The Manga Curmudgeon

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

Manga Eisner straw poll

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Just out of curiosity, I thought I’d test the waters and see what you all thought about the race for this year’s Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Japan. Comics professionals can cast their official vote through June 15, but I’m nosy and impatient. I’ll check back in on June 16 to see which title “won.”

You may notice that I didn’t put in an “Other” option, not that I don’t want to hear what titles you think were neglected (as I’ve contributed to such discussions myself), but because people viewing the poll results can’t see voters’ write-in nominations. So hopefully you’ll cast your vote in the actual ballot and, if you aren’t satisfied with the choices, post a comment naming the book you’d vote for in a perfect world.

I’ll post my pick after the jump. It’s like how you can’t have campaign signs within a certain distance of a polling place.

Dororo1From the official selections, I’m going to let sentiment win the day and cast my vote for Osamu Tezuka’s Dororo (Vertical). I’ll just repeat what I said over at The Comics Reporter:

“Between the premise and the moody undertones, it feels like I could have read dozens of volumes of Dororo without becoming bored. That I won’t get the chance probably plays a significant part in the book being so fixed in my thinking. The rushed conclusion has a melancholy beyond its basic narrative elements, which isn’t unusual for Tezuka, but the speculation on what could have followed and how the story could have unfurled give that melancholy an extra layer.”

Diary_coverF.inddIt’s a tough call, and I still might have voted for Dororo even if my alternate had been nominated, but I would have loved the chance to decide between it and Hideo Azuma’s Disappearance Diary (Fanfare/Ponent Mon). Again, I’ll be lazy and quote myself:

“For as much of a prig as I can be about the behavior and morality of fictional characters, I found myself unexpectedly complicit with the Azuma portrayed in Disappearance Diary. I certainly can’t support the choices that yielded these experiences, but I got quite a bit of reading pleasure out of watching Azuma chronicle them. Perhaps he viewed his failures as such a given that it would have been redundant to dwell on them. Perhaps he really isn’t contrite in the least.”

Upcoming 5/13/2009

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What’s on deck with this week’s ComicList? Not The Lapis Lazuli Crown, as I misread, which actually comes out May 20, but CMX does offer the 14th volume of Kiyoko Ariyoshi’s classic ballet shôjo, Swan.

Brigid Alverson offered a preview review of the first volume of Sakae Esuno’s Future Diary (Tokyopop), and it sounds intriguing:

“Despite one cringe-inducing scene of violence toward the end, this is great escape reading, with plenty of action and an interestingly twisted premise.”

Fantagraphics offers a big hardcover collection starring one of my favorite characters from Gilbert Hernandez’s Palomar stories, Luba. Here’s a bit of the solicitation:

“These ‘America’ stories — over 100 of them, ranging from quick one-page blackout sketches to bona fide graphic novellas — were originally published in a number of different comics and reprinted in a trilogy of oversized paperbacks. Luba finally collects in one compact, affordable hardcover the entirety of these tales, showcasing Gilbert Hernandez’s wicked wit, great compassion, and uncanny understanding of how human beings love, squabble, and ultimately find a way to make it through this life.”

From the stack: The Lapis Lazuli Crown

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I’ve belatedly realized that I like comics for ‘tweens and teens for the same reasons I like some actual ‘tweens and teens. A good nature, a sense of humor, a reasonable amount ambition, intelligence – these qualities go a long way towards making me enjoy a comic or a kid. (I like the surly ones a lot if they’re sarcastic and perceptive enough to leaven their moodiness.)

llcNatsuna Kawase’s The Lapis Lazuli Crown, which debuts Wednesday from CMX, has enough of the good qualities to make it pleasant company. It’s pretty and outgoing but just insecure enough to spare it cheerleader blandness. And it’s only two volumes long, so how wrong can it go?

It’s about Miel Violette, middle daughter of a family of aristocratic sorcerers who’ve seen better days. Miel’s parents have lost their high-profile positions, but they’re getting by. Miel’s older sister, Sara, is already an accomplished magician, and little sister Renee has started magic school. Miel has inherited the family magic, but she’s awkward in its use, and she’s abnormally physically strong. Her middling magic and brute strength leave her wanting to fly under the radar and be average.

While out shopping one day, she meets a cute, goofy boy who finds her interesting, which is pretty much the last thing Miel wants. Radi encourages her to work on her magic and to not be so self-conscious about her strength. Miel is shocked when she discovers that Radi is actually the prince of the kingdom; he’s modified his appearance to let himself mingle among the people. After some initial irritation at Radi’s deception, Miel starts crushing on the prince and decides to hone her magical powers so that she can work in the palace and be closer to him.

It’s always at least a little gross when a character decides to do something they should be doing anyways to win the approval of a character they like. Kawase doesn’t entirely get around that problem, nor does she really seem to want to, but she comes close by making Radi wonderfully likable. Prince types don’t vary a whole lot, so Radi is a breath of fresh air. In his commoner guise, he’s enthusiastic about everything and genuinely interested in his subjects and their welfare. His in-disguise walkabouts are about having fun, but they’re also about connecting with the people he serves. I wish Miel was more self-motivated, but there are good reasons to crush on Radi, so I won’t carp too much.

The Lapis Lazuli Crown has the added advantage of being really, really pretty. I’m sort of crazy about faux-European, quasi-period settings, and Kawase does a very nice job of conceiving and executing designs for her setting and the looks of her characters. There’s a nice sense of motion to her illustrations, and the magical sequences have an understated quality that’s a nice change from some of the super-sparkly examples in the genre. (She doesn’t demonstrate a tremendous range in terms of character design. The back-up story is an appealing thief caper, but it looks like Miel and Radi are part of a summer stock company playing a one-act on the nights the main production is dark.)

But really, the biggest selling point for the book is Radi, the dream boy who’s actually dreamy and at least as interesting as the girl who loves him. That’s rare enough to make The Lapis Lazuli Crown worth a look.

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

License Request Day: Witches

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After a customarily long week in the real world, I always find it a little difficult to develop content on Fridays. To give myself a regular, relatively undemanding Friday project, I’m instituting License Request Day! (And since I’ve hidden the categories under a drop-down menu, it won’t make the sidebar any more ungainly. Bonus!)

witches1This week’s choice is Daisuke Igarashi’s Witches.

Viz is about to publish Igarashi’s Children of the Sea in its Signature imprint, so I thought to myself, “Why not strike while the iron’s hot?” It was originally serialized in Ikki, one of Viz co-owner Shogakukan’s mangazines. Witches received the Excellence Prize at the 2004 Japan Media Arts Festival. The book has been published in French as Sorcières (Casterman). It was an Official Selection of the 2007 Angoulême Festival. Here’s the description from the festival catalog:

“Considered to be one of the best newcomers in Japan, Daisuke Igarashi is the high priest of Nature and its mysteries. In parallel to his comic activity, he has also been a farmer for several years… Be they kindly or fiendish, Igarashi’s witches are the guardians of an ancestral truth that is jeopardized by contemporary civilization. Spiritually close to Kenji Miyazawa’s poems, these collected stories distinguish by their graphic power and the strong animistic beliefs of their author.”

You can get a taste of Igarashi’s work in Fanfare/Ponent Mon’s Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators, which you should all want to read anyway.

Sample images:

  • Profile at Lambiek.Net
  • Review of Sorcières at Ler BD

    • Got a suggestion or a request of your own? I’ll be happy to post guest requests on future Fridays, so keep it in mind, and contact me if you’ve got an urgent item on your own wish list.

    Precincts reporting

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    Division by genre is maintaining a fairly consistent lead over division by demographic category in yesterday’s poll. Genre proponents entirely outnumber demographic supporters in the comments, so I’d love to hear from people who like the idea of awards under the shônen-shôjo-seinen-josei-etc. umbrella.

    Previews review May 2009

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    ookuI was looking through the new Previews and thinking, “Y’know, there isn’t really a whole lot of new stuff here.” Then I got to page 292 and HOLY CRAP, THE FIRST VOLUME OF FUMI YOSHINAGA’S ÔOKU SHIPS FROM VIZ, HOLY CRAP, HOLY CRAP, HOLY CRAP.

    It was exactly like that, I swear to you. The cats still think I’ve gone insane.

    Anyway, if you aren’t familiar with Yoshinaga, she’s the insanely gifted creator of smart, funny, sexy stories like Antique Bakery, Flower of Life, Ichigenme: The First Class Is Civil Law, and a bunch of other stuff that’s already available in English. If anything can convince you of how awesome she is, it’s the fact that Ôoku tied with Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life for this year’s Grand Prize in the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prizes. Tezuka… Tatsumi… Yoshinaga… Convinced?

    In other new-stuff news, Raw Junior LLC offers a new hardcover book by Jeff Smith called Little Mouse Gets Ready (page 278). “A new book by Jeff Smith” of Bone and Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil fame would be enough for both people, but this one sounds adorable.

    And okay, not a ton of new product is on display, but there are plenty of new volumes of appealing continuing series to enjoy:

  • 20th Century Boys volume 4, written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa (Viz): Kenji is wearing a pink bunny suit on the cover. MUST… KNOW… WHY… (Page 292.)
  • Astral Project volume 4, written by marginal and illustrated by Syuji Takeya (CMX): The final volume of this intriguing metaphysical mystery. (Page 124.)
  • Bride of the Water God volume 4, written and illustrated by Mi-Kyung Yun (Drak Horse): Another episode of “Gossip Gods,” gorgeously illustrated. (Page 54.)
  • Kitchen Princess volume 10, written by Miyuki Kobayashi and illustrated by Natsumi Ando (Del Rey): Baked goods and heartbreak. (Page 240.)
  • Nodame Cantabile volume 16, written and illustrated by Tomoko Hayakawa (Del Rey): Funky, funny josei about music students. (Page 242.)
  • Parasyte volume 8, written and illustrated by Hitoshi Iwaaki (Del Rey): I think this is the last volume. Aww, look! Shinichi and Migi are waving goodbye! (Page 242.)
  • Ultimate Venus volume 6, written and illustrated by Takako Shigematsu (Go! Comi): Cute orphan navigates the shark-infested waters of her cougar grandma’s plush empire. (Page 249.)

    • Wednesday poll

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    Over at Comics Worth Reading, Ed Sizemore takes a look at the The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation Industry Awards Ballot and makes some interesting, genre-centered suggestions on what a manga awards could look like. Over at About.Com, Deb Aoki rounds up a nice list of titles that could have fit in nicely in a number of Eisner Award categories.

    Since the notion has been in the back of my mind lately, I thought I would throw out a quick poll on one structural aspect of a possible manga awards program.

    Upcoming 5/6/2009

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    You know what’s dangerous about Twitter? Ardent comics fans can recommend more titles more quickly. The 140-character cap is no barrier to persuasiveness or enthusiasm. It’s turning my “Oh, I should read that sometime” list into a freaking tome. Fun, though. I bring this up because it’s time to look at this week’s ComicList.

    fireinnanOne of the books that’s gotten a lot of tweets lately is CMX’s Fire Investigator Nanase, written by Izo Hashimoto and illustrated by Tomoshige Ichikawa. Kate Dacey describes it as being “like Silence of the Lambs, CSI, and Firefighter Daigo rolled into one!” That’s a very difficult recommendation to resist. The second volume comes out Wednesday, and I imagine I’ll be putting both on a book order shortly before that happens. Happy now, Twitter? Life was so much simpler when I could take my marching orders from blogs and NPR.

    Lots of stuff is due out from Del Rey this week, and I’m surprising myself by pointing you towards the first volume of RAN’s Maid War Chronicle. It’s about a group of maids who receive magical weapons to help their bratty prince reclaim his kingdom, and it’s not nearly as fan-service gross as it could be. (Their skirts are long, so I guess it’s difficult to draw up them. That phrase didn’t come out quite right, but you know what I mean.) I mentioned it in Kate’s “What to Read Now” Roundtable.

    What do you get when you combine the talents of two unquestionably fine comics creators? I’m not sure, but we’ll find out when we get a look at Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim’s The Eternal Smile from First Second.

    Oh, and pretty much everything I pointed to on Viz’s list last week is actually coming out this week. Terms and conditions still apply, though I’ll add that I’ll be catching up on Yuki Obata’s We Were There at my earliest convenience. (The bookstore only had the first and fourth volumes the other day.)

    Urasawarama

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    human

    I told myself to wait until two volumes of the new Naoki Urasawa series were out until I wrote about them at any length, and I’m glad I did, as I thought 20th Century Boys improved dramatically in the second volume. (Not that the first was weak, just that there seemed to be more of a voice and a style in the second.) Pluto I pretty much loved from the beginning.

    But I’m giving away the shocking secrets of this week’s Flipped.