she is asked if she would like to go to a “goukon” (a group date) she jumps at the chance. At the goukon, Sachi meets a lively and cute boy named Yuki. Sachi falls for Yuki at first sight, and they get along very well. They both have energetic personalities. Yuki thinks Sachi is cute, and seems to really like her.

Every day, Sachi finds herself falling more and more for Yuki, and her affection is very obvious to everyone around her, including Yuki. However, while Yuki does like her, there is some sort of barrier between them. Yuki is holds himself back and will only see Sachi as a friend. When a secret from Yuki’s past comes to light, and a relationship is revealed, the group of friends is thrown into turmoil. Bonds are strained or broken, betrayal is felt, and everyone must re-evaluate how they feel about each other.

Cute romance is all well and good, but cute romance coupled with secrets and turmoil? Sign me up!

Surprisingly, this appears to be one series the French don’t have yet, but the Germans do. In fact, their editions have a very familiar logo on the spine! Within about three hours of making this discovery, a German set of these books was on their way to me (Google Translate, here I come!) but I’d still much rather have a set in English.

So, how about it, VIZ?

(Guest license requests are always welcome.)

I heard this lovely story on NPR about a professional golfer, 19-year-old Ryo Ishikawa, who’s planning on donating his 2011 earnings to disaster relief in Japan. Okay, it’s kind of annoying when the sports correspondent feigns shock that a 19-year-old could adopt a charitable world view, since some of the most generous people I know are kids. But all the same, it actually made me care a tiny bit about the outcome of professional golf matches. I don’t play golf myself because, while I like taking long walks outside followed by gin and tonics, I don’t like paying to do so or inconveniencing people with my incompetence. Still…

Ishikawa’s nickname (“Bashful Prince”) is just so manga, isn’t it? And he looks so manga in that photo on Wikipedia. It made me wonder if there hasn’t been a surge in golf manga debuting during his ascendance in the sport, which then made me wonder about existing titles about golf. So while it’s entirely possible I have room in my heart for only one sports manga, I thought it might be interesting to hit the links.

Before we move forward, the answer to the question you’re probably asking yourself is, “Yes, there is a shôjo title about golf.” It’s called Super Shot, written and illustrated by Kouko Itamoto. It ran for two volumes and was originally published by Kodansha. I don’t really know much about it, but I assume it’s about a young woman who likes to golf. That seems safe, doesn’t it? Of course, it could also be about a young woman who hates to golf but is really good at it. One never knows.

Speaking of young people who come to golf by accident, there’s the protagonist of Nakaba Suzuki’s Rising Impact, which ran for 17 volumes in Shueisha’s Shônen Jump. It tells the tale of a young baseball fan whose life is changed when he meets a traveler who converts him to the good walk spoiled. Then, it’s off to Tokyo to become the very best golfer he can be! (You have to use exclamation points when talking about sports shônen.)

Doesn’t anyone go into golf for the fabulous prizes? Thanks be to Dan Doh! for exploring this motive in a 29-volume series, written by Nobuhiro Sakata and illustrated by Daichi Banjo for Shogakukan’s Shônen Sunday. Like his Rising Impact peer, our hero here switches from baseball to golf when he learns he can earn millions a year on the pro circuit. He’s not as mercenary as he sounds; the money will help him reunite with his mother. I’m not sure why that is, and it sounds like a plan fraught with potential pitfalls, but the cover is cute, and the anime has been licensed and released.

But where’s the love? Surely there are few places as romantic as the rolling hills of a golf course, right? Sakata and Eiji Kazama have you covered with Kaze no Daichi, which is over 50 volumes long and still running in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Original. It’s about a promising golfer, Okita, and his talented caddie, Lily, who work their way to the top and fall in love in the process. It won the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1994.

But… but… ridiculous outfits, you cry! What’s golf without at least one person in a ridiculous outfit? Oh, faithful readers, manga provides, as always. In Suu Minazuki’s He-nshin!! – Sonata Birdie Rush, a young woman golfer faces a challenging issue: she finds a sponsor who’ll only bankroll her if she does cosplay during her matches. Honestly, how much more ridiculous can she look than some high-profile players? This five-volume series originally ran in Shueisha’s Young Jump.

So there’s a sampler of titles from this surprisingly robust genre. I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t find any josei, yaoi or yuri to add to the mix, but I suspect they’re out there somewhere, or will be soon.

Among the pleasing announcements in the current Previews catalog is the solicitation of Jiro Taniguchi’s A Zoo in Winter from Fanfare/Ponent Mon. I’m of the opinion that there should always be work by Taniguchi in the licensing pipeline, and this opinion was reinforced by a story arc in the third volume of Seimu Yoshizaki’s Kingyo Used Books (Viz).

That arc features a well-traveled copy of a manga called The Lonely Gourmet, illustrated by Taniguchi and written by Kusumi Masayuki. As was the case with The Walking Man (Fanfare/Ponent Mon), the title is apparently quite literal. Here’s my attempt at a translation of the description from the book’s listing on Casterman’s Sakka site:

One knows almost nothing about him. He works in sales, but he’s not a man in a hurry; he loves women, but prefers to dine alone; he is a gastronome, but he most appreciates simple home cooking… This man, he is the lonely gourmet. Created by Kusumi Masayuki, this extraordinary character comes to life under the pen of Jiro Taniguchi, in a mode similar to The Walking Man: each tale leads him to taste a typically Japanese dish, reawakening memories, drawing out new thoughts, or causing furtive encounters. Thus the visit of a sushi-bar in the middle of the afternoon shows him another side of the innocent housewives who attend the place, or takes makes him conscious of the invigorating virtues of curry… The Lonely Gourmet is a choice work from Taniguchi.

It certainly sounds like it’s choice, doesn’t it?

It’s a single volume long, and I’m having a little trouble discerning its provenance. I think it was published at some point by Fusosha, though I have no idea if it was serialized in a magazine or just published as a graphic novel.

The book would have the twofold result of satisfying my need for more food manga and more licensed work from Taniguchi, especially in his “midlife salaryman” mode. What about you? What Taniguchi works are lurking, unpublished or out of print, that you’d like to see published in your language of choice?