The Manga Curmudgeon

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

Previews review December 2009

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Why just look at what’s arriving when you can look three months… into the future? Yes, it’s time to peruse the December 2009 edition of Diamond’s Previews catalog.

New shôjo from CMX is always worth a look. This month’s offering is My Darling! Miss Bancho, written and illustrated by Mayu Fujikata. It’s a reverse-harem romantic comedy about a girl whose dreams of starting a new life go south when she realizes she’s the only female student at her new technical school. It was originally published by Hakusensha in LaLa, which has also given the world Ouran High School Host Club, Penguin Revolution, Venus in Love, and Vampire Knight, among others. That would make the magazine what one might call a “reliable source.” (Page 119)

On the ongoing front, we have the second volume of Asuka Izumi’s adorable The Lizard Prince and the 15th volume of Yasuko Aokie’s mad classic, From Eroica with Love. (Page 121)

CLAMP fans, rejoice! Not only is Del Rey publishing CLAMP in America, a richly detailed history of the manga-making super-group, it’s being written by the inimitable Shaenon Garrity. Del Rey also promises “a detailed guide to their work; a rare behind-the-scenes look at their creative process, together and separately; CLAMP’s role in the explosion of manga in America; interviews, and more.” Sounds like an essential for CLAMP fans, Garrity fans, and manga watchers in general. So that’s basically everyone, right? (Page 224)

I loved Raina Telgemeier’s Smile mini-comics, so I’m thrilled that they’ve turned into a new graphic novel to be published by Graphix. Publishers Weekly calls it a “charming addition to the body of young adult literature that focuses on the trials and tribulations of the slightly nerdy girl.” Graphix doesn’t seem to have added it to its web site, so I’ll point you toward the Barnes & Noble listing. (Page 236)

NBM has been translating a series of graphic novels created in conjunction with the Louvre museum in Paris. I loved the first, Nicolas De Crécy’s Glacial Period, and thought the second, Marc-Antoine Mathieu’s The Museum Vaults: Excerpts from the Journal of an Expert, was intriguing but problematic. But honestly, I’ll buy any of these books that NBM chooses to publish. Next up is Eric Liberge’s On the Odd Hours, about “a deaf night watchman who somehow manages to communicate with the souls of these ethereal and timeless works of art.” (Page 256)

Oni offers a softcover edition of Scott Chantler’s terrific historical adventure, Northwest Passage. I’ve already reviewed the hell out of this series, so I’ll link instead of repeating myself. (Page 257)

While I don’t usually point out books that are being offered again without any significant format changes, I have to make an exception for Osamu Tezuka’s demented bit of gekiga brilliance, MW (Vertical). If you missed it the first time around, now’s your chance. (Page 272)

Viz sent me a preview copy of Natsume Ono’s not simple, and I’m even more convinced that 2010 will be the year she explodes in stateside critical (and hopefully consumer) consciousness. It’s an amazing book. This edition of Previews brings the happy news that Ono’s Ristorante Paradiso will soon be in our hands (if you consider three months soon). It’s about family secrets and a restaurant in Rome staffed by hunky men of a certain age. I can’t wait. (Page 277) You can check out Ono’s splendid House of Five Leaves on Viz’s SIGIKKI site.

Other noteworthy Signature arrivals include the fourth volume of Detroit Metal City and the eighth and final volume of Pluto. (Page 277)

And speaking of Viz’s online initiatives, a Shonen Sunday title sees print. It’s shôjo superstar Yuu Watase’s shônen debut, Arata: The Legend. (Page 280)

Upcoming 12/09/2009

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Time for a look at this week’s ComicList:

Digital Manga brings us a little of that old-school shôjo charm in the form of Itazura na Kiss, written and illustrated by Kaoru Tada. The book has already received warm welcomes from the likes of Danielle Leigh, Johanna Draper Carlson and Kate Dacey, which is a very promising sign indeed.

Viz unleashes the third volume of one of my favorite new series of 2009, Detroit Metal City, written and illustrated by Kiminori Wakasugi. Viz’s solicitation text is on the oblique side, as always (“Death metal screams the despair of dying heathens! What the hell kind of song would you sing?!”), but I feel safe in promising hilariously distasteful mistaken identity satire.

There’s a lot of other stuff apparently on the way from Viz, much of it wonderful, but it’s all got the disclaimer, “release not confirmed by Diamond Distribution.” Chances are it’s already in bookstores but won’t be in comic shops for a week or so.

Yen Press will make fans of funny manga very happy this week with two by Kiyohiko Azuma. They’ve taken a crack at an omnibus collection of Azuma’s hilarious comic strip, Azumanga Daioh, featuring the highs and lows of a group of high-school girls. ADV published something similar a couple of years back, but Yen is promising a fresh translation. I’m undecided as to whether or not to buy it over again.

Also from Azuma is the seventh volume of the charming and witty Yotsuba&!, which Yen also rescued from ADV limbo. If there was a comics industry award for good karma, Yen would be the frontrunner.

Snow storm

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This week’s Flipped takes a look at a late but deserving entry into the list of possible best books of 2009, Susumu Katsumata’s Red Snow from Drawn & Quarterly. While pulling together illustrations for the column, I noticed that the cover design had changed rather drastically from solicitation to finished product.

Here’s the solicitation version:

And here’s the final:

I much prefer the final version. It’s much more in keeping with the content, and I love that it has an almost woodcut quality. The earlier version seems rather generic and lacks the earthiness that makes the stories so interesting. The first version is also sexy in an almost pandering way, I think, and it strikes me as sort of a bait-and-switch. Going in a different direction was a very good choice.

Just out of curiosity, I wondered what other versions of the book looked like. Here’s the Japanese version collected by Seirinkogeisha:

It’s nice, but it strikes me as a little delicate. It’s more in keeping with the content, but, again, it doesn’t have the grounded quality of the stories. Here’s the French version, published by Editions Cornélius:

It’s attractive in a bandes dessinées kind of way, though I still don’t find it as striking as the D&Q version. I know (or think) there’s a Korean version out there, but I’m not having any luck finding an image of the cover. I’d love to get a look at it, so if you have more success than I do, send me a link. And let me know which one you like best.

Weekend reading

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It was a busy weekend, but I did manage to make some headway in the to-read pile.

Eden: It’s an Endless World! Volume 12, written and illustrated by Hiroki Endo (Dark Horse): Someone recently made the argument on Twitter that, for a manga series to be any good, you have to be able to pick up any given volume and understand what’s going on. I think accessibility is an admirable quality, but to say that it’s an essential virtue is to say that books like Eden aren’t any good, and I simply can’t agree with that. Given the length of time between new volumes, I can’t even always remember everything that’s happened from one installment to the next. Since I love the series, it gives me an excuse to check back with previous volumes before reading the new one, and that’s hardly a bad thing. And since it’s a densely written science fiction with complex geopolitical undertones, it would be gruesomely dull if Endo had to resort to exposition instead of trusting the intelligence of his audience to remember the really important stuff. I would never recommend that anyone start the series with the 12th volume, but I would certainly suggest that they pick up the first to see what they think and decide if they’d like to stick with it. I will note that the 12th volume is more lighthearted than average and features equal opportunity fan-service. There’s still a daunting body count, but there’s also some actual whimsy.

Emma Volume 10, written and illustrated by Kaoru Mori (CMX): It’s the final volume of this beautiful series about the class-crossed romance between a young maid and a wealthy young man. As always, period details and emotional nuances are observed with minute precision, and the overall effect is manga bliss. I’m going to miss the Emma-verse terribly, particularly hunky, ridiculous Hakim. And I’m not ashamed to admit that the Kelly Stowner shout-outs made me all misty-eyed. Will someone please license Otoyomegatari so I can keep getting my Mori fix?

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit Volume 3, written and illustrated by Motoro Mase (Viz): I enjoy this series about an insidious government program designed to teach citizens the value of life by randomly killing a handful of them, but I have to confess to some confusion about what pushes it over into the lofty realm of the sélection officielle. It’s really good, episodic genre entertainment, but that doesn’t necessarily track with my perceptions of what Angouême tries to recognize. (I confess I could be misguided in my perceptions.) That said, this volume features my favorite segment so far. It features an ambitious politician and her neglected son, and it achieves levels of cynicism I would have found implausible had I not witnessed the ascendance of Sarah Palin. I’m still hoping that a subplot emerges about the blanket immorality of the program that drives the plot, but Mase is a solid, sometimes inspired storyteller overall. It’s the manga equivalent of a consistently entertaining hour-long cable drama.

License request extra: Angoulême selections

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Here are some details on the as-yet-unavailable-in-English manga titles included in this year’s slate of Angoulême award nominees. I apologize in advance if my translations of the French synopses are on the inelegant side. Some of the titles are a little on the obscure side, so I’m not entirely sure about their publishers of origin, either. If you have any more accurate details, please pass them along, and I’ll correct the post.

Je ne suis pas mort, Hiroshi Motomiya, Delcourt

“Okada Kenzô, 60 years old, is laid off the day before his retirement, after a life dedicated only to work. His wife and children leave him, and leave an empty bank account. After a failed suicide, he starts a new life in the wild… An astonishing chronicle of isolation.”

Originally published by Shueisha in Business Jump and Weekly Young Jump.

Le Vagabond de Tokyo, Fukutani Takashi, Le Lézard noir

“Yoshio Hori, 22 years old, is a true victim of the economic bubble of the 1980s. He settles for day jobs at the building sites of Tokyo, subsists on freeze-dried noodles and squanders his pay in hostess bars. His only other choice is life in a lonely room….”

Collected by Seirinkogeisha, though I think it might originally have been published by Houbunsha starting in 1990.

Une sacrée mamie, Saburô Ishikawa et Yôshichi Shimada, Delcourt

“Akihiro, eight years old, had to leave its birthplace abruptly to go to live in open country, with his grandmother Osano grandmother. Poor but merry and proud, she succeeds in providing for her grandson by working as a housekeeper… A delicious family chronicle, with in backdrop Japan of beginning of 1960.”

Originally published by Shueisha in Business Jump.

Sarutobi, Osamu Tezuka, Cornelius

“Adventure, fantasy and humor in Japan of the end of 16th century. Osamu Tezuka shares the exciting life of Sarutobi, a trainee ninja, and, as always with the master mangaka, each page is a subtle combination of energy, finesse and humor. A treat.”

Originally published by Kodansha in Manga King.

Mangoulême 2010

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Speaking of awards for comics in other countries, Bart Beaty has the scoop on the Festival International de la bande dessinée set for Jan. 28-31, 2010 in Agoulême, France. Three comics from Japan made the awe-inspiring list of official selections:

  • Ikigami, Mase Motoro, Asuka (published in English by Viz)
  • Je ne suis pas mort, Hiroshi Motomiya, Delcourt
  • Le Vagabond de Tokyo, Fukutani Takashi, Le Lézard noir

    • Included in the sélection jeunesse were:

  • Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka, Kana (published in English by Dark Horse)
  • Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima, Pika (published in English by Del Rey)
  • Une sacrée mamie, Saburô Ishikawa et Yôshichi Shimada, Delcourt

    • Included in the sélection patrimoine were:

  • Cyborg 009, Shotaro Ishinomori, Glénat (partially published in English by Tokyopop, rights reverted to Kodansha, I believe)
  • Sarutobi, Osamu Tezuka, Cornelius

    • License request day: Media Arts Festival honorees

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    While it can make me a little crazy, I’m as fond of award season as anyone. And when institutions in Japan announce their manga awards, my fondness is coupled with a serious spike in my covetous streak. So let’s take a look at the comics recognized in this year’s 13th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards, sponsored by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, and try to figure out how badly we want them.

    I’ve already begged someone to publish the grand prize winner, Makoto Yukimura’s Vinland Saga, and one of the four excellence prize recipients, Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea, is already being published by Viz (who’s even serializing it online), but that leaves three in the excellence category plus the encouragement prize recipient. We’ll start with the three excellence prize winners:

    Imuri, written and illustrated by Ranjou Miyake, is being serialized in Enterbrain’s Comic Beam, which is always a good sign. It seems to be a science fiction story about a boy with a big destiny. Sorry, but that’s all I’ve got. Enterbrain does repeatedly refer to Miyake as a genius in solicitations for her books, and I know of no evidence to the contrary. She also seems to sometimes traffic in that fascinating crossover territory between science fiction and shônen-ai, which often yields intriguing results.

    Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni, written and illustrated by Fumiyo Kouno, is by the creator of Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, which should be all you need to know to wish desperately that it be licensed for publication in English as quickly as possible. Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni was serialized by Futabasha in Web Manga Action. It seems to be a three-volume drama about adapting to a new life in a new town during the deprivations of wartime. And it’s by Kouno. Who did Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms. What else is there to say?

    Hyouge Mono – Tea for Universe, Tea for Life, written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Yamada, is being serialized by Kodansha in Morning. Ed Chavez wrote about Yamada’s work in general and this series in particular for Otaku USA, describing it as guiding “readers through the war rooms of these feudal lords as they worked to unify parts of the country. His passion for his lord is intense, but it can easily be rivaled, if not surpassed, by his appreciation for the world of tea.” It sounds fascinating.

    Encouragement prize recipient Hesheit Aqua, written and illustrated by Wisut Ponnimit, was published by what seems to be a relatively small, relatively new publisher called Nanarokusha. Ponnimit has had manga serialized in Shogakukan’s IKKI. From what I can garner, Ponnimit’s winning title seems to be a collection of abstract shorts. Perhaps it’s more likely that we’ll see Ponnimit’s Blanco on Viz’s SIGIKKI site first.

    From the stack: Stumptown

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    I’ve enjoyed a lot of comics written by Greg Rucka, but I have to admit that I haven’t read one in a while. His Whiteout and Queen and Country books for Oni were very good, and I’ve liked some of the super-hero stuff he’s done for Marvel and DC. I thought he did particularly well with stories set in DC’s noir-ish Gotham City, as those comics always had an interesting texture and sense of place. So it’s nice to have the chance to read a comic written by Rucka that has that same feel without the word “crisis” in the title.

    It’s Stumptown (back at Oni), a detective yarn set in the Pacific Northwest, and it gets off to a very promising start. It’s got one of those gender-neutral protagonists, a female private investigator with a lot of qualities that could stereotypically be tagged as male, but there’s no reason they should be. Women can certainly gamble too much and have smart mouths that get them in trouble. Rucka is particularly good at writing this kind of character; they may lack social graces and be prone to excesses, but they’re crafty and determined. They’re solution-oriented, or at least “end the problem” oriented.

    Our heroine here gets hired to find a casino owner’s granddaughter. She’s not getting paid, but success will erase her hefty gambling debt (until she builds it up again, one assumes). She’s not the only person on the girl’s trail, and while her rivals are a bit out of sleuth story central casting, Rucka writes them with assurance and some wit. His background in detective prose shows here. He can play with familiar elements and even trot out some hoary contrivances and get away with it, because he knows how to use them. He’s not satirizing or revitalizing P.I. drama; he’s just writing it very well.

    He’s helped by the gritty, shadowy but still restrained illustrations by Matthew Southworth, who seems very in synch with the kind of mood Rucka is trying to convey. Characters look right for their milieu, and the settings are evocative. Colors by Lee Loughridge are just right; they really help convey the passage of time in the protagonist’s difficult, complicated day.

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    Rucka’s Whiteout collaborator, illustrator Steve Lieber, is doing terrific work on another genre story in pamphlet form, Underground (Image), written by Jeff Parker. It’s a survival adventure set in a not-quite-mammoth cave in the Appalachians starring a gutsy park ranger trying to protect natural spaces from greedy developers. Three issues are available so far, and it’s a lot of fun.