The Manga Curmudgeon

Spending too much on comics, then talking too much about them

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The next big things

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Brigid’s look at the latest chart-topping manga triggers some interesting discussion. MangaCast and Manga Recon’s Erin F. suggests that, while vampires certainly aren’t driving anyone away from Millennium Snow, it’s creator Bisco Hatori’s reputation for Ouran High School Host Club that’s doing more to feed Millennium’s success.

I’m always interested to see a new “name manga-ka” emerge. Clearly, several someones believe that Chika Shiomi will join the ranks of creators who might be able to move a title at least partly on reputation, what with Go! Comi, CMX and Viz adding her work to their rosters. Last year, You Higuri seemed to be the manga-ka everyone wanted to license.

Maybe it’s because series targeted at women tend to be shorter and there are consequently more available to license, but most of the name manga-ka I can think of are women: the CLAMP collective, Ai Yazawa, Yuu Watase, Fumi Yoshinaga, Moyoco Anno, among others.

Who are your no-question manga-ka, the ones whose work you’ll buy no matter the genre or subject matter?

Fabulous prizes

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ComiPress lists the winners of the 11th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Awards. One of them is Magnificent 49er Ryoko Yamagishi, who received the Grand Prize for Maihime Terepushikoora.

There’s depressingly little web-based information available on this group of influential manga-ka, but Yamagishi’s brief bio on Wikipedia still manages to whet my appetite, with titles like Tut-ankh-amen, Isis and Sphinx. I’m always up for fictionalizations of Ancient Egypt, if those titles do in fact tread that territory. (One never knows how tenuous the connection will be between title and content.)

In other awards news, MangaCast’s Ed Chavez takes a thorough look at this year’s winners of the 31st Kodansha Manga Awards and contemplates their licensing likelihood, providing a handy list of past licensed winners. (Kitchen Princess won last year? Seriously? I thought the first volume was really mediocre, but I thought that about the first volume of Fruits Basket too, so maybe I should give the series a second look.)

Blu funk

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It’s kind of a slim week on the ComicList, so I’m going to limit myself to three items that particularly catch my eye:

Blu continues the absolutely welcome wave of manga from Fumi Yoshinaga with Lovers in the Night, a collection of shorts that range from the French Revolution to feudal Japan to contemporary Seattle.

Anike Hage’s Gothic Sports (Tokyopop) has generated some very favorable pre-release buzz, and the preview pages look great.

The first volume of Meca Tanaka’s Pearl Pink (Tokyopop) didn’t quite reach the heights of Tanaka’s Omukae Desu (CMX), but I can always use a shôjo fix, and I’m becoming kind of a sucker for wacky, showbiz comedies. I’ll probably pick up the second volume sooner or later.

Other takes:

  • Chris Mautner and Kevin Melrose at Blog@Newsarama
  • Jog
  • The MangaCasters
  • Matt Blind at comicsnob

    • Awards watch

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    It looks like there are some new additions to the current roster of nominations for the list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens, assembled by the American Library Association’s Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). (I say “looks like,” because my memory is far from perfect, so apologies if the books I’ve pegged as new nominations have been there for a while.)

    DC’s Minx line seems to be making a favorable impression on nominators, with Re-Gifters joining The Plain Janes. The current edition of Sequential Tart has the first part of an interesting insider’s view of the Minx line from Mariah Huehner, including this assessment of some of the imprint’s early sound bytes:

    “Its times like this I really wish marketing a product based solely on its own merits, of which the titles in MINX have a lot, was the preferred method. Putting down other kinds of books aimed at the same demographic doesn’t do much to elevate the medium. And anyway, wouldn’t it be better if teen girls were readings more of everyone’s titles? I don’t think it’s a choice between Manga and MINX. I think you’ll find a lot of crossover.”

    The first volume of Fumi Yoshinaga’s The Moon and Sandals (Juné) is an interesting choice, partly because Digital Manga has given it an age rating of 18+. It follows two couples, one adult and one teen-aged, and the older pair does reach a sexual milestone, though I’m blanking on how explicit that encounter was at the moment. I thought the book kind of dawdled in a perfectly likeable way, but it does end with an emotional gut-punch worthy of Natsuki Takaya at her most ruthlessly tear-jerking.

    The successful partnership between Tokyopop and HarperCollins (just look at the sales figures for Warriors) hasn’t stopped HC from publishing graphic novels on its own, and Mark Crilley’s Miki Falls books earn two slots on the YALSA list.

    As usual, the list also serves as a handy collection of recommended reading for me, with intriguing-sounding titles like Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age from Penguin/Viking:

    “A very unscientific poll recently revealed that 99.9% of all people who attended middle school hated it.”

    Yay! I’m in the majority! (Though 7th and 8th grades were classified as “junior high” back when I endured them, right around the popularization of the internal combustion engine.)

    And while it’s only kind of tangentially related, there’s a great interview with this year’s Eisner judges over at Bookslut, one of whom is Robin Brenner, one of the librarians who assemble the YALSA list. Some of my favorite quotes:

    “The shift from the collector market to the reader market has been incredibly significant, in terms of just where one can find comics and graphic novels today but also in terms of signifying the growing diversity of what’s out there and what people want to read. I feel the industry can only benefit from a concentration on attracting readers rather than collectors — so the story and artistry of the title is the most important thing.” (Brenner.)

    “The industry’s attempt to force-start another speculator glut, is, fortunately, somewhat of a miserable failure.” (Comics writer Chris Reilley.)

    “I would like to see a few less comics about zombies; they’re really overstaying their welcome in my opinion.” (Reilly, again.)

    Well, zombies do move rather slowly.

    Royal treatment

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    Tom Spurgeon pointed to this piece at Forbidden Planet International about French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal’s dim view of comics from Japan, providing an overview and some additional context:

    “However, when Royal met Fukushima Muziho, president of the Japanese Social-Democrat party, in December 2006, the Japanese press recalled this vehement attack. While talking about women’s rights in Japan, Royal asked Fukushima if the problems in that domain didn’t stem from ‘the manga’.”

    Here’s a Google translation of the ActuaBD article that sparked the FPI entry. And here’s an older article from The Japan Times on Japanese Foreign Minister and manga fan Taro Aso’s view of Royal’s… views.

    Wednesday morning links

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    There are some interesting articles in the latest Publishers Weekly Comics Week, including Kai-Ming Cha’s report on the China International Cartoon and Animation Festival in Hangzhou, Brigid Alverson’s interview with Viz’s Cammie Allen on the upcoming Naruto push, and an byline-less article on the first Kids Comic-Con, memorable mostly for this… memorable quote:

    “Speaking about comics as educational tools, Scholastic executive editor Sheila Keenan said, ‘For more literate people, when you read a novel you kind of see the movie in your head. But for others, it’s like reading music note for note—you don’t see the bigger picture. Comics can be a way to present that bigger picture.’”

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    MangaCast runs through the nominees for the 11th annual Tezuka Awards, with images, commentary and other useful information:

    “Is it too early for to ask Viz, Vertical and FanFare to pick up these titles fast? Death Note is already here and I am sure the only thing holding Ohoku back is how to market Yoshinaga as seinen/josei (I am sure that is why her other cooking manga haven’t been announced yet).”

    Wait… there’s another Fumi Yoshinaga cooking manga out there, waiting to be licensed? Haven’t we reached the point when the only thing you need to do to market a Yoshinaga series is to put Yoshinaga’s name on it? (Okay, maybe that wouldn’t work with everyone, but it does with me.)

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    ICv2 has details on some upcoming shôjo series from Viz scheduled for September 2007 and January 2008, including Kawahara Kazune’s Koukou Debut:

    “The first new Shojo Beat release of 2008 will be High School Debut (Koukou Debut) a slice-of-life high school comedy romance about a tomboy who, when she gets to high school decides that she wants to get a boyfriend — the only problem is that she doesn’t know how, so she asks a popular guy to show her the way — his only condition, that she doesn’t fall in love with him. High School Debut appeared in the Japanese shojo anthology Margaret, where the stories tend to be a little more mature than those in other popular shojo magazines such as Ribbon and Hana to Yume.”

    MangaCast has an in-depth preview of another of the titles on the slate, Maki Minami’s Special A.

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    At Crocodile Caucus, Lyle continues his “Shojo Peek” series with a look at the recently-published preview of increasingly ubiquitous Chika Shiomi’s Yurara, contemplating some of shôjo heroine tropes in the process.

    Because a day just isn't long enough

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    Dave Carter has kicked off his third annual Free Comic Book Month at Yet Another Comics Blog:

    “That’s right, free comics! Each day of May I’ll pick someone to receive a free comic, taken from my personal collection: duplicates, things I have in trades, and other stuff. My goal is to match up people with a comic that they haven’t read but that they may like. My tastes are wide and varied, so chances are I’ve got a comic for you.”

    It’s easy to enter and fun to read Dave’s announcements of who’s receiving what and why.

    Politics, religion and so on

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    Team Manga is everywhere. According to this article in The Japan Times, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso finds front-running French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal’s view of manga to be painfully narrow. Rumors that Minister Aso was assembling a diplomatic pouch filled with volumes of The Rose of Versaille are as yet unconfirmed.

    Vertical, much loved for its releases of classic manga like Eisner-nominated Ode to Kirihito and To Terra…, will be launching a line of contemporary titles, according to this article in Publishers Weekly:

    “The imprint will focus broadly on shojo manga for teen readers. [Vertical editorial director Ioannis] Mentzas acknowledged that acquiring licenses for these titles has become very competitive. ‘It’s nearly impossible to get good licenses now, but we’ll do it,’ he said. Three of the new staffers will run the new imprint. The house will continue to publish classic manga under the Vertical imprint.”

    There’s an interesting piece on global manga in The Austin Statesman, featuring interviews with creators like Rivkah (Steady Beat), Tony (PSY-COMM) Salvaggio, and Paul (Pantheon High) Benjamin. Memorable quotes abound, like this one from Benjamin:

    “I know I’m going to be dead and bones and Batman is still going to be dealing with his issues over his parents dying by beating up bad guys. That’s never going to change. That’s just the nature of a property owned by a big company. But with manga, anything goes, anything can happen, and that’s very exciting.”

    Lots of people enjoy priests as characters in manga, and the Catholic Church’s Vocations Office for England and Wales hopes that there’s an overlap between people who enjoy manga and actually want to be priests:

    “‘Cartoons, particularly Manga-styled ones, are a good way of reaching young people, even up to the age of 25,’ says Father [Paul] Embery. ‘We want more young people to consider the call to priesthood and religious life, whilst at the same time acknowledging that many more people are making commitments later in life. We have a “both-and” rather than “either-or” policy, as we recognise that older candidates bring different life experiences with them.’”

    The piece I wrote for Print on manhwa has been picked up by BusinessWeek.Com, and is available online, for anyone who’s curious.

    Round-up round-up

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    Aside from being mildly amused by the double standard inherent in the anatomically induced panic, I don’t really care that much about the brouhaha over that Alex Ross cover for JSA. (I’ve always found Ross’s figures to be a little cadaverous, to be honest, no matter what parts are protruding.)

    But I have to lend my support to Blog@Newsarama’s Kevin Melrose and “The Great Junk Outcry of 2007.” In addition to offering a fine and succinct round-up of the discussion thus far, I can almost hear the tense Casio strains of the theme song, though I’ll refrain from speculating about possible accompanying graphics.

    In more seemly discussion, Brigid Alverson offers a terrific round-up of early reaction to the Eisner nominations over at MangaBlog. And she does so in her 1,000th post! Congratulations!

    Multimedia linkblogging

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    Did I miss this? Apparently, both live-action Death Note movies will be debuting at this year’s Newport Beach International Film Festival, according to a piece at Associated Content. A quick look at the festival’s schedule confirms it. I wonder who’s handling the U.S. distribution?

    Dirk Deppey is an early adopter of Chika Umino’s Honey and Clover, so he’s understandably excited that Viz will preview the anime version at an event in Cannes:

    “So what does this have to do with comics news? Well, there’s the little matter of anime/manga synergy; if Viz has acquired the animated version of this series, it may well be an indication that they have designs on the manga, as well. Could we be set to start reading one of the most entertaining soap-opera comics this side of Ai Yazawa’s Nana before the year’s out? If so, I can’t wait.”

    The full release on Viz’s plans for Cannes can be found at ComiPress.

    Speaking of josei, Publishers Weekly Comics Week’s Kai-Ming Cha interviews Mikako Ogata about new manga pub Aurora and its yaoi imprint, Deux. (How did they resist calling it Boyrealis?) The interview leads Simon Jones (whose blog is probably not safe for work) to ponder something that’s crossed my mind as well:

    “Wouldn’t it be crazy if it turned out that yaoi is the anchor, the perennial tentpole product supporting the entire manga market?”

    It certainly seems to be the most consistent performer of any of the various categories of manga, faring extremely well in the monthly Diamond figures and making its presence known in places like the Amazon bestsellers list.

    What about shôjo? Well, MangaBlog’s Brigid Alverson makes her PWCW debut with an article on the second anniversary of Viz’s Shojo Beat anthology, and it’s packed with plenty of interesting tidbits. The one that really catches my eye is news that the magazine will climb on the Osamu Tezuka Love Train, if only briefly:

    “Shojo Beat, Viz Media’s monthly shojo anthology magazine, will celebrate its second birthday in July with a special present for its readers: an excerpt from legendary manga-ka Osamu Tezuka’s 1954 manga Princess Knight, which has never been available in the U.S. before.”

    I’ve been dying for someone to translate even a little of this series. I don’t know if a full licensing effort would be commercially viable, but most available sources cite it as an inspiration for the creators who would go on to revolutionize shôjo manga.

    Oh, and speaking of girls and magazines, scholar Matt Thorn stopped by Anime News Network to comment on that Oricon survey of girls who read manga and their apparent love for shônen.