The Manga Curmudgeon

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

Sunday on the web with Viz

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shosuncoverI’m guessing that the recent flurry of press releases from Viz is some kind of pre-San Diego warm-up routine to prevent cramping during panels. The one that’s really caught my eye is the announcement of another imprint, Shonen Sunday. The full release is below, but here’s the nut paragraph:

“[Viz] has announced the launch of a brand new imprint, SHONEN SUNDAY. Featuring the works of some of the top shonen manga creators in the world today, the Shonen Sunday magazine in Japan provides the content for this imprint. The magazine recently celebrated its 50th anniversary since its first issue arrived on newsstands in March of 1959.”

Here’s the Wikipedia entry on the parent magazine from Shogakukan, and here’s the magazine’s Japanese web site. It joins Viz’s Shonen Jump imprint, which features manga from Shueisha, which co-owns Viz with Shogakukan and probably wanted its own brand. It also allows Viz to brand some of its homeless shônen titles.

With the demise of Viz’s Shojo Beat magazine, speculation and wishful thinking have turned once again towards the possibility of Viz creating an online presence or anthology featuring manga for girls. I think that would be great, and while Viz still as the Shojo Beat imprint, the prospect motivated me to throw together a quick poll.

Edited: Posted too early, as I meant to add links to the listed magazines: Ribon (official), Margaret (official), Cookie (official), Betsucomi (official), Ciao (official). If you have another choice, please note it in the comments, and I’ll add related links.

Edited again to add other anthologies of choice, without regard to whether or not they’re published by either of Viz’s co-owners: Hana to Yume from Hakusensha (official), LaLa from Hakusensha (official), Princess from Akita Shoten (official), flowers from Shogakukan…

And, as promised, here’s the release:

VIZ MEDIA’S NEWEST IMPRINT, SHONEN SUNDAY, WILL RELEASE THE FIRST MANGA TO EVER BE PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN JAPAN AND NORTH AMERICA

A New Imprint and Web Site Launch Rumiko Takahashi’s Newest Series RIN-NE Gets Its First Volume

San Francisco, CA, July 8, 2009– VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced the launch of a brand new imprint, SHONEN SUNDAY. Featuring the works of some of the top shonen manga creators in the world today, the Shonen Sunday magazine in Japan provides the content for this imprint. The magazine recently celebrated its 50th anniversary since its first issue arrived on newsstands in March of 1959.

The first series to launch from the first volume under this new imprint will be RIN-NE by Rumiko Takahashi, the first manga novel ever to be published simultaneously in Japan and North America, which will arrive on store shelves on October 20, 2009. Chapters of RIN-NE have been serialized online for free at www.TheRumicWorld.com on the same weekly schedule as it appeared in Japan’s Shonen Sunday magazine since May of this year. The Rumic World web site is the official North American destination for all Rumiko Takahashi-related news.

VIZ Media will be announcing new Shonen Sunday series for 2010 at its Manga and Anime panel at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International on Friday, July 24th from 3:00-4:30 in Room 32AB. Other VIZ Media series that will move under the Shonen Sunday banner include INUYASHA, KEKKAISHI, CASE CLOSED, HAYATE THE COMBAT BUTLER, and YAKITATE!! JAPAN. Going forward, DVD products from the select series will also feature the Shonen Sunday imprint.

The imprint’s web site (www.ShonenSunday.com) will be updated regularly with exclusive content such as previews, trailers, news, and interviews and will go live on July 22, 2009.

RIN-NE by Rumiko Takahashi · VOL. 1 · October 20, 2009 · Rated T+ (For Older Teens) · $9.99 US/$12.99 CAN

As a child Sakura Mamiya mysteriously disappeared in the woods behind her grandma’s home. She returned whole and healthy, but since then she has had the power to see ghosts. Now a teenager, she just wishes the ghosts would leave her alone! At school, the desk next to Sakura’s has been empty since the start of the school year, then one day her always-absent classmate shows up, and he’s far more than what he seems!

RIN-NE is the first new manga from Takahashi since her epic INUYASHA (published domestically by VIZ Media) ended in 2008 in Japan. Shogakukan’s popular WEEKLY SHONEN SUNDAY manga magazine has featured Takahashi’s work since the early 1980’s. With over 170 million copies sold in Japan alone, Takahashi’s substantial catalog of work continues to be loved by legions of devoted readers.

The spotlight on Rumiko Takahashi’s career began in 1978 when she won an honorable mention in Shogakukan’s annual New Comic Artist Contest for Those Selfish Aliens. Later that same year, her boy-meets-alien comedy series, Urusei Yatsura, was serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday. This phenomenally successful manga series was adapted into anime format and spawned a TV series and half a dozen theatrical-release movies, all incredibly popular in their own right. Takahashi followed up the success of her debut series with one blockbuster hit after another—Maison Ikkoku ran from 1980 to 1987, Ranma ½ from 1987 to 1996, and Inuyasha from 1996 to 2008. Other notable works include Mermaid Saga, Rumic Theater, and One-Pound Gospel. Takahashi won the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award twice in her career, once for Urusei Yatsura in 1981 and the second time for Inuyasha in 2002. A majority of the Takahashi canon has been adapted into other media such as anime, live-action TV series, and film. Takahashi’s manga, as well as the other formats her work has been adapted into, have continued to delight generations of fans around the world. Distinguished by her wonderfully endearing characters, Takahashi’s work adeptly incorporates a wide variety of elements such as comedy, romance, fantasy, and martial arts. While her series are difficult to pin down into one simple genre, the signature style she has created has come to be known as the “Rumic World.” Rumiko Takahashi is an artist who truly represents the very best from the world of manga.

From the stack: Astral Project vol. 3

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ap3The thing I like best about Astral Project (CMX) is that it’s only kind of about any of the things it’s purportedly about. The first two volumes introduced the mystery of the death of the protagonist’s sister, the protagonist’s newfound ability to leave his body behind to float above the city, the fellow astral travelers he meets there, and his budding romance with one of them. In the third volume, author marginal (also known as Garon Tsuchiya of Old Boy fame) sustains all of those elements while adding new ones in the form of deeply cynical conspiracy theories and, better still, deeply cynical conspiracies.

This addition might lead you to suspect that the series is building in momentum. I’m happy to report that Astral Project has maintained its feeling of apparent aimlessness. It’s one of the least aggressive stories I’ve read, particularly in the suspense genre. It’s more absorbing than arresting, and the pleasure of it is in seeing marginal drop a new bit of absurdity or outrage without really raising the narrative’s volume. That’s an awfully neat trick.

Though we learn a bit more about the characters, they still aren’t especially sympathetic. Mashiko, the lead, is still no closer to figuring out the cause of his sister’s death. His romance with another young traveler garners investment without that visceral feeling of wanting them to be happy together so much as the vague sense that it would be nice if they could be less unhappy. And while astral travel may have been the story’s trigger, it’s telling and a little perverse that Mashiko’s most trusted astral advisers encourage him to give it up to focus on his equally aimless earthbound existence.

Writing about Astral Project is strange. The things I want to praise about it – its ambling storytelling, increasingly bleak world view, and generally flat emotional affect – aren’t things I’d automatically consider praise-worthy. They cohere into something very intriguing here, though, and I’d really recommend this odd, offbeat series.

Upcoming 7/8/2009

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fb23I’ll begin my look at this week’s ComicList with a request. If you’ve never actually read a volume of Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket (Tokyopop), which concludes with its 23rd volume, I beg you to refrain from writing about the mega-hit in condescending, reductive terms. It’s not a cutesy romantic fantasy about people who turn into animals, or at least it hasn’t been since maybe its second or third volume. It’s actually a crushingly effective drama about breaking a generational cycle of emotional abuse and neglect, and it’s one of a very small handful of comics that has ever made me cry. It’s also a rare example of an extremely popular comic also being an absolutely brilliant comic, so in deference to the people who are going to miss new volumes rather terribly, please don’t call it “fluffy” or something equally inane.

catparadise1With that off my chest, I can look to the future, which includes a new series from Yuji Iwahara, Cat Paradise (Yen Press). CMX published Iwahara’s three-volume Chikyu Misaki, which still ranks for me as one of the most underappreciated manga ever to be published in English. It’s a terrific blend of fantasy and mystery with wonderful characters and unusual, eye-catching illustrations. Iwahara’s King of Thorn (Tokyopop), was less successful for me, though I found it to be a very competent survival drama. Of course, it was coming out at roughly the same time as Minetaro Mochizuki’s utterly genius survival drama, Dragon Head (Tokyopop), so it was bound to suffer in comparison. Anyway, Cat Paradise seems to be about students and their pets fighting against demonic forces or something like that, but describing Iwahara’s comics never really does them justice, and his work is always worth a look.

kp10I suspect the impact of its conclusion will be washed away in a sea of Fruits Basket tears, but I’ll also miss Kitchen Princess (Del Rey), written by Miyuki Kobayashi and illustrated by Natsumi Ando. It’s a cooking manga, which is enough to put it on my “read automatically” list, but it also became an increasingly effective melodrama as the series progressed. And there are recipes in the back. Try the Madeleine recipe. On the shônen front, Del Rey also offers a new volume of Hiro Mashima’s very entertaining Fairy Tail.

It’s also Viz’s week to remind me that I really need to hunker down and catch up with some series that I like very much: Hideaki Sorachi’s Gin Tama, Kazune Kawahara’s High School Debut, Ai Yazawa’s Nana, and Yuki Obata’s We Were There. In my defense, Viz keeps publishing great new manga, particularly in its Signature line, so it’s becoming increasingly impractical to keep up with ongoing series.

License Request Day: Otherworld Barbara

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cover1Many, many people wish that manga publishers would license more work from the Year 24 Group of pioneering shôjo creators. Unfortunately, the market doesn’t always seem receptive to classic works. No, it seems more commercially sensible to license recent works, especially award-winning recent works. But what if there was a way to give readers like myself more work from that august body of creators while working within the recent/award-winning subset? What’s that you say? There is a way? Well, heck, then, I’ll just dedicate this column to Moto Hagio’s Otherworld Barbara.

167044Hagio, as you likely very well know, is one of the high priestesses of the Year 24 Group. Some of her work has been published in English by Viz (They Were Eleven in Four Shojo Stories and A, A-Prime), but it’s all out of print. The Comics Journal ran a lengthy and fascinating interview with Hagio conducted by none other than Matt Thorn and even used Hagio’s art for the cover of its issue dedicated to shôjo manga. Inexplicably (all right, all right, maybe commercially explicably), publishers have not yet tripped over one another to get Hagio’s work on the bookstore shelves.

Fortunately, there’s Otherworld Barbara, which completed its four-volume run in Shogakukan’s Flowers anthology in 2005. (That was only four years ago! It’s practically new!) Otherworld Barbara, or Barbara Ikai, won the 2006 Nihon Science Fiction Taisho Award, which is presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan. The award is open to prose, comics, animation and movies, so Hagio’s win seems particularly impressive.

cover2But what’s Otherworld Barbara about? For that, I was lucky to have the translation assistance of Erica (ALC) Friedman:

“2052 CE. The ability to step into another person’s dream exists, ‘Yumesaki Guide’ Watari Tokio has been asleep since something happened 7 years ago, when he undertook the job of entering a girl’s, Juujou (maybe Toujo) Aaoba’s, dream. And, living happily inside Aoba’s dream on the island of Barbara, a keyword unexpectedly materializes the real world.

“Watarai wants to return once again to the world inside Aoba’s dream. To procure eternal life living happily on the Island of Barbara, he conducts a strange ceremony upon himself. On the one side, a vision of Aoba’s appears, on the other an abundant ocean known as the ‘Beach of Mars’ as the story begins….”

I’ve also heard that the (catatonic? Comatose?) Aaoba was found next to her dead parents with their hearts in her stomach.

Now, it’s josei, and many publishers won’t touch that category with tongs, but it’s also award-winning, relatively recent science fiction. Just keep repeating that last part to yourselves. Plus, it’s Moto Hagio, which is reason enough to license it ASAP, in my book.

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I can't decide

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Oh, Kaoru Mori, what is it that I love best about your cartooning? Is it your elegant and understated way of rendering emotion?

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Or is it your richly evocative images of a bygone era, so lush and detailed?

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Would you think less of me if I admitted that it was probably your shameless autobiographical notes?

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Whatever the reason, you really can’t go wrong with Mori manga. There are the first seven volumes of Emma (CMX), which trace the love story between a shy maid and a wealthy (but not aristocratic) young man (which I reviewed here). Or you could get a taste of Mori’s style and sensibility in the one-volume Shirley (also CMX). Or you could get some stand-alone glimpses of what Mori calls the “Emmaverse” in volumes eight and nine of Emma.

For those of you who haven’t yet read the first seven volumes of the series, don’t worry about being lost if you decide to sample volume eight or nine. They feature stand-alone stories of supporting characters from the main story, but they don’t depend on any previous knowledge. They’re simply charming, moving stories of people from across the Victorian social spectrum. I would imagine that they’d be slightly more moving if you’d seen the characters in their original context, but I think they’d still read beautifully without any prior knowledge.

I’m not giving you excuses not to read all of Emma, though.

(The images above are from the eighth volume of Kaoru Mori’s Emma.)

From the stack: Empowered vol. 5

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emp5Trying to review a new installment of Adam Warren’s Empowered series (Dark Horse) is exactly like trying to review a new installment of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series (Oni). The fifth volume of Warren’s saga of a (sometimes literally) struggling super-heroine is good in exactly the same ways as the previous four, but with a slightly higher level of poise and complexity. It’s meatier and moodier, but it achieves those effects without sacrificing the core charm and wit of the series.

Basically, a review of the fifth Empowered book would constitute an attempt to get new readers to pick up the first volume of the book. I figure that people who have read the first volume either gave up on the book for its salacious content (which is perfectly fair), stuck around for more of that same content (also dandy), or stuck around like I did for the endearing characters, great jokes, and slowly building subplots. Providing a summary of events of the fifth volume would be meaningless to people who’ve never read the series at all while irritating readers who’ve stuck around and haven’t yet read book five.
All that said, it’s such a terrific book that I can’t pass up the opportunity to sing its praises, even if I’ve sung them so often that you know the lyrics by heart.

What need to know: Empowered, the book, is about Empowered, the heroine, who has the best of intentions and the most unreliable of super-suits. It’s embarrassingly form-fitting and shreds at the slightest provocation, often leaving her at the mercy of bondage-happy opponents. Her fellow super-heroes (an obnoxious and entitled herd) treat her with undisguised contempt, but she keeps trying to make a difference, scoring small victories amidst all of the humiliation. Her greatest sources of comfort and confidence come from her smoking hot, super-supportive boyfriend, a reformed super-villain minion known as Thugboy, and her best friend, the hard-partying, ass-kicking Ninjette. When things get crappy, they’ve got her back.

How the series has evolved: Earlier volumes traded in short, astutely satirical pieces mocking everything from spandex tropes to the bizarre idiosyncrasies of fandom to whatever else crossed Warren’s field of vision as he worked on the comics. As the series has progressed, Warren has incrementally developed all of the characters, revealing their back stories and allowing them and their relationships to evolve. Individual chapters have become longer, and subplots have become more intricate and moved closer to the surface. The level of menace and the feeling of consequence have risen over time, but Warren has maintained the sweetness and sense of humor of the series, which is quite an accomplishment.

Why I like it: Super-hero parody has become a category unto itself, and a lot of examples aren’t any more interesting or insightful than their targets. Empowered succeeds for me because Warren manages to juggle so many elements at once – the pointed satire, the unapologetic (but sly) cheesecake, and the fact that he bothers to tell a proper story with fully realized characters in the process. That last element is what I often find lacking in meta-commentary books; they sometimes read like an Andy Rooney monologue, with lots of trite “Don’t you hate it when…” observations. Empowered is as smart and sharp as you could hope, but it’s also got a lot of heart. It manages to comment on super-hero comics while also actually being one of the better ones you’re likely to read.

Upcoming 7/1/2009

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There’s not much of exceptional interest on this week’s ComicList. Kate Dacey pulls out some of the highlights, so I can fix my gaze on one of the odder items. That would be the first issue of Marvel Divas.

divasWhy is Marvel Divas odd, you ask? Well, for one thing, it’s a story of friendship among C-list super-heroines coming from Marvel. For another thing, you could never tell that from J. Scott Campbell’s cover, which is unpleasant in that boob-sock way. You might also have trouble discerning the book’s true nature from its solicitation text, which blows the dust and cobwebs off of that “Sex and the City with…” pitch that has aged so badly. It concludes with “Let your inner divas out with this one, fellas, you won’t regret it.” (Even when Marvel comes up with a property that might appeal to women, the solicitation is still written for the “fellas.”)

Now, I’ve always been of the opinion that it’s perfectly all right to judge a book by its cover, especially a comic book. If the cover is pandering and unattractive, I feel perfectly safe in assuming that the contents may well be pandering and unattractive as well. There are lots of comics in the world, and many of them have a lower cost per page of content, so screw you, boob socks. (There’s a “‘70s Decade” variant cover, and it’s kind of awesome.)

divasvariantOf course, the ugly cover and dumb solicitation have forced author Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa to hit the PR trail and explain that, no, the cover really has little tonal bearing on the contents. Still, as this piece at Jezebel indicates, that cover is a tough hurdle to vault. Then Kevin (Robot 6) Melrose went and muddied the water further by checking out a preview of the interior pages, and he rightly notes that they look kind of appealing.

Oddest of all is the fact that The New York Times actually covered Marvel Divas (with big story SPOILERS) on its ArtsBeat blog. Now, generally when the Times covers something super-hero related, they politely listen to what Marvel or DC has to say about one of their properties, nodding and murmuring, “Well, you’d know better than we would,” and repeating the PR verbatim. But George Gene Gustines summarizes the book’s story quite nicely, and one can hardly imagine that Marvel is devoting any of its promotional time to something that doesn’t have “Dark” in the title.

So, y’know, it’s all too much for me to be able to avoid. I love Hellcat, and I have a demonstrable fondness for comics about also-ran super-heroines. If the local shop ordered any shelf copies, I think I’ll pick one up.

Prism offers Queer Press Grant

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Hey, LGBT comics creators: Prism Comics wants to give you money so you can… y’know… keep making comics. The full press release is below, which includes details on Prism’s planned portfolio review at Comic-Con International. (Honestly, I’d scribble something horrible on hotel stationary just to meet the reviewers.)

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San Diego, CA — Prism Comics is seeking submissions for its fifth annual Queer Press Grant, established to support and encourage new LGBT comics creators. In conjunction, Prism will again offer portfolio review at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International exclusively for those interested in applying to the grant.

“We were very happy to offer portfolio review last year,” says David Stanley, Prism Co-President. “It was terrifically helpful for the applicants and the reviewers enjoyed it tremendously, as well.

The application deadline for the Prism Comics Queer Press Grant is October 1, 2009. Application guidelines are detailed on the Prism Comics website at prismcomics.org/grant. Completed applications, along with queries about the grant, can be submitted by email to grants at prismcomics dot org.

Past winners of the grant include Steve MacIsaac (Shiftlifter), Megan Gedris (YU+ME), Tommy Roddy (Pride High), Justin Hall (Glamazonia), and Pam Harrison (House of the Muses). The grant award began with $1,000 for the first recipient and the amount has increased over the years depending on fundraising; last year’s award was $2,000.

Portfolio review will be offered at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International exclusively to those interested in applying for the Queer Press Grant. Among the industry professionals offering advice and critique will be Phil Jimenez (The Amazing Spider-Man, Infinite Crisis), Bob Schreck (Editor, who has worked at DC Comics and Vertigo) and Colleen Coover (X-Men: First Family Class, Small Favors). Before attending the sessions, applicants are required to read through the application guidelines, available at prismcomics.org/grant.