If publishers would like to get a head start on making me thankful in 2010, here are five books that would go a really long way towards achieving that:

Fulfillment of any of my license requests would be appreciated, obviously, but these five are hovering at the top of my wish list at the moment.

You know what yôkai are, right? Mysterious, morally ambiguous sort-of-demons that crop up all over Japanese folklore? Chances are you do, even if you don’t automatically identify them by that term, because they’re all over manga. One of the reasons for that ubiquity is the subject of today’s license request, suggested by Kate Dacey.

According to Wikipedia, Shigeru Mizuki’s GeGeGe no Kitaro gets the credit for pushing yôkai into the pop-culture spotlight, at least in terms of manga. It was originally created for the manga rental market in 1959, then serialized in the late 1960s in some of Kodansha’s shônen magazines. It ended up being nine volumes long, and it’s been republished in other formats, as will happen with really popular series.

Our hero, Kitaro, is one of those supernatural types that just want everyone to be friends, Casper the friendly yôkai, if you will. He uses a wild arsenal of weapons and body parts to protect humans from the schemes of his kinfolk, aided by his father, a disembodied eyeball. There’s also his rat-like companion who hasn’t bathed in over 300 years and, for balance, a cat girl, plus lots of other yôkai, including an elderly landlady type. Among the things that almost always make comics better are elderly landlady types.

Three volumes of the series were published as a part of the defunct, possibly cursed Kodansha Bilingual Comics initiative. I say “possibly cursed” because, well-intentioned as the effort may have been, it’s left some really terrific-sounding comics in licensing limbo. Doraemon, [Update: KBC can’t be blamed for that one.] Sazae-San, Section Chief Kôsaku Shima, and others are hanging out in this foreboding realm, so it’s hard not to view Kodansha Bilingual Comics with some superstition. (Of course, it’s also handy to trawl through their catalog and find entries for this feature.)

The series has been published in French as Kitaro le repoussant by Editions Cornélius. Pika Edition has published Mizuki’s two-volume Yôkai : Dictionnaire des monstres japonais. This is not to be confused with Kodansha International’s Yôkai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide, by Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda, but if you can’t read French or Japanese, it might be a good starting point. (It shows up as a result for Mizuki when you search on Amazon.)

In Tuesday’s Publishers Weekly Comics Week, Kai-Ming Cha spoke to CMX’s Jim Chadwick about the imminent conclusion of Kaoru Mori’s lovely Emma. It’s a nice appreciation of the series, and I’m pleased to hear that the title “has been CMX’s most popular seller, having gone back to print numerous times, almost more than any other.”

Equally pleasing is the news that “Mori is currently at work on another series, Otoyomegatari, which takes place along the Silk Road trade routes. Chadwick described the series as ‘absolutely stunning. The artworks looks even more detailed than Emma, which is saying a lot.’”

When one is handed the object of a license request, even an obvious, inevitable one, it’s best not to ask questions and just plow forward, you know? Because, based on Emma, I would read a Mori-penned primer on oral hygiene, especially if she included some omake strips. (Mori does the best omake strips. Or at least she does my favorite omake strips.) And I would especially love to read another lavish Mori period piece like Otoyomegatari.

Otoyomegatari is currently being serialized in Enterbrain’s Fellows! magazine, about which I know next to nothing except that it’s seinen and that Otoyomegatari seems to be the big hit in rotation at the moment, just based on what’s to be seen on the magazine’s web site. There are some amazing videos of Mori drawing and inking pages from the book here. (That will hopefully make up for the fact that I can’t find many page scans to illustrate this request.)

There’s only one volume available to date, but I think fans of Mori’s Emma would probably be willing to tolerate a rather slow release schedule, if it meant getting more Mori. So will CMX manage to nab this one and have a matched Mori set?

“As to whether CMX has plans to acquire the license to Otoyomegatari, Chadwick says that he’d love for the company to continue their association with the artist, but have no comment outside of that. ‘We’ll just have to see what happens,’ He said.”

I hope CMX gets Otoyomegatari, as they were the ones who gave us Emma (and Shirley) in the first place, which is some excellent manga karma that should be rewarded.

As I’d hoped, the wish list of worthy, unlicensed shônen is coming along nicely, and an early contribution from Brack of Awesome Engine has really caught my eye. How often can you reasonably expect to come across satirical comic books about recorder students? (Do they still make elementary school students play those charming hybrids of flute, clarinet and kazoo?)

So today’s request is for someone to license Kyosuke Usuta’s Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar, serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Shônen Jump since sometime in 2000. Per Brack, the series “does a … number on idol manga, though it’s a lot more biting in its satire which is specifically aimed at the idol industry and the exploitation therein.” As I may have mentioned, I find the weird hothouse that is Japan’s idol industry somewhat unsettling, so I’ll happily support any attempt to satirize it.

It stars a young man with a dream of pop stardom, Kyohiko Saketome, whose plans to become a guitarist are derailed by the mysterious Jaguar Junichi, recorder instructor and savant. These two are joined by a number of other would-be and almost-are idols, including a “hip hip ninja” named Hammer. It promises poetry showdowns, foul-mouthed robots, brainwashing schemes, and a hyper-defensive internet “star.”

The reason this one in particular speaks to me is because of its evident satirical intent. There’s plenty of goofy shônen on the shelves featuring motley casts in ridiculous scenarios, but this one seems to have that extra layer of barbed self-awareness. In other words, I’m getting a Gin Tama vibe off of it, and that’s a good thing. Also, something about the idea of would-be recorder-playing pop idols tickles me sight unseen.

I’m honestly a little shocked that it hasn’t been made into a musical, but I guess these things take time. It has been adapted into a motion picture, video games, and an animated series. The manga is up to its 17th volume.

I don’t necessarily apply this rule in my own life, but it’s often said that accessories make the outfit. And this credo is rarely as true elsewhere as it is in shôjo manga. Those little touches that can add polish and sparkle to an otherwise drab ensemble also sometimes contain tremendous (and potentially disastrous) power. So as many of us contemplate how we’ll dress up for Halloween, I’ll devote today’s license request to that versatile wardrobe enhancer, the ribbon.

I’m speaking specifically of Hime-chan’s Ribbon, a ten-volume series written and illustrated by Megumi Mizusawa for Shueisha’s Ribon magazine (appropriately enough). It stars teen-aged tomboy Himeko Nonohara, who aspires to be more ladylike. She accesses a shortcut to achieving this goal when she meets her counterpart from a parallel Magical Kingdom, Princess Erika.

The princess must prove her royal worth by creating a magical object, giving it to a human, and proving that the object is useful. Erika’s creation is a ribbon that allows Hime to transform into anyone she likes for an hour. There are rules and pitfalls to the transformation, as there must be if you’re heading down the path of wacky, supernatural comedy. There’s also a talking stuffed animal that’s got Hime’s back, and may I just say that talking stuffed animals almost always make things better.

This all sounds like fairly standard magic-girl fare, but all indications that it’s really well-executed standard magic-girl fare. This likelihood is boosted by the company Mizusawa keeps: she’s apparently close friends with the gifted Ai (Paradise Kiss, Nana) Yazawa and Wataru (the desperately-in-need-of-license-rescue Marmalade Boy, Ultra Maniac) Yoshizumi. If you can at least superficially judge people by the company they keep, Mizusawa is at least superficially awesome.

Supplementing the evidence in the title’s favor is the fact that it’s been adapted into a stage musical. I think that there should be some kind of gentleperson’s agreement that every comic book that gets adapted in this fashion must be licensed and translated for English-language release just because. The Hime-chan musical apparently featured pop-idol group SMAP. I admit that I find Japan’s idol-manufacture industry positively terrifying, even scarier than Disney’s, and SMAP does nothing to reassure me, but I’m asking for the comic, not the original cast album.

So in the spirit of lighthearted disguise that Halloween engenders, I submit Hime-chan’s Ribbon for publisher consideration. If someone starts now, we could have a couple of volumes in print by next Halloween. Shueisha has a sample chapter posted here, and it looks really, really cute.

(I’m always happy to hand over the license request reins to an enthusiastic guest, so this week we’ll hand the proceedings over to Ed Sizemore, manga reviewer for Comics Worth Reading. Ed casts his gaze upon “Fujiko F. Fujio’s” much-loved robotic feline.)

By Ed Sizemore

For this week’s License Request Day, our revered Curmudgeon has been generous enough (and saintly in patience) to let me discuss one of my biggest wishes, Doraemon. Spend enough time around manga or anime and you find numerous references to this robot cat from the future. Like Peanuts, Doraemon has become part of the air of Japan and all the main characters have been iconic symbols in their own right.

The original manga ran from 1969 until 1996 and has 45 collected volumes. The first Doraemon anime ran briefly in 1973. The second Doraemon anime series first went on air in 1979 and is still running today. In fact, the five main characters had the same voice actors for 25 years. They retired as a group in 2005, when the anime changed production companies.

The setup is pretty basic. Nobita Nobi is a good-for-nothing, lay about. One of his great-great-grandsons, Sewashi, travels back in time to give Nobita Doraemon. Turns out Nobita grows up to be an extremely irresponsible adult, piling up enough debt that his great-grandchildren are still trying to pay it back. Sewashi hopes Doraemon will help Nobita avoid such a mistake. I have to give credit to the creators, they do quickly address the classic time travel paradox this might cause, even if the solution isn’t very convincing. Here are some pages from the first Doraemon story.

The manga is very episodic and formulaic. Doraemon’s greatest ability is him being able to pull an endless array of gadgets from the pouch on his stomach. It’s called a fourth dimension pouch and it appears to be limitless inside. Nobita has either gotten in some trouble or is trying to avoid some chore. He requests Doraemon manifest a gadget that gets him out of his current predicament without any effort on his part. Of course, Nobita begins to use the device beyond its intended design and this creates new problems. Below are two pages showing the typical results of Nobita’s adventures.

The stories I’ve read are very universal in nature and I can’t imagine American children having any difficulties comprehending and enjoying them. Nobita deals with bullies, homework, school trips, household chores, etc. So I’ve never understood why this series still is unlicensed. Won’t someone please think of the children and bring Doraemon to the US? We want to love that dorayaki scarfing robot cat too.

Kodansha has released 11 volumes of the manga in a bilingual format. You can buy them either from jbox.com or Kinokuniya bookstores as import books, but they’re a little pricey for kids books. You get about 150 pages for $12.50. I’d like to see the series offered at the same price point as most kids manga, which is about 200 pages for $7.99.

Wikipedia has an excellent Doraemon webpage with tons of detailed information on both the manga and anime series.

Thanks to David for letting me share this amazing series with you.

(And thanks to Ed for making this eloquent pitch. Would you like to sing the praises of an as-yet-unlicensed comic? Contact me, and we’ll see what we can work out.)