The Manga Curmudgeon

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

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Debuting this week: Yōkaiden

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Nina Matsumoto’s Yōkaiden (Del Rey) has a lot of things working in its favor, but the one that really sells it for me is its wry authorial voice. The peppering of sly, smart humor elevates what might otherwise be a fairly generic folklore tour.

Yōkai are spirits that range from benign to mischievous to deadly, and Hamachi is crazy for all of them. The orphaned boy wants to learn and teach about the spirits and prove to suspicious humans that everyone can get along. The people of his village think he’s kind of simple, and they’re kind of right. When Hamachi’s surly grandmother dies, apparently at the hand of a yōkai, Hamachi sets off for their dimension to find out the truth.

Since Hamachi is so well-informed about and enamored with yōkai, Matsumoto has no trouble introducing the various types either in the narrative or in end-of-chapter pages from Hamachi’s journal or in the form of excerpts from “Inukai Mizuki’s Field Guide to Yōkai.” (Mizuki is Hamachi’s inspiration and predecessor in human-yōkai diplomacy.)

Applying a consistently light-hearted tone, Matsumoto presents varied encounters between Hamachi and the objects of his obsession. He saves one from a trap, avoids having the skin of his feet removed by another, protects a surly, talking lantern from bullying, and so on. The individual episodes are fine, but it’s Matsumoto’s wit that really carries things along.

Hamachi is never smarter than he should be, and Matsumoto is able to maneuver him in and out of trouble with imaginative little flourishes. She gives the yōkai amusingly distinct personalities, peppers the dialogue with tart anachronisms (from schadenfreude to Kelsey Grammer), and is game for the occasional, amusing digression. (When the villagers learn of grandma’s fate and Hamachi’s quest, they engage in a discussion of just what kind of irony the situation embodies.)

Matsumoto has a solid visual sense as well. Her character designs, human and yōkai, are varied and charming, and her storytelling and layouts are clear and energetic.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

Now, here are some other highlights from this week’s ComicList:

  • The Umbrella Academy: Dallas #1 (Dark Horse)
  • Mushishi Vol. 6 (Del Rey)
  • Tezuka’s Black Jack Vol. 2 TPB (Vertical)
  • Honey and Clover Vol. 4 (Viz – Shojo Beat)

    • We have winners!

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    Nineteen people entered my Black Jack Preventative Medicine Giveaway to vie for six prize packages. I used the highly scientific approach of assigning each entry a number, writing them down on small pieces of paper, putting them in a cereal bowl, averting my eyes, and picking winner at random. I drew the Grand Prize winner first so everyone would have an equal shot at the deluxe editions.

    The Grand Prize of deluxe hardcover editions goes to:

  • Jamie Coville!

    • The five soft-cover prize packages go to:

  • Rob McMonigal!
  • Francene Lewis!
  • Matthew J. Brady!
  • Johanna Draper Carlson!
  • ahavah22!

    • Thanks to everyone who entered, and watch this week for all entrants’ prescriptions for the comics industry.

    STAT!

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    The comics industry isn’t the only one in need of a prescription. I feel awful. Even Takehiko Inoue’s mind-bogglingly awesome Real (Viz) isn’t enough to bring the healing, though it sure came close.

    Anyway, you have until midnight tonight to enter my Black Jack giveaway, and look for the fascinating and varied entries over the next week.

    Another Black Jack give-away!

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    As Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack demonstrates, surgery can have life-changing benefits and be super-cool to watch. We shouldn’t neglect preventative medicine, of course.

    So I’m asking you to offer your prescription for the comics industry. What steps can it take to ensure a healthy and productive future? Write as much or as little on the topic as you like, and send it to me at DavidPWelsh at Yahoo dot com, and you will be entered in my Black Jack Preventative Medicine Giveaway!

    Five lucky winners will claim the first and second soft-cover volumes of Tezuka’s medical masterpiece, and one grand prize winner will claim the deluxe hard-cover editions. Winners will be chosen at random, and while all entries will be posted, five-page prescriptive essays will be given no more consideration than someone firing off a pithy “Take a big valium.”

    Deadline for entries is midnight Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008. Thanks to Vertical for providing the prizes and for publishing so much awesome Tezuka manga in the first place.

    Upcoming 10/8/2008

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    Quick, general observation about this week’s ComicList: if I was a retailer and had to deal with the unholy crap-load of variant covers and repeat printings from Marvel, I think I’d just bag it all and convert my space into a Tim Hortons franchise.

    I may have mentioned, just casually, in passing, that I’m kind of fond of Setona Mizushiro’s After School Nightmare (Go! Comi). Or I may have mentioned it so often that your temples throb at the repetition. I’ll just note that the ninth volume arrives tomorrow, which leaves just one more, and the withdrawal process is going to be very ugly indeed. Gird yourselves.

    But there’s always new crack arriving, and it’s always better when it’s classic Tezuka crack. I swear that the first volume of Black Jack (Vertical) has been on the ComicList three times now, but I don’t really care. Some things bear repeating, like the phrase “a genius surgeon who never acquired his license due to his clashes with the medical establishment.”

    In composing the last two Flipped columns, I think I should be complimented for my restraint in highlighting only one goofy series about a school club and the surly girl who doesn’t really want to be a member. Of course, nothing’s to stop me from pointing towards Kiyoko Arai’s very funny Beauty Pop (Viz) in the confines of my own blog. The ninth volume of this makeover comedy arrives Wednesday.

    And if I haven’t mentioned it lately, Hikaru No Go (Viz), written by Yumi Hotta and drawn by Takeshi Obata, is one of my very favorite shônen series, partly because it’s about a board game and is still riveting, partly because I love Obata’s illustrations, and partly because the characters are great. The thirteenth volume arrives Wednesday. (Is it weird or just coincidental that two of my favorite shônen series – Hikaru and Fullmetal Alchemist – are both written by women?)

    Upcoming 9/24/2008

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    So the big question posed by this week’s ComicList is, “Will there be another ‘Category 5 S**tstorm’ over this year’s Best American Comics collection from Houghton Mifflin?” It’s hard to say, though I find it difficult to believe that most people didn’t get that sort of thing out of their systems last year. And 2008 editor Lynda Barry and series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden did at least try to include a Batman comic in the mix, even if DC couldn’t accommodate them.

    But why dwell? It’s an interesting week otherwise, with Del Rey launching the intriguing-sounding Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, from CAPCOM.

    I enjoyed the first volume of Takako Shigematsu’s Ultimate Venus (Go! Comi), maybe not quite as much as Shigematsu’s Tenshi Ja Nai!!, but that set a pretty high bar for nasty shôjo comedy. Still, I’m looking forward to the second installment.

    And while I’m hopelessly behind on any kind of reading, it’s hard to imagine a world where one couldn’t safely recommend manga by Osamu Tezuka. Vertical once again obliges the audience for such comics with the first volume of Black Jack, featuring hyperactive medical madness. (I will admit to wishing I could see what Chip Kidd would have done with the cover design, but it’s also hard to imagine a book that wouldn’t look better if Kidd designed it.)

    Upcoming 8/4/2008

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    Looking at the current ComicList, it’s an overwhelming week of new releases with quality titles from just about everyone pitched for just about every demographic. If I had to pick just one title to recommend, I couldn’t. I couldn’t even pick just one Viz title to recommend. I even find myself resorting to the bulleted list, so abundant is the quality on offer.

  • Crayon Shinchan Vol. 4, by Yoshito Usui (CMX)
  • Dororo Vol. 3, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
  • High School Debut Vol. 5, by Kazune Kawahara (Viz)
  • Honey and Clover Vol. 3, by Chica Umino (Viz)
  • The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 7, by Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki (Dark Horse)
  • Mushishi Vol. 5, by Yuki Urushibara (Del Rey)
  • Nana Vol. 12, by Ai Yazawa (Viz)
  • Sand Chronicles Vol. 3, by Hinako Ashihara (Viz)
  • Slam Dunk Vol. 1, by Takehiko Inoue (Viz)

    • So, we’ve got low comedy, high adventure, coming-of-age angst, imaginative horror, lore and legend, and interpersonal drama. And that’s just in Dororo. (I kid, I kid. No I don’t, but you know what I mean.)

    Head, shoulders, knees and toes

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    I’m really excited about the upcoming arrival of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack from Vertical, but I shouldn’t let that excitement lead me to neglect Dororo, another Tezuka title currently in release. I know it’s not Tezuka’s masterwork; it’s not even close. But there are a lot of things I really love about it that became even clearer as I read the second volume.

    First (though not foremost) is Tezuka’s ability to render graphic violence in a way that’s exactly to my taste. When something horrible happens, which is fairly often, it’s undeniably horrible, but it isn’t exploitatively so. It’s like Tezuka’s tone dispenser is perfectly calibrated. (By “tone” I mean mood, not weird hexagonal eyeball screens.) Adventurous moments, ones featuring protagonist Hyakkimaru dishing out pointy, sharp-edged justice, are allowed to look cool. A group of hapless villagers being murdered is rendered with the appropriate tonal effects in mind – shock, disgust and sadness.

    But that’s just a smaller reflection of the thing I really love about Tezuka – his ability to shift his highly stylized approach in illustration to suit a wide range of narrative beats but to still keep the visual feel of the book coherent. There’s the aforementioned violence and adventure, but there’s also low comedy, unspeakable cruelty, tense secrets, immense sadness, lush landscapes, and even moments of peace. There’s great visual variety, but it all fits together.

    It’s not just in the visuals that seemingly incompatible elements can cohere. In Dororo, Tezuka hops back and forth between lively quest adventure and dysfunction and sorrow. Loss pervades the whole thing, and it isn’t trivialized. But it’s side by side with moments that are undeniably fun and exciting. And they fit.

    I’m a little sad that there’s only one more volume. There’s a twist in the second volume that begs to be rendered at leisure, even in addition to the book’s basic premise. For those who have forgotten, Hyakkimaru is hunting the demons who claimed various parts of his body at birth. A supporting character suggests that limb recovery is all well and good, but it doesn’t really constitute a life’s purpose so much as a project. I was just amazed when I read that sequence, because it seems really audacious. A lot of shônen protagonists have essentially selfish motives, and to see one called on that in the midst of a perfectly sound shônen character arc was perfectly Tezuka to me.

    (Comments based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

    Upcoming 6/25/2008

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    Some of the highlights from this week’s ComicList:

    Sometimes a quantity and quality of hype make me abandon my normal standards. The latest example of this phenomenon is Oku Hiroya’s Gantz (Dark Horse), which promises much higher levels of gratuitous violence than I can usually tolerate. But it sounds cool.

    Del Rey offers lots of goodies this week, but I’ll single out the third volume of Ryotaro Iwanaga’s excellent Pumpkin Scissors for special attention. It’s about a squadron of soldiers working on post-war recovery, and it’s a really successful blend of adventure, suspense, and comedy. Fans of Fullmetal Alchemist would do particularly well to give it a look.

    Fresh manga from Osamu Tezuka is such a gimme for makers of lists of this sort, because it’s always, always worth a look. This week, it’s the second volume of freaked-out shônen quest Dororo (Vertical) about a guy trying to get his body parts back.

    And before I forget, I wanted to point to a couple of reviews with which I agree entirely. At Manga Recon, Kate Dacey looks at Fuyumi Soryo’s smart and satisfying ES: Eternal Sabbath. In a recent Right Turn Only column, Carlo Santos asks this important question: “Why is [Kitchen Princess] not as popular as Full Moon or Fruits Basket? The level of drama is just as good, and this heartbreaking A- [sixth] volume proves it.”