The Manga Curmudgeon

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

Shelf shift

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The Davis Library in Wanganui, New Zealand, is putting some daylight between its holdings for children and teens, according to this article in the Chronicle.

“In a report to the [Wanganui District Council] [Cultural and Community Manager Sally] Patrick said she had made a request to the Davis library to relocate its teenage area and the graphic novel collection to an place which was clearly separated from the children’s area in order to ‘eliminate’ future confusion.

“In her recommendation to council she said that councillors should agree that the matter would be resolved once the teen area and graphic novels were moved.”

Does anyone else detect a whiff of impatience in the second part of that recommendation? I couldn’t blame her if there was.

Mayor Michael Laws seems satisfied with the resolution:

“‘In essence, this is to ensure that contentious material, available to teenagers, is located further away from the children’s section…my pick is that Council will not want to play censor but alert library management that a heightened sensitivity is in order,’ he said.”

It seems as though the books that sparked the dust-up are going to be kept in the restricted-access dungeon, and that some other similar books might join them after a second look from library staff.

Background and links to earlier articles can be found here.

And just because I can’t resist, readers can get another look at Mayor Laws’ leadership style in this article about a request from Amnesty International:

“‘They are a bunch of idiots, and I don’t respond to idiots.’”

Suddenly next fall

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When I do these trawls through Diamond’s Previews catalog, I generally try and limit my focus to new series and graphic novels. Sometimes, that’s just impossible.

After over a year and a half in limbo, ADV will release a new volume of Kiyohiko Azuma’s delightful Yotsuba&! I could stop right there and be perfectly happy. (Page 217.) I won’t, obviously.

A new collection of Phil and Kaja Foglio’s funny fantasy adventure, Girl Genius (Airship), is always good news. The sixth trade paperback is listed on page 221, and I’ve reviewed previous volumes here, here and here.

David Petersen’s beautiful Mouse Guard (Archaia) was one of the surprise hits of last year, which leads me to suppose that the sequel, Winter 1152, will also be a hit, but not a surprising one. (Page 230.)

Aurora enters the Previews fray with two listings: Makoto Tateno’s Hate to Love You, described as “Romeo and Romeo,” and Chihiro Tamaki’s Walkin’ Butterfly, a shôjo series about an aspiring model. (Page 238.)

I had expected more of a wait for the second volume of Adam Warren’s sweetly subversive, cheerfully shameless piece of cheesecake, Empowered. Apparently not, which is certainly good news. I reviewed the first volume here. (Page 45.)

Dark Horse dabbles in shôjo with Kazuhiro Okamoto’s Translucent, about a girl who’s starting to turn invisible. My teen-angst metaphor sensors are pinging, but in a good way. (Page 47.)

If Tokyopop’s Dragon Head and Viz’s The Drifting Classroom aren’t adequately feeding your need for student survivalist drama, Del Rey launches Tadashi Kawashima’s Alive. There goes that metaphor sensor again! (Page 272.)

I must have been experiencing a shortage of serotonin last weekend, because I ordered a big box of Fumi Yoshinaga manga from Amazon. I read it all in a sitting, and I think my aura transformed from a dingy gray to a cloud of flowers that were sparkling in a slightly ironic fashion. I really recommend it, and manga publishers like Blu, 801 and Juné seem determined to keep these mood-elevating supplements in ample supply. Juné launches Don’t Say Anymore Darling (page 289) and releases the third volume of Flower of Life (page 290). I don’t know why DMP is publishing it in the Juné imprint [Edited to note that they actually aren’t, and I’m just blurring things in my feeble brain], because there doesn’t seem to be any ai among the shônen, but I don’t really care, because I love the series to a positively embarrassing extent.

Fantagraphics releases the second volume of Gilbert Hernandez’s marvelous Palomar stories in Human Diastrophism. (Page 302.) I reviewed the first volume here.

Go! Comi adds more shônen to its line up with the first volume of Yu Yagami’s Hikkatsu. (Page 308.) In it, the protagonist can use martial arts to repair appliances. Since the ice maker in my refrigerator has been on the fritz for weeks, this concept appeals to me.

While the concept of Oni’s The Apocalipstix doesn’t really speak to me – post-apocalyptic rocker girls! – I’m crazy about Cameron Stewart’s art, and he’s teamed up with writer Ray Fawkes for this original graphic novel. (Page 335.)

Back on Yoshinaga patrol, Tokyopop’s Blu imprint offers Truly Kindly, a collection of shorts from the mangaka. Let’s see… I love Yoshinaga, and I love manga shorts. We’ll mark that down as a “yes.” (Page 365.)

Recommended shôjo reading

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Thanks to everyone who offered some shôjo recommendations in response to a previous post. For my own convenience and future reference, I thought I would put together a list of titles mentioned in the comments thread. I’ve listed them alphabetically by number of recommendations they received.

Three recommendations:

  • Ouran High School Host Club (Viz – Shojo Beat)
  • Wallflower, The (Del Rey)

    • Two recommendations:

  • Bring It On! (Ice Kunion)
  • Sensual Phrase (Viz)
  • Tenshi Ja Nai!! (Go! Comi)

    • One recommendation:

  • Antique Gift Shop (Ice Kunion)
  • Azumanga Daioh (ADV) – originally published in a seinen magazine
  • Basara (Viz)
  • Cain Saga, The (Viz – Shojo Beat)
  • Can’t Lose You (Netcomics)
  • Doubt!! (Viz)
  • Gals! (CMX)
  • Godchild (Viz – Shojo Beat)
  • Hissing (Ice Kunion)
  • School Rumble (Del Rey) – originally published in a shônen magazine
  • Skip Beat! (Viz – Shojo Beat)
  • Strawberry Marshmallow (Tokyopop) – originally published in a seinen magazine
  • Sugar Sugar Rune (Del Rey)
  • Tail of the Moon (Viz – Shojo Beat)
  • Time Guardian (CMX)
  • Tramps Like Us (Tokyopop) – originally published in a josei magazine
  • Witch Class (Infinity Studios)
  • W Juliet (Viz) – 1
  • You’re So Cool (Ice Kunion)

    • Previews:

  • Little Queen (Tokyopop)
  • My Heavenly Hockey Club (Del Rey)
  • Yurara (Viz – Shojo Beat)

    • Scanlations:

  • Koukou Debut (Margaret Comics)

    • It's not all ecotourism and organic lamb

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    The Wanganui Chronicle has a follow-up to yesterday’s piece on potentially age-inappropriate graphic novels, talking to librarian Sally Patrick. It sounds like the library is doing everything applicable regulations and good sense require and that the staff is willing to go a bit further, if necessary:

    “[Patrick] said the items that [concerned parent who used a child’s library card to check out nipple-baring manga] Mrs [Julie] Gordon submitted for a ruling came back with a classification that was age-appropriate for a teenage collection if that collection is developed for 13 to 18-year-olds.

    “‘What the library must then do is ensure the item is classified and access is restricted to the age groups that have been defined.’

    “She said the library needed to look at the proximity of the teenage area to the children’s area and ensure that any ‘potential confusion is eliminated’.

    “Books with a classification were not publicly accessible in the library and anyone wanting a book carrying an age classification would have to ask staff for it.”

    Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws has also become involved:

    “‘It is not a question of censoring and removing the books, so much as indicating their appropriateness for which age group,’ he said.

    “Mr Laws stressed that councils should not censor reading material but that freedom needed to be counter-balanced against the right of parents to restrict reading choices for their children.

    “‘Adolescent fiction has become increasingly edgy over recent years, but that should not necessarily be an excuse for younger children having access to inappropriate material. This is a good chance to debate the issue and invite further public and parental comment.’”

    Aside from the fact that the library is already making conscientious efforts to shelve materials in an age-appropriate manner, Laws doesn’t sound nearly so reactionary or opportunist as some of the officials involved in the removal of Paul Gravett’s Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics from a California library system last year.

    Reading both articles in the Chronicle, it sounds like Gordon’s objections rest more with the criteria of the Office of Film and Literature Classification than the library itself. If some of the books in question are volumes of Chobits, Tokyopop has clearly labeled them “OT: Older Teen Age 16+,” which is consistent with the R16 rating returned by the office.

    And we shall rename your land "Narutopia"

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    From a Viz press release:

    “VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media)… has announced the launch of NARUTO NATION™, a broad campaign that will bring an unprecedented increase in the frequency of publication of its wildly popular NARUTO™ manga series. In order to catch up to the present Japanese release schedule and to prepare readers for upcoming notable changes in the main character and story arc, VIZ Media will offer three new volumes of NARUTO per-month from September through December 2007 – a first for any U.S. manga publisher.”

    Okay, this could mean one of two things:

  • Best-seller lists are going to be very, very boring during the third quarter of 2007, or
  • we’re about to find out just how much people like Naruto.

    • (I’ve posted the full press release at the Flipped Forum, but be warned that it seems to contain some SPOILERS for future volumes. Here’s the link.)

    I’m still considering the possible ramifications of this kind of accelerated publishing schedule, but damn… that’s a lot of Naruto in a very short span. Will audience appetite and disposable income support it?

    From the stack: Escape from "Special"

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    Melissa, the protagonist of Escape from “Special” (Fantagraphics), is an odd sort of fusion of Dawn Wiener from Welcome to the Dollhouse and Daria Morgendorffer. If Daria is the acerbic iconoclast one wishes one had been, and Dawn is the needy abuse-magnet one fears one was, Melissa is probably closer to the reality.

    She’s ill-equipped for the average school environment, outspoken and bright but miles behind other students because of time spent at an experimental school too respectful of self-esteem and self-directed learning to actually teach anyone anything. Placed first in her new public school’s remedial group, then pegged as brilliant thanks to the wonders of standardized testing, Melissa has seen the various disadvantages of being “special,” and she’d much rather be normal.

    She’s alternately repulsed by convention and frustrated by her inability to adhere to it; her disapproval isn’t a mask for jealousy so much as its uncomfortable companion. Her contempt for schoolyard social norms is genuine, but so is her sometimes scorching need to adopt them, or at least pass.

    Miss Lasko-Gross tells her story in a string of short vignettes, not all of which dwell on Melissa’s social struggles. We meet Melissa’s permissive, relentlessly positive parents, Jacqui and Tod, who take her to ashrams and on folk-band tours. There encounters with her child therapist, among my favorite scenes in the book, that Melissa views with all of the enthusiasm of a captured member of La Résistance. The diversions give Melissa some very welcome roundness as a character.

    At the same time, it seems like Lasko-Gross is more of an observer than a storyteller. Appealing and effective as the vignettes are, they don’t accumulate into an entirely solid narrative. In a sense, that feels right, as the kind of messy, everyday life Lasko-Gross is portraying doesn’t lend itself to measured narrative momentum. But I still don’t think the book entirely overcomes its casual structure.

    It does leave you with a vivid, indelible, ultimately sympathetic character in Melissa, though. Her blunt observations, rebelliousness and frustrations are presented with frank intelligence and rueful humor, and Lasko-Gross has a real knack for rendering pre-teen miseries (real and perceived) without a trace of condescension.

    Shôjo shortage

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    I’m detecting a localized deficiency in my regular manga reading. There’s no want for quasi-supernatural episodic series, ass-kicking heroines, Fumi Yoshinaga, shônen adventures or tense dramas, but I don’t feel like I’ve got sufficient ridiculous shôjo comedies in the rotation. Sure, there’s Penguin Revolution and Beauty Pop, and I love them both, but new volumes only come out so often.

    I had high hopes for Kitchen Princess, but it turned out to be too saccharine even for me. The first volume of Millennium Snow seems promising, and it’s got a talking bat with an absurd accent, but I suspect that the life-and-death stuff will gradually overwhelm the madcap elements. I liked the first volume of Skip Beat!, and Shaenon Garrity’s hilarious review in the Overlooked Manga Festival has placed it firmly on my watch list. My fondness for Meca Tanaka’s Omukae Desu suggests I’ll like Pearl Pink.

    I’m not looking for sensitive meditations on growing up and first love. I want nonsense – extreme personalities in patently ludicrous situations, playing out stories so implausible that they actually cause mild disorientation. Any suggestions?

    From the Eisner-nominated creator of…

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    This is turning out to be one of those weeks where I wishfully assume more days have already elapsed than actually have. I currently seem to be telling myself it’s Thursday, and the disappointing realization that it isn’t is mitigated by the fact that a ton of great comics are coming out on Wednesday. In fact, it’s sort of an Eisner Nominee Showcase New Comic Book Day!

    The sixth issue of the second volume of Linda Medley’s wonderful revisionist fairy tale, Castle Waiting, arrives courtesy of Fantagraphics. (The collection of the first volume of Castle Waiting has been nominated for Best Graphic Album – Reprint and earned a nod for Adam Grano for Best Publication Design.)

    Joann Sfar, writer of The Professor’s Daughter (due out in paperback and hardcover from First Second) was nominated in the Best Writer/Artist category for his work on Vampire Loves and Klezmer. Artist Emmanuel Guibert didn’t get a nod this year, but give him time. John Jakala has reviewed The Professor’s Daughter at Sporadic Sequential, confirming my suspicions that I’ll enjoy it very much.

    Joining Sfar on the Best Writer/Artist slate is Renée French for her unsettling yet strangely uplifting The Ticking (Top Shelf). The book also earned a spot in the Best Graphic Album – New category, and Jordan Crane was recognized with a Best Publication Design nod. So, yes, The Ticking is superb, which raises my hopes very high for French’s Micrographica, also from Top Shelf. (Reading Tom Spurgeon’s review didn’t hurt either.)

    Vertical’s lovely productions of classic manga have been a regular presence in the Eisner nominations, and I wouldn’t be surprised if their release of Keiko Takemiya’s To Terra… made its presence known next year. The second volume of To Terra… shows up in comic shops this week.

    When Setona Mizushiro’s After School Nightmare (Go! Comi) earned a nomination for Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Japan, some of the reaction was “After What Who?” Consider the arrival of the third volume of this creepy, psychologically nuanced shôjo thriller incentive to find out just why it deserves the nod. Sure, plenty of manga series focus on extracurricular activities, but Mizushiro’s take is disturbing and unique.

    But really, a book doesn’t need an award nomination to be worth picking up, does it? This is my way of saying that I’m stupid-happy over the imminent arrival of a new volume of Sakura Tsukuba’s Penguin Revolution (CMX). So far, this romantic comedy has leaned heavily on the “com” and largely neglected the “rom,” which is partly due to the fact that the heroine is far too focused on professional concerns to consider the possibility that the world of teen idol management could pose romantic complications, on top of all of the secrecy and backstabbing. Things shift a bit towards the “rom” side in the third volume, but the book is still an awful lot of fluffy fun.

    Politics, religion and so on

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    Team Manga is everywhere. According to this article in The Japan Times, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso finds front-running French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal’s view of manga to be painfully narrow. Rumors that Minister Aso was assembling a diplomatic pouch filled with volumes of The Rose of Versaille are as yet unconfirmed.

    Vertical, much loved for its releases of classic manga like Eisner-nominated Ode to Kirihito and To Terra…, will be launching a line of contemporary titles, according to this article in Publishers Weekly:

    “The imprint will focus broadly on shojo manga for teen readers. [Vertical editorial director Ioannis] Mentzas acknowledged that acquiring licenses for these titles has become very competitive. ‘It’s nearly impossible to get good licenses now, but we’ll do it,’ he said. Three of the new staffers will run the new imprint. The house will continue to publish classic manga under the Vertical imprint.”

    There’s an interesting piece on global manga in The Austin Statesman, featuring interviews with creators like Rivkah (Steady Beat), Tony (PSY-COMM) Salvaggio, and Paul (Pantheon High) Benjamin. Memorable quotes abound, like this one from Benjamin:

    “I know I’m going to be dead and bones and Batman is still going to be dealing with his issues over his parents dying by beating up bad guys. That’s never going to change. That’s just the nature of a property owned by a big company. But with manga, anything goes, anything can happen, and that’s very exciting.”

    Lots of people enjoy priests as characters in manga, and the Catholic Church’s Vocations Office for England and Wales hopes that there’s an overlap between people who enjoy manga and actually want to be priests:

    “‘Cartoons, particularly Manga-styled ones, are a good way of reaching young people, even up to the age of 25,’ says Father [Paul] Embery. ‘We want more young people to consider the call to priesthood and religious life, whilst at the same time acknowledging that many more people are making commitments later in life. We have a “both-and” rather than “either-or” policy, as we recognise that older candidates bring different life experiences with them.’”

    The piece I wrote for Print on manhwa has been picked up by BusinessWeek.Com, and is available online, for anyone who’s curious.