The Manga Curmudgeon

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

PR: I'm not normally an anime fan, but…

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I’ve heard that the animated version is even better than the comic, and I love the comic. Can this be true?

VIZ MEDIA BRINGS THE ANIMATED SHOJO TITLE – HONEY AND CLOVER – TO FANS IN A SPECIAL UNCUT DVD BOX SET

honeyclover01_boxSan Francisco, CA, September 17, 2009 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, will release the first Uncut DVD Box Set for the animated Shojo title, HONEY AND CLOVER, on September 22, 2009. The 3-disc set featuring 13 episodes will be rated ‘T+’ for Older Teens and will carry an MSRP of $59.90 U.S. / $85.99 CAN.

Based on the popular manga series created by Chica Umino, HONEY AND CLOVER is a romantic comedy about a group of art school students who try to find their way through college. But when an innocent and talented 19-year-old girl enters their lives, things get a lot more complicated as love triangles result.

What do you get when you cross creativity with self-discovery and unrequited love? Art school! Yuta Takemoto has no idea what’s in store for his life when he enrolls at a Tokyo art college, but he finds out right away it’ll never be dull! Love triangles form as fast as friendships when both Takemoto and senior classmate Shinobu Morita fall hard for shy artistic prodigy Hagumi Hanamoto. And while architecture student Takumi Mayama secretly pines for an older woman, dazzling ceramicist Ayu Yamada pines for him! Confused yet? Welcome to the bittersweet world of HONEY AND CLOVER..

The HONEY AND CLOVER manga series was created by Chica Umino and has sold more than 5,300,000 copies in Japan. In 2003, the series won the 27th Kodansha Manga Award, Japan’s most prestigious comics award. The series was also adapted into an anime series in 2005 and finally into a live action film in 2006.

For more information please visit honeyandclover.viz.com.

Checking in with IKKI

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You’re still reading the free manga at Viz’s SIGIKKI site, right? A lot of it’s really good, and it’s free, and that kind of thing doesn’t happen very often, so you should take advantage of it. Here’s a lightly annotated list of the series, from least liked to favorite. (I passed over Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea, as that’s already on the print schedule and I prefer reading it that way, since it’s an option. It’s unquestionably one of 2009’s best books, though.)

Tokyo Flow Chart by Eiji Miruno: Well, they’ve only posted one chapter since the site’s launch, so I guess my initial opinion stands – a neat idea that I found almost impossible to read on a computer screen, so I have no idea if it’s any good.

Bokurano: Ours by Mohiro Kitoh: There’s nothing really wrong with this series. I can’t honestly say that any of the series are bad. But I feel like I’m already reading a much better version of this kind of thing with Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys.

Dorohedoro by Q. Yahashida: It’s got nicely gory and detailed art, and the plot feels like it could go interesting and lively places, but I feel like I’ve read this before. Not necessarily a better version of it, but something really similar and at least as good, which renders Dorohedoro somewhat superfluous.

I Am a Turtle by Temari Tamura: I’m probably under-ranking this one due to the fact there’s only one chapter available, but I’m already quite taken with this four-panel look at… well… a turtle. Great art.

Kingyo Used Books by Seimu Yoshizaki: I love the richly detailed illustrations, but I already find the stories a little heavy on sentimental nostalgia. I’ve enjoyed them, but I’m having a hard time imagining reading a bunch of them in a paperback chunk. Of course, no one’s saying I have to read the collected version beginning to end in a sitting.

I’ll Give it My All… Tomorrow by Shunji Aono: These last four are tough to rank, as I like them all almost equally and for very different reasons. I like this one for its merciless but still kind of sweet mockery of its loser protagonist. American comics about losers are never merciless enough.

Afterschool Charisma by Kumiko Suekane: At some point along the road of life, you have to admit to yourself that you can enjoy something just as much for its outrageous badness as you can for its compelling artistry, and that’s the case here (I think). Suekane is either a brilliant satirist or a lucky hack with moments of lunatic inspiration. Either way, I’m having great fun with this series about dimwitted teen clones of the famous and accomplished.

Saturn Apartments by Hisae Iwaoka: I’ll always favor slice-of-life science fiction over the kind with lots of bombastic plot, and this is terrific so far. I love the vulnerability of the character design, the melancholy tone, and the overall concept.

House of Five Leaves by Natsume Ono: Who’d have thought? I mean, seriously? But I’m crazy about this series, largely for its alluring ambiguity. Ono is a bit of a tease in terms of where the story is actually going, and she doesn’t seem to be in any tremendous rush to reveal that, but that’s the appeal for me. It travels really well-trodden narrative territory in unexpectedly delicate ways. I think it will still be my favorite even if the two main characters never actually make out.

According to Viz’s Signature listings, there are two other Natsume Ono books in the pipeline: not simple (January 2010) and Ristorante Paradiso (March 2010).

Oh, and there’s fun stuff to be found on the site’s blog.

Birthday book: Arrowsmith

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arrowsmithHey, it’s Kurt Busiek’s birthday! He’s written a lot of comics that I’ve really enjoyed. He’s responsible for the last pleasant memories I have of Avengers comics, so I could recommend something like this. His first dozen issues of Thunderbolts were great, too, but I can’t even seem to find collections of those on Marvel’s web site. There’s always Astro City, that sideways glance at shared super-hero universes. I have a lot of respect for Busiek’s ethics of scripting super-hero fiction, I really do.

But for this edition of Birthday Book, I’m going to recommend something a little more obscure: the collected edition of Arrowsmith, written by Busiek and illustrated by Carlos Pacheo. This is one of those stories where actual events are reframed with an insertion of fantasy elements. It’s basically a world war with magic added, and it’s a very successful example of that genre. A small-town boy goes to war and becomes one of the military’s fearsome group of dragon wranglers. It’s a neat idea executed very well by all parties.

Audience development: Sand Chronicles

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I’m always glad to see shôjo titles rank in the manga section of The New York Times Graphic Book Best Sellers list. After a fairly long period where Natsuki Takaya’s near-perfect Fruits Basket (Tokyopop) seemed to carry that banner alone, other series have made regular appearances on the roster. And if they’re not precisely the titles I would wish were leading the sales pack, well, I’m glad all the same.

sandchron1Still, if I had my way, Hinako Ashihara’s Sand Chronicles (Viz) would be earning sales that match its quality. It’s about a girl named Ann who moves to a small town with her unstable mother at the age of 12, then follows Ann and her friends through happiness, tears and all of the stuff in between those two extremes. It’s both precisely observed and effectively melodramatic, and the characters are wonderfully sympathetic, largely because Ashihara respects them enough to let them be jerks from time to time.

It was serialized in Viz’s late, lamented Shojo Beat, and its first three volumes were included in last year’s list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens, even earning a spot among the Top Ten. So it’s obviously well regarded. I mean, look at these reviews:

“Manga-ka Hinako Ashihara dares to believe that even children and teens have complicated lives that are riddled with anxiety as much as, if not more than, it is filled with carefree fun. Anything but a downer, however, Sand Chronicles is rich storytelling about the drama of life.” Leroy Douresseaux at Comic Book Bin

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“Sand Chronicles continues to be a very strong story, showing off both the simplicity and complexity of ordinary teenagers trying to find their places in the world. It’s still one of the best titles I’ve read this year.” Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane at Manga Life

“Sand Chronicles isn’t about saving the world…or destroying it. These teenagers don’t have superpowers; their adolescent angst isn’t going to knock the planet from its orbit or reshape the destiny of humanity. That is not the sort of story Hinako Ashihara won a Shogakukan Manga Award for. No, rather, she was recognized for writing an affective story about realistic teenaged troubles and triumphs. In their little world of Tokyo and Shimane, what happens matters—it matters a lot—and best of all, it will matter to this series’ faithful readers as well.” Casey Brienza at Anime News Network

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“Oh, the emotional turmoil is so hard-hitting! This series has gone from a wonderful bit of recognition at the complexities of relationships to a painful observation of the things people do that can hurt themselves and others when they aren’t willing to move on from traumatic moments.” Matthew Brady at Warren Peace Sings the Blues

“Granted, the usual romantic ups and downs provide plenty of tears and jeers, but the thoughtful slice-of-life framing and an eye for humanistic details floats this series to the top of the shojo tank. No one feels overly like a character trope, and Ashihara’s sense for the minute highs and lows of adolescence is a blessing in a series that could have been destined for average shelf status.” Chloe Ferguson at Manga Recon

If you like comics about real people with real problems that are executed with tremendous skill and sensitivity, you should give Sand Chronicles a try.

(Got a book you feel deserves some audience development? Like to write a guest column about it? E-mail me and we’ll see what we can do.)

Upcoming 9/16/2009

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It’s a quality-over-quantity week for manga in the new ComicList: not a ton of arrivals, but each is welcome.

llc2CMX releases the second and concluding volume of Natsuna Kawase’s The Lapis Lazuli Crown. It’s one of those charming romances where you can readily understand why the protagonists like each other. Here’s my review of the first volume. I’m less smitten with CMX’s other Kawase offering, A Tale of an Unknown Country, but it’s still a solid earlier work from the creator. And if you look at how far Kawase progressed as a storyteller between Tale and Crown, Kawase certainly seems like a manga-ka to watch.

In other CMX news, I really need to catch up with Yuki Nakaji’s Venus in Love, a charming story of love among the co-eds. It’s up to its seventh volume.

The rest of the week’s heavy lifting is performed by Viz, which offers new volumes of a couple of always-welcome series. Writer Tetsu Kariya and illustrator Akira Hanasaki continue to build the food pyramid with Oishinbo: Vegetables, the fifth volume in Viz’s reprinting of the A la Carte excerpts of the long-running series.

The fourth volume of Pluto: (Naoki) Urasawa x (Osamu) Tezuka was packed with shocking twists and a surprising amount of very effective tear-jerking. As Urasawa’s works always seem to get better as they progress, I’m predicting more of the same with the fifth volume. Oh, and for a preview of Urasawa’s current project, Billy Bat, check out this piece by Adam Stephanides at Completely Futile. It’s being serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Morning, so don’t expect it to end up in Viz’s Signature line when it’s licensed.

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Who will buy…

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This has been a topic of conversation in the manga-oriented corner of Twitter lately, so I thought I’d run a poll. Note that I said “buy” instead of “read” in the poll’s title.

Also on the subject of classics, or maybe not, if you’re looking for a meaty read on the subject as it relates to the possibilities and perils of establishing a manga canon, click right over to this piece by Kate Dacey at The Manga Critic.

License request day: Poe no Ichizoku

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I think I’ve got the hook for a commercially successful attempt to license classic shôjo manga. After careful perusal of the past month’s worth of Graphic Book Best Seller lists at The New York Times, a trend has emerged: people seem to like reading about angst-ridden, young-looking vampires. And while this is not an identifier at the top of my must-buy list, more licensed manga by Moto Hagio does hover around the top of that list.

coverYou know, just because moody blood-suckers are one of the current big things doesn’t mean this is the first time they’ve enjoyed that pride of place. Back in the day, Hagio was rocking out the vamps with her nine-volume series, Poe no Ichizoku (sometimes translated as “The Poe Clan”). It was originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Flower Comics in the early 1970s.

It’s apparently about a pair of abandoned human children who are taken in by a family of vampires, or “Vampanellas.” Now, vampire fiction makes me giggle to begin with, and “Vampanellas” sounds like some kind of Italian breakfast pastry filled with ox-bone marrow and possibly dried fruit, but I could get over that. It’s Moto Hagio, and she could call them “Bloodsuckeronis” and I wouldn’t care.

cover2From what I can discern, there’s lots of angst about whether or not one actually becomes a vampire and, one presumes, tons of sexual tension between vampire and non-vampire cast members. Since it’s Hagio, I would assume that this sexual tension is not limited to mixed-gender couplings. Of course, I also would assume that, if the book featured moody boy vampires making cow-eyes at each other, somebody would already have licensed it.

Poe no Ichizoku won the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1976. It, along with Hagio’s They Were Eleven, took the shônen category, presumably because they were awesome and the program did not yet have a shôjo category. (They Were Eleven ran in Shôjo Comic, and it was included in Viz’s out-of-print Four Shôjo Stories.)

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From the stack: Stitches

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Stitches, David Small’s autobiographical debut graphic novel from W.W. Norton, makes me want to use reviewer words like “searing” and “unforgettable.” It makes me want to use those words without irony. It’s just that good.

stitchesAt the age of fourteen, Small checked into the hospital to have an apparently benign cyst removed. After two surgeries, he’s left with ravaged vocal cords and a ragged scar running down his neck. That’s the nut paragraph, but it isn’t what the book is really about. Like the growth on his neck, it’s a symptom of something much more insidious and destructive.

With an almost unnerving degree of understatement and precision, Small describes the parental failings that led him to that unfortunate state. He gradually reveals the depths of his mother’s dysfunction and his father’s ineffectuality, though he doesn’t reduce them to ridiculous monsters. They’re realistic people who are damaged in distressingly recognizable ways, and Small is left to try and escape the generational cycle.

Drawing is young David’s primary source of solace, and Small visually extrapolates on what that means to the child version of himself. In his private or reflective moments, the boy remakes the world and views it in ridiculous and sometimes grotesque ways. Small renders these moments well; they have the feel of a child’s gruesome imagination and, later, a teen-ager’s derisive dismissal of the adults around him. These flights of not-quite fancy fold in well with the more straightforward illustrations, and I feel that makes them more effective.

But honestly, I find just about everything effective about Stitches. It’s as focused and shaped a work of autobiography as I can remember reading. Small has taken pains to craft a narrative that’s effective in the same ways as fiction, and if the reader didn’t know it was based on actual events, I believe it would be viewed as a sterling example of a made-up story.

There’s no self-indulgence or waste evident here, but it’s not skeletal, either. There’s resonance to the characters and impact to the way events are sequenced and facts are revealed. And most of all, there is the sympathetic distance Small the grown-up cartoonist maintains from the angry, bewildered child he was. I cringe a little to say it just on general principle, but Stitches really is a searing and unforgettable book.

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

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Upcoming 9/10/2009

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Looking through this week’s ComicList, it’s fairly obvious which book gets my strongest recommendation. Heck, if I had the programming skills and no aesthetic conscience, I’d make the cover image above spin and fire sparkly rainbows. Yes, the long-awaited sixth volume of Kiyohiko Azuma’s exercise in pure delight, Yotsuba&! (Yen Press). Yen rescued the much-loved title from ADV, and Yen is also republishing the first five volumes, also due out this week. I briefly contemplated re-buying those first five as a show of appreciation to Yen, but someone wisely suggested I dabble in as-yet-untried Yen titles instead, which is an excellent idea. I think I’ll start with Hyouta Fujiyama’s Tale of the Waning Moon, which seems to promise funny boys’-love fantasy.

modelsinc1I have to admit that I have been unable to resist the lure of Marvel’s recent spate of quirky, off-brand titles featuring Patsy Walker, also known as Hellcat. This week’s example is Models, Inc., written by Marc Sumerac and Paul Tobin and illustrated by Jorge Molina and Vincent Villagrasa, along with assistance from three inkers and five colorists. Dave Sharpe shoulders the lettering duties all on his own. Anyway, it’s Marvel’s model characters gathered to solve a murder during Fashion Week. For bonus irresistibility, it’s got a back-up story featuring the dapper, saintly, and adorable Tim Gunn. And neither of the promised covers look like sexist nightmares.

Oh, and just as a reminder, the new chapters keep coming at Viz’s SIGIKKI site. I think that Kumiko Suekane’s Afterschool Charisma, a loopy tale of teen-aged clones of famous historical figures, is emerging as one of the year’s great guilty pleasures. I could read a hundred pages of Clone Freud maliciously working the word “daddy” into every conversation.