The Manga Curmudgeon

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

Compounded gratitude

by

I’m clearly in sync with Kate Dacey, which is always reassuring. Here’s her opening line from this week’s Shipping News post:

“I’m not one for gratitude journals or other exercises in forced thanksgiving…”

And here’s an early sentence from this week’s Flipped column:

“I can’t say that it makes me particularly contemplative in the intended way, and I’m relieved that there’s no tradition in my family of going around the table and expressing individual gratitude before we can gorge.”

We’re even grateful for some of the same things!

Quick comic comments

by

I had a fruitful trip to the bookstore the other day, so I thought I’d celebrate by cranking out a couple of quick reviews:

Cat Paradise volume 2, written and illustrated by Yuji Iwahara, Yen Press: After a fairly straightforward introductory volume, I was a bit surprised at how meta things got this time around. As the student council and their loyal cats continue to protect the world from demonic forces, Iwahara focuses on council member Tsukasa, who is a creepy little dork. He likes girls a lot, but he likes them in a patronizing way. This allows that thing where a creator can sort of mock a character that leers and condescends and teases while still featuring the leering and condescension and teasing. The criticism of the character, if that’s actually the intent instead of just giving part of the demographic a gateway character, is pretty thickly veiled. So the fan service is at a higher level than it was the first time around, and there’s also an increase in what might be called irrevocable violence. (Soft-hearted cat lovers beware.) I’m also of two minds on heroine Yumi. On one hand, it’s believable that she’s not a warrior by inclination and that she’d find these dangerous situations terrifying. (And I like that her milder nature leads her to question the council’s decisions and methodology.) On the other, she has a tendency to simper that can be a little grating. Still, there’s a lot to like in the series, particularly Iwahara’s concept of napping as a super-power.

V.B. Rose volume 4, written and illustrated by Banri Hidaka, Tokyopop: After three volumes told largely from heroine Ageha’s perspective, it’s nice to spend one getting the point of view of her love interest, wunderkind gown designer Yukari. In a lot of romantic fiction, you only get the protagonist’s point of view, and the feelings of the object of that character’s desire are left opaque. That’s a perfectly fair approach, as it allows the creator to increase reader identification with the protagonist. After all, that’s how we all approach romantic entanglements, wondering if our feelings are reciprocated until the moment when we find out for good or ill. While Ageha, with her exuberance and excitability, is more than character enough to carry the romantic tension, it’s nice to see Hidaka reveal that Yukari is almost as complicated and not just a love object. (I say “almost” because Ageha has enjoyed three volumes of focus, and it’s unfair to expect Yukari to catch up so quickly.) For bonus points, Hidaka gives us more scenes with Ageha’s frighteningly poised friend Mamoru and her deceptively adorable brother. This sibling dynamic isn’t anything new, but I always enjoy it. And nice as it is to have a well-developed central couple, it’s even better to have them in the middle of an engaging crowd of friends and family.

License request day: GeGeGe no Kitaro

by

You know what yôkai are, right? Mysterious, morally ambiguous sort-of-demons that crop up all over Japanese folklore? Chances are you do, even if you don’t automatically identify them by that term, because they’re all over manga. One of the reasons for that ubiquity is the subject of today’s license request, suggested by Kate Dacey.

According to Wikipedia, Shigeru Mizuki’s GeGeGe no Kitaro gets the credit for pushing yôkai into the pop-culture spotlight, at least in terms of manga. It was originally created for the manga rental market in 1959, then serialized in the late 1960s in some of Kodansha’s shônen magazines. It ended up being nine volumes long, and it’s been republished in other formats, as will happen with really popular series.

Our hero, Kitaro, is one of those supernatural types that just want everyone to be friends, Casper the friendly yôkai, if you will. He uses a wild arsenal of weapons and body parts to protect humans from the schemes of his kinfolk, aided by his father, a disembodied eyeball. There’s also his rat-like companion who hasn’t bathed in over 300 years and, for balance, a cat girl, plus lots of other yôkai, including an elderly landlady type. Among the things that almost always make comics better are elderly landlady types.

Three volumes of the series were published as a part of the defunct, possibly cursed Kodansha Bilingual Comics initiative. I say “possibly cursed” because, well-intentioned as the effort may have been, it’s left some really terrific-sounding comics in licensing limbo. Doraemon, [Update: KBC can’t be blamed for that one.] Sazae-San, Section Chief Kôsaku Shima, and others are hanging out in this foreboding realm, so it’s hard not to view Kodansha Bilingual Comics with some superstition. (Of course, it’s also handy to trawl through their catalog and find entries for this feature.)

The series has been published in French as Kitaro le repoussant by Editions Cornélius. Pika Edition has published Mizuki’s two-volume Yôkai : Dictionnaire des monstres japonais. This is not to be confused with Kodansha International’s Yôkai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide, by Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda, but if you can’t read French or Japanese, it might be a good starting point. (It shows up as a result for Mizuki when you search on Amazon.)

Gift 'til it hurts

by

I’m glad The New York Times is devoting more coverage to comics and graphic novels, I really am. It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that their reportage consisted of recycled, rah-rah press releases from Marvel and DC. Now we get a weekly graphic book best seller list (which, say what you will, is no more opaque or arcane in its methodology than most of the other ones) and a fair number of meaty pieces from George Gene Gustines.

What we don’t get, at least not yet, is much qualitative discussion of comics from Japan. When you walk into the average bookstore and see at least half of the graphic-novel shelf space devoted to these comics, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect at least some coverage of the category beyond sales figures supplemented by sometimes carelessly written plot summaries (which are better than no content descriptions at all, obviously, but only just). At the same time, I don’t really want to force anyone to write about something that doesn’t interest them, because the outcome from that sort of thing never serves anyone very well.

But I must admit to a certain degree of irritation when I saw this Gift Guide of 2009 Graphic Novels and didn’t see a single comic from Japan. After venting on Twitter, Erica Friedman (@Yuricon) sagely suggested that manga bloggers just do it themselves. I’ll be posting mine on Thanksgiving Day (just in time for Black Friday), and I would be happy to link to anyone else’s suggestions or host yours if you don’t have a blog of your own. Just drop me a line at davidpwelsh at yahoo dot com if you’d like to throw out some recommended manga for the nerds (or non-nerds) in all of our lives.

Monkey business

by

During last week’s round of perfectly justified disdain over the latest list of comics you can use to convert your female significant other to the one true hobby, Neil Gaiman also turned a year older, and I almost posted something in the Birthday Book category about how people who like comics should really read his Sandman series (Vertigo) when they get a chance, but is it really the first comic you’d hand to someone who’s never read a comic before? (Sandman almost always shows up on these lists, and it could be a good choice with the right victim. If the unwashed is into prose fantasy, chances are that person may have read one of Gaiman’s novels, and noting that Gaiman has also written a highly regarded, widely available comic book that covers many of his usual themes seems like one of the fairer conversion gambits out there.) I decided not to write it, because it seemed like too much work and not in the spirit of the Birthday Book shout-out, but I remained sorely tempted to simultaneously sing the title’s praises and express skepticism about comics evangelism, because how often do you get to do both at once?

Over at NPR’s excellent Monkey See blog, Glen Weldon has done precisely what I’d kind of thought about doing last week, but with much more rigor than I would have managed:

“But here’s the thing you don’t often hear about Gaiman’s series, which ran for 75 issues, helped establish and grow the marketplace for comics aimed at adults, and remains one of the most literate, imaginative and intricately plotted accomplishments in long-form comics storytelling out there:

“Its barrier-to-entry is remarkably high.”

Good stuff.

Upcoming 11/18/2009

by

Chris Mautner published an appreciative primer on the great Osamu Tezuka over at Robot 6, and it’s nicely timed. This week’s ComicList offers new volumes of one of Tezuka’s enduring classics and a series based on another of his icons.

Vertical keeps the medical madness coming with the eighth volume of Tezuka’s Black Jack. Mautner notes that the comic is “not for the squeamish, and like Astro Boy it’s very episodic, with Jack pulling off one fantastic operation after another. Those who can handle the occasionally bit of surgically sliced organs and flesh will find this to be a worth their time however.” I tend to fall into the squeamish category, and I find Black Jack to be a continuing source of delight, so take that for whatever it’s worth.

The very talented Naoki (Monster, 20th Century Boys) Urasawa’s re-imagining of Tezuka’s Astro Boy classic, “The Greatest Robot on Earth,” continues in the sixth volume of Pluto. It’s a nifty blend of science fiction and murder mystery, and it’s my second-favorite Urasawa series currently being published by Viz.

Of course, it’s not all Tezuka this week. There’s also Oishinbo: The Joy of Rice, written by Tetsu Kariya and illustrated by Akira Hanasaki. I’ve really been looking forward to this volume, since I’ve never been able to consistently cook rice well, and I’m hoping it has some good advice mixed in with the toxic father-son posturing. Even if it doesn’t help me with my rice issues, I’m sure I’ll enjoy reading it.

Speaking of things I’ve been enjoying, it’s nice to be able to get in on the ground floor of Yellow Tanabe’s Kekkeishi over at Viz’s Shonen Sunday site. The print version of the series is up to its 19th volume. The Shonen Sunday site has added some other fun series like Yakitate!! Japan (over-the-top bread-baking battles) and Case Closed (teen sleuth trapped in the body of a little kid).

The cheap among us will rejoice at the arrival of the softcover version of Rick Geary’s Treasury of XXth Century Murder: Famous Players, the Mysterious Death of William Desmond Taylor. I read a prose version of the story a long time ago, so it will be interesting to see Geary’s telling. Of course, it’s always interesting to see Geary’s telling of anything.

License request day: Otoyomegatari

by

In Tuesday’s Publishers Weekly Comics Week, Kai-Ming Cha spoke to CMX’s Jim Chadwick about the imminent conclusion of Kaoru Mori’s lovely Emma. It’s a nice appreciation of the series, and I’m pleased to hear that the title “has been CMX’s most popular seller, having gone back to print numerous times, almost more than any other.”

Equally pleasing is the news that “Mori is currently at work on another series, Otoyomegatari, which takes place along the Silk Road trade routes. Chadwick described the series as ‘absolutely stunning. The artworks looks even more detailed than Emma, which is saying a lot.’”

When one is handed the object of a license request, even an obvious, inevitable one, it’s best not to ask questions and just plow forward, you know? Because, based on Emma, I would read a Mori-penned primer on oral hygiene, especially if she included some omake strips. (Mori does the best omake strips. Or at least she does my favorite omake strips.) And I would especially love to read another lavish Mori period piece like Otoyomegatari.

Otoyomegatari1

Otoyomegatari is currently being serialized in Enterbrain’s Fellows! magazine, about which I know next to nothing except that it’s seinen and that Otoyomegatari seems to be the big hit in rotation at the moment, just based on what’s to be seen on the magazine’s web site. There are some amazing videos of Mori drawing and inking pages from the book here. (That will hopefully make up for the fact that I can’t find many page scans to illustrate this request.)

There’s only one volume available to date, but I think fans of Mori’s Emma would probably be willing to tolerate a rather slow release schedule, if it meant getting more Mori. So will CMX manage to nab this one and have a matched Mori set?

“As to whether CMX has plans to acquire the license to Otoyomegatari, Chadwick says that he’d love for the company to continue their association with the artist, but have no comment outside of that. ‘We’ll just have to see what happens,’ He said.”

I hope CMX gets Otoyomegatari, as they were the ones who gave us Emma (and Shirley) in the first place, which is some excellent manga karma that should be rewarded.