“P” is for…

Hitoshi Iwaaki’s Parasyte, originally published by Tokyopop, then published again by Del Rey, because it’s just that good. It’s about a teen whose hand is taken over by a creature that would normally take over the kid’s whole body by replacing his head. Other members of the creature’s invading species are not amused. It originally ran in Kodansha’s Afternoon.

For some classic, high-end ninja action, there’s Path of the Assassin (Dark Horse), written by Kazuo Koike and illustrated by Goseki Kojima. The 15-volume series was originally published by Kodansha.

Felipe Smith’s Peepo Choo (Vertical), which offers brutal satire of cross-cultural misconceptions and fetishes. Smith started his career with MBQ for Tokyopop, then hit the big time by creating Peepo Choo for Kodansha’s Morning 2.

Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto (Viz), which re-imagines a classic tale from Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy (Dark Horse) in an introspective, adult way, which kind of makes it Japan’s answer to Watchmen (Vertigo), I guess. It originally ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Original.

Speaking of Urasawa, I think Pineapple Army, written by Kazuya Kudo, was one of his first works. It originally ran in Big Comic Original.

Makoto Yukimura’s Planetes (Tokyopop), a generally magnificent look at the people who keep Earth’s orbit safe by picking up trash. I’m not going to claim that this book is perfect, but it really is one of my favorite science-fiction series. It originally ran in Kodansha’s Morning.

Did Media Blasters ever publish all of Pilgrim Jäger? I don’t think so. It’s a six-volume series, written by Tō Ubukata and illustrated by Mami Itō, originally serialized in Shōnen Gahousha’s Young King Ours.

I’m guessing on this one, or at least relying on possible questionable sources, but I think Hideji Oda’s A Patch of Dreams (Fanfare/Ponent Mon) originally ran in Kodansha’s Afternoon. But even if it isn’t seinen, it’s an attractive and interesting book.

It’s technically gekiga, and I’ve never really heard anyone say outright that gekiga is a subset of seinen, but I’d feel remiss if I didn’t include The Push Man and Other Stories, an amazingly bleak collection of the work of Yoshihiro Tatsumi from Drawn & Quarterly.

I’ve liked everything I’ve read that was created by Taiyo Matsumoto, so I see no reason why I wouldn’t also enjoy Ping Pong, which originally ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Spirits Special.

On the publisher front, the only Japanese one that comes to mind is the defunct Penguin Shoubou.

So what starts with “P” in your seinen alphabet?

Update:

A couple of glaring omissions for the week:

“O” is for…

Old Boy (Dark Horse), written by Garon (Astral Project) Tsuchiya and illustrated by Nobuaki Minegishi, won an Eisner Award in 2007. The eight-volume series originally ran in Futubasha’s Weekly Manga Action.

Oh My Goddess!, written and illustrated by Kosuke Fujishima, has been a staple at Dark Horse forever. The 40-plus-volume series is running in Kodansha’s Afternoon.

Dark Horse is releasing two seinen series written by Eiji Otsuka, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service and MPD Psycho.

Ohikkoshi (Dark Horse) collects an interesting mix of shorts stories written and illustrated by Hiroaki (Blade of the Immortal) Samura. The stories originally ran in Afternoon.

Sensible people all wish Viz had released more of Oishinbo, written by Tetsu Kariya and illustrated by Akira Hanasaki and still running in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Spirits. It’s a sprawling look at food culture through the eyes of rival father-and-son gourmands.

Viz did publish all four volumes of Rumiko Takahashi’s One-Pound Gospel, originally published in Shogakukan’s Weekly Young Sunday. It’s about a boxer and a nun.

Viz has also published some of Natsume Ono’s seinen works, not simple and House of Five Leaves. Some yet-to-be licensed works include COPPERS, Danza, and Tsuratura Waraji from Kodansha, La Quinta Camera from Penguin Shobou, and Tesoro and Ometura from Shogakukan.

Yen Press has done the manga world a great service by picking up the license for Kaoru (Emma) Mori’s Otoyomegatari, originally published in Enterbrain’s Fellows!, though I’m not sure about its release date here.

Fanfare/Ponent Mon has published Hideji Oda’s A Patch of Dreams and included Oda’s work in Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators.

And while it’s not my favorite of his crazy seinen titles, I am very fond of Osamu Tezuka’s Ode to Kirihito (Vertical), about a doctor whose career is threatened by a mysterious disease and the schemes of the medical establishment. It originally ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic.

What starts with “O” in your seinen alphabet, particularly on the unlicensed front?

Update:

Scott Green reminds me of Toru Yamazaki’s Octopus Girl (Dark Horse). I thought it was shônen for some reason.

“N” is for…

Neko Ramen (Tokyopop), written and illustrated by Kenji Sonishi, is a gag manga about a cat who works in a noodle shop. It originally ran in Mag Garden’s Comic Blade.

Viz released five two of eight volumes of Taiyo Matsumoto’s No. 5, which was widely reported to be one of the publisher’s worst-selling titles of all time. It originally ran in Shogakukan’s IKKI.

NOiSE (Tokyopop), written and illustrated by Tsutomi Nihei, is a prequel to that creator’s Blame! (also published by Tokyopop). Both NOiSE and Blame! ran in Kodansha’s Afternoon. Nihei is also the creator of Biomega (Viz).

Natsume Ono’s not simple (Viz) originally ran in Penguin Shobou’s Comic Seed!, then ran again in Shogakukan’s IKKI. It received some of the most vigorously mixed reviews I’ve ever seen for a title, which made for very interesting blog reading.

While Neon Genesis Evangelion (Viz), written and illustrated by Yoshiyuki Sadamato, originally ran in a shônen magazine, it’s been calling Kadakowa Shoten’s seinen magazine Young Ace home for the past couple of years.

Maybe the best-known manga-ka from this corner of the seinen alphabet is Go Nagai, who has had a very prolific career that includes a number of seinen titles.

Of all of the yet-to-be-translated titles that start with the letter “N,” I’m most eager to see someone publish Iou Kuroda’s Nasu, which originally ran in Kodansha’s Afternoon.

And while it seems rather unlikely that anyone is going to publish a 36-volume series about sumo wrestling, it’s nice to imagine a world where such a fate might be possible for Tetsuya Chiba’s Notari Matsutaro, originally published in Shogakukan’s Big Comic.

Who or what starts with “N” in your seinen alphabet? Fill in my gaps, please!

“M” is for…

Well, it’s for lots of stuff, so I won’t even try and be comprehensive. I’ll just hit the highlights.

Technically, this could fall under “N,” as Viz insists on putting “Naoki Urasawa” in front of all of that creator’s titles, but I’ll just stick with plain-old Monster in this case. It’s about a brilliant surgeon who unknowingly saves the life of a deranged killer. Oops!

On a much lighter front, we have Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku (Viz). It follows the start-and-stop romance of a somewhat aimless young man and his widowed landlady. They also have crazy neighbors who are pretty funny.

On an arguably much more horrible front, we have the often fervently disliked Maria Holic (Tokyopop), written and illustrated by Minari Endou and originally serialized in Media Factory’s Monthly Comic Alive. It’s not all wrongly accused neurosurgeons and romantic comedy, kids.

On an interesting but commercially shaky front, we have Me and the Devil Blues: The Unreal Life of Robert Johnson (Del Rey), written and illustrated by Akira Hiramoto, who added some supernatural elements to the life of the legendary blues musician.

Sticking with Del Rey, we have Yuki Urushibara’s excellent Mushishi, which was the topic of a Manga Moveable Feast.

Also from Del Rey and also focused on the microscopic is Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture, written and illustrated by Masayuki Ishikawa, which is in limbo since the Kodansha shake-up.

Viz just launched March Story, written by Hyung Min Kim and illustrated by Kyung-il Yang, and originally published in Shogakukan’s Sunday GX magazine.

One could theoretically do the Tezuka Alphabet, you know? In the seinen category, one of my favorites of his works is the deeply crazy MW (Vertical).

On the creator front, we’d certainly have to start with Taiyo Matsumoto, known best here for his brilliant Tekkonkinkreet and GoGo Monster and perhaps less so for his out-of-print Blue Spring and No. 5, all from Viz.

Viz has also published Motoro Mase’s Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit.

Lots of people have loved the work of Kaoru Mori, including Emma and Shirley from DC’s lamented CMX imprint. But we can look forward to her Otoyomegatari from Yen Press.

Minetaro Mochizuki’s Dragon Head (Tokyopop) enjoyed critical if not commercial success when it was published here.

Few creators are capable of the kind of tightly-controlled crazy delivered regularly by the brilliant Junko Mizuno, most recently of Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu (Last Gasp) fame.

Some of my favorite comics have come from Kodansha’s Morning magazines.

And way back in the day, Tokyopop published a little magazine known originally as MixxZine, which featured seinen titles like Parasyte and Ice Blade.

I wouldn’t even know where to begin with the unlicensed seinen titles that start with “M,” so please feel free to contribute your suggestions in the comments. And of course, I’m curious as to anything that starts with “M” in your seinen alphabet!

Updated:

I don’t know how I forgot MPD Psycho (Dark Horse), written by Eiji Otsuka and illustrated by Sho-u Tajima. It could be that the series is a little gross for my taste and I prefer Otsuka’s Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, which he creates with Housui Yamazaki, who created Mail, also from Dark Horse. I like Mail a lot, but I left it off this list because I thought it was originally published in a shônen magazine (Kadokawa’s Shônen Ace). Can I have a ruling?

“L” is for…

Well, we have to start with Lone Wolf and Cub (Dark Horse), written by last week’s poster boy, Kazuo Koike, and illustrated by Goseki Kojima. It was one of the first manga series to be published in English, and it’s one of those series that many comics fans who don’t normally read manga might have read. It originally ran in Futubasha’s Weekly Manga Action and is 28 volumes long.

Koike collaborated with Kazuo Kamimura on Lady Snowblood (Dark Horse), a dark, sexy and violent revenge fantasy. The four-volume series originally ran in Shueisha’s Weekly Playboy.

Lots of people probably have some fond memories of Lupin III, written and illustrated by Monkey Punch and originally serialized in Weekly Manga Action. Tokyopop has published all 14 volumes of the series, and Cartoon Network used to broadcast episodes of the very likable anime adaptation of the capers.

I’m not sure how many people have fond memories of Lament of the Lamb, written and illustrated by Kei Toume. It’s a seven-volume vampire series that was originally serialized in Gentosha’s Comic Birz and was published in English by Tokyopop.

Sadly, Minoru Toyoda’s funny, sweet and quirky Love Roma is one of those series that may be in limbo thanks to the recent shifts between Del Rey and Kodansha. The five-volume series originally ran in Kodansha’s Afternoon.

Last Gasp publishes a lot of interesting prose and comics, some of them from Japan, and Junko Mizuno’s Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu was probably my favorite debut of 2009. The series originally ran in Enterbrain’s glorious Comic Beam. I would like the second volume now, please, thank you.

What starts with “L” in your seinen alphabet?

“K” is for an awful lot of stuff, so I’ll try and be representative rather than comprehensive.

Kodansha! Where to even start with Kodansha? They used to work with a number of stateside publishers to license their properties, even going so far as to sharing a first-look agreement with in-limbo Del Rey, but then they ended that, yanked their licenses back from Tokyopop, and started a fairly tepid stateside publishing project of their own. They’ve got a panel scheduled at this year’s New York Anime Festival, so maybe they’re ready to kick things off properly. They’ve got a lot of great seinen magazines and properties, though.

Viz is serializing Kingyo Used Books, written and illustrated by Seimu Yoshizaki, on its SigIKKI site. It’s about the power of manga nostalgia. Other SigIKKI contributors include Mohiro Kitoh of Bokurano: Ours fame and Puncho Kondoh of Bob and His Funky Crew “fame.”

Yen Press will publish Kakiffy’s K-On! It’s a four-panel gag manga about a school music club. It originally ran in Houbunsha’s Manga Time Kiara, and I know a few people who really like the anime.

Speaking of four-panel manga published in English by Yen Press, they’ve got two from Satoko Kiyuduki. There’s the excellent Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro and GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class. I don’t know anything about GA, as I haven’t read it, as I resent it for being the apparent cause of Kiyuduki suspending work on Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro.

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Dark Horse), written by Eiji Otsuka and illustrated by Housui Yamazaki, originally started in a shônen magazine but currently runs in a seinen publication, Kadokawa Shoten’s Young Ace.

Kujibiki Unbalance (Del Rey) has kind of an odd provenance. It was the manga obsession of the characters in Kio Shimoku’s Genshiken (also Del Rey), and the popularity of Genshiken led Shimoku to collaborate with Keito Koume on an actual version of the fictional comic. It ran in Kodansha’s Afternoon.

Yuji Iwahara’s King of Thorn (Tokyopop) isn’t as good as his Chikyu Misaki (CMX), but he’s an amazing artist. King of Thorn ran in Enterbrain’s Comic Beam.

Kazuo Koike has written one of the most famous manga to be made available in English, Lone Wolf and Cub (Dark Horse), which was drawn by Goseki Kajima. Koike and Kajima also collaborated on Samurai Executioner and Path of the Assassin, both available in English from Dark Horse. Koike collaborated with Kazuo Kamimura on Lady Snowblood (Dark Horse) and Ryoichi Ikegami on Crying Freeman (Dark Horse). Koike also taught a college course in how to be a manga-ka.

Someone really needs to license Fumi Yoshinaga’s Kinô Nani Tabeta? It’s Yoshinaga’s first time writing for a seinen magazine (Kodansha’s Morning), and she’s writing about food again.

“J” is for… well, not a whole lot, but…

Viz has published Jourmungand, written and illustrated by Keitaru Takahashi and originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Sunday GX.

The work of a number of spectacularly talented manga-ka is featured in Fanfare/Ponent Mon’s Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators, and many of them have created work for seinen magazines.

Araki Joh is well known for his libation-friendly manga series Bartender and Sommelier.

I would love it if someone published Iou Kuroda’s Japan Tengu Party Illustrated in English.

Also on the unlicensed front, Mitsuru Adachi’s Jinbē sounds like an interesting if tricky romance. It was originally published in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Original.

What starts with “J” in your seinen alphabet?

“I” is for…

Ikki, which has always struck me as one of those magazines that’s more about great, varied comics than about serving a specific demographic (like Enterbrain’s Comic Beam), and I would probably buy every issue if I read Japanese and lived somewhere it might appear on newsstands. Ikki is published by Shogakukan, and Viz is serializing a number of its titles online.

Among those titles are I’ll Give it My All… Tomorrow, written and illustrated by Shunju Aono. It’s about a 40-year-old who decides to become a manga-ka to the horror of his father and daughter.

There’s also I Am a Turtle, written and illustrated by Temari Temura. It’s a slice-of-life look at a turtle who lives on a tea farm.

Daisuke Igarashi has a series on the SigIKKI site, Children of the Sea, which I like very much. His work also appeared in Fanfare/Ponent Mon’s Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators, and I’d love for someone to publish his Witches in English.

Hisae Iwaoka is the creator of the charming Saturn Apartments on the SigIKKI site.

Takehiko Inoue is probably one of the best-known manga-ka with work published in English for the very good reason that his work is excellent. On the seinen front, there’s basketball drama Real and samurai epic Vagabond, both published by Viz.

Another well-liked creator is Hitoshi Iwaaki, who created Parasyte (Del Rey). I would love for someone to publish Iwaaki’s Historie.

Motoro Mase’s Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (Viz) originally ran in Shogakukan’s Weekly Young Sunday. It’s about a government program to teach people about the value of life by randomly killing young citizens. It swings from smart satire to wild melodrama, and I rather like it.

Yukiya Sakuragi’s Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (Viz) originally ran in Shueisha’s Young Jump. It’s about a goodhearted (but rather dumb) young woman who works in a pet shop.

Shuichi Shigeno’s Initial D was originally serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Young Magazine and was published in English by Tokyopop, but Kodansha reclaimed the license. It’s about street racing.

Tsutomi Takahashi’s Ice Blade was (I think) one of the first manga to be published in English in Tokyopop’s MixxZine. It originally ran in Kodansha’s Afternoon. It’s about a violent cop who plays by his own rules, as they are wont to do.

What starts with “I” in your seinen alphabet?

Updated:

I’m not sure of the exact provenance of the stories in here, but some of Jiro Taniguchi’s The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories (Fanfare/Ponent Mon) must come from seinen sources, mustn’t they? On the unlicensed front, Taniguchi collaborated with Moebius on Icaro, which ran in Kodansha’s Morning. There’s also Taniguchi’s pet-centric Inu o Kau, collecting stories that originally ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic.

I’ve also forgotten Ryoichi Ikegami of Crying Freeman (Dark Horse) and Wounded Man (ComicsOne) fame.

“H” is for…

High School Girls, written and illustrated by Towa Oshima, originally published by Futubasha and published in English by the defunct DrMaster. This one was subject to a lot of jokes, mostly along the lines of “Isn’t that what all manga is about?” But it’s a favorite of Ed (MangaCast) Chavez, so it deserves a place of honor.

Hayate X Blade, written and illustrated by Shizuru Hayashiya, serialized in Shueisha’s Ultra Jump and published in English by Seven Seas. It’s a favorite of Erica (Okazu) Friedman.

House of Five Leaves, written and illustrated by Natsume Ono, serialized in Shogakukan’s IKKI and on Viz’s SigIKKI site. It’s a favorite of… well… mine. And of lots of other people, I’m sure.

Lest you think that all seinen published in English has been created by women, there’s Hellsing, written and illustrated by Kouta Hirano. Hellsing is about a secret organization that protects England from various supernatural threats. Published in Japanese in Shonen Gahosha’s Young King Ours, it’s published in English by Dark Horse.

Hakusensha is best known in my neck of the woods as the publisher of terrific shôjo, but they also publish seinen in magazines like Young Animal, home to comics like Detroit Metal City and Berserk. There’s also Houbunsha, with seinen magazines like Weekly Manga Times and lots of four-panel stuff in the Manga Time family.

There are several fine-sounding series in the unpublished category.

Hataraki Man, written and illustrated by Moyoco Anno, recently resumed publication in Kodansha’s Weekly Morning.

Historie, written and illustrated by Hitoshi (Parasyte) Iwaaki, runs in Kodansha’s Afternoon. It’s about life in ancient Greece and Persia. Jason (King of RPGs) Thompson wrote about it for ComiXology.

I’d never heard of Human Crossing before, but it sounds kind of great. It was written by Masao Yajima and illustrated by Kenshi Hirokane, and it ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Original, winning a Shogakukan Manga Award. Another update: It seems strangely remiss of me not to specifically note that Hirokane is the godfather of salaryman manga, having created white-collar wonder Kôsaku Shima.

There’s something about the cover and concept of Hanamaru Kindergarten that I find perfectly terrifying, but perhaps this is because I’ve been listening to Ed Sizemore and Erica Friedman’s delightful podcast on moe. It’s written and illustrated by Yuto and published in Square Enix’s Young Gangan. I readily admit that I have no idea if where it falls on the cute-creepy spectrum. Updated yet again: A commenter informs me that this is very likely just cute instead of possessed of any leering intent.

What starts with the letter “H” in your seinen alphabet?

Updated to add some other titles mentioned in the comments and on Twitter by various kind folks:

“G” is for…

Let’s start with Gantz (Dark Horse), written and illustrated by Hiroya Oku and originally serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump. It’s about a mysterious super-computer that plucks random people from the moment of their imminent deaths and forces them to weapon up and try and kill aliens. It’s packed with gratuitous violence and nudity, which makes it the platonic ideal of one definition of seinen.

You can’t leave off Ghost in the Shell (Kodansha USA), written and illustrated by Shirow Masamune and originally serialized in Kodansha’s Young, mostly because it’s one of the seinen titles that people who don’t read comics have probably heard of because the anime has run on Adult Swim. It’s about hot cyborgs fighting technological crime in a future near-dystopia. It was originally published in English by Dark Horse, then it was reclaimed by Kodansha who’s busily republishing an early Dark Horse version of the book, which apparently is meant to mark their big effort in publishing their own comics in English.

Gankutsou: The Count of Monte Cristo (Del Rey), written by Mahiro Maeda and illustrated by Yuri Ariwara, offers a sci-fi take on the classic adventure novel. It was originally published in Kodansha’s Afternoon.

Four-panel manga can be seinen, as demonstrated by GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class (Yen Press), written and illustrated by Satoko Kiyuduki. It’s about five cute girls who study art, and it’s serialized in Houbunsha’s Manga Time Kiara Carat.

No one has published an English version of award-winning mecha classic Galaxy Express 999, written and illustrated by Leiji Matsumoto, though five apparently published five volumes of one of the title’s sequels at some point. The original was serialized in Shogakukan’s Big Comic.

Viz has published Gimmick!, written and illustrated by Youzaburou Kanari and illustrated by Kuroko Yabuguchi. It’s about a special-effects expert who helps people avoid difficult and potentially dangerous circumstances through the art of disguise. It was originally published in Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump.

My very favorite English-language seinen starting with the letter G would have to be Kio Shimoku’s Genshiken (Del Rey), which originally ran in Kodansha’s Afternoon. It’s an awesome slice-of-life series about a college club that takes an equal opportunity approach to geekery.

It never actually ran in a magazine, but Taiyo Matsumoto’s GoGo Monster probably would have run in a seinen magazine if it had ever been serialized instead of being dropped on an eager public in its whole and perfect state.

The beauty of Junji Ito’s Gyo (Viz) is that it manages to be both ridiculous and horrifying at the same time. It’s about fish with robotic exoskeletons who surge out of the ocean and attack people, and it’s absurd and scary in equal parts. It originally ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Spirits. The cover image above is from Viz’s second version of the series. The first version is less sleek, but I like it better, since it captures the story’s cheesy charm.

And I’d be totally remiss if I didn’t mention Japan’s more ruthless answer to James Bond, Golgo 13 (published in part by Viz), written and illustrated by Takao Saito, which has been running in Shogakukan’s Big Comic since shortly after the earth cooled. Seriously, there are over 150 volumes of this series, and it’s still running. This is actually an even more platonically ideal example of a very common definition of seinen, because it’s got a super-cool salaryman whose job just happens to be killing people.

Was the legendary alternative comics magazine Garo seinen in a technical sense? Probably not, but I suspect a lot of its readers were adult men. Here’s a piece at Same Hat! about an exhibit featuring work from Garo.

Again, I don’t know if you can specifically define gekiga as a subset of seinen, but I suspect the dramatic stories for grown-ups had a significant audience of adult males.

So what starts with “G” in your seinen alphabet?

Updates:

I was reminded of a previous license request for Osamu Tezuka’s Gringo, which was nominated for a Prix Asie and originally ran in Big Comic.