The Manga Curmudgeon

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

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From the stack: Muhyo and Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation

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Quirky private investigators helping people with supernatural difficulties? In theory, I’m exactly the target audience for Yoshiyuki Nishi’s Muhyo and Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation (Viz – Shonen Jump), because I’ve repeatedly demonstrated my fondness for these kinds of stories. The reality is slightly more complicated, because Nishi’s take lacks the specificity and quirks of books like The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Dark Horse) or Omukae Desu (CMX).

It has a fun premise. Creepy, tiny Muhyo is an executor of “magic law.” He’s entitled to hand down gruesome sentences on spirits of varying degrees of malevolence, and he takes a certain delight in messing with the heads of the living and the dead. Roji is his dorky, good-natured clerk, trying to work his way up the magic law ladder and keep Muhyo from scaring away all of their clients.

As a comedy duo, they’re functional but unexceptional. They don’t have the depth of character to really nail the jokes. That leaves most of the entertainment heavy lifting to their clients and cases.

The series is on firmer ground there. Nishi comes up with some nifty and varied hauntings, and there are some nice shivers in the individual chapters. (Is there anything spookier than a possessed doll?) There’s next to no gore in the illustrations, but Nishi has great visual imagination. The set pieces demonstrate a neatly gruesome energy.

As these kinds of series go, it’s not the best. (That would be Kurosagi, followed closely by the too-short Mail, also from Dark Horse.) But it’s pretty good, and with more attention to character, it could notch up to really good.

(Based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

Upcoming 11/7/2007

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It’s nice when there’s a clear and present Pick of the Week to be found on the shipping list. This time around, it’s the Azumanga Daioh Omnibus from ADV. (I know!) It’s like ADV is trying to balance its karma by keeping a steady stream of Kiyohiko Azuma manga. And it’s working. Anyway, much as I love Azuma’s Yotsuba&! (also from ADV… see? See?), I’ve yet to sample this gag-strip series. It’s like I was waiting for just the right opportunity.

There was a lot to like in the first Mammoth Book of Best New Manga (Carroll & Graf), and I’m sure I’ll find the same to be true the second volume. Even though it doesn’t seem to have a new chapter of Andi Watson’s “Princess at Midnight.” Which is just wrong. Though I did pick up Glister in Vegas, and that should prove an adequate substitute when I get around to reading it.

On the “new volumes of ongoing series” front, we have Eden: It’s an Endless World! Vol. 9 from Dark Horse, Kindaichi Case Files Vol. 16 from Tokyopop, and Gin Tama Vol. 3 from Viz. Goodness aplenty, and I’m particularly pleased with the preview blurb for Eden, which doesn’t even mention drug kingpins or crack whores.

In other news, Maintenance (Oni Press) takes on Starbucks. That should be fun.

The Beat goes on

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I thought I’d get around to putting a column together on Sunday, but roughly 13 hours in airports or on planes left me incapable of coherent thought. Things will be back on schedule next week.

To ease myself back into society, I turned to shôjo, catching up with some reading that I didn’t have time to get to before I left (and didn’t think to pack).

I strongly suspected I’d like Chica Umino’s Honey and Clover before I ever picked up an issue of Shojo Beat, and I do, but the real surprise is always Hinako Ashihara’s Sand Chronicles. It’s really so lovely and perfectly pitched, and I hope it doesn’t get lost in the wave of titles from this imprint. It’s equally effective in its portrayal of big, life-changing moments and small-but-telling ones. I hope lots of people give it a look when it comes out in digest form.

The seventh volume of Ai Yazawa’s Nana arrived somewhat belatedly at the local comic shop, and it comes as a surprise to me that something was actually missing from the previous six: Jun and her boyfriend sitting in bed and talking trash about the main characters. I didn’t realize this before, but I could read three or four volumes that consisted of nothing but snarky pillow talk between these two. Don’t get me wrong – I love the Nanas and the bands and their respective hangers-on, but it was lovely and funny to see people look at them with something resembling perspective.

Upcoming 10/10

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Just because Jason Thompson’s Manga: The Complete Guide (Del Rey) is clearly the must-buy item on this week’s ComicList doesn’t mean it’s the only item worth mentioning.

If it weren’t for the Guide, the pick of the week might be the fifth volume of Kiyohiko Azuma’s absolutely delightful Yotsuba&! (ADV). Cardboard robot battles! A trip to the beach! Grapes! What more do you need?

Yes, they hunger for brains, but how do zombies really feel? Someone must have already asked this, but nothing comes to mind. This archly emo look at undead eaters of human flesh comes in the form of J. Marc Schmidt’s Eating Steve from Slave Labor Graphics. I’ve heard good things about Schmidt’s Egg Story, and the Eating Steve preview has some nice bits in it.)

I’m curious about CMX’s new wave of titles aimed at mature readers, particularly Kanako Inuki’s Presents. The excerpt that ran in a CMX sampler over the summer wasn’t too inspiring, but John Jakala’s review convinces me that it’s definitely worth a look. (But I really love “comeuppance theater.” “Tonight on ‘When Bad Things Happen to People Who Totally Deserve Them…”)

Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings (Drawn & Quarterly) has gotten great reviews all over the place, so I’m sure I’ll take a look at it at some point. I’m guessing it will be all over chain bookstores, and the right convergence of opportunity and discount will arise somewhere down the line.

How have I managed to go this long without reading Lat’s Kampung Boy (First Second), even in the face of universal critical acclaim? And now the follow-up, Town Boy, is due. Must… catch… up! (Not with the help of Amazon, though. They have one of those “buy both” offers that actually allows you to pay about 75 cents more for the two titles than you would if you just added them to your cart individually, which leads me to believe that the buy-two pricing hasn’t caught up with the individual costs.)

Beyond lots of Fruits Basket product (which I hasten to note that I heartily endorse, because the series is very moving and surprising), Tokyopop offers two books that I’m eagerly anticipating. The first is the debut volume of Kozue Amano’s Aqua, which sounds lovely. There’s also the second volume of Yuji Iwahara’s King of Thorn. The first installment didn’t quite reach the heights of Iwahara’s Chikyu Misaki (CMX), but it was very solid, and it’s Iwahara, so I’ll happily stick around on the assumption that it will reach those heights eventually.

The excerpt from Yearbook Stories: 1976-78 that ran in Top Shelf’s Seasonal Sampler was extremely likable, so I’ll definitely look for it the next time I’m in a big city with a comic shop with a wide selection. It’s written by Top Shelf honcho Chris Staros and illustrated by Bo Hampton and Rich Tommaso.

Even factoring out the extra volumes of Naruto, Viz sure has a heck of a lot of product moving this week. Some of it, like Strawberry 100%, is resolutely awful, in my opinion. Some offerings, like new volumes of Bleach and Nana, are as welcome as sweater weather.

Yen Press rolls out three licensed titles, all of which sound like fairly standard bookstore fare, and none of which quite grab my attention the way With the Light did. I do like teen detective stories, so I’ll probably give Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning a look. Or maybe not, after reading Katherine Dacey-Tsuei’s take on the book. It’s not like I don’t have plenty of other options.

Dead of winter

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The new Previews is out, with lots of offerings to get your mind off the gray chill.

The first product of DC’s partnership with Flex Comics arrives in the form of Daisuke Torii’s Zombie Fairy (CMX) which seems to start with a visit to a Japanese version of Antiques Roadshow and follows up with pesky ghosts (Page 100).

There seems to be a new global manga publisher in the Previews listings, Demented Dragon, or maybe I just haven’t noticed them before. There are solicitations for first volumes of The Phoenix Chronicles by Kenyth Morgan and Melissa Hudson, A Steel Wing Shattered by Chris Hazelton, and Stray Crayons by Yoko Molotov. Here’s their web site. (Page 265.)

Go! Comi goes global with the release of animator Aimee Major Steinberger’s Japan Ai – A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan. It’s a journal of Major Steinberger’s travels in Japan and her “passion for all things cute.” (Page 295.)

Houghton Mifflin, the publisher of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, offers Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story by Frederik Peeters. It’s a memoir about the creator’s relationship with an HIV+ mother and son. (Page 296.)

NBM releases the softcover version of Rick Geary’s ninth Treasury of Victorian Murder: The Bloody Benders. I’m crazy about these books, but I always wait for the paperback version. Yes, my love is cheap. (Page 312.)

Tokyopop drops the first volume of Kozue Amano’s much-admired Aria, with a new cover and “refreshed translation.” (ADV published it a while back.) It’s one of those books that’s always been on my “to try” list, and this seems like a good opportunity to start from the beginning. (Page 333.)

I just mentioned this book a couple of days ago, and voila, here it is in Previews: Fox Bunny Funny by Andy Hartzell (Top Shelf). I dug out my copy of The Book of Boy Trouble (Green Candy Press) to refresh my memory about Hartzell’s style, and his story is really funny in a mortifying, slightly perverse way. (Page 342.)

I’ve read a couple of chapters of Hinako Ashibara’s Sand Chronicles (Viz) in Shojo Beat and found them really effective and moving. The first collection is solicited in this issue. (Page 365.)

Upcoming 10/3/2007

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Okay, it’s not entirely in keeping with Obscure Comic Month, but this week does offer a lot of titles that might be classified as under-read, in spite of varying amounts of critical appreciation.

Dark Horse offers the fourth volume of Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki’s The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, which I really, really enjoy. (Short version: unemployable psychic college students help dead bodies – or parts of dead bodies – with unfinished business in hopes of financial recompense.) There’s also the second volume of Adam Warren’s Empowered, which is simultaneously extremely tawdry, extremely funny, and very sweet. I can see how the tawdriness might easily overwhelm the other two qualities for some readers, but I think Warren keeps things in just the right balance.

If you missed them the first time around, Fanfare/Ponent Mon gives you another crack at the splendid anthology, Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators, and Jiro Taniguchi’s The Walking Man. Japan collects short works from Japanese and European creators that range from really good to extraordinary. The Walking Man is one of the most serene reading experiences comics have to offer.

Tokyopop provides the eighth volume of the constantly surprising, sometimes terrifying series Dragon Head, by Minetaro Mochizuki. The seventh volume was probably the most haunting yet, and the relatively long wait between new installments hasn’t diminished my interest in what happens next.

Viz digs into its back catalog for a new addition to its Signature line. This time around, it’s Junji Ito’s extremely unsettling horror series, Uzumaki. I found the early chapters to be the strongest in the three-volume series, but it’s solid all the way through. It’s just scarier before the pattern solidifies and you aren’t really sure what you’re dealing with.

And okay, no one would call these obscure or underrated, but I like these series a lot, so I’ll mention new volumes of Ai Yazawa’s Nana (Viz), Kairi Fujiyama’s Dragon Eye (Del Rey), and Tenshi Ja Nai!! (Go! Comi). Alas, this is the final volume of the funny soap opera of cross-dressing pop idols that is Tenshi. I’ll miss you, emotionally unstable and fundamentally dishonest teens!

Upcoming 9/19/2007

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This isn’t one of those weeks where you can complain about the overwhelmingly mainstream nature of the manga market. (I guess you could, but there are sufficient counter-examples to undermine your position.)

Yen Press releases the eagerly anticipated first volume of Keiko Tobe’s With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child. (Okay, it’s eagerly anticipated by me, but I’m sure I’m not alone.) Isn’t it time that Yen or Hachette built a web site for its graphic novel line? I can’t even find information on the book on the Hachette site. Edited to note that I didn’t look hard enough: Connie from Slightly Biased Manga pointed me toward Yen’s starter site. The logo looks kind of funereal to me.

Fans of Keiko Takemiya’s To Terra… (and I’m one of them) will be happy to see the arrival of the first volume of Andromeda Stories from Vertical. Fans of Keiko Takemiya who happen to live in Vancouver will be even happier, as she will be paying a three-day visit to the University of British Columbia Sept. 19-21. Details are here. Once again, I find myself wishing I were in Canada.

For as long as Viz runs Chica Umino’s Honey and Clover in Shojo Beat, I will recommend you pick up the new issue of Shojo Beat. I already got mine at a bookstore, but the Umino-enriched magazine shows up in comic shops tomorrow.

Okay, this next one runs right down the middle of the bookstore aisle, but that doesn’t mean Kyoko Shitou’s The Key to the Kingdom (CMX) isn’t a promising and engaging fantasy series debut.

I really enjoyed the first issue of Fred Chao’s Johnny Hiro, sent to me by AdHouse. It’s funny, imaginative and sweet, and the second issue arrives in some comic shops tomorrow. (Chao has a delightful blog with lots of sketches, pages and designs.)

Upcoming 9/12

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This is one of those weeks at the comic shop that doesn’t look especially overwhelming at first glance, but becomes a buffet upon closer scrutiny.

In fact, I couldn’t really select a Pick of the Week, though I think I’d have to give DC the Publisher of the Week. How do they accomplish this, you ask? Variety.

First there’s a new volume of Kaoru Mori’s Emma, which is a bit late but no less welcome for it. Then there’s the first release in the second wave of Minx books, Confessions of a Blabbermouth by Mike Carey, Louise Carey, and Aaron Alexovich. M. Carey contributed the script for the excellent Re-Gifters, easily my favorite book in the line, so this will definitely merit a read. And while I found DC’s last effort at reviving the franchise completely incomprehensible, John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad stands as one of my favorite super-hero team books ever (though it rarely featured any actual heroes). I don’t see any obvious deterrents to coherence in the solicitation for the new mini-series featuring Ostrander’s cast, so I might have to give it a try.

That said, DC has Viz hot on its heels, and the manga publisher seems to be going for the “massive show of force” technique. Yes, lots of Naruto is on the way, but there are also new volumes of excellent ongoing series like Beauty Pop and Gin Tama, and a really, really lovely treatment of Taiyo Matsumoto’s Tekkonkinkreet, with three volumes of weirdness packed into a satisfyingly hefty package. I’m about halfway through it, and it’s pretty amazing.

If the Suicide Squad thing tempts me sufficiently, I’ll be picking up three whole floppies this week. The other two are the eighth issue of the second volume of Linda Medley’s Castle Waiting (Fantagraphics) and the fifth issue of the endearing Maintenance (Oni).

And last but not least, Tokyopop reminds me that I don’t need to lead a life void of Meca Tanaka manga just because Omukae Desu is done. The third volume of Pearl Pink is out, which puts me only one volume behind. (I know. That’s how it starts.) Because I’m not reading enough quirky comedies about would-be teen idols.

Upcoming 8/29

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What evil lurks in the heart of the current ComicList? Well, none to speak of. I’m just trying to keep things fresh.

Aurora releases the first volume of Chihiro Tamaki’s Walkin’ Butterfly. In it, a girl confronts her body image issues by trying to become a model. (I thought models caused body image issues. Help me out here.)

There’s a lot of Del Rey product shipping this week. Depending on my mood, I’d peg either the sixth volume of Fuyumi Soryo’s ES or the second of Ai Morinaga’s My Heavenly Hockey Club as the highlight. I’ve already read this installment of MHHC, and it’s as delightful as the first. There are fewer deranged encounters with wildlife, but there’s a chapter where the elite titular team meats a plucky group of paupers out in the sticks that’s just a riot, even by this book’s standards.

On the down side, I found the first volume of Shiki Tsukai just too packed with inscrutable rules to be very engaging, kind of like Shakugan no Shana (Viz). As Katherine Dacey-Tsuei puts it:

“Even with the generous assortment of charts, appendices, and sidebars clarifying the nuances of its underlying “power to control the seasons” premise, however, I found this book fiendishly hard to follow, thanks to the characters’ jargon-heavy dialogue.”

A new release from Fanfare/Ponent Mon is always worth a look. This time around, it’s Tokyo is My Garden, by Frédéric Boilet and Benoît Peeters, with back-up from demi-god of manga Jiro Taniguchi. It’s about a cognac salesman living large in the title city. Having just read Ed Chavez’s enticing Otaku USA column on booze manga, this is a timely arrival.

As others have noticed, Viz begins its Naruto onslaught this week. Stock in dry goods and bottled water and pre-order those poor books that might get buried in the ninjalanche.

Two that shouldn’t be overlooked, also from Viz, are Kiyoko Arai’s pricelessly silly Beauty Pop (now in its fifth volume) and the second volume of Hideaki Sorachi’s quirky, action-packed Gin Tama (discussed here already). I wouldn’t go so far as to say all of the same people would like both, but they share an off-kilter sense of humor that serves each really well.