The Manga Curmudgeon

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

You are here: Home / Archives for Viz

Upcoming 9/2/2009

by

Time for a quick look at this week’s ComicList:

stitchesIn a given year, you usually get one original graphic novel as ambitious and accomplished as David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp (Pantheon). That splendid book will have to make room for David Small’s Stitches (W.W. North), due to arrive Wednesday. It’s an extraordinary autobiographical graphic novel about the horrors of Small’s childhood, but it’s completely without self-indulgence or meandering. Small’s ability to compose his experiences into a complex, disturbing narrative is absolutely miraculous. It’s a true story that flows and breathes like the best made-up story, and I think everyone should read it. I really, really do.

I was quite taken with Natsuna Kawase’s The Lapis Lazuli Crown (CMX), though I found myself a little less impressed with Kawase’s earlier work, A Tale of an Unknown Country (also CMX and due this week). It’s not without its charms, but it’s easy to see how much Kawase refined her storytelling skills between the two works. I agree with Johanna Draper Carlson’s review of Country.

sandchron6This is one of those weeks when Viz decides to release loads and loads of manga upon an unsuspecting public, including many of their very best shôjo titles. Those include:

  • the 11th volume of Kazune Kawahara’s High School Debut
  • the 7th volume of Chica Umino’s Honey and Clover
  • the 18th volume of Ai Yazawa’s NANA
  • and the 6th volume of Hinako Ashihara’s Sand Chronicles.

    • If the total at the cash register doesn’t already have you crying, not to worry. The comics themselves probably will.

    Previews review Sept. 2009

    by

    There’s a fair amount of interesting new stuff in the September 2009 edition of Diamond’s Previews catalog, along with a positively crippling number of new volumes of ongoing series that I simply must have. Let’s go in page order, shall we?

    chobitsDark Horse continues its CLAMP collection project with the Chobits Omnibus Edition, a 720-page trade paperback priced at $24.95 (page 44).

    It’s always unnerving when I read a quote from myself in something like this or on a book cover, because I sound even dorkier excerpted than I do in context, but I’m always happy to sing the praises of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, written by Eiji Otsuka and illustrated by Jousui Yamazaki (page 50). The tenth volume solicitation seems to hint at the participation of zombies, but you should all buy it anyway. It’s not like it’s vampires.

    CMX should have put some kind of sad-face emoticon after “Final Volume!” in their solicitation for the tenth volume of Kaoru Mori’s Emma. It’s back to focusing on the leads for the big finish (page 123).

    I really liked the first volume of Nina Matsumoto’s Yokaiden (Del Rey), so I’m glad to see the listing for the second installment (page 248).

    Digital Manga Publishing busts out the old-school shôjo with the first volume of Kaoru Tada’s Itazura Na Kiss (page 251). As the heroine seems to be something of an academic underachiever, I’d put good money on there being a scene where she’s late for school and runs out the door with a piece of toast hanging out of her mouth. That is not a criticism.

    yellowI’ve been meaning to read Makoto Tateno’s Yellow for ages, as it sometimes shows up on those lists of yaoi titles gay guys might like. DMP offers the first volume of an omnibus version of the series, just in time for the arrival of the first volume of Yellow 2 (page 253).

    If I didn’t already own all of the single issues, I would probably buy The More Than Complete Action Philosophers trade paperback from Evil Twin, written by Fred Van Lente and illustrated by Ryan Dunlavey. Actually, I’ll probably buy it anyway, because those comics are great, and I’d love to have them all bundled up (page 257).

    yourandmysecret5Oh, glorious day! Tokyopop finally releases the fifth volume of Ai Morinaga’s pointed and hilarious Your and My Secret. The body-switching, pansexual love quadrangle continues (page 292).

    Vertical gets in on the act with the eighth volume of Osamu Tezuka’s addictive Black Jack (page 300). I want a “Pinoko’s Most Unnerving Moments” edition. Though honestly, that would be all of them.

    childrenofthesea2Viz has been inching me towards financial ruin for ages now, but they really give it their best effort this time around. There are the second volumes of Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ôoku: The Inner Chambers and Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea, the third volume of Kiminori Wakasugi’s Detroit Metal City, and the sixth volume of Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys, all on page 305.

    Last, but certainly not least, Yen Press delivers the second volume of Yuji Iwahara’s Cat Paradise (page 310). For those of you who skipped the first installment, it’s about a school that lets you bring your cat. Charming as that sounds, many of the cats and their owners pursue extracurricular activities that involve fighting big, horrible demons. Fun stuff.

    Addenda

    by

    lfgp

    I overlooked a choice item on this week’s shipping list, as it was part of Diamond’s Adult roster of arrivals. (I hope I’m in the minority.) It’s Junko Mizuno’s Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu from Last Gasp, and it’s easily the pick of the week:

    “Artist Junko Mizuno unleashes her unique graphic storytelling sensibilities on a tale that’s frequently adorable, sometimes grotesque, and surprisingly moving.”

    It sounds like vintage Mizuno, in other words. Deb Aoki has an interview with Mizuno up at About.Com conducted at a signing at New People in San Francisco. Ryan Sands has some photos of the event over at Same Hat! Same Hat! (Oh, and Sands is interviewed by Kai-Ming Cha in the latest Publishers Weekly Comics Week about his upcoming Last Gasp project, Suehiro Maruo’s The Strange Tale of Panorama Island.)

    iamaturtle

    In other fringe manga news, Viz has added another series to its SIGIKKI line-up, Temari Tamura’s I Am a Turtle:

    “Follow this turtle down a Zen path through the wondrous natural world of Japan. Witness his simple life on a tea farm with his young master. Meet other animals such as his neighbor, the Sea Dog, an owl, a family of boars and, of course, more turtles! Come see how much better life can be when you’re a turtle.”

    I don’t think that was ever really in question, was it? Looks like a quirky, well-drawn, reasonably charming offering to me.

    Oh, and utterly unrelated, while looking around Diamond’s site, I noticed this article on the best fictional schools and was scandalized to find not a single entry from any manga series. This seems egregious, given the volume of such institutions available for consideration.

    Upcoming 8/19/2009

    by

    astralproject4Before I delve into this week’s ComicList (which is impressive), I wanted to make sure to point you towards Christopher Butcher’s examination of San Francisco’s New People center and what it might mean for the evolution of otaku culture in North America.

    Okay, moving on to the “bitter complaint” agenda item: as regular readers of this blog surely know by now, I’ve been obsessively stalking the progress towards English-language publication of Fumi Yoshinaga’s award-winning Ôoku: The Inner Chambers for a really long time. It’s included on Diamond’s shipping list, but @Toukochan informs me that the quasi-monopolistic distributor evinces a winsome disregard for residents of “the Northwesteast Corridor” and often makes us wait for a week or more for new Viz titles. So when I said to myself, “Gosh, I really want to support manga for grown-ups in the direct market, and I also want to make sure I get a copy of this in a timely fashion, so I should pre-order it,” I should have replaced “in a timely fashion” with “at some point.” Screw you, Diamond. (Update: Apparently, the problem is not with Diamond but with garden variety slapdash-ery at the local level. There will always be reasons to say “Screw you, Diamond,” but this is not among them. Apologies.)

    On the bright side, Diamond will manage to deliver the fourth and final volume of Astral Project (CMX) in a timely fashion. I’m not sure how marginal and Syuji Takeya are going to wrap up the many concurrent threads of the story, but I’m sure it will be fascinating. I’m also sure that I will wish there were more volumes. (And I really need to track down a copy of Mai Nishikata’s Venus Capriccio, which has gotten a lot of review love. The second volume arrives Wednesday.)

    delreyxmenDel Rey continues with the manga-fication of Marvel’s mutant franchise with X-Men: Misfits, written by Raina (Smile, The Baby-Sitters Club) Telgemeier and Dave (Agnes Quill) Roman and illustrated by Anzu. It’s all about Kitty Pryde’s admission to Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, which sounds like a promising take on the property.

    Random House releases Josh Neufeld’s A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge, a journalistic look at various citizens’ experiences during and after Hurricane Katrina. I’m planning on posting a full review later this week, but Neufeld has done a fine job with the subject matter. It’s excellent graphic-novel reportage. Tom Spurgeon recently ran a meaty interview with Neufeld about the genesis and evolution of the project.

    I already picked up a copy of the fourth volume of Naoki Urasawa’s excellent 20th Century Boys (Viz) over the weekend at a bookstore, which is what I probably should have done with Ôoku, not that I’m bitter or anything. Urasawa continues to fold complications into his thriller while introducing and expanding on his complex cast of characters. It’s well worth your money, though Northeast Corridor residents may have to wait. Also promising is the first volume of Shiro Miwa’s Dogs: Bullets and Carnage. I really enjoyed the prelude volume.

    License request day: More Ai Yazawa

    by

    tenshijankajanaiAmong the things I simply don’t understand about manga is why there aren’t more titles by Ai Yazawa available in English. There are two irrefutable reasons there should be more Yazawa in more places: Paradise Kiss (Tokyopop) and NANA (Viz), the Yazawa titles that have already been licensed and translated. Paradise Kiss is a five-volume treasure about young fashion designers and their gawky, ambivalent muse. NANA is a sprawling soap opera about two young women who share the same name and are in the thick of Tokyo’s music scene. Both series are as emotionally engrossing as they are stylish, and while I’m not sure either has ever topped the sales charts (in fact, the publication of Paradise Kiss actually predated specific attention for manga on such lists), the fondness for Yazawa is palpable. (And she’s a superstar in Japan, where NANA does regularly top the sales charts and has been spun into movies, an animated series, and, unless my memory is failing me, a café.)

    tenshioldFor this week’s purposes, I’ll focus on two Yazawa titles. First up is Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai, originally serialized by Shueisha in Ribon. It spans eight standard volumes, though it’s also been collected in four double-sized books. French publisher Delcourt chose the four-volume version when it published the series as Je ne suis pas un ange in its Akata imprint. I prefer the covers of the four-volume version (example above), and I suspect I’d like the heft, so that would also be my format preference. Tenshi (or I Am Not an Angel) is described by Delcourt as Yazawa’s first major commercial success. While the synopsis at Wikipedia sounds fairly conventional – friendship, love, and jealousy in high school – I would love to see how Yazawa executes that familiar formula. (As others have noted, this is not to be confused with Takako Shigematsu’s Tenshi Ja Nai!! [I’m No Angel!!], published in English by Go! Comi and well worth your time.)

    GokinjoMonogatariNext is Gokinjo Monogatari, also originally serialized by Shueisha in Ribon. Aside from being a Yazawa creation, Gokinjo Monogatari (or Neighborhood Story) has the added allure of being a prequel to Paradise Kiss. (Okay, maybe “prequel” is the wrong word. That’s reserved for stories set earlier in continuity than the one that spawned them, right? Then again, since it would be published in English after Paradise Kiss, it would technically count as a prequel, right? Sorry. Moving on.) Mikako, the story’s protagonist, is the older sister of Miwako, one of the designers from Paradise Kiss. It follows the lives, loves and ambitions of students at Yazawa Arts, and nobody portrays young artists quite as well as Yazawa. It spanned seven volumes, so it wouldn’t lend itself to easy doubling, but seven is a lucky number. Delcourt has also published Neighborhood Story as Gokinjo: une vie de quartier.

    And since I’m on the subject of Yazawa, I’ll restate something I’m sure I’ve mentioned before. I would really love it if someone published a handsome omnibus of Paradise Kiss. At five volumes, it would be a bit chunky, but the story and style almost beg for high-end packaging, and it would be a great way to introduce the series to readers who may have missed it the first time around. If Tokyopop isn’t up for it, they could always partner with Dark Horse, which seems to be quite interested in repackaging super-stylish manga (mostly by CLAMP) in aesthetically worthy vessels.

    Upcoming 8/12/2009

    by

    Time for a quick look at this week’s ComicList:

    ikigami2I’m looking forward to reading the second volume of Motoro Mase’s Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, a creepy, slice-of-death story about a place that has taken social engineering to a slightly absurd but undeniably chilling new level. To promote order and the value of life, a government is randomly choosing citizens to die in their late teens or early twenties, and readers are invited to follow an ambivalent civil servant tasked with informing the soon-to-be deceased that they really lost out in life’s lottery. In episodic science-fiction or fantasy series, I’m almost always less interested in underlying subplots than the episode-to-episode structure, but I’m hoping Mase continues to build on the civil servant’s growing discomfort with the system he supports. I enjoyed the first volume, and I’ll certainly stick around for a while.

    I meant to review the first issue of the Marvel Divas mini-series (Marvel, needless to say), but I kept forgetting to do so, which I guess amounts to some kind of a critique. It’s about four B- to C-list Marvel super-heroines who hang out, sip cocktails, and help each other through their personal problems, which range from terrible exes to questionable currents, booty calls gone wrong to power-driven health crises. The featured heroines mostly track with my preferred portrayals of them, assuming I had an opinion in the first place. Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa seems to like and respect the characters, Tonci Zonjic is a competent illustrator, and Jelena Kevic-Djurdjevic’s cover for the second issue, due out Wednesday, is a vast improvement over J. Scott Campbell’s first-issue travesty.

    CMX debuts a new series, Shouko Fukaki’s The Battle of Genryu: Origin. It’s a martial-arts manga about a boy with a mysterious family and an equally mysterious monthly power-up that significantly boosts his natural abilities. (Insert your own PMS joke, if you must.) I read a preview copy from the publisher, and I have to say that I’m just not the audience for this kind of thing. Most of these bare-knuckled-combat series seem virtually identical to me, and this one doesn’t offer any quirks or novelty to overcome the familiarity. It’s not as offensive as some or baffling as others, but still..

    Rough seas, dead trees

    by

    cotsbackcover

    You know what’s great about print versions of comics that are available for free online? Back covers featuring grizzled old men covered with tattoos — that’s what’s great about them. Now, I will freely admit, when I saw Kate Dacey’s beautiful review of Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea, I almost switched topics for this week’s Flipped, because seriously, what else needed to be said that The Manga Critic hadn’t already covered much more artfully than I could? But I’d painted myself into a corner, and I really wanted to write about the book because it’s lovely in some very unusual ways, so you’ve all been spared my treatise on 10 sizzling shônen bromances… FOR NOW.

    Happy text

    by

    I’m sensing one of those seasonal disturbances in the force where people start to get knowingly pessimistic about The State of Manga and Its Future, so I thought I’d just highlight some of the great books coming out during the remainder of 2009 in the hopes of nipping this round of gloom in the bud. Nouvelle manga, award winners, classic shôjo, an alternative anthology… things are looking pretty terrific from where I’m sitting. Expensive, but terrific.

    adistantneighborhood1A Distant Neighborhood vol. 1, Jiro Taniguchi, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, $23.00, sometime soon: “Who hasn’t thought about reliving their past, correcting perceived mistakes or changing crucial decisions? Would this better your life or the lives of those closest to you? Or would your altered actions prove even more harmful? One man gets the chance to find out… Middle-aged Hiroshi Nakahara is on his way home from a business trip when he finds himself on the wrong train heading for his childhood hometown. His footsteps take him to his mother’s grave and it’s there that he is catapulted back into his life as an 8th grader – but with all his adult memories and knowledge intact. As he struggles to make sense of his predicament his adult memories of his childhood return but are somehow subtly changed. The questions start to form … would his father still disappear without explanation? would he still marry his wife?”

    ookuÔoku: The Inner Chamber, Fumi Yoshinaga, Viz – Signature, $12.99, Aug. 18: “In Edo period Japan, a strange new disease called the Red Pox has begun to prey on the country’s men. Within eighty years of the first outbreak, the male population has fallen by seventy-five percent. Women have taken on all the roles traditionally granted to men, even that of the Shogun. The men, precious providers of life, are carefully protected. And the most beautiful of the men are sent to serve in the Shogun’s Inner Chamber…”

    moyasimon1Moyasimon vol. 1, Mayasuki Ishikawa, Del Rey, $10.99, Sept. 29: “BACTERIA TO SCHOOL: Tadayasu is a new, fresh-faced university student hiding a bizarre secret: He can see germs with the naked eye. Between the machinations of an eccentric professor determined to unlock the power of the microbial world and the doomed agricultural experiments of his fellow students, will Tadayasu ever find the cool college atmosphere he so desires?”

    itazura1logooutlineItazura na Kiss vol. 1, Kaoru Tada, Digital Manga, $16.95, Nov. 4: “High school senior Kotoko Aihara has had a crush on Naoki Irie since freshman year. Unfortunately, there a few things are discouraging her from to him: he’s a member of ‘Class A,’ the top ranking class in school, whereas she’s in ‘Class F’; he gets the top score on every exam; and he’s so smart, popular and handsome that he’s been class president every year. When Kotoki finally musters up the courage to present him with a love letter, though, Naoki outright refuses it, telling her point blank—with a look of disgust and boredom—that he doesn’t like ‘stupid girls.’ Poor Kotoko’s worst nightmare! Her heart is broken, but then a change in circumstance forces Naoki and Kotoko to be together every day…!?”

    ax1Ax (vol. 1): A Collection of Alternative Manga, $29.95, Dec. 29: “Ax is the premier Japanese magazine for alternative comics. Published bi-monthly for over ten years now, the pages of Ax contain the most creative and cutting-edge works of independent comics in the world’s largest comics industry. Now Top Shelf presents a 400-page collection of stories from ten years of Ax history, translated into English for the first time! This groundbreaking book includes work by 33 artists, including Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Akino Kondoh, Kazuichi Hanawa, Shinichi Abe, and many many more!”

    Pinoko says…

    by

    pinoko1

    Um… sure you are, Pinoko, but remember what we talked about? How you were going to mention Kate Dacey’s Black Jack Contest over at The Manga Critic? It ends at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 5, and it’s open to United States residents 18 years of age or older.

    pinoko2

    Well, then you could enter to win the first six volumes of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack from Vertical. It’s about a gifted but unlicensed doctor treating all kinds of maladies for ridiculous fees, and you’re in it, too!

    pinoko3

    Lots of people do. According to this week’s ComicList, the sixth volume arrives in comic shops today.

    Other promising arrivals include the eighth volume of Girl Genius: Agatha Heterodyne And The Chapel Of Bones (Airship Entertainment) by Phil and Kaja Foglio and Cheyenne Wright and the 16th volume of Nodame Cantabile (Del Rey) by Tomoko Ninomiya.

    On the less promising front, at least by my taste, is the first volume of Kanoko Sakurakoji’s Black Bird (Viz), which seems to be anticipated with some eagerness. I agree entirely with Kate Dacey’s review. Those covers with the blood-flecked girl being manhandled by some dude are entirely accurate.