The Manga Curmudgeon

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

Statuettes

by

The industry may be in turmoil, but prizes must be awarded, want must be sparked, and the cycle of enthusiasm begins anew. Whether there’s still enough of an industry to actually license, translate and publish any of these comics remains to be seen, but hey, I’m sure you’ll be able to download pirated versions via some fabulous app.

Anime News Network has the details on the 39th Japan Cartoonists Awards offered by the Japan Cartoonist Association.

ANN also has the rundown on the 34th Kodansha Manga Awards. One of the winners, Kuragehime, was a finalist for the latest Manga Taisho Award, and there seems to be a healthy amount of interest in it, at least based on my unscientific poll.

Asahi Shimbun covers the 14th Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize winners. Top honors went to Hyouge Mono, written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Yamada. Ed Chavez wrote an appreciation of Yamada’s work for Otaku USA. This year’s Manga Taisho winner, Mari Yamazaki’s awesome-sounding Thermae Romae, won the short story prize.

The Seinen Alphabet: C

by

We’re already up to the letter “C”! That means I can write about one of my favorite magazines that I’ve never actually read!

That would be Enterbrain’s COMIC BEAM, which I’m sure I’d read regularly, because the comics it serializes are so amazing. Or at least the ones that have been licensed for publication in English, like Kaoru Mori’s Emma (CMX), Junko Mizuno’s Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu (Last Gasp), and Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son (coming up from Fantagraphics). Given the range of titles Comic Beam has fostered, I’m guessing it’s more of a magazine for comic geeks than for the adult male demographic. That’s just a theory, though.

Other “starts-with-C” anthologies include Media Factory’s COMIC FLAPPER, which is noteworthy to me mostly for having given the world Kazuhiro Okamoto’s Translucent (Dark Horse) and the recently released Twin Spica (Vertical).

Back in the late 1960s, Osamu Tezuka started COM as a venue for alternative manga (and to compete with Garo).

On the licensed front, Dark Horse has published CRYING FREEMAN, written by the legendary Kazuo Koike and illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami. It originally ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Spirits. Dark Horse scores a double-“C” hit by re-releasing CLAMP’S CHOBITS, which originally ran in Kodansha’s Young Magazine.

CMX has published the vulgar and hilarious CRAYON SHIN-CHAN, written and illustrated by the late Yoshito Usui and serialized by Futubasha in Weekly Manga Action and Manga Town. (It was originally published in English by the defunct COMICSONE, which published seinen titles like High School Girls and Wounded Man.) Of course, CMX has published some fine seinen, much of it from the aforementioned Comic Beam.

Viz has at least two fine seinen entries that fall under the letter “C.” There’s Kazuo Umezu’s CAT-EYED BOY, handsomely collected in two volumes and originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Special.

And Viz’s SigIKKI site essentially launched with Daisuke Igarashi’s CHILDREN OF THE SEA, a beautifully drawn story of coming of age and environmental peril.

And Vertical will amaze and delight with the publication of CHI’S SWEET HOME, written and illustrated by Konata Komani and originally serialized in Kodansha’s Morning.

On the license request front, I’m always game for more work by Natsume Ono, so how about COPPERS, serialized in Kodansha’s Morning Two?

What’s filed under “C” in your seinen alphabet?

Upcoming 5/12/2010

by

This week’s ComicList is pretty much dominated by Viz and Yen Press.

Viz rolls out the first volume of Maoh: Juvenile Remix, written and illustrated by Megumi Osuka based on a novel by Kotaro Isaka. It’s one of the books that Viz is serializing on its Shonen Sunday site, so you can check it out for free. As we’ve discussed previously, any series that features community redevelopment strategies can’t be dismissed out of hand.

This brings us to the fifth volume of Motoro Mase’s Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, which features a government that promotes civic engagement through the vehicle of random murder of citizens. These volumes are always about 10 percent awesome (when Mase looks at the underlying structure of this government program), 45 percent pretty good (one of the two featured arcs), and 45 percent weirdly mawkish (the other featured arc), but I keep buying and reading them, for whatever that’s worth.

If you prefer your urban renovation projects to feature serious ordinance, sometimes wielded by a talking bear, than I’m probably being redundant in recommending the second volume of first-person-shooter-in-comic-form Biomega, written and illustrated by Tsutomu Nihei. Because word of armed, talking bears spreads quickly, because the online manga community is engaged, and not just because of the nanotechnology that has been injected into our bloodstreams.

That’s the Viz highlights, so let’s move on to Yen Press. I think the first volume of Black Butler, written and illustrated by Yana Toboso, has been on The New York Times Graphic Book Best Seller List since it was released, so it seems safe to assume that the second volume will join it starting Friday. I almost immediately lost patience with the series and its grab-bag of fandom-friendly bricks and mortar, but I don’t have to like every title that gets published. It’s easier on my wallet if I don’t.

In terms of having its back catalog freshly printed, is anyone having a better year than CLAMP? Yen releases the first and second volumes of Kobato, which sounds like it covers very familiar CLAMP territory: “a magic bottle which must be filled with the suffering of wounded hearts that Kobato herself has healed.” That’s either for you or not. I suspect, in my case, it’s not, but I’m in the camp that admires the super-group for its illustrative skill and canny commercial sense but can generally take or leave its stories. I also suspect they each have vehicles that combine to form a massive battle robot manga-ka.

Last but not least, Yen debuts My Girlfriend’s a Geek, written by PENTABU and illustrated by Rize Shinba. It’s about a lonely college student who starts dating a hard-core yaoi fangirl. The original novel, also by PENTABU, was blog-generated, I think. The comic adaptation ran in Enterbrain’s comic B\’s log, and no, I can’t explain the punctuation of that magazine title. I can say that there seems to be a high level of enthusiasm for this one, though I can’t quite figure out of it’s niche or will translate into charts-worthy numbers. I’d guess the latter.

All over the map

by

Congratulations to Lorena (i ♥ manga) Nava Ruggero, who won a copy of Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)! What tops Lorena’s wish list?

“I would love, love, love to see Hataraki Man translated into English. I don’t care what anyone says — I love Moyoco Anno’s hyperactive artwork and frustrating, yet amazingly evolving characters.”

Renee (PopKissKiss) finds it hard to pick just one:

“Like you, my manga translation wish list is huge (Saint Young Men, Tokyo Crazy Paradise, most of Moto Hagio’s work, etc.), but I’ll go with Hotaru no Hikari, mostly because I’ve never heard you talk about it and it is josei (and excellent). It is also 15 volumes long, and will never, ever be translated. Ever. *cries*”

One of Sean (Kleefeld on Comics) Kleefeld’s wishes has already come true:

“The work I’ve most wanted to see translated into English is Bakuman, which I believe Viz is in fact going to start releasing later this year. Following that, I’d like to see the complete collection of Blueberry stories in English. The last several haven’t been translated at all, and none of them have seen print in English for almost 20 years. And the original Blueberry stories haven’t seen English-language print editions since the 1970s!”

Rin Mori makes it clear:

“A graphic novel that I would like to see published in English is the Japanese manga Boku no Hatsukoi wo Kimi Ni Sasagu by Kotomi Aoki.”

Matthew J. (Warren Peace Sings the Blues) Brady notes my tendency to beg, then heads to parts less known:

“Since The Manga Curmudgeon regularly covers Japanese comics that need to be translated, I wanted to think of something besides the usual manga suspects (any untranslated Tezuka/Hagio/Umezu/etc., Saint Young Men, Drops of God, Billy Bat, and so on), but no titles spring to mind immediately. I know there are tons of amazing French comics, and I’ve seen examples of fascinating-looking work from Mexico and South America. So, for lack of a title that I would be excited to hear any news about, I’ll say I would like to see a translation of the Brazilian comic Gara Tuja that Dash Shaw mentions in this post. Why not?”

Like me, Alexander (Manga Widget) Hoffman looks to the fabulous prizes:

“I’m really actually interested in your thoughts on the 1st annual Manga Taisho awards nominees. The Taisho awards are almost predictive, at least in 2008, of what is coming down the pipeline in the USA. The list is quite ridiculous, actually. Ooku, Kimi ni Todoke, Moyasimon, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Flower of Life, and Yotsuba&! all grace this list. I’ve heard speculation about Kinō Nani Tabeta? from Fumi Yoshinaga (Tabeta means eat, so I think it’s ‘What Are You Eating Today?’) being licensed, but perhaps that was just one of your license requests. Anyhow, I’m interested in two series off the 2008 winners list;

Umimachi Diary 1: Semishigure no Yamugoro serialized in Flowers; and

Gaku serialized in Big Comic Spirits (which actually won the award in ’08)”

Katherine Farmar takes us to Belgium:

“Your latest competition compels me to write; there is one title above all others that I’d like to see translated into English, though it would be difficult (for reasons that will become clear). That title is the autobiographical Belgian graphic novel Faire Semblant C’est Mentir by Dominique Goblet, which blew my tiny little mind when I read it two years ago and still constitutes a benchmark for how good the comics medium can be and what it can achieve that no other medium can manage. I wrote a blog post about it when I first read it, back when I still had a blog.”

Maré Odomo led a mini-wave:

“Pretty sure Ping Pong by Taiyo Matsumoto hasn’t been officially translated into English.”

With more Matsumoto love from Andrew hot on the heels:

“I’d personally like to see either Takemitsu Zamurai, or the rest of No. 5 by Taiyo Matsumoto translated into English.”

Jon Chandler notes that…

“anything by Manga Taro would be amazing. and Kizu Darake No Jinsei by the guy who did Tough would be high on the list too.”

Nick Muller weighs in:

“Took me a while to think up which Fukumoto manga I’d write up in this mail but since most of the other options are almost impossible to get licensed (Akagi & Ten are about Mahjong plus they move at a very slow pace, and while Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji is more likely to get licensed, content-wise, it’s more than 40 volumes long), I’ll pick Legend of the Strongest Man: Kurosawa.

“It’s basically a story about a 44 year old man who lives a miserable live and fails in all his tries to improve it, who ultimately even gets caught up in a fight with delinquents (the latter is where the story focuses on after a first couple of volumes of showing how miserable Kurosawa is and making the reader feel sorry for him). “

You can’t really argue with Tony Theriault’s general principle:

“I’ve been a fan of Astro Boy since I was too young to know it was Japanese. I recently picked up a biography/art book about Osamu Tezuka, and it made me realize how much stuff he did. Some of it isn’t translated into English, but most of the other translations are Italian or Spanish, which I can’t read. I would LOVE to read everything he’s ever written that’s been published in Japan. Some of the stories I’ve read blurbs about in my book sound so good.”

And Zoe (Manga Kaleidoscope) Alexander has a yen for more Ai Yazawa:

“I would love to see Ai Yazawa’s Kagen no Tsuki (Last Quarter) released in English someday. Quite frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t been picked up yet, considering the popularity of NANA and Paradise Kiss. Geneon even released the live-action movie here a few years back. Seems like it would be a great licensing pick to me, especially since it’s only three volumes long, but maybe the powers that be feel it won’t appeal to Yazawa’s English fanbase? It is different from NANA and PK, since it’s a supernatural title with a mostly younger cast of characters, but it’s still really good. Perhaps after Vol. 21 of NANA is released, Viz will consider it while waiting for Yazawa to recover from her mysterious medical problems and (hopefully) get back to work on NANA. I have my fingers crossed, both for Kagen no Tsuki and Yazawa’s health to improve.”

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Earth's mightiest pirates

by

The fourth omnibus edition of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece (Viz), collecting volumes 10 through 12, gives me the chance to talk about Oda’s sometimes counterintuitive pacing. This is one of my favorite aspects of Oda’s storytelling.

In “I have a dream” shônen, character and plot milestones can be as much of an ordeal for me as a reader as they seem to be for the protagonists. When it takes two volumes for a character to climb a set of stairs, I start wondering what Sawako is up to in home economics class. When chapter after chapter is devoted to the hero’s awesome new power-up and just how he achieved it, complete with color commentary from every other character in the comic, I start calculating how long I’ll have to wait for the next volume of Ôoku. I’m increasingly convinced that Oda feels the same way.

Luffy, the captain of the Straw Hat Pirates and the star of One Piece, wants to be King of the Pirates. To achieve this, he has to enter the Grand Line, which is where all the big pirates earn their reps. Since this is a big milestone, the part of me that still didn’t fully trust in the ways that Oda is a different kind of shônen storyteller expected it to be a protracted ordeal to read. It takes about a chapter. It’s a fun chapter, but the efficiency with which this milestone is presented convinces me that Oda is much less interested in the obvious epic beats, the stations of the shônen cross, than he is in building unexpected milestones out of side stories and throwaway bits that become huge when you aren’t looking.

This approach is entirely consistent with Luffy’s, who runs entirely on instinct or, if you prefer, a tendency to be distracted by something sparkly. There’s a joke in it – that Luffy’s short attention span actually ends up leading him closer to achievement of his goal. The adventures that result from his distractions make him and his crew stronger, and they strengthen the crew’s bond and their trust in his leadership. And that trust isn’t founded solely in Luffy’s ridiculous luck. He has force and authority as a leader largely because he trusts in his crew and will fight like mad to protect them and further their interests.

Another aspect of series that really rings a bell for me is that it’s an excellent team book. This may be more relevant for someone like me who’s read a lot of Avengers and Defenders and Justice League stories over the year, but Oda strikes just the right character balance. The Straw Hats are a mix of heavy-hitters like Luffy, swordsman Zoro, and lethal kicker Sanji, and smart and sneaky types like sharpshooter Usopp and thief Nami. As the best Avengers writers did back in the day, Oda lets everyone contribute to a successful resolution, and everyone gets a great moment or two that’s driven by their essential natures. Since they’re kind of spoiler-y, I’ll highlight a few after the jump.

Here’s poor old Usopp enjoying a moment of triumph and neatly articulating his place among the Straw Hats. Like Hawkeye in the Avengers, he’s justifiably insecure about how he stacks up with his teammates, but his smarts and craft help him come through in the clutch.

Anyone who can combine the culinary and the kick-ass is fine by me. While you normally shouldn’t tenderize fish, Sanji’s approach here can be forgiven.

It’s almost impossible to pick one page from Zoro’s utterly fabulous solo sequence in volume 12. The rest of the crew has overindulged in food and drink, leaving him to contend with a town full of bounty hunters. The battle demonstrates both Oda’s ability to keep things moving with a mix of high action and comedy, and it’s also just a great example of Zoro being really, really awesome.

Saturday checklist

by

I really need to get to the Toronto Comics Art Festival some year. The stars just didn’t align this time around. But if I had made it to this weekend’s event, I would definitely stop by the Fanfare/Ponent Mon booth to say hi to Deb Aoki and pick up a copy of Korea as Viewed by 17 Creators.

It’s Hiromu Arakawa’s birthday, so I should spend some time catching up on the last few volumes of Fullmetal Alchemist (Viz), which is hardly a chore. If I felt more motivated, I’d take myself to the bookstore to find a volume of Hero Tales (Yen Press), but I’m feeling lazy. Maybe tomorrow.

And I’ll definitely spend some time thinking of how many of Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey’s “Seven Deadly Sins of Reviewing” I’ve committed. All of them, I suspect. It’s an excellent read with lots of good advice.

License request day: Noriyuki Yamahana

by

In this week’s installment of The Seinen Alphabet, I wondered about the dearth of licensed titles from Shueisha’s Business Jump. Sean (A Case Suitable for Treatment) Gaffney was kind enough to chime in with an assessment of the anthology:

“Business Jump has a lot of beloved romantic comedies that have never been licensed over here, mostly as they’re more mature, have many volumes, and are realistic rather than wacky, all of which adds up to high risk for Viz.”

Sean (who you should follow on Twitter) went on to mention some of his favorite Business Jump titles, including two works by Noriyuki Yamahana that sound particularly appealing.

First up is Yume de Aetara, which chalked up 17 volumes during the last half of the 1990s. It’s about a salaryman who falls in love with a kindergarten teacher, and the description at Wikipedia calls to mind Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku (Viz):

“As the series progresses, it becomes more thoughtful and mature, with many of the problems evolving out of the character’s personalities rather than being imposed artificially by circumstances.”

I’m not having much like finding it on Shueisha’s web site, but here’s a link to an Amazon listing for what I believe is the first book in the eight-volume bunko collection of the series.

Yamahana’s other enticing Business Jump series, Orange Yane no Chiisana Ie, is a little easier to find, but it’s a more recent offering. Its eight-volume run concluded in 2005. This one sounds like blended-family romantic comedy along the lines of The Brady Bunch, but without the associated nausea.

It’s about a single father of two boys and a single mother of two daughters who wind up living in the same house thanks to an unscrupulous real estate agent. Based on the preview pages posted by Shueisha, it looks pretty cute. (By the way, those preview pages are rather discreetly linked. Click on the hyperlink at the end of the biggest block of text on the page on the listings for the first, second, and third volumes, and you can see some samples.)

Yamahana’s current Business Jump series is Noel no Kimochi, which seems to be about a talented figure skater who’s in love with her older brother, as near as I can figure. I’ll hold off on requesting that one.

The sun may not come out

by

At least nine times out of ten, comics from Japan tend to be about winning. Characters win the person of their dreams or the national championship or the right to be called King of the Pirates, or what have you. So it’s always fun to see a little failure in manga form. It’s always possible that the schlub who stars in Shunju Aono’s I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow (Viz) will eventually succeed, or at least that he’ll stop quitting halfway through whatever he happens to be trying, but in the meantime, we can revel in the crushing disappointment. I should also note that the series is really funny and that Aono seems to be trying to eschew the “But isn’t this loser secretly really awesome?” undertones that inform similar schlub-centric comics. Viz has announced the print edition, and the press release is after the jump.

This also gives me a chance to remind you that you can read a whole bunch of IKKI series for free and that the folks at Viz who manage the initiative have a really nice blog where they cover an appealingly wide range of topics. Recent entries have featured an upcoming release from Vertical, excitement over the return of Lady Sif, and an appreciation of the ongoing Free Comic Book Day that is the webcomic.

VIZ MEDIA ANNOUNCES THE NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE OF NEW MANGA SERIES

I’LL GIVE IT MY ALL…TOMORROW

Story Of A Salaryman Who Embarks On A Quest To Become A Manga Artist Offers A Unique Journey Of Self-Discovery

San Francisco, CA, May 6, 2010 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced the release of I’LL GIVE IT MY ALL… TOMORROW. The series, created by Shunju Aono, will debut on May 18th under the VIZ Signature imprint, is rated ‘T+’ for Older Teens, and will carry an MSRP of $12.99 U.S. / $16.99 CAN.

This is the story of a hapless forty year-old salaryman who quits his job to pursue his dream of becoming a manga artist – and the family that has to put up with him. While not terribly unhappy, Shizuo Oguro can’t fight the feeling that something in his life just isn’t right, so he walks away from his stable (yet boring) day job to embark on a journey of self-discovery. Unfortunately for his family, this journey also involves playing video games all day while his teenage daughter and elderly father support him. Will Shizuo succeed in creating a true manga masterpiece, or will he be just another dropout living a life of slack?

In the opening volume, Shizuo Oguro is living his dream… sort of. Feeling like his life has been a complete waste Shizuo breaks free from the corporate rat race and charts a new and fairly random career course to become a published manga artist. Sure, he lacks the talent, discipline, or any of the other skills necessary to become a success in the manga industry, but that won’t stop Shizuo from achieving his dream!

“It’s a long way to the top in the manga business, but Shizuo’s endearing journey reminds us that life is filled with endless challenges, and that resilience and humor can give Shizuo (or any budding manga artist) the fortitude to pursue their dreams despite his family’s consternation,” says Kit Fox, Editor, VIZ Media. “I’LL GIVE IT MY ALL… TOMORROW is one of the flagship titles featured in Japan’s IKKI magazine and is a great example of the kind of high quality manga series aimed at older readers. We look forward to fans discovering this great new story.”

Creator Shunju Aono won Young Magazine’s 45th Chiba Tetsuya Award in 2001 and also won the 17th Ikkiman IKKI Newcomers Award in 2005 for his manga series KALEIDOSCOPE. His current series, I’LL GIVE IT MY ALL… TOMORROW, is currently featured in IKKI magazine.

VIZ Media’s innovative partnership with Japan’s IKKI magazine brings a diverse collection of exceptional manga series to audiences in North America. From action to comedy to drama, slice-of-life stories to surrealist fantasies, the uniting themes these works share are an uncommon emphasis on creative quality and on pushing the boundaries of the manga norm.

I’LL GIVE IT MY ALL… TOMORROW is currently featured online at SigIKKI.com, the groundbreaking web destination for a broad range of unique manga for mature audiences.

For more information on other VIZ Signature titles and to check out a sneak peek of Chapter one through five of I’LL GIVE IT MY ALL… TOMORROW please visit www.SigIKKI.com.

Free to a good home: Japan

by

Fanfare/Ponent Mon has re-offered Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators, a marvelous anthology of short works by Japanese and European comic artists. To observe the occasion, I’m going to give away a copy of this great book.

Here’s what Tom (The Comics Reporter) Spurgeon had to say about Japan in his weekly “This Isn’t a Library” round-up:

“I don’t know why this is being offered again now, and don’t know of any length of time that this anthology of nouvelle manga wasn’t available, but it’s a killer line-up, a nice concept (manga creators doing places they live; French creators doing places they visit), it’s consistently attractive, and has to be one of the seminal books of the last decade. Like if you wanted to portray 2006 in shorthand, this is one of the comics you put beside your character’s bed.”

And here’s Jog’s take over at Comics Comics:

“I don’t usually mention items Diamond happens to be ‘offering again’ on a given week, since I probably somehow covered them the first time, but I think I’ll make a big, big exception for this excellent 2006 Fanfare/Ponent Mon anthology, unfortunately somewhat notorious for being hard to track down. No more! Probably the most expansive example of participant/co-editor Frédéric Boilet’s notion of nouvelle manga, the project devotes its 256 b&w pages to eight stories from residents of Japan about the area in which they live or come from, and eight stories from French visitors about areas they are assigned to visit. A big storm happens to arrive while the French artists are traveling, affording their contributions an extra linkage.”

So here’s the drill: to enter, simply send me an e-mail mentioning a comic or graphic novel from anywhere in the world that you’d like to see published in English. Nation of origin doesn’t matter, just the desire to be able to hold a translated version in your hands. Of course, not everybody’s first language is English, so if you’d like to see a comic or graphic novel translated from English (or any other language) to your language of choice, that’s obviously fair game.

You must be 18 or older to enter. I’m perfectly willing to ship internationally, though it will be cheap, and it will be slow, so I’m just warning you right now. Deadline for entries is 12 noon Eastern Standard Time Sunday, May 9, 2010, and entries should be sent to DavidPWelsh at Yahoo dot Com. The winner will be chosen at random and receive a copy of Japan.

After the jump is a Flipped column I wrote on the book for Comic World News in March of 2006.

Destinations

Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators

Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators (Fanfare/Ponent Mon) is spectacular. It’s almost certain to be one of the best books of 2006.

How could it have been otherwise? Frédéric (Yukiko’s Spinach) Boilet has assembled some of the finest comics creators in the world (eight from Japan, nine from France) to share their varied perspectives on Japan.

If it sounds a bit like a travelogue or a class assignment (you have 10 to 16 pages to capture a culture… go!) it isn’t. There were no apparent constraints on the participants, other than that their contributions be inspired by their settings (eight cities positioned along the length of the archipelago).

And there are no constraints in the work that results, which runs from autobiography to slice of life to fable. Japan provides a canvas, but it’s ultimately about what the creators bring to the experience. Their contributions are varied and wonderful – funny, troubling, absurd, expansive, precise, and moving, by turns.

One of the greatest pleasures of the book is the opportunity to “meet” creators for the first time. I was prepared for the artistry of Kan (Kinderbook) Takahama, Joann (The Rabbi’s Cat) Sfar, and Jiro (The Walking Man) Taniguchi, but I was particularly thrilled to be introduced to participants like Kazuichi (Doing Time) Hanawa, Fabrice (Journal) Neaud, Moyoko (Happy Mania) Anno, and Aurélia (Angora) Aurita.

Aurita’s piece, “Now I Can Die!”, is a real marvel. It’s simultaneously exuberant, crude, and perfectly structured. Aurita plays with time, moving backwards through her stay in Tokushima as new experiences mingle with her oldest memories. She renders herself in a joyfully chibi fashion while playing straight with her surroundings. Past and present and reality and fantasy intersect in fresh and wonderful ways.

A concrete sense of place combines with a meandering, generous spirituality in Hanawa’s “In the Deep Forest.” The story follows a simple hike from a temple to the mountaintop above it, with musings on faith, nature, and hope. Hanawa’s illustrations are beautiful, and his perspective is compassionate and expansive.

Anno’s “The Song of the Crickets” is a sweet, simple meditation on a shared sensory experience. It’s almost too simple, but the pictures are so absorbing and the composition is so lovely that you’re drawn in anyways. Boilet does something similar with “In Love Alley,” a couple’s captured moment framed in a walk down a Tokyo street. The mundane mixes with the erotic as Boilet’s focus draws closer to the duo.

I’m particularly desperate to see more work from Neaud after reading “The City of Trees.” As Neaud explores Sendai, seeing its sights and eavesdropping on its people, he peppers his narrative with flashes of his inner life. Experiences can unexpectedly call to mind bits of his own pain or heighten his sense of isolation. But they can also please and soothe him. It’s three-quarter travelogue, one-quarter confessional, all rendered with a wonderful eye for detail.

There are playful pieces in Japan, and they’re charming in varied ways. David Prudhomme creates a fable about missing shoes in “The Gateway.” François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters combine conventional travelogue with absurdist social commentary in “Osaka 2034,” filled with clever observations on class, consumerism, and the abiding power of low culture.

Nicolas de Crécy’s “The New Gods” examines the power of pop culture in a different but equally imaginative way, cramming his pages with consumer sensory overload and human foibles. Little Fish’s wordless “The Sunflower” is a precise mini-parable about the place of nature in an urban landscape.

And what about the known quantities? Takahama kicks things off with “At the Seaside,” another of her emotionally precise but deeply felt meditations on love and ambivalence. Taniguchi’s breathtakingly detailed visuals beautifully serve “Summer Sky,” a tale of unexpected love penned in by cultural mores and expectations.

Having reveled in Sfar’s playful, humanistic The Rabbi’s Cat, I found “Waterloo’s Tokyo” to be a real surprise, though not an entirely pleasant one. It’s a scathing walking tour of cultural stereotypes, eastern and western. They’re presented largely without comment as Sfar records the observations of his friend, a Frenchman who has moved to Tokyo and married a Japanese woman. The counterpoint between Sfar’s endearing visuals and the rather ugly sentiments on display is certainly effective, but it’s a troubling piece. Still, it fits – like the rest of the contributors Sfar is using his unique skills as a creator to capture a mood or moment.

Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators is everything an anthology should be, with diverse and impressive talents exploring a shared subject that still provides them with all the space and inspiration they could need. Each piece is effective in its own way, and their collective artistic power is really, truly spectacular.

Now, if Boilet could only be convinced to do a companion piece, France as viewed by the same 17 creators. They could do a world tour, and I would happily join them for every destination.

The Seinen Alphabet: B

by

The inaugural installment of The Seinen Alphabet taught me that I’ll almost always forget something essential, so I’ll note right now that I reserve the right to update these posts within an inch of their lives. Now, let’s move on to the letter “B.”

We’ll start with Shogakukan’s BIG COMIC family of seinen magazines. Launched in 1968, they’ve provided a showcase for a lot of Osamu Tezuka’s comics for grown-ups including Ayako and MW. Takao Saito’s Golgo 13 is still going strong almost 150 volumes later. It was also the magazine home of Taiyo Matsumoto’s Tekkonkinkreet, originally published in English and still subtitled as BLACK AND WHITE. Another member of this magazine family, BIG COMIC SPIRITS, is the home of series like Oishinbo and Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit.

Shogakukan’s partner in Viz but rival otherwise, Shueisha, offers BUSINESS JUMP. Shueisha also published a magazine named BART during the 1990s. There’s not a lot of Business Jump manga available in English, is there? What am I missing?

I don’t know a lot about the publisher known as BUNGEISHUNJÛ, except that they publish a seinen magazine called Shukan Bunshun and that they’ve been offering a manga award since the 1950s.

On the license request front, I’ve already discussed the apparently pasta-riffic manga BAMBINO! and BAMBINO! SECONDO, written and illustrated by Tetsuji Sekiya. What’s food without drink, one must wonder? That’s why I’ve asked for someone to license Araki Joh’s BARTENDER. And since there can never be enough Tezuka in English, I’ll renew my call for a licensed translation of BARBARA.

Moving onto the license requests that have lived only in my secret heart, there’s Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki’s BILLY BAT, which is currently being serialized in Kodansha’s Morning magazine. It’s a period thriller about a comic creator who realizes he may have unintentionally plagiarized a similar manga. It’s also Urasawa, so it has to be good, right?

On the list of unfinished series that I would love to see start up again, Atsushi Kaneko’s BAMBI AND HER PINK GUN would be somewhere near the very top. It originally ran in Enterbrain’s Comic Beam, which we all know is a source of joy and wonder.

BATTLE ROYALE, Koushun Takami and Masayuki Taguchi’s tale of teens forced to murder each other, was originally serialized in Akita Publishing’s Young Champion. It’s received regular and prestige printings in English from Tokyopop, though I recall not everyone being happy with the translation and adaptation. It’s perennially popular, though, and I seem to recall it doing well in comic shops, which tend to be seinen-friendly settings.

Dark Horse ensures that we have no shortage of starts-with-“B” bloodbath titles. There’s BERSERK, written and illustrated by Kentaro Miura and originally serialized in Hakusensha’s Young Animal. There’s also Hiroku Samura’s BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL, still going strong in Kodansha’s Afternoon.

But what if you’re in a more philosophical place? Worry not, as Vertical has published handsome hardcover and paperback editions of Osamu Tezuka’s masterful BUDDHA, originally serialized in a few magazines from Ushio Shuppansha and later collected by Kodansha, I believe.

It’s difficult to imagine, but what if your needs for hilarious pirate violence aren’t entirely met by One Piece? If that’s the case, or if you want your hilarious pirate violence to have a more adult edge, then look no farther than Rei Hiroe’s BLACK LAGOON (Viz), originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Sunday GX.

The aforementioned Taiyo Matsumoto may be consistently critically acclaimed, but his commercial record is a bit more inconsistent. Take BLUE SPRING, originally published by Shogakukan and later licensed and translated by Viz. It was not, I gather, a sales blockbuster.

But Viz keeps trying to sell seinen. Their SigIKKI site, featuring titles from Shogakukan’s IKKI magazine, is an excellent example. One of those titles is BOKURANO: OURS, written and illustrated by Mohiro Kitoh. It’s a grim-and-gritty take on giant fighting robots filled with plucky kids, and I can’t say it’s my favorite in the SigIKKI rotation, running a little too Mark Millar for my tastes. I’ve only seen one chapter of Puncho Kondoh’s BOB & HIS FUNKY CREW on the same site, and let’s just say that I don’t exactly feel the void from the absence of subsequent installments.

So, what starts with the letter “B” in your seinen alphabet?