I was listening to Morning Edition on NPR the other day and was surprised to hear that sales of French wine (and consumption in French households) are experiencing a steep decline. Now, my tastes (and budget) run more to inexpensive Italian table whites and reds from California, but I like the idea of French wine and I dislike the idea of it being in peril. So I’ll devote this week’s license request to a particular comic that has a history of boosting wine sales.

The manga in question is Kami no Shizuku (“The Drops of God”), written by Tadashi Agi (the pseudonym for wine-loving siblings Yuko and Shin Kibayashi) and illustrated by Shu Okimoto and originally published by Kodansha in its Morning magazine. Like the marvelous Oishinbo, it’s about a guy with a strong palate and daddy issues. To inherit his father’s wine collection, novice oenophile Kanzaki Shizuku must track down 13 exquisite wines before his rival can.

Reuters’ Sophie Hardach describes it as “’The Da Vinci Code’ set in a Tokyo bar.” And while comparisons to a Dan Brown novel aren’t automatically encouraging, the idea of a mystery centered around wine seems intuitively entertaining. (Side note: why didn’t the Vatican ever condemn Brown’s books because they’re awful?) Hardach goes on to describe the manga’s economic impact:

“‘The minute it was translated into Korean, we had calls from three importers,’ said Basaline Granger Despagne, whose family has grown wine near France’s Dordogne river for 250 years. Their Chateau Mont Perat 2001 Bordeaux appears early on in the manga.

“‘When it was translated into Chinese, people called us from Taiwan saying, “I bought some Mont Perat and sold 50 cases in two days because of the manga”,’ she said in a phone interview.”

The book has been covered in The Daily Mail, The New York Times, and Decanter. It’s being published in French as Les Gouttes de Dieu by Glénat (who also publishes its spin-off another wine manga, Sommelier). Ed Chavez (who knows from eduholic manga) was kind enough to send me a couple of volumes in Japanese, which was just enough to make me really want to see it in English.

And yes, the fact that so many volumes are available in French and the wine industry is still in trouble doesn’t support my argument that publication in English could give French wine a boost. But I will make any argument, however specious, that serves my own ends.

(Updated to note that I’ve no idea what I was thinking with that first image and link, but both have been fixed thanks to the aforementioned Mr. Chavez. Thanks, Ed!)

With her new job as tourism ambassador for Takarazuka, Japan, it seems like as good a time as any to call for English release of the adventures of Osamu Tezuka’s Princess Knight. The series is described by Frederik L. Schodt in Dreamland Japan as “the progenitor of the modern girls’ manga format,” a “sweet story with romance and adventure and a hodgepodge of elements from medieval pageantry, Christianity, and Greek mythology.”

It’s about a girl, Sapphire, who must pretend to be a boy so that she can inherit the throne of her kingdom, lest it fall into the wrong hands. Born with two hearts – a boy’s and a girl’s – she adopts a secret identity to fight crime. Kodansha published a bilingual edition of the three-volume series that’s out now out of print. (I could only find one volume listed on Amazon, used, and it starts at $48.) And Viz published a short sample in an issue of Shojo Beat, but it feels like something that should be readily available in English.

Here are some reasons why:

Now, don’t get me wrong. I want classic shôjo by Moto Hagio, Keiko Takemiya, Riyoko Ikeda and other legendary creators just as much, if not more. But Princess Knight seems like such an important building block.

It’s available in French from Soleil.

Where will this week’s trip on the Wish List Express take us? Not to a restaurant at the end of the universe but a diner after the end of the world. Commenter badzphoto pointed towards Hitoshi Ashinano’s Yokohama Kaidashi Kikô. It’s science-fiction slice-of-life, which is always a promising combination. Here’s Japanese publisher Kodansha’s summary:

“Set in a near-future world, which is slowly sinking beneath water, Alpha is a coffee shop on the edge of the Miura peninsula that is run by a robot called Alpha for a long-time absent owner. Alpha lives like a human being: She is on good terms with her neighbors and especially friendly with the gas station owner and Takahiro, the boy who lives with him. Another robot and good friend, Cocone, is a delivery girl. She brings Alpha a gift of a camera from the estranged owner of the coffee shop.

“In a world of fewer human beings with no major industry, mankind faces extinction. Each day is taken as it comes. Everyone is proud of their easygoing life. Alpha is understanding and mindful of this situation.”

So basically, it sounds tonally and structurally similar to Kozue Amano’s Aqua and Aria (Tokyopop), though more densely written. And honestly, how bad can that be?

The series scores “in good company” points for being serialized in Kodansha’s Afternoon, a magazine that has given English-reading manga fans such titles as Genshiken, Parasyte, Love Roma, and Eden: It’s an Endless World! In fairly short order, English-reading manga fans will also be able to enjoy Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture, also originally serialized in Afternoon. (Correction: Moyasimon was actually serialized in Kodansha’s Evening, not Afternoon. I must have confused it with Mushishi, originally serialized in Afternoon, available in English, and wonderful.)

Maybe I should just ask for an English-language version of Afternoon and be done with it?

After a customarily long week in the real world, I always find it a little difficult to develop content on Fridays. To give myself a regular, relatively undemanding Friday project, I’m instituting License Request Day! (And since I’ve hidden the categories under a drop-down menu, it won’t make the sidebar any more ungainly. Bonus!)

This week’s choice is Daisuke Igarashi’s Witches.

Viz is about to publish Igarashi’s Children of the Sea in its Signature imprint, so I thought to myself, “Why not strike while the iron’s hot?” It was originally serialized in Ikki, one of Viz co-owner Shogakukan’s mangazines. Witches received the Excellence Prize at the 2004 Japan Media Arts Festival. The book has been published in French as Sorcières (Casterman). It was an Official Selection of the 2007 Angoulême Festival. Here’s the description from the festival catalog:

“Considered to be one of the best newcomers in Japan, Daisuke Igarashi is the high priest of Nature and its mysteries. In parallel to his comic activity, he has also been a farmer for several years… Be they kindly or fiendish, Igarashi’s witches are the guardians of an ancestral truth that is jeopardized by contemporary civilization. Spiritually close to Kenji Miyazawa’s poems, these collected stories distinguish by their graphic power and the strong animistic beliefs of their author.”

You can get a taste of Igarashi’s work in Fanfare/Ponent Mon’s Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators, which you should all want to read anyway.

Sample images:

Got a suggestion or a request of your own? I’ll be happy to post guest requests on future Fridays, so keep it in mind, and contact me if you’ve got an urgent item on your own wish list.