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Sexy Voice and Robo MMF: About the book

February 7, 2010 by

Welcome to the first round of the Manga Moveable Feast, a week when a bunch of manga bloggers have decided to focus our attention on a particular book. We’re lauching with Iou Kuroda’s Sexy Voice and Robo (Viz). I thought it might be useful to provide some basic introduction of the book and its creator, so here’s the publisher’s take:

About the book:

“Working part-time as a telephone-dating operator, Nico Hayashi has plenty of clients eager to engage her in titillating conversation. But what her customers don’t know is this: the person they’re flirting with is really a 14-year-old junior high school girl with a secret agenda.

“On the phone she’s known as Sexy Voice. But, really, she’s more than a professional flirt. Secretly, she wants to change the world and maybe become a spy and fortuneteller, too.

“Along for the ride is her friend Iichiro Sudo. He’s an underemployed twentysomething hipster with an obsession for collecting toy robots. Together they are Sexy Voice and Robo… two people doing their best to bring some hope into this crazy world.”

The series was originally published in Shogakukan’s IKKI anthology. It was published in Spanish by Ponent Mon, though I don’t think it’s in print. It was adapted into a live-action drama by Nippon TV.

About the author:

“Iou Kuroda, one of Japan’s premier young manga talents, combines expressive artwork with reflective, poetic storytelling. Earning the Grand Prize for manga from Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Media Arts Festival in 2002, Sexy Voice and Robo exists as a testament to the creator’s dynamic artistry.”

Other series by Kuroda include the as-yet-unlicensed Nasu (three volumes, originally published in Kodansha’s Afternoon) and Japan Tengu Party Illustrated (four volumes, originally published in Kodansha’s Morning).

Related Links:

  • Japanese collections: first volume, second volume
  • Iou Kuroda’s web site

    • To follow all the various posts this week, please bookmark this page.

    Filed under: Manga Moveable Feast, Viz 5 Comments

    Announcing the Manga Moveable Feast

    January 23, 2010 by

    Inspired by The Hooded Utilitarian’s roundtable on CLAMP’s xxxHoLic (Del Rey), a bunch of people who talk about manga on Twitter though it might be fun to do what Matt Blind suggested we call a “Manga Moveable Feast,” where a bunch of bloggers write about a single title over the course of a week. For the inauguration of this experiment, we’ve settled on Iou Kuroda’s Sexy Voice and Robo (Viz), and we’ve set it for the week of Feb. 8.

    Here’s how it will work this time around: I’ll track all of the individual posts over the course of the week, posting daily updates on who’s written what. You can focus on a specific aspect of the title, write a general review, or simply repost a review you’ve already written. I’d also be happy to host pieces if the writer would prefer.

    At the end of the week, we’ll set up a chat session at Manga Views for anyone who wants to discuss the book further to add a book-club aspect to the project. (We considered doing this on Twitter, but the character limit and scrolling seemed unfriendly to fostering a conversational quality.) We’ve tentatively selected Kaoru Mori’s Emma (CMX) for the second round, though we haven’t set a date and another blogger will host and ring-lead that effort.

    So if you’re interested in participating, drop me an email at davidpwelsh at yahoo dot com, and we can work out all of the details.

    Filed under: Linkblogging, Manga Moveable Feast 15 Comments
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