The Manga Curmudgeon

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

Manga 101

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One of those random bits of curiosity has taken root, and I might try and get a column out of it if I can find sources. So, does anyone know of any folks who are teaching or have taught introductory manga courses at the college or university level? I’m thinking primarily of survey courses rather than ones that focus on creating comics. If you know of anyone, or if you’ve taught such a course yourself, drop me a line.

manga_60yearsI think if I were constructing a course like that, I would probably use Paul Gravett’s Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics as the primary text. I like the book’s structure, and I think it provides a great overview of the history and various demographic categories. It’s also packed with illustrations from all kinds of titles (including a rather energetic hamster-like creature that got the book banned in Victorville, California).

The reading list would be tricky. I would want to include examples from the major demographic categories (shônen, shôjo, seinen, josei), but I think I’d have to be careful to find stuff that’s representative but doesn’t end up in a cripplingly expensive trip to the bookstore. That would mean picking titles that give a reasonable amount of story in a single volume but still do a good job embodying certain common traits about the category. I’d probably just plan on taking whatever lumps come in the form of complaints about not getting the full story. (I could always include a paragraph on the syllabus that gives the total price tag for complete series included on the reading list; some of the best examples are really long, and even if the price of individual volumes isn’t that high, when you ask someone to buy twenty of them…)

I’d also want to include works by the greats, particularly Osamu Tezuka. That gets a little tricky too, as I’d want something relatively accessible. Astro Boy seems like a reasonable enough choice in terms of accessibility (and Dark Horse offers this two-volume paperback), though I’d much rather have them read something like Ode to Kirihito. Since there’s so little of the work from the Year 24 Group available in print and in English, I’d turn to Vertical for To Terra… (I know it isn’t shôjo, but it’s a great book, and it provides an early example of a woman creating comics targeted at boys, which seems like an interesting teachable moment.)

I’d probably leave anime to the film studies program, or whatever those units are called these days.

So what would you include on your reading list?

Update: Speaking of manga scholarship, Simon (NSFW) Jones finds an interesting piece on international demand for a National Center for Media Arts.

Upcoming 6/17/2009

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Before delving too deeply into this week’s ComicList, I wanted to mention how great the manga and graphic novel selection is at the Barnes & Noble in Easton Town Center near Columbus. They had shelf copies of Mijeong (NBM), full runs of series I don’t normally see at a chain bookstore, and all of the staples. Seriously, though, an NBM book at a mall store will force me to add that mall store to all future central Ohio itineraries. Oh, and there’s a Graeter’s Ice Cream stand mere steps away. In a perfect world, it would be a Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams stand, but I like Graeter’s well enough.

But what about specialty comic shops, you ask? What bounty awaits on Wednesday?

bride3Well, for starters, there’s the third volume of Mi-Kyung Yun’s Bride of the Water God (Dark Horse), which is so pretty that you can actually see volumes from space.

Del Rey offers the third volume of Papillon, which started as a psychologically nuanced sibling-rivalry drama, then turned into one of the more ridiculous Lifetime movies in the second volume. There is no possible way to speculate what might happen this time around, but I’ll just throw out the terms “sudden eating disorder” and “wildebeest stampede” to try and cover the bases.

Speaking again of NBM, Rick Geary is looking through the dirty laundry of another era again with a new Treasury of 20th Century Murder, Famous Players, which examines the death of silent-film director William Desmond Taylor.

And speaking of books with “20th Century” in the title, Viz offers the third volume of Naoki Urasawa’s excellent 20th Century Boys. (I already bought it at the aforementioned B&N.) I know we aren’t even halfway through the year, but let’s face it: with the two Urasawa books, Detroit Metal City, the soon-to-arrive Children of the Sea, and the due-this-fall Ôoku: The Inner Chamber, we might just have to hand 2009 to Viz, you know?

License Request Day: The Rose of Versailles

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versaillesharlotI thought that by now I surely would have devoted at least one License Request Day to a work by one of the members of the Year 24 Group of pioneering shôjo manga-ka. It’s time to rectify that, as their works are sorely neglected. Vertical has done a great service by publishing two of Keiko Takemiya’s science-fiction shônen works, To Terra… and Andromeda Stories, and, if you have the tenacity and the resources, you can probably still find copies of Viz’s out-of-print A, A-Prime (Moto Hagio) and Four Shojo Stories (by Hagio, Keiko Nishi and Shio Satô). But someone somewhere would earn a lot of goodwill (with me, at least) were they to license and publish Riyoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles.

versaillesAs near as I can determine, two English-language volumes (translated by no less than Frederik L. Schodt) were published by a shop called Sanyusha in the early 1980s. Schodt included a sample in Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, but that’s the largest quantity that’s even close to readily available. The book has been published in South Korea (Daiwon C.I.), France (Kana), Germany (Carlsen Comics), and Spain (Azake Ediciones), so basically we’re behind just about everyone.

versailles2Originally serialized in Viz co-owner Shueisha’s Margaret magazine, the comic has seen all kinds of prestige printings since its original run. It’s been adapted into an anime, a movie and a stage musical. Now, lots of comics have been turned into animated series and motion pictures, but a musical? That, my friends, is hardcore. So what’s the appeal? Let’s start with noted shôjo scholar Matt Thorn’s description:

“The genre of shôjo manga really burst into the popular consciousness, however, in 1972 with the huge success of Ikeda Riyoko’s Berusaiyu no bara (“The Rose of Versailles”), which features a woman, Oscar, who was raised to behave and dress as a man. A captain in the French army, Oscar manages to draws the romantic interest of both Andre (a man who is a subordinate in the unit she commands, as well as a childhood friend) and of Marie Antoinette, whom she serves as personal bodyguard.”

Deborah Shamoon of the University of Notre Dame noted that the series “began as a frothy romance for girls, but by the end had become a serious examination of gender roles and political issues. This transformation encapsulates the larger changes in shôjo manga in the 1970s, when authors used melodramatic conventions received from earlier shôjo magazines and novels, to create stories that explored the psychological interiority and sexual agency of girls.”

I don’t usually single out an English-language publisher in these pieces, but I’ll make an exception here. Viz, your Signature imprint has become perhaps the go-to purveyor of deeply satisfying, commercially risky material. Go a step further and fold some more classics into the mix, starting with a handsome, library-friendly, hardcover edition of The Rose of Versailles. (And you could put the Hagio books back in print while you’re at it.)

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Link of the day

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Someone’s probably already linked to this, perhaps repeatedly, but I came across it when I was doing some research for another piece, and I thought it was fascinating. It’s the text of noted shôjo scholar Matt Thorn’s presentation, “The Multi-Faceted Universe of Shôjo Manga.”

Anything that starts with a sampling from the translated script of Moto Hagio’s The Heart of Thomas has to be good, and this certainly doesn’t disappoint, looking at the history of the category, its current state, and the future. Money quote:

“In a digital world, female artists who have been restricted for decades by male editors who think they know best what female readers want, will find a very different landscape. We have only glimpsed the borders of that Undiscovered Country, and it will no doubt be a harsh frontier. Many artists, accustomed to the old ways, will no doubt follow the printed magazine and the publishing dinosaurs to extinction. But others will surely make their way and create a place for themselves where they can connect directly with their readers, without worrying about whether or not their work ‘adheres to editorial policy.’ You can get a taste of what that Brave New World might look like if you attend one of the hundreds of comic markets held across Japan every year. There you will see vast gatherings of women—in some cases, tens of thousands—buying and selling self-published manga, utterly free of editorial constraint.”

Previews review

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After a couple of months of overwhelmingly appealing product in Diamond’s June 2009 Previews catalog, the industry seems to take a bit of a breather. Here’s what caught my eye, mostly new volumes of entertaining, ongoing series.

taleThere are some debuts. I quite liked the first volume of Natsuna Kawase’s The Lapis Lazuli Crown (CMX), so I’ll certainly take a chance on the second volume (page 121) and the first volume of another Kawase series, A Tale of an Unknown Country Girl (also CMX, page 120), about a princess who goes undercover to see if her arranged fiancé is a total asshat.

Many people viewed Brandon Graham’s King City to be one of the great casualties of whichever Tokyopop meltdown put its future in peril. Those folks will be happy to see pages 138 and 139, which reveal that Image and Tokyopop will be presenting a floppy version of Graham’s comic. I find Image’s web site impossible to navigate, so I’ll just link to this Newsarama interview with Graham.

Two of Del Rey’s solicitations on page 237 catch my eye: the fifth volume of Ryotaro Iwanaga’s underrated postwar adventure, Pumpkin Scissors, and the third volume of Sayonara, Zetsubo-Sensei, a dark satire of school comedies that’s more heavily annotated than just about any book not edited by Carl Horn. Sayonara also has some of the tiniest print in the history of translated comics from Japan, and some fairly impenetrable humor, but enough of the jokes work for me to make it worth the eye strain.

Fanfare/Ponent Mon presents the second volume of Jiro Taniguchi’s A Distant Neighborhood (page 245). You scrambled for the order form right after I typed the publisher’s name, didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU?

adI’ve enjoyed Josh Neufeld’s travel comics, though he tends to go places I would never personally consider for a vacation. My idea of roughing it is hotels with limited room service. But his A.D.: New Orleans after the Deluge (Pantheon, page 273) promises to be one of the books of the year.

I thought IDW or someone had the CSI comic-book franchise. It isn’t exclusive apparently, as Tokyopop launches the two-part CSI: Interns, written by Sekou Hamilton and illustrated by Steven Cummings (page 283).

Viz Udon gets its sci-fi on with the return of Kia Asamiya’s Silent Möbius in an unflipped, all-new translation with restored color story pages (page 285). Trivia note: Asamiya was first introduced to many English-reading comics fans through the dubious distinction of illustrating some of the worst issues of Uncanny X-Men ever written.

If I’m going to be completely honest, I’m more intrigued by the Viz’s debut of Hiroyuki Asada’s Tegami Bachi (page 288), which I’ve seen described as being about postal workers called “Letter Bees” carrying the hearts of correspondents to their loved ones. I admit that most of my interest comes from the probably mistaken mental image of sacks full of human hearts and the shocked reactions of their recipients.

In the “new volume” category, Viz offers Oishinbo: Vegetables (written by Tetsu Kariya and illustrated by Akira Hanasaki), the fourth volume of Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka, and the second volume of Kiminori Wakasugi’s Detroit Metal City, which is sick and wrong and I think I’m in love with it (all listed on page 292).

Nomenclature

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How long has ICv2 been using “traditional graphic novels” to describe everything that isn’t manga? I’m not quite sure what to make of that.

Upcoming 6/10/2009

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This week’s ComicList is on the lean side, but there are a couple of items that are worth scrutinizing.

colorofwaterOne is Kim Dong Hwa’s The Color of Water (First Second), the second part of his trilogy that began with The Color of Earth. I’ve read both in the form or preview copies provided by the publisher, but I’ve been a bit stymied when I’ve tried to sit down and actually write about them. They’re great-looking books; I very much admire the visual style. But I find the content a little off-putting, though I’m not sure I have the right to voice these particular objections.

The Color books compose a period piece that traces the sexual comic of age of a young girl in rural Korea. It’s an experience and a transition that the creator clearly reveres, but for me, it was an uncomfortable kind of reverence. It’s reverence with a degree of distance that seems to flatten and simplify the experience being rendered; the path from girl to woman is dewy and magical, uncomplicated and pristine, or at least that’s the impression the books left. I feel like it crosses the line between celebratory and condescending.

The crew at Good Comics for Kids participated in an illuminating roundtable on the first book, and I was relieved to see my concerns articulated in the discussion. There are also persuasive arguments in the book’s favor, but I’m still unconvinced that its merits overcome its underlying tone.

dmcI’m fairly sure my reaction to the week’s other big release, Kiminori Wakasugi’s Detroit Metal City (Viz), will be much less complicated. I will either be overcome with guilty love, or I’ll be grossed out. I’m reassured by Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey’s assessment, though:

“I’d be the first to admit that DMC walks a fine line between clever and stupid with its raunchy lyrics and outrageous concert scenes, but it never wears out its welcome thanks to a great cast of characters.”

We’ll see.

Twitterpated

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One of the things I like about Twitter, aside from the genial conversation with lots of other comics nerds and, truly, nerds of every variety, is the ability to linkblog quickly without having to go to the effort of composing an entire blog post to point out something interesting when all I’d basically be saying is, “This is interesting.” And since recent tweets are right there in the sidebar, it’s just like linkblogging but much, much lazier! It’s like it was designed just for me!

This is only marginally related to the fact that I’m doing my weekly linkblog of something I’ve written, this week’s Flipped over at The Comics Reporter. And yes, I was almost too lazy to linkblog to myself.

Weekend reading

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Aside from the strong third volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto (Viz), my weekend’s reading ran towards the inoffensively pleasant.

balladBallad of a Shinigami (CMX), adapted by Asuka Izumi from stories by K-Ske Hasegawa, falls into the venerable category of stories about agents (human or supernatural) that help the spirits of the deceased cross over to what comes next. Momo, the titular shinigami, doesn’t quite fit in with her peers. She’s sparkly white, and she bends the rules when a human sparks her sympathy or curiosity. Neither of these qualities makes her especially interesting as an entity in her own right, but the stories are amiable, reasonably moving, and don’t wear out their welcome. Izumi’s art is very pretty, which is a bonus.

yokaidocThe most interesting thing about the first volume of Yuki Sato’s Yokai Doctor is the chance to read the same story twice. Half of the book is filled with Sato’s try-out pieces, followed by the launch of the series proper. The series is about Kotoko, the granddaughter of an exorcist who has turned her family legacy into a comedy act for her classmates. She can actually see yokai, troublesome imps of varying sizes and threat levels, but she can’t really do anything to banish them. Mysterious and nerdy classmate Yuko arrives and reveals himself to be a “yokai doctor,” whose ministrations tend to make the imps cease and desist their mischief. The try-outs are fast and frisky, viewing the weirdness from Kotoko’s perspective. The “real” chapters are more Kuro-centric, and the desire to round the characters out pushes things in an unexpectedly maudlin direction. Kotoko hates yokai; Kuro is linked to them in ways beyond his mystical, medical ministrations; can the two ever be true friends? I didn’t end up caring much, to be honest, and I found myself missing the fast-and-shallow approach of the try-out version. There’s probably a metric ton of comics about an average girl and a weird boy dealing with the supernatural, some of it very good indeed, and this one’s just okay. (Comments based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

otomen2I’m always happy to see shôjo titles show up on bestseller lists, but I’m often puzzled by which ones earn that distinction. Both volumes of Aya Kanno’s Otomen (Viz) have shown some impressive initial sales, but I continue to be disappointed with its watery execution of a great idea. It’s about Asuka, an outwardly manly high-school student who keeps his adoration for all things cute deeply in the closet. He’s got a crush on a tomboy named Ryo, and their ever-stalled romance is obsessively observed by Juta, their male classmate who cranks out shôjo manga on the side. I could be wrong, but it feels like there’s a heavy editorial-demographic curfew on the series; it can flirt with interesting, transgressive ideas about gender roles, but it isn’t allowed to actually date them. None of the thematic or plot elements go nearly far enough for my taste; the best bits of the series are when Asuka actually indulges in his secret hobbies – knitting, piping whipped cream, generally turning the world around him into a cuter place. If the series consisted nothing but those moments, I’d love it, but someone stubbornly insisted it have a story.