Spending too much on comics, then talking too much about them
Speaking of awards for comics in other countries, Bart Beaty has the scoop on the Festival International de la bande dessinée set for Jan. 28-31, 2010 in Agoulême, France. Three comics from Japan made the awe-inspiring list of official selections:
Included in the sélection jeunesse were:
Included in the sélection patrimoine were:
While it can make me a little crazy, I’m as fond of award season as anyone. And when institutions in Japan announce their manga awards, my fondness is coupled with a serious spike in my covetous streak. So let’s take a look at the comics recognized in this year’s 13th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards, sponsored by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, and try to figure out how badly we want them.
I’ve already begged someone to publish the grand prize winner, Makoto Yukimura’s Vinland Saga, and one of the four excellence prize recipients, Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea, is already being published by Viz (who’s even serializing it online), but that leaves three in the excellence category plus the encouragement prize recipient. We’ll start with the three excellence prize winners:
Imuri, written and illustrated by Ranjou Miyake, is being serialized in Enterbrain’s Comic Beam, which is always a good sign. It seems to be a science fiction story about a boy with a big destiny. Sorry, but that’s all I’ve got. Enterbrain does repeatedly refer to Miyake as a genius in solicitations for her books, and I know of no evidence to the contrary. She also seems to sometimes traffic in that fascinating crossover territory between science fiction and shônen-ai, which often yields intriguing results.
Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni, written and illustrated by Fumiyo Kouno, is by the creator of Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, which should be all you need to know to wish desperately that it be licensed for publication in English as quickly as possible. Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni was serialized by Futabasha in Web Manga Action. It seems to be a three-volume drama about adapting to a new life in a new town during the deprivations of wartime. And it’s by Kouno. Who did Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms. What else is there to say?
Hyouge Mono – Tea for Universe, Tea for Life, written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Yamada, is being serialized by Kodansha in Morning. Ed Chavez wrote about Yamada’s work in general and this series in particular for Otaku USA, describing it as guiding “readers through the war rooms of these feudal lords as they worked to unify parts of the country. His passion for his lord is intense, but it can easily be rivaled, if not surpassed, by his appreciation for the world of tea.” It sounds fascinating.
Encouragement prize recipient Hesheit Aqua, written and illustrated by Wisut Ponnimit, was published by what seems to be a relatively small, relatively new publisher called Nanarokusha. Ponnimit has had manga serialized in Shogakukan’s IKKI. From what I can garner, Ponnimit’s winning title seems to be a collection of abstract shorts. Perhaps it’s more likely that we’ll see Ponnimit’s Blanco on Viz’s SIGIKKI site first.
I know Friday is usually license request day, but when Matt Thorn stops by to list his five favorite manga of the current decade, you make an exception. Two are already being published in English and I’ve already made a plea for another, but that leaves two that sound amazing.
Wandering Son (Hourou musuko), by Takako Shimura, published by Enterbrain in Comic Beam: This one sounds very in the spirit of the Magnificent ‘49ers with its dramatic focus on gender identity and young love. According to Wikipedia, the series “depicts a young boy named Shūichi Nitori who wants to be a girl, and his friend Yoshino Takatsuki, a girl who wants to be a boy. The series deals with issues such as transsexuality, gender identity, and the beginning of puberty.” Comic Beam, as we all know, is a wellspring of terrific comics. Nine volumes have been produced so far.
With Or Without Me (Watashi ga itemo inakutemo), by Ryo Ikeumi, published by Shueisha in Margaret: Going by my awkward translations of the text on Amazon’s French site, this one’s about a young woman whose life changes forever when she runs into an old schoolmate, now a successful shôjo mangaka. From what I can discern, a very dramatic and complicated love triangle ensues over the three volumes of the series. It’s been published in French by Panini as Dites-moi que j’existe, which suggests a certain level of angst, you know?
In other Thorn-related news, the noted manga scholar examines the state of translation and… well… see for yourself.
Lots of folks have posted their contributions to the Great Manga Gift Guide with varied approaches and a wide range of books. The easiest way to track them is to check the #gmgg hashtag over at Twitter, but I’ll post links here as often as post-Thanksgiving bloat permits.
A Radical Interpretation of the Text
Confessions of a Retconned Fangirl
Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page
Extremely Graphic – The Adult Alternative
Manga Maniac Cafe – Boys Love Edition
Manga Maniac Cafe – Fantasy Edition
Some people are surprised by the complete exclusion of comics from Japan from the A.V. Club’s list of the best comics of the ’00s. In the midst of all of the semantic discussion of when decades begin and end in the comments over at The Beat, the Club’s Noel Murray explains:
“There’s no manga largely because most of us only dabble in manga (at best), and if we even tried to acknowledge it we’d likely come off underinformed. (I did consider DRIFTING LIFE, though.)”
…
Moving on.
So for fun, why not pick five manga titles you think merit inclusion in such a list? Don’t overthink it. Just toss out the first five that pop into your head. I’ll start:
I’m clearly in sync with Kate Dacey, which is always reassuring. Here’s her opening line from this week’s Shipping News post:
“I’m not one for gratitude journals or other exercises in forced thanksgiving…”
And here’s an early sentence from this week’s Flipped column:
“I can’t say that it makes me particularly contemplative in the intended way, and I’m relieved that there’s no tradition in my family of going around the table and expressing individual gratitude before we can gorge.”
We’re even grateful for some of the same things!
“Eve’s cleavage and measurements also concern her.”
(From an article in the Fond du Lac Reporter on wary response to graphic-novel renderings of scripture, one recent example in particular.)
During last week’s round of perfectly justified disdain over the latest list of comics you can use to convert your female significant other to the one true hobby, Neil Gaiman also turned a year older, and I almost posted something in the Birthday Book category about how people who like comics should really read his Sandman series (Vertigo) when they get a chance, but is it really the first comic you’d hand to someone who’s never read a comic before? (Sandman almost always shows up on these lists, and it could be a good choice with the right victim. If the unwashed is into prose fantasy, chances are that person may have read one of Gaiman’s novels, and noting that Gaiman has also written a highly regarded, widely available comic book that covers many of his usual themes seems like one of the fairer conversion gambits out there.) I decided not to write it, because it seemed like too much work and not in the spirit of the Birthday Book shout-out, but I remained sorely tempted to simultaneously sing the title’s praises and express skepticism about comics evangelism, because how often do you get to do both at once?
Over at NPR’s excellent Monkey See blog, Glen Weldon has done precisely what I’d kind of thought about doing last week, but with much more rigor than I would have managed:
“But here’s the thing you don’t often hear about Gaiman’s series, which ran for 75 issues, helped establish and grow the marketplace for comics aimed at adults, and remains one of the most literate, imaginative and intricately plotted accomplishments in long-form comics storytelling out there:
“Its barrier-to-entry is remarkably high.”
Good stuff.
Chris Mautner published an appreciative primer on the great Osamu Tezuka over at Robot 6, and it’s nicely timed. This week’s ComicList offers new volumes of one of Tezuka’s enduring classics and a series based on another of his icons.
Vertical keeps the medical madness coming with the eighth volume of Tezuka’s Black Jack. Mautner notes that the comic is “not for the squeamish, and like Astro Boy it’s very episodic, with Jack pulling off one fantastic operation after another. Those who can handle the occasionally bit of surgically sliced organs and flesh will find this to be a worth their time however.” I tend to fall into the squeamish category, and I find Black Jack to be a continuing source of delight, so take that for whatever it’s worth.
The very talented Naoki (Monster, 20th Century Boys) Urasawa’s re-imagining of Tezuka’s Astro Boy classic, “The Greatest Robot on Earth,” continues in the sixth volume of Pluto. It’s a nifty blend of science fiction and murder mystery, and it’s my second-favorite Urasawa series currently being published by Viz.
Of course, it’s not all Tezuka this week. There’s also Oishinbo: The Joy of Rice, written by Tetsu Kariya and illustrated by Akira Hanasaki. I’ve really been looking forward to this volume, since I’ve never been able to consistently cook rice well, and I’m hoping it has some good advice mixed in with the toxic father-son posturing. Even if it doesn’t help me with my rice issues, I’m sure I’ll enjoy reading it.
Speaking of things I’ve been enjoying, it’s nice to be able to get in on the ground floor of Yellow Tanabe’s Kekkeishi over at Viz’s Shonen Sunday site. The print version of the series is up to its 19th volume. The Shonen Sunday site has added some other fun series like Yakitate!! Japan (over-the-top bread-baking battles) and Case Closed (teen sleuth trapped in the body of a little kid).
The cheap among us will rejoice at the arrival of the softcover version of Rick Geary’s Treasury of XXth Century Murder: Famous Players, the Mysterious Death of William Desmond Taylor. I read a prose version of the story a long time ago, so it will be interesting to see Geary’s telling. Of course, it’s always interesting to see Geary’s telling of anything.
In her look at this week’s comics, Kate Dacey delivers a succinct takedown of the latest example of that just-won’t-die-or-evolve artifact, the list of recommendations to help comics fans convince the ladies in their lives to share their hobby. I don’t really have anything to add, but I will just note that most of the women I know online who read manga are omnivores. They greet new romantic shôjo and new blood-and-guts seinen with equal enthusiasm. To my way of thinking, this makes the frequent exclusion of manga from these chick-bait graphic novel guides even more baffling.
Anyway, here’s what looks good to me on the latest ComicList:
I read a review copy of Tamio Baba’s Deka Kyoshi (CMX), about a detective going undercover as a teacher, joining forces with a mildly psychic student, and helping kids with their often dangerous problems. My reaction to the book tracks pretty much exactly with Brigid Alverson’s: “The stories are nice little self-contained dramas, but they never veer far from the predictable.”
It seems to be a week where publishers who’ve had something of a low profile lately deliver some new goods. There are new volumes from DrMaster, Seven Seas, and Go! Comi. I’m most enthusiastic about the Go! Comi offering, the fifth volume of Takako Shigematsu’s Ultimate Venus. It’s about an orphan who learns that she’s the granddaughter of a very wealthy, very formidable woman, and must prove her worth to inherit the family fortune. I can’t say I yet love it in the way that I loved Shigematsu’s Tenshi Ja Nai!!, but I loved that series a lot and heartily recommend it to people who like wacky, mean-spirited romantic comedy. Ultimate Venus is a bit tamer, but it’s still very enjoyable.
Viz finally rolls out a VizBig version of Rumiko Takahashi’s long-running, much-loved InuYasha, which is a welcome development for people who might enjoy the anime but be a bit daunted by the 42 existing volumes of the manga.
Of more specific interest to me is the third volume of Motoro Mase’s Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, from Viz’s Signature line. Though I’m ambivalent about the series overall, I’ve liked it enough to review the first and second volumes of this series about a draconian government program that targets random people for death to help the remainder of the citizenry better appreciate life. A government functionary must notify these unlucky learning tools of their fate, and readers get to watch the victims flip out during their last hours. I still feel like it needs to go somewhere beyond episodic individual drama, but I’m intrigued enough to stick around. And the third volume has an awesome tag line: “Sometimes people do shoot the messenger.”
What if you could bring your cat to school? What if you and your cat were given amazing powers, and all you had to do in exchange was keep horrible demons at bay? These are the central questions addressed by Yuji Iwahara’s Cat Paradise (Yen Press). The second volume is due out on Wednesday and promises more mystery and adventure at a purportedly feline-friendly institute of learning.
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