11 Oct, 2007
Book Review: Manga: The Complete Guide
By: Erin F.
Manga: The Complete Guide
By Jason Thompson
Del Rey, 592 pp.
Jason Thompson claims to have read every manga title available in the English language. Thompson, a former editor of Shonen Jump magazine, is the author of Manga: The Complete Guide, a definitive Leonard-Maltin-style book. Every manga title published up through early 2007 is included in the book, complete with publication information, an age rating, a plot summary, a brief review, and a star rating. The book is also stuffed with essays about every manga genre (including “Cooking” and “Phantom Thieves”), a brief history of manga, a brief history of Japan (with manga examples from each time period) and a briefing on the Japanese language complete with a kana guide. The book also includes a section of mini-essays on manga-related issues that may concern parents, such as “Racism” and “Occult and Religion”.
Thompson set out to write a book for everyone, from fans of obscure manga to total n00b-Narutards, and from screaming yaoi fangirls to concerned members of the P.T.A. Yaoi and hentai (ero-manga) sections are regulated to the back of the book–Thompson suggested at MangaNext, “If you’re concerned about giving the book to your kid cousin you can just rip out the sections in the back.”
Some of the reviews and essays are not written by Thompson himself, but by industry professionals and trusted friends. Otaku USA magazine editor Patrick Macias contributes gekiga reviews; Overlooked Manga Festival’s Shaenon Garrity reviews the magical girl titles, and Carl Gustav Horn contributes to the book (look for his review of Gainax’s “Mega Comics”). Thompson claims that although he farmed out some of the reviews in order to be less biased (he just doesn’t like Saint Tail), he still read the series and edited or rewrote any reviews he felt were too far off the mark.
The star system was not Thompson’s idea, but suggested by Del Rey. Every manga series in the book is given a rating between zero and four stars. I found the star system to be extremely useful; it’s a quick way to avoid bottom-of-the-barrel manga junk and an easy way to pick out good titles. But are Thompson’s rating accurate? As soon as I picked up the book I started looking up my favorite and least favorite titles to see how my person rating system compares to Thompson’s:
| Some of My Favorite Manga | |
| Title | MtCG Stars |
| Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga | 4 |
| Genshiken | 3 |
| Nausicaa | 4 |
| Secret Comics Japan | 3.5 |
| Swan | 4 |
I’m disappointed that Genshiken only receives three stars, but but I can live with that. How do Thompson’s rating compared to some of PopCultureShock’s reviews?
| Top PCS Reviews | ||
| Title | MtCG | PCS |
| Club 9 | 3.5 | A- |
| High School Girls | 2.5 | B+ |
| Lady Snowblood | 3.5 | A- |
| Love Roma | 3 | A |
| A Patch of Dreams | 3.5 | A |
| Project X Series | 1.5 | NR |
| Sexy Voice & Robo | 3.5 | A+ |
| Tekkon Kinkreet | 3.5 | A+ |
| To Terra | 4 | A+ |
| Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms | 4 | A+ |
I also had to know what ratings Thompson gave to some of my least favorite titles:
| Some of My Least Favorite Manga | |||
| Title | MtCG | PCS | |
| Cipher | 3 | C+ | |
| The Devil Does Exist | 2 | C+ | |
| Pastel | 1.5 | C+ | |
| Peach Girl Sae’s Story | 2.5 | C | |
| Pieces of a Spiral | 1.5 | C- | |
Katherine wanted to know why Innocent W only got 3 stars. My podcast co-host Noah and I had our own conflicts with some of Thompson’s ratings: Both Happy Mania and Akira get four stars–does that mean Happy Mania is the Akira of josei? Thompson clarified with us in his interview that his ratings are accurate to within a half-star. He began writing the book with a five star system but cut back when he discovered he was giving five stars to classical manga such as Osama Tezuka’s works. Four stars evened the playing field for more recent titles.
Noah and I scoured the book for the lowest rated titles, some of which have been featured a two part series over at the Overlooked Manga Festival recently. There are only six titles given the lowest possible rating of zero stars:
Zero Star Manga
Eiken
Central City
Dark Angel
High School Agent
Night Warriors Dark Stalkers Revenge
New Vampire Miyu
Fourteen titles receive only a half-star rating, among them: Girls Bravo, Onegai Twins, Junk Force, and Kage Tora, the last of these featuring “…badly drawn cleavage.”
Many titles receive the prestigious four-star rating, among them:
Four Star Manga
Banana Fish
Berserk
Cromartie High School
Crying Freeman
Cyborg 009
Death Note
Eyeshield 21
From Eroica with Love
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
Phoenix
Wounded Man
The difference between four and three stars is the quality jump between the original Battle Angle Alita (four strars) and Battle Angel Alita Last Order (three stars). The anthology Japan by 17 Creators receives four stars, but Secret Comics Japan receives only three stars (I think these two ratings should be flipped). I’m annoyed that Tekkon Kinkreet (listed as Black & White in the guide) receives 3.5 stars and is good throughout, while Death Note gets four stars but it turns into a river of vomit sometime around volume seven.
Within five minutes of opening Manga The Complete Guide I began a list of obscure, bizarre, and more often than not out-of-print titles I would like to read:
Erin’s Wish List
A,A1 - by Moto Hagio, early shojo artist and author of They Were Eleven
Bass Master Ranmaru - a fishing manga e-book
Bow Wow Watta - veterinary manga by a prolific veterinarian
Bride of Deimos - by the artist of swan
Comics Underground Japan - 4 stars, contains “Cat Soup” short story
Dame Dame Saito Nikki - the author explains American culture in vignettes
Division Chief Kosaku Shima - salaryman manga
The Four Immigrants Manga - oldest title available in translation
This is just the A through F section of my general list. I also quickly wrote down all the four star erotic titles and four star yaoi titles, such as:
Four Star Ero-Manga and Yaoi Titles
Co-Ed Sexxtasy
Domin-8 Me
Embracing Love
Gerard and Jacques
Japanese Eroticism: A Language Guide to Current Comics
Pink Snipper
Shout Out Loud
Wild Rock
I’m not going to tell you which ones are yaoi.
Manga: The Complete Guide is an indispensable resource for aspiring and established manga fans. It’s an obvious purchase for librarians, a great resource for parents, and a great gift for the manga fan in your life. At only $20, it’s incredibly affordable. You can’t get two volumes of Lone Wolf and Cub (four stars) for $20!
I would like to see future editions of Manga: The Complete Guide, and maybe a hard cover collector’s edition of the book. Look for my interview with Jason Thompson and his MangaNext panel audio on this site and on ninjaconsultant.com in the near future.
