The Manga Curmudgeon

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

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Fullmetal

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Part of my weekend reading included the 14th volume of Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist (Viz). It’s a really entertaining series, and if you’ve avoided it because it’s really popular, you might reconsider, because it’s also very, very good.

That said, the latest installment left me feeling a little at odds.

(Spoilers after the cut.)

So pretty much everyone knows everything about the big government conspiracy, largely because the big government conspiracy basically decided to tell them. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. It doesn’t precisely raise the threat level, which was always fairly high, but it transforms it into something rather different.

It seems like Arakawa was ready to shake up her toy box and fuel the next big chunk of narrative. In fact, it kind of reminds me of the big mid-series development in Death Note (Shonen Jump Advanced), and while it opens up all kinds of new plot twists, there’s also the vague sense of the air being let out. On one hand, the good guys were too bright and tenacious to be in the dark forever; on the other, it’s going to take some doing to reposition all of the major players in their new, murkier moral landscape.

The series is up to its 17th volume in Japan, though I have no idea if Arakawa has set an end point on it as yet. This does seem like the beginning of an endgame to me. That doesn’t mean it won’t be protracted, obviously. Does the news of a new series from Arakawa indicate impending closure on Fullmetal? I don’t know.

I have to note that Arakawa does some of the funniest extras in manga. They’re like excellent petit fours after a really good meal.

Quick comic comments: Gin Tama vol. 2

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I’m going to have to stop saying things like “I don’t like comics about dim-witted lowlifes,” because every time I do, something like Hideaki Sorachi’s Gin Tama (Viz – Shonen Jump Advanced) comes along to contradict me. In my defense, I think Gin Tama is an uncommonly good comic about dim-witted lowlifes.

The second volume builds smartly on the virtues of the first. Gin and his cohorts run through another round of decidedly odd jobs that range from the weirdly romantic to the disturbingly creepy. Sorachi’s aggressive approach to comedy ties everything together, and his cast (disarmed samurai Gin, scolding four-eyes Shinpachi, and adorably violent alien Kagra) really start clicking as a unit. (Okay, they don’t function well as co-workers, but they make quite a comedy troupe.)

It’s fairly episodic, but there are enough recurring elements and hinted-at secrets to give it a little more heft than it might otherwise have. Gin’s uneasy relationships with both the local cops and the hometown terrorist cell have lots of promise for future stories; both factions are about equally morally iffy, which is interesting in its own right.

And it’s very, very funny. Underlying all of the low-brow antics is some real wit and perceptiveness. There’s a very high rate of return on even the throw-away gags. The art is just right for the material, too.

About a third of the way through the second volume, I said to myself that this is one of the best new shônen series I’ve read all year. For a book whose kanji title can be read as “Testicles,” this is quite a surprise, though it’s certainly a pleasant one.

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

Upcoming 8/22

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With a relatively lean week on our hands, you’d think it would be easy to single out a pick of the week, but it’s a tough call.

Fond as I am of comics about food, I can’t wait to check out a comic starring food. In this case, it’s David Yurkovich’s Death By Chocolate – Redux (Top Shelf). I’ll just let the first sentence of the solicitation do the talking:

“Agent Swete — an unlikely hero comprised of organic chocolate and a member of the FBI’s Food Crimes Division — and his sharp-tongued partner, Anderson, investigate a series of bizarre, food-inspired crimes.”

Sold! (“Food Crimes Division” inspires a lot of unkind Sandra Lee jokes, but I’ll spare you.)

I’m a sucker for both hype and manga that lives on the border of shôjo and josei, so I’ll have to pick up a copy of the new Shojo Beat from Viz. It includes the debut chapter of Chika Umino’s Honey and Clover, an eagerly anticipated Kodansha Award winner about a group of students at an art college. It sounds right up my alley.

A new issue of Jimmy Gownley’s Amelia Rules! is always worth noting.

Netcomics re-offers the first volume of Morim Kang’s 10, 20 and 30. Katherine Dacey-Tsuei has already made an extremely persuasive case for the book over in her latest Weekly Recon column, so I’ll just point you there.

Oh, and it’s Viz Signature week at comic shops with new volumes about endangered elementary school students, saintly doctors and the serial killers who fixate on them, and ruinously endowed assassins. Choose your poison.

Random happy linkblogging

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NPR is really getting its geek on lately. First they do that piece on the Eisner Awards for All Things Considered, and then they cover not just anime, but a really specific niche of anime fandom on today’s Morning Edition.

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I know that it’s kind of irksome when a publisher is specifically created to be a movie property shop, but since Tokyopop established itself as a comic publisher first, I’ll give them a pass and not get too cynical about their new deal with the William Morris Agency.

And who would have ever guessed that Princess Ai would be one of their first in-development properties?

(I said I wouldn’t get too cynical. I didn’t say I wouldn’t get cynical at all.)

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It’s impossible for me to be cynical at all about the news of the strong sales for Drawn & Quarterly’s collection of Tove Jansson’s Moomin strips, because I love them. I also squealed a little bit when I saw the second volume listed in the current Previews catalog.

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It’s very kind of John Jakala to suggest coping strategies for people who will be a little discombobulated by the slower release schedule for Bleach. From a purely selfish perspective, this means it will be easier for me to catch up. (Has anyone else seen that tacky Cartoon Network commercial for the Bleach anime starring Orihime’s rack?)

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Regarding the next wave of Minx books, I’m so delighted to see that Joelle Jones is drawing one of them. I think she’s just incredibly talented. I’m also happy that Andi Watson is following up on his Clubbing character. (Is Josh Howard drawing it? If not, I won’t mind too much, as I thought his illustrations were kind of serviceable.)

Brian Wood isn’t the first creator that would come to my mind when lining up people to create for Minx, but that’s neither here nor there.

Upcoming 8/1

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With San Diego behind us all, it’s back to the weekly Wednesday routine.

Meca Tanaka’s funky, charming Omukae Desu (CMX) ends with its fifth volume. Will Aguma get over her crush on a dead guy? Will Madoka break through her veneer of hostility? What will the theme days be?

Debuting from CMX is Makoto Tateno’s King of Cards. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by game-based manga in the past, and the idea of a shôjo take on the subject is kind of interesting conceptually. That said, the preview didn’t grab me. Card-game enthusiasts might like it, though I have no idea if the game Tateno has invented bears any resemblance to actual games of this nature. I couldn’t really follow the rules, so dramatic reversals in matches might not be generating the proper level of excitement.

It’s a big week for Del Rey, with new volumes of lots of series and a debut, Alive, by Tadashi Kawashima and Adachitoka. Now this preview did grab me. After a somewhat shaky opening sequence, Kawashima gets down to business with a creepy tale of a suicide virus that cuts a chunk out of the population and leaves a group of schoolmates in terrible danger. The highlight here is the cinematic pacing, with tense cuts between simultaneous terrors. There’s also lots of mystery, a solid cast, and plenty of promising material to cover in future volumes.

My personal picks among the already-in-progress series are the second volume of Mushishi, a beautifully drawn supernatural travelogue of sorts, and the tenth volume of Nodame Cantabile, a quirky soap opera about music students.

In case you missed it the first time, NBM offers you another crack at Nicolas DeCrécy’s Glacial Period. I’ve run out of ways to summarize how unique and entertaining this book is, so I’ll just point you to this old review.

It’s not a huge week for Viz, but it is a fairly eclectic one, with new volumes of The Drifting Classroom (#7), Fullmetal Alchemist (#14), Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (#4), and Naoki Urasawa’s Monster (#10). If I had to choose only one, I’d probably be in trouble, though I have to admit that I’d ultimately go with Fullmetal. Drifting is hyperactive and crazy, Inubaka is sweet, and Monster has its many odd charms, but Fullmetal is crack.

Upcoming 7/11

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It’s that time of the week for another tour through the ComicList. I’d try to come up with some thematic introduction, but it’s just too hot.

On the debut front, CMX rolls out Samurai Commando Mission 1549 (original concept by Ryo Hanmura; written by Harutoshi Fukui; illustrated by Ark Performance). I’ve seen a short preview of the series, and it looks insane (in a good way).

From Minx comes Andi Watson’s Clubbing. While my first choice for “next Andi Watson project” would be more of Princess at Midnight, this looks like a fun read. Murder in the English countryside should more than make up for the painfully hip fashions of the protagonist.

I don’t see it listed on the ComicList, or in the local shop’s “what’s on tap” e-mail, but Katherine Dacey-Tsuei heralds its arrival of Byun Byung-Jun’s Run, Bong-Gu, Run! (NBM) in the latest Weekly Recon. I know I pre-ordered this, so I just have to be patient. It looks wonderful, as most books from NBM are.

On the continuing series front, it’s hard to decide which is more enticing: a second installment of that priests-versus-zombies extravaganza, Black Sun Silver Moon (Go! Comi) or the ninth chapter of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster. I can’t choose, so I won’t, and I’ll just get them both.

I’ll probably wait for the paperback, but I’m happy to see the second volume of Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E.: I Kick Your Face (Marvel), moving through the production pipeline. I thought the first collection was hilarious.

Exes

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Okay, I’ve finally gotten around to composing the list of manga series I’ve dumped after a fairly significant investment of volumes (inspired by John Jakala). Looking at them, the common thread seems to be novelty wearing off. And this doesn’t count the series where I tried a single volume and decided to give it a pass, because I’m terrified that any mention of them would lead to people swearing that things improved later and that I’m really cheating myself by not reading a little farther. Because I’m totally susceptible and would find my B&N member card and car keys and say, “D’or, okay!”

Absolute Boyfriend, by Yuu Watase (Viz – Shojo Beat): There’s just something depressing about the premise here. If the heroine had come out and said, “Listen, he’s hot, he’s devoted, and he’ll never cheat on me, you lowly human, and I don’t feel like working very hard on a relationship,” that might have been one thing. But the suggestion that there’s actually some kind of competition-fostering inner life to the robot guy is just something I don’t see.

Case Closed, by Gosho Aoyama (Viz): This is a perfectly pleasant mystery series with a cute premise and absolutely nothing in the way of forward momentum. What finally broke me was the knowledge that the series is still apparently going strong in Japan with some 60 volumes in print. I couldn’t see myself making that kind of commitment to something that was just reasonably entertaining.

Cromartie High School, by Eiji Nonaka (ADV): I’ll chalk this one up to too much of a good, weird thing. I just couldn’t quite keep up with the releases, as there was always something with an ongoing narrative that I wanted to read more. It’s funny and weird, and I’m fairly sure I might check in with the series again at some point when I need a disorienting laugh. But it doesn’t feel like something I need to “subscribe to,” per se. Am I spoiled? (On the bright side, it’s like the only opportunity I’ve ever had to link to ADV’s web site without it being in the context of not being able to find information on a series.)

Iron Wok Jan! by Shinji Saiyo (DrMaster): I’m really making a lot of you weep for my taste, aren’t I? I’m not doing it on purpose, I swear. And again, I like what I’ve read of the series. It just didn’t seem to be going anywhere, and I guess I need narrative momentum more than I thought. Like Cromartie, though, it’s always possible that I’ll pick up a couple of volumes on a rainy day when I need outrageous, over-the-top culinary action.

I’m trying to decide whether or not to count Shuri Shiozu’s Eerie Queerie (Tokyopop). It’s only four volumes long, and I made it through two of them. The first was really promising, the second was creepy in all the wrong ways, and I have no idea about the third and fourth and plan to keep it that way.

And just for bonus points and to give more people the opportunity to tell me how foolish I am for even considering such a reckless course of behavior, here are some series that are on the bubble:

Eden! It’s an Endless World, by Hiroki Endo (Dark Horse): Seriously, if I wanted to read about gangsters, prostitutes and illegal narcotics, there are approximately one billion choices out there in the world that didn’t bait-and-switch me with a thoughtful sci-fi introductory run. This is not what I was led to expect from the series, and I find myself irritated to a possibly unreasonable degree.

(Update: Myk speaks… from the FUTURE! Or in this case, Germany, where more Eden is available, and he confirms Huff’s assurance that the hookers-and-blow mini-arc comes to an end and things get back to abnormal. That’s good news, but I still think that wedging this story into a landscape where the vast majority of the population has been turned into crumbled Swarovsky figurines was a really, really bad, self-indulgent idea.)

Kindaichi Case Files, by Kanari Yozaburo and Sato Fumiya (Tokyopop): You know what could get me more invested in this series? A forward time-jump that gets Kindaichi out of high school and into a different setting with a different dynamic. He can still be a slacker, but I think moving him to a different stage of his life would revitalize things. I feel like there needs to be a sense of time passing that isn’t limited to references to previous cases.

(Still no Tokyopop links available, as 2.0 is still in limbo.)

Diamonds

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Okay, when I come home from the comics shop, I usually read… y’know… comics, but I find myself distracted by all kinds of manga craziness in the new Previews catalog.

CMX launches a new line for mature readers featuring two horror titles. The first is Kanako (School Zone) Inuki’s Presents. The second is Iqura Sugimoto’s Variante, which sounds kind of like Parasyte. They’ll both be in a larger format (5.5” x 8”) at a slightly higher price ($12.99). I’d also like to note that the cover for the second volume of Masashi Tanaka’s Gon is the cutest thing ever.

Horror fans will be pleased to see Viz give the Signature treatment to two works by Junji Ito – Uzumaki and Gyo, which they’d published previously. I haven’t read Gyo, but Uzumaki is amazingly creepy, for the most part.

Tokyopop gets on the omnibus with “Ultimate Editions” of Battle Royale, Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy, and Fruits Basket, collecting multiple volumes at a time in a hardcover packaging. Royale ($24.99) and Warcraft ($29.99) collect three volumes per, though Fruits Basket ($14.99) seems to stick to two.

In other Tokyopop news, they seem to have cut back a bit on their Previews pages, skipping the cover images for many of their longer-running series and going with more conventional listings, concentrating the illustrations on new series and products. (They still provide cover art for a good half of those end-of-the-section listings, though.) One of the books getting the full treatment is Kozue Amano’s Aqua, which I would be looking forward to even if the solicitation didn’t include the possibly snarky promise of a “refreshed translation.”

(The publisher’s revised web site isn’t quite up and running yet, as has been noted elsewhere, but I’ll add links when it goes live, provided the redesign doesn’t drive me mad… MAD! It could happen.)

Yen Press arrives with the release of Keiko Tobe’s With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child. It’s hard to settle on a pick of the month, but this one’s definitely in the running. (Yen hasn’t gotten any farther with its web site, but here’s an ICv2 article on the book.)

I’m pretty sure that these had been solicited previously, but Fanfare/Ponent Mon re-lists Kan Takahama’s Awabi and Jiro Taniguchi’s The Ice Wanderer. Nouvelle bliss!

(What is it with the shortage of usable permalinks? I feel like I’m wearing oven mitts as I format this!)

A land war in Asia

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Remember that scene between Cary Elwes and Wallace Shawn in The Princess Bride? Imagine that stretched out to about 200 pages, and you’ll have some sense of what awaits you in the concluding volume of Death Note (Viz).

I loved the series, but darn it, that was the head-talkingest tankoubon I’ve ever seen IN MY LIFE.

(And if you don’t remember that scene from The Princess Bride, and it’s because you’ve never seen it, you really should. Or you should read the book. Or both. It’s one of those rare instances where they’re equally good.)

Upcoming

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Who’s the weird, green-haired tyke all the manga readers like? Yotsuba&! Yes, the fourth volume of Kyohiko Azuma’s much-loved, long-dormant series arrives Wednesday in better comic shops everywhere courtesy of ADV. I’ll let you absorb that for a moment, then distract you with the knowledge that Tokyopop has picked up Ai Morinaga’s delightful Your and My Secret, along with 37 other titles. ADV squeezed out a single volume of the series years ago, then left us all hanging.

Fantagraphics releases Human Diastrophism, the second collection of Gilbert Hernandez’s richly entertaining Palomar stories. Information can be found by scrolling down this page, and while they’re a step up from ADV by having information on recent and upcoming releases at all, I’d really love it if they’d give a blogger a break and start building some pages that would let me link directly.

Speaking of gender ambiguity, Go! Comi delivers the fourth volume of Setona Mizushiro’s After School Nightmare. (And Go! Comi has updated its web sight to profile two upcoming releases, Ryo Takagi’s The Devil Within and Takeru Kirishima’s Kanna.)

It had to happen sooner or later, and if I’m going to be entirely honest, I’ll admit that I’m happy it’s sooner. Can you imagine what Death Note (Viz – Shonen Jump Advanced) would have turned into if it had been one of those 20-plus-volume monstrosities? The very suspenseful series ends with the 12th volume this week, which seems just about right in terms of length.