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May 11, 2008 by

Kate Dacey has more of her always-terrific reviews up at Manga Recon, looking at some recent shôjo releases. She saves me the trouble of thinking too deeply about Arina Tanemura’s I.O.N. (Viz).

As Kate points out, it’s very much a debut work, but it helped me crystallize my thinking about Tanemura’s work. She’s undeniably talented (and very popular), but here’s the thing: whenever I read her work, I feel like I’m watching an audition for a musical-theatre repertory where someone has to prove that they can sing, act and dance without the requirement of making those qualities come together into something larger. I always feel like there’s some guiding principle missing from the mix in her manga.

I’m almost always fond of the freakish supporting characters that haunt the fringes of Tanemura’s stories. It’s just the leads and what happens to them that don’t hold my attention. (Of course, I haven’t sampled Full Moon yet.)

Filed under: Linkblogging, Quick Comic Comments, Viz 7 Comments

Drama, drama, drama

March 28, 2008 by

Over at Comics Should Be Good, Danielle Leigh once again demonstrates her great taste, listing her top five current shôjo series. This reminds me that it’s time to make a few more Great Graphic Novels for Teens nominations.

The sixth volume of Setona Mizushiro’s After School Nightmare (Go! Comi) features some juicy forward plot motion and some ruthless character development. Back when I used to watch soap operas and participate in that branch of online fandom, many of us would decry what we called “Knight in Shining Armor Syndrome.” Mizushiro thrills me to no end by ripping one of her characters to shreds for indulging in this kind of behavior. Seriously, you won’t find a more psychologically acute melodrama in this category.

The 19th volume of Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket (Tokyopop) makes me geek out a round of “The Gang’s All Here.” After some extensive focus on individual characters, Takaya rounds everyone up for what feels like the beginning a very satisfying endgame. It’s a testament to the excellent work she’s done developing her cast that I’m delighted to see so many of them return and that their complex dynamics are still so clear and emotionally effective. As usual, threads that previously seemed extraneous are woven into the story’s larger tapestry, which tells me that I should just assume that everything matters. It’s a marvel, and it really shouldn’t be dismissed on the basis of its commercial success.

“Mature Content” rating be damned. Teens are probably reading Ai Yazawa’s Nana (Viz) anyways, so I’m throwing the ninth volume into the mix. More to the point, if there’s a better portrayal of the fallout of capricious behavior, I can’t think of it. The happy, shiny world of the entire cast has been thrown into disarray by an unexpected turn of events, and friendships, romances and careers are fundamentally changed. Yazawa doesn’t give the material anything resembling a punitive quality, but hard choices and hurt feelings abound, taking the well-crafted soap opera to a higher level. And Yazawa even reveals the secret origin of Trapnest. (I have to watch the movie, as Kate Dacey swears they’ll seem less cheesy. I don’t know how that will alter the reading experience, to be honest.)

Filed under: GGN4T, Go! Comi, Linkblogging, Quick Comic Comments, Tokyopop, Viz 3 Comments

Upcoming 3/26/2008

March 25, 2008 by

Some picks from the ComicList for Wednesday, March 26, 2008:

Do you need anyone else to tell you that Hiro Mashima’s Fairy Tail (Del Rey) is a very entertaining fantasy adventure? Probably not, but I’ll chime in with my agreement anyways. Mashima isn’t aiming exceptionally high here, offering unapologetically mainstream entertainment about quirky wizards and their comic quests. It’s a very good example of an increasingly crowded field of comics that offer storytelling that’s as amiable as it is accomplished. The characters are lively, the art is eye-catching, and the stories are fast-paced and varied.

I think it’s smart of Del Rey to introduce the series by releasing two volumes at once. Endearing as it is, it’s also fairly lightweight, so doubling the quantity available should help to cement it in readers’ affections to a degree that a single volume couldn’t, at the same time drawing more critical interest than the series might have enjoyed otherwise. As I said, there’s a lot of competition in the field of amiable, accomplished, mainstream entertainment, especially on the manga shelves.

So yes, there’s nothing wrong with a comic that only wants to entertain. Allow me to contradict that assertion by wondering if Eiji Otsuka and Sho-u Tajima’s MPD-Psycho (Dark Horse) has enough on its mind. Part of the reason I’m so fond of Otsuka’s The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is the writer’s ability to fold deeper issues into superficially engaging stories. Imaginative gore and varied psychoses aside, MPD-Psycho seems to be vamping along, and I’ve got the feeling that it’s really going to need some larger purpose to keep me from losing patience. Up to this point, it’s read like a collection of creepy grace notes (like barcodes on people’s eyeballs) in place of a driving, meaningful narrative.

Along with Charles Berberian, Philippe Dupuy has created the wonderfully entertaining Mr. Jean, star of Get a Life (Drawn & Quarterly), and Maybe Later, a nicely modulated look at their creative process. Drawn & Quarterly offers a solo work from Dupuy, Haunted, which sounds a lot less down-to-earth but very intriguing.

Villard offers a handsome paperback collection of David Petersen’s first Mouse Guard mini-series. In addition to the beautifully rendered, smartly told story of courageous rodents, there are plenty of extras that make the $17.95 price tag very reasonable.

Filed under: ComicList, Dark Horse, Del Rey, Drawn & Quarterly, Quick Comic Comments, Villard 4 Comments

Monstrous women

March 20, 2008 by

Naoki Urasawa’s Monster (Viz Signature) improves with each volume, and the fourteenth book in the series is marvelously tense. Urasawa plays around with his timeline, jumping back and forth, and the chronology is a bit hard to construct at times, but that barely matters in the face of the sheer quantity of revelations and twists that emerge.

In my opinion, the series is never as good as it is when it focuses its attention on Urasawa’s female leads. Nina Fortner, good-hearted twin of the titular beast, and Eva Heinemann, bitter ex of the manga’s saintly protagonist, Tenma, bask in the limelight in this volume. This makes me a very happy reader, and they’ve both achieved almost Shakespearean heights by this point.

Nina is an updated, self-actuated Cordelia with a sprinkling of Ophelia in the mix. Kind and honest, often to her disadvantage, it’s impossible not to fear for her even as you appreciate her resourcefulness (which neither Cordelia nor Ophelia ever possessed). Her hunt for the ruthless Johan parallels Tenma’s, but while Tenma is utterly resolute, it’s difficult to predict precisely what Nina will do if she finds the fiend. To me, that’s a lot more interesting, and I hope she wins the scavenger hunt.

I’ve loved the wildly soap operatic Eva from the beginning – her contempt, her bitterness, her utter self-absorption, mixed with just enough trashy abandon to keep her from being entirely unsympathetic. Miserable as she is, she can still laugh (drunkenly, acidly, ruefully) at her circumstances. In recent volumes, she’s risen from Regan-and-Goneril level (admirably conniving but ultimately monotonous) to that of Lady Macbeth. Formidable as Eva’s rage is, void of compassion as her value system may be, there’s a tiny core of decency and compassion, and oh, how she hates that. It’s increasingly clear that her fury at Tenma stems not from what he cost her in terms of status and security but what he’s done to her steely, amoral certainty. She’s a tragedienne of the highest order.

Filed under: Quick Comic Comments, Viz 8 Comments

Secret secrets

March 15, 2008 by

There are plenty of reasons to be happy that Tokyopop has rescued Ai Morinaga’s Your and My Secret from the licensing limbo to which it was consigned after ADV published a single volume in 2004. Among them is a glorious new opportunity to nitpick. I can’t read Japanese, so I can’t comment on the quality of a translation, but now I can look at two English versions of the same script side by side and be a great big nerd about it.

On the whole, I marginally prefer Tokyopop’s version, translated by Yuya Otake and adapted by Jay Antani, edited by Paul Morrissey with assistance from Jessica Chavez and Shannon Watters. (ADV’s was translated by Kay Bertrand with supervision by Javier Lopez. I can’t really pick out any specific credits for editing and adaptation.) Both are solid, but Tokyopop’s script seems slightly more conversational; it flows just a little bit better.

Tokyopop’s reproduction of the art is cleaner on the whole, and I think the lighter paper helps as well. Tokyopop’s lettering is a bit easier on the eyes, though ADV’s use of varied type weights does a better job of communicating the emotional content of scenes. On the flip side, I prefer the simplicity of ADV’s cover and logo design. ADV also gets points for providing translation notes.

There are a couple of pages in particular where it’s really fascinating to look at them side by side and compare choices, tone, and other elements. ADV fairly consistently translates sound effects and keeps the kanji in place with a few exceptions. One example in particular helps to communicate a sight gag, and it looks like it would have been impossible to leave both kanji and English in place and still be able to read it. Tokyopop’s approach is inconsistent. Sometimes, they leave kanji untranslated, and thy replace it entirely with English at others. I appreciate the added nuance of ADV’s amendments, but I like the less cluttered visuals of the Tokyopop pages.

The sequence contains a fairly major plot development that communicates a lot about the characters, and it’s such a funny reversal that I’m reluctant to spoil it. But at some point, after my scanning skills improve, I’ll definitely try and post scans of both sets of pages, because I’m a big nerd and think it’s really interesting.

(As an aside, it would be great if publishers supplemental translation materials on cultural references and alternate readings on the web. If they don’t feel like popping for the extra pages in a print version, and many don’t, it would be a nice extra feature and would drive more traffic to their web sites.)

(As another aside, hey, who’s publishing Morinaga’s The Gorgeous Life of Strawberry Chan?)

Filed under: ADV, Quick Comic Comments, Tokyopop 5 Comments

Powerless

March 13, 2008 by

If you’ve read either of the first two volumes of Adam Warren’s Empowered (Dark Horse), you know that the series was born from commission work that Warren did for fans with what one might delicately refer to as “specialized interests.” Early in the third volume is a story more directly inspired by those pieces. It struck me as a misstep in an otherwise really effective series.

(Spoilers after the jump.)

In the introduction to the story, the title character warily notes the difference in style. Instead of the loose, friendly pencils used in the rest of the book, it’s “inked with markers, for that chiaroscuro-riffic kinda look.” Empowered is kidnapped by thugs, used as a bet in a poker game, is discarded, and later breaks down while having car sex with her boyfriend, sobbing and begging for affirmation.

It’s creepy as hell, visually and tonally antithetical to just about everything else in the book. Or maybe “antithetical” is the wrong word. It’s the rest of the book stripped of satirical wit and generosity of spirit, and I can take a stab at what the point might be. “This is what you’re laughing at when you get right down to it… humiliation and suffering.”

Warren doesn’t waste pages, so the story works on those terms. But wow, it sure leaves an aftertaste. It’s like brushing your teeth, then drinking orange juice. I can’t really say I enjoyed the return to business as usual – fumbling heroics, loyal friend, loving boyfriend – after that early screed.

Filed under: Dark Horse, Quick Comic Comments 3 Comments

Note to self (3/10/2008)

March 10, 2008 by

This is as much for my own use as anything else, but I’ve decided to make a note here every time I nominate something for the Young Adult Library Association’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens list (which you can do here).

High School Debut volume 2, by Kazune Kawahara (Viz): The first volume was intriguing, and the second is terrific. Upon entering high school, Haruna switched her extracurricular focus from softball to finding a boyfriend. She convinces a handsome fellow student, Yoh, to coach her through the process, as she’s pretty hopeless. It could have been perfectly dreadful, and some elements of the first volume were a little worrying, but Kawahara settles into a really lovely groove this time around. Yoh’s advice is actually pretty good, and Haruna demonstrates an admirable learning curve. That doesn’t mean everything turns out well, but Haruna’s confidence is growing in a really entertaining way. The tone has settled down a bit, and I love the blend of comedy and heartbreak, along with the smart, sweet observations Kawahara sprinkles throughout.

Mushishi volume 3, by Yuki Urushibara (Del Rey): This book has been spectacular from the beginning. Ginko wanders the countryside helping people cope with the effects of mushi, mysterious, primordial bugs. The episodes are almost all perfectly shaped little morality tales, and they’re beautifully drawn. Del Rey rates the book for ages 16 and up, but there’s nothing here that wouldn’t suit a younger reader. (Okay, Ginko smokes, so that might trip some content alarm.)

Filed under: Del Rey, GGN4T, Quick Comic Comments, Viz 5 Comments

Upcoming 3/5/2008

March 5, 2008 by

A quick look through today’s arrivals at your local comic shop (or, as the case may be, last week’s arrivals at your local bookstore):

I thought the first volume of Keiko Taekmiya’s Andromeda Stories (Vertical), done in collaboration with science-fiction legend Ryu Mitsuse, wasn’t nearly as strong as Takemiya’s work throughout To Terra…, but subsequent installments have won me over. After the considerable quantity of set-up is in place, drama, paranoia and survival kick in, using Takemiya’s strengths to much better advantage. The cumulative effect is excellent, in spite of the shaky intro, and the third volume shows up in comic shops today.

Del Rey delivers the second volume of Ryotaro Iwanaga’s Pumpkin Scissors. I really liked the first, following a military squad trying to ease suffering after the end of a lengthy and devastating war. They also kick ass from time to time, and one of them beats up tanks. It’s a thoughtful adventure series that’s generous with character-driven comedy.

Many of the Viz books that I name-checked last week actually shop up this week – the first volume of Chica Umino’s excellent josei comedy Honey and Clover, the seventh volume of Kiyoko Arai’s hilarious makeover shôjo Beauty Pop, and the fifth volume of another comedy-adventure I really like, Hiroaki Sorachi’s Gin Tama. (Beloved dragon lady Otose is on the cover, which must explain why there was only an empty space where it should have been at Barnes & Noble. Kids love chain-smoking landladies.) The second volume of Kazune Kawahara’s High School Debut is sitting in the “to read” pile, and early praise from the likes of Kate Dacey leads me to believe that I really need to check out Shouko Akira’s Monkey High!

But let’s talk about the 28th volume of Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto for a couple of minutes. As you all undoubtedly know, this is the start of the new arc with slightly older protagonists. While I’ve been interested in the book from the standpoint of its inexorable rise to market dominance, I have to confess that I haven’t read much of the series, just the occasional chapter in Shonen Jump.

So when Viz sent me a complimentary copy of volume 28, I was curious to see how it would work for someone who had limited familiarity with whisker boy. I think it works extremely well. It might be agonizingly expository for people who’ve followed the series through the previous 27 volumes, but I thought the character introductions were effective and engaging. Naruto has come back from some independent training and reacquaints himself with his friends and teachers before getting back in the thick of the ninja action.

Even if I wasn’t entirely clear on precisely what people were doing in various battle sequences, it didn’t feel like it mattered. The basics – fighters manifest their chi-type mojo in ways that are specific to their temperaments, kind of like the X-Men are all mutants but do different stuff – are clear enough that I didn’t need to think too much about the mechanics. And while the battle sequences aren’t completely comprehensible to me, they were exciting enough that little blips didn’t really keep me from enjoying them.

Most notably, the volume leaves me with serious admiration for Sakura, who apparently started out rather blandly as “the girl.” Sakura is just an amazing character to me – resourceful, smart, compassionate, ambitious, and a full partner in the adventures in play, basically everything that people seem to want from “mainstream” super-heroines. She’s not just the nagging big sister or crush object; she’s got skills of her own, whether it’s saving a colleague from poison or, as I’ve mentioned previously, splitting the earth open with her first. If I keep reading the series from this point on, which strikes me as extremely likely, it will largely be because of Sakura.

Filed under: Del Rey, Quick Comic Comments, Vertical, Viz 6 Comments

Shrinkwrapped

February 21, 2008 by

I was working on a long-ish piece, and it was going pretty well. I took a quick break to do some blog hopping and noticed that Danielle Leigh had done a terrific job covering almost exactly the same material in her column at Comics Should Be Good. So it’s back to the keyboard.

Speaking of manga for grown-ups, I finally got around to reading the second volume of Hiroki (Eden: It’s an Endless World!) Endo’s Tanpenshu (Dark Horse). Overall, I found the content of the two books to be excellent overall, but I think I’ve developed an allergy to anything Endo writes about organized crime. The two-part “Platform” just made me tired. Why are creators so fascinated with mobsters, and why do so many of their otherwise admirable sensibilities go out the window when they dramatize them? I’ve seen Endo pose a thousand interesting questions about the human experience in his science fiction and slice-of-life stories, but pieces like “Platform” read as depressingly literal. I’m thrilled that Dark Horse is committed to delivering more Eden, but Endo’s gangster stuff leaves me utterly cold.

On the brighter side of Dark Horse, the opening story of the sixth volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (written by Eiji Otsuka, illustrated by Housui Yamazaki) left me slightly giddy. Anyone who can craft a funny, creepy, strangely sweet story around the privatization of the postal service has won me as a lifelong fan.

Filed under: Dark Horse, Linkblogging, Quick Comic Comments 4 Comments

Grading on a curve

February 17, 2008 by

Having read the third volume of Yuji Iwahara’s King of Thorn (Tokyopop), I find myself wondering when optimism reaches its expiration date. I’ll be the first to admit that Iwahara’s Chikyu Misaki (CMX) left me with absurdly high expectations for the creator’s work because of his ability to enliven familiar genre elements with terrific characterization and clever plotting. At the halfway point, King of Thorn is still a collection of set pieces.

For those of you just tuning in, the story follows a small group of people afflicted with a deadly virus. They were placed in suspended animation until a cure could be found, but they woke to find themselves abandoned in a dilapidated facility overrun with monsters. They try to survive the perils of their former sanctuary and figure out what happened while they were asleep.

This kind of stuff can work brilliantly. Take Mochizuki Minetaro’s Dragon Head, also from Tokyopop. Minetaro uses roughly the same recipe of survival set pieces and unanswered questions, but the essential difference is characterization. I care what happens to the characters in Dragon Head, as they’re rendered with layers and quirks. Their actions have the capacity to surprise and move me. I don’t feel like I’ve even met the ragtag group from King of Thorn, aside from their familiarity as archetypes.

In the third volume, the Tough and Secretive Loner urges the Meek Girl Who Becomes More Resourceful to trust him. It’s configured to be one of those turning-point moments where readers care whether the heroine chooses between sense and faith, by Iwahara hasn’t earned that level of investment yet. Neither has inner life enough for her choice to matter; the decision is going to seem under-informed either way.

Filed under: CMX, Quick Comic Comments, Tokyopop 1 Comment
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