Is it just my imagination, or has Dark Horse quietly shelved Bride of the Water God and Translucent (a fate that also seems to have befallen XS Hybrid, a manhwa I was decidedly less enthusiastic about)? Scanning their website, I didn’t see the next volume of either scheduled for release between now and October. A quick search of Amazon didn’t yield any hits, either. Does anyone know what’s befallen these series? God, I hope I haven’t fallen for two more DH titles that will never reach closure—after the heartbreak of Club 9 and Satsuma Gishiden, I’m beginning to feel like a commitment-phobic bachelor, at least as far as DH’s manga/manhwa are concerned.

And speaking of books in limbo, what’s befallen Aki Shimizu’s Qwan? According to the Wikipedia, six volumes have been released in Japan, but Tokyopop has yet to publish anything beyond volume four. I’m wondering why it’s been almost a year since the last release—is it a licensing issue, or has Tokyopop caught up to the Japanese edition? I’d hate to see this offbeat shonen fantasy languish in manga purgatory, as its gorgeous artwork and compelling, folkloric storyline deserve a bigger audience.

The Ice Wanderer

By Jiro Taniguchi
Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 240 pp.
Rating: 16+

Do you ever find yourself thinking, “I wish I could read something like Jiro Taniguchi’s The Walking Man but with more wolf fighting and bear hunting?”

The Ice Wanderer was my introduction to Taniguchi’s work, very little of which has reached our shores. An anthology of short stories thematically centered around man and nature, the first short features Jack London as a character, and the second is based on London’s notes for an early draft of White Fang.

The best shorts in The Ice Wanderer are not Jack London tributes; the highlight of the anthology is “Return to the Sea,” the tale of a marine biologist who follows a whale to a legendary whale cemetery. I was also very impressed by “Shokaro,” a short about an aspiring manga artist recounting his time living in an eclectic boarding house.

“The Ice Wanderer” and “White Wilderness” boast the kind of impressive, breathtaking natural backgrounds required for Jack London adaptations. However, between the Yukon mountains and attacks by hungry wolves, the Fanfare/Ponent dialog is a rough read. The dialects spoken don’t flow smoothly. I also found the character designs off-putting in the first and last shorts, since the natives have identical face structures to the white settlers. (Maybe I’m just racist…? I’m not sure what race the marine biologist is, other than non-Inuit.)

“Shokaro” uses setting as character as much as the other stories, but this time the setting is indoors (in Japan). A young manga-ka living in a communal dorm-style apartment observes the lives of his neighbors while he completes a comic for a contest. The story is set years ago, pre-internet, as the artist draws alone in his small, undecorated room. The tenants of the building are slightly haunted by the structure’s past as a prewar brothel. The setting and characters ring true to life.

“Return to the Sea” is so sincere it was hard for me to take seriously (I had to use “The New Sincerity” to get through it). In a very predictable plotline, a scientist follows a whale who once saved his life as the creature swims off to die. The natives tell him not to go, but he’s driven to find out if the whale graveyard is real. The lyrical splash page as the unnamed protagonist loses consciousness deep below the northern sea is well-worth the book’s Eisner nomination.

I’d like to think Fanfare/Ponent Mon is to manga what the Criterion Collection is to DVDs - but then, where does Vertical fit in to my metaphor? And what about Drawn & Quarterly?

The Ice Wanderer is available now.

Disappearance Diary

By Hideo Azuma
Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 200 pp.
Rating: NR (Older Readers)

Reading Hideo Azuma’s Disappearance Diary is the comic equivalent of watching a foreign film at a film festival alone; afterwards you desperately want to discuss the film/book with someone else, only to find none of your friends have seen/read it yet.

Disappearance Diary is an autobiographical work by manga artist Hideo Azuma. The book covers three periods in Azuma’s life when he stopped creating manga: in his first disappearance a failed suicide attempt ends in Azuma living homeless in the woods for months; in his second disappearance, Azuma becomes a gas pipe fitter under an assumed name; in the final third of the book Azuma’s lifelong history of alcoholism ends in a long-term hospitalization.

The book won Grand Prize in the 2005 Japan Media Arts Festival and was the Grand Prize winner at the 2006 Osama Tezuka Cultural Awards - although, I would have purchased it even without all the accolades. All you had to do was say “homeless” and “autobiography”.

The first panel reads:

“This manga has a positive outlook on life, and so it has been made with as much realism removed as possible.”

As advertised, Azuma’s suicide attempt is drawn as a gag panel. His struggles living in the woods read like a food blog. His misogynist co-worker at the gas company is a character played up for laughs. The artwork is exceedingly cute, even when the alcoholic Azuma is puking in his his sleep. (Azuma helpfully notes, “Warning: This will kill you.”)

Azuma’s negative experiences with his editors and the struggles that caused him to run away are glossed over in about 20 pages. I was left wondering if Azuma enjoyed laying pipes more than making manga. His opinion flies by in a single panel:

“When I was homeless I wanted to start working. When I did physical work I wanted to become an artist.”

Perhaps more alarming than Azuma’s personal story is the untold story of his wife, who also works as his assistant. How did Azuma’s wife feel about his disappearances? She rarely appears in the book she helped create. What did she do for money when her husband/employer failed to return home for months? At one point, she finished comics herself when Azuma was overtaken by delirium tremens.

Disappearance Diary is truly fierce as an autobiographical comic; boring details are made humorous, depressing subjects are amusing to read about, pipe laying technicalities are accompanied by cute chipmunk drawings, and the story so thought provoking it has hounded me for days.

I just wish more supplementary material was provided by the publisher, since little is known about Azuma in the English speaking world. A bibliography of Azuma’s other works would have been useful, or an essay explaining his significance in the world of manga could have rounded out the volume very nicely. This may be a faithful reprint of the Japanese edition, but it left me wanting more. For example, it is mentioned in the text that Azuma is the father of lolicon manga - but why? For what title? Azuma barely mentions it, recalling a 1976 attempt to drive yaoi out of Comiket. I want to hear more about that!

Azuma still attends Comiket on a regular basis, as Ed Chavez explained to me in conversation. Azuma is also renowned for his science fiction works, and he is a pioneer of autobiography comics. According to Chavez, Azuma is very successful in a few small sub-genres of manga, but his success is not financial. It is common for authors like Azuma who are successful in obscure genres to become alcoholics or disappear completely, with a life expectancy of 40. The Disappearance Diary itself was published by a very small label and would have gone unnoticed if it hadn’t won awards.

I hope more of Azuma’s works will be collected and translated for an international audience before he dies of liver failure. I would also like to see a comic by Mrs. Azuma!

The Disappearance Diary is available now.

There is only one place in North America to buy Uniqlo’s manga T-shirts, and I work and live just a short subway ride away! These T-shirts combine my love of classic manga with my love of screen-printed T-shirts, and with a price point at a very reasonable $15.50 (about $16.50 after taxes)… well… let’s just say I’ve spent my manga budget for the month on T-shirts. It’s a good thing I can wear them to work!

The T-shirts were created to promote the 50th anniversary of Shonen Sunday.

Very few of the images I’ve seen on the web correspond to the designs at the Uniqlo NYC location. Here are some of the properties featured on T-shirts I’ve seen:

Ashita No Joe (Tomorrow’s Joe)
Cutey Honey
Cyborg 009
Devil Man
Ge Ge Ge No Kitaro (new this week)
Golgo 13
Hajime No Ippo
Star of the Giants (Kyojin No Hoshi new this week)
Tekkon Kinkreet
Touch
Urusei Yatsura

The Astro Boy and Gundam T-shirts were also available in children’s sizes, but the adult Astro Boy T-shirts had sold out by my third visit, and I didn’t notice any Gundam shirts at all today. One of my coworkers claims there were Ranma 1/2 shirts, but all of them sold out immediately.

Each T-shirt has a tag with a little blurb in both English and Japanese about the artist and/or the title featured on the shirt. The text on the tags is written with a lot of heart, but the translations are a little awkward. From the Ashita No Joe tag:

“Joe Yabuki is a tender-hearted boxer who is clumsy in life. Joe bulldozing through in pursuit of fiercely burning moments was depicted first in comic, then in TV animation and in a movie, and stirred the hearts of millions of people. His fire and passion, which still live on today, are now featured in this T-shirt.”

Note that the fire and passion are not just on the front of the T-shirt, but in the 100% cotton garment.

The titles chosen for the T-shirts are classic manga by Japanese standards - many of the featured titles are not available in English, and totally unfamiliar to the U.S. anime fanbase - thus, the Ranma Shirts sold out while UY designs are still available. A giant Detective Conan decal on the front windows welcomes customers into the store - but Detective Conan bombed on Adult Swim in this country. I think the Cyborg 009 shopping bags are really, really cool, but the Cyborg 009 manga was one of the biggest flops ever in the U.S.

The manga T-shirts are located on the mezzanine level. A note on the sizes: I usually wear Medium T-shirts, but the extra-small shirts fit.

As a Japanophile planning a trip to Soho, you might want to check out the nearby Kid Robot store, Anna Sui and Muji.

Headed to New York Comic-Con next weekend? If so, you’ll want to bookmark this page to help you plan your visit, as there will be hundreds of events taking place at the Javits Center, from movie screenings to autograph signings. Here’s a list of all the anime and manga-centric events on the official NYCC schedule…

(Continued)

For this column I got to read two books by publishers I haven’t read much from: Go! Comi and Yen Press. It occurred to me later that King of the Lamp is kind of the girl’s equivalent of Sundome. It’s just a theory… Without further ado, here’s Heroes Are Extinct!!, Vol. 3, King of the Lamp, and Sundome, Vol. 1

Heroes Are Extinct!!, Vol. 3

By Ryoji Hido
DMP, 200 pp.
Rating: 13+

This tokusatsu parody manga wraps up in volume three, released on January 15th.

Katherine and I have reviewed the previous two volumes here and here and a little bit here.

I found volumes one and two had good moments, but the simplistic, hastily-done, anime-style art really bothered me. For most of the team working on the manga, this was their first professional work. The original concept was intended as a pitch for an anime series. I think I would have liked this as an anime OVA rather than a manga series. By volume three the art improved greatly, but I never found the character designs appealing.

In volume three the Bazue Empire attacks earth for real–unlike in volumes one and two where aliens Cassiel and Jude faked an invasion to play Power Rangers with earthlings. We learned in volume two that Cassie is actually from Earth. It’s a cute twist, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that is totally racist. Cassiel would have been a more interesting character if he really was an alien bent on creating heroes to protect earth based on a love of Japanese television.

I really couldn’t get into the Bazue Army political drama which opens volume three. I couldn’t remember the various generals from the other volumes, and I even confused Jude and Aster! Had I read the entire series at once, or followed it in a weekly magazine, I might have had an easier time of it.

I was more interested in the Earth Terra Force characters than the Bazue military royalty. Unfortunately, Terra Force gets very little face-time in this volume.

The conclusion is satisfying and over-the-top, and fits well with the rest of the story. Despite the bad art, Hido’s love for the characters and the genre flow out the pages. In some ways, it’s similar to watching the original Doctor Who series: the writer’s love pours through in the best episode, despite the extremely poor special effects.

Nevertheless, I can’t imagine why anyone other than Mike Dent, the tokusatsu podcaster, would buy this series, especially at a higher-than-average cover price of $12.95. Statistically, there may be many Mike Dents in the world, but I’m not confident the real Mike Dent will like the series. I plan on sending it to him as soon as this review is posted.

King of the Lamp

By Takako Shigematsu
Go! Comi, 200 pp.
Rating: 16+ (Older Teen)

I haven’t read much by Go! Comi! A.I. Revolution and Love Master A fell a little flat. I was pleasantly surprised to find King of the Lamp to be a light-hearted and bizarre anthology of smut. Unfortunately it’s more fun to summarize than to actually read, since the over-toned art really drags the book down.

Rather than a traditional genie, a king is sentenced to live in a lamp as punishment for having a harem of 1,000 stolen women. Instead of granting wishes outright, the King demands payment; a kiss for small wishes, and second base for larger favors. In each chapter the King grants the wishes of a different client/girl/victim.

The King must help out 1,000 girls to free himself from the lamp. He helps three in this volume, leaving only 986 girls to go. The rest of the book is padded out with a short story about a girl who is adopted by a pair of un-aging male incubi. The girl falls in love with one of them after coming of age. (WTF SRSLY: “You are my adopted daughter but since you’re 18 now let’s get it on.”)

Takako Shigematsu, who is also the author of Tenshi Ja Nai!! (I’m No Angel), adequately portrays the King’s character as a prankster without delving too deep. The bulk of the girl cast is not terribly interesting. At first I expected monkey’s paw endings to each girls’ wish. Every chapter could easily become “comeuppance theater” but it doesn’t. For example, in one chapter a girl is jealous of her sister’s boyfriend. When the boy goes blind temporarily because of an accident, the girl wishes for her sister’s voice so she can care for her crush in the hospital. In comeuppance theater the boy might marry the girl’s sister after regaining his sight, but in King of the Lamp, the boy realizes he has fallen in love with the other sister. They then have sex, which is how every chapter ends.

The paneling is not terribly adept - in one scene a girl drops a tray of hospital food which is abruptly cleaned up by the next page. The action wasn’t clear and I read the sequence twice to understand it. Many pages look crowded or cluttered. The high point of the art is the King’s character design. He’s a hottie, but his tanned skin ultimately adds to the over-toned look of the book.

The make-out scenes are surprisingly graphic compared to the manga I usually read. Nothing ridiculously explicit happens and for the most part the sex is off-camera, but holy crow, his face is in her crotch there…! Instead of anyone learning a lesson, each story ends with the happy [teenage] couple getting it on.

Slightly amusing but ultimately forgettable, smutty but not pornographic, King of the Lamp could have a sequel, but stops just short of the King reaching his goal.

Sundome, Vol. 1

By Kazuto Okada
Yen Press, 208 pp.
Rating: M (Mature)

When I first started reviewing for Manga Recon in 2005, I hadn’t read much manga. My early reviews dwelled on the different methods of handling sound effects–I used to enjoy Del Rey’s best, but now I like Viz’s full translation for faster reading. This is my first Yen Press title. Yen translates sound effects in teeny-tiny letters in the gutters between panels, beginning each translation with “SFX:”. I found this distracting, it slowed me down as I read the “SFX” acronym aloud in my head.

Some of the dialog was printed too close to the binding, and I couldn’t open the book wide enough to read it. This would be a bigger problem if I were reading the book standing on the subway, however, since Sundome is explicit I didn’t take chances. My decision was justified: The book features drawing after drawing of erections (in jeans) and… let’s just say “c_m_l t___s”.

Hideo Aiba is a member of the “Roman” club in his high school. Roman in this instance means “Romance,” therefore, the club “researches” ghosts, aliens, and mysteries. Virginity is required for membership, so all the members are total losers, and all males, until Kurumi Sahana transfers in.

The attractive (although frankly creepy) and popular Sahana attaches herself to the Roman Club, and specifically Aiba. Sahana kicks off a bizarre relationship with Aiba, whom vows never to sleep with, however, she promises to torture Aiba to the point of near-ejaculation. Sundome, in Japanese, literally means “stopping the moment before,” as explained in the useful translator’s notes.

Sahana coerces Aiba into a number of extremely physically painful situations–sticking a nail in his penis, being crushed by a member of the judo club–and then rewards him with a semi-sexual favors, like untying the side of her side-tying underwear. Aiba decides this is better than being rejected, and despite the genital bleeding, he misses Sahana desperately the first day of summer vacation.

I found the book neither funny nor titillating. Everything is toned too dark, and the characters designs are unappealing. Sundome seems to (ironically?) stop at the point just before it would be truly ugly or cute or sexy or funny. The front cover is kind of sexy, but the pin-up chapter break drawings of Sahana wearing transparent underwear just get weirder and grosser as the book proceeds.

Although I’m not the target audience for this, I do enjoy bawdy sexual humor, like Golden Boy, Ping Pong Club, High School Girls, Beavis and Butthead, Superbad, and most Adult Swim shows, but I’m not sure who would want to pay $12.99 for this. At least DMP’s $13 books have dust jackets.

In honor of Valentine’s Day Tokyopop is making one entire volume of Loveless available to read online, for free, each day for a week! Holy cow! [Edited 2/7/08 at 1:30PM] Thanks to Lori Henderson, here’s the direct link. Click on the cover of the volume to launch the Reader. You don’t have to register or log in to read it, either.

I reviewed Loveless volume 1 in 2006, and I reviewed it in audio form here.

Don’t be left LOVELESS this Valentine’s Day!!

Starting Thursday, 2/7/08, TOKYOPOP.com will feature one entire volume of Loveless each day until Valentine’s Day!

Make sure you check TOKYOPOP.com on Valentine’s Day, 2/14/08, for a super, sweet treat!

In a world where mere words have unbelievable power, how can you find true friendship and happiness when your very name is Loveless?

Here’s the Loveless schedule:

• Thurs 2/7/08 - Loveless, Vol 1
• Friday 2/8/08 - Loveless, Vol 2
• Saturday 2/9/08 - Loveless, Vol 3
• Sunday 2/10/08 - Loveless, Vol 4
• Monday 2/11/08 - Loveless, Vol 5
• Tuesday 2/12/08 - Loveless, Vol 6
• Wed 2/13/08 - Loveless, Vol 7
• Thursday 2/14/08 - Valentine’s Day : Special Surprise from TOKYOPOP!

This week I’m looking at three titles from Viz’s Shojo Beat line, all of which I like. Woops, these are low-res images… I’ll replace them later.

I’d also like take a moment to explain that I give As to titles I’d recommend to anyone, A- to titles I’d recommend to almost anyone, and the rare A+ is for books I suggest you buy immediately, no questions asked.

Honey and Clover, Vol. 1

by Chica Umino
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Older Teens

Before Honey and Clover I didn’t know shojo titles could have male protagonists. H&C centers around three college dormmates at an art school: Takemoto, the white-haired directionless sophomore; Morita, a fifth-year senior brunette with a mysterious job and odd personal habits; and heartbreaker senior Mayama who’s in love with his widowed boss. Most of the gang hangs out in Hanamoto-sensei’s office, and the inciting incident is the introduction of Hanamoto’s younger cousin Hagu.

Hagu-chan enters the college as a freshmen, but she’s so short that people mistake her for either a 12-year-old or some kind of leprechaun from Hokkaido (well, Morita thinks so). At 18 Hagu is an accomplished artist with gallery shows, making her a freak at the art school and putting her under a lot of pressure. Fortunately she fits in with Hanamoto’s posse of weirdoes.

When I watched the anime series, I worried Hagu’s small stature and Morita’s obsession with her meant H&C was an otaku title, but my concerns were unwarranted. (Although sometimes I still worry Hagu’s tiny hands are being fetishized.) Morita and Takemoto both fall in love with Hagu on sight, but they’re too naive or dense to realize it - instead a third-person narrator lets us know what’s going on.

Jason Thompson said of Honey and Clover in the Daily Yomiuri:

I know that a lot of people go into college or adulthood not knowing what they want to do with their lives, and many manga characters have the same directionless attitude, but I find it more inspiring to read about characters who do know what they want.

I was puzzled by Thompson, because the reason I fell in love with H&C was because of Takemoto’s lack of direction in life. Takemoto entered art school because he wanted to do something with his hands. He has no idea what he’ll do when he graduates. It’s Takemoto’s fear of the future in the anime series really captured my heart.

Ceramics major “Ironman” Ayu Yamada kicks her way into the volume at page 110. She’s in love with Mayama, but he doesn’t return her feelings and it’s breaking her heart. I really want to like Yamada because she kicks guys in the head. Her physical strength contrasts with Hagu’s weakness - but Yamada’s path is heartbreak. She cries in half the scenes she’s in (which I’ve been reading in Shojo Beat). I understand college heartbreak, but there’s not one strong woman in H&C (emotionally, and only Yamada has physical strength).

The art style of H&C is incredibly appealing, with fun sketchy lines. There are many comedic moments covering up the deeper dramatic story, and the comedy is drawn well. I love all of the characters, even Mayama’s tragic boss. All of them have unique stories and quirks that make them seem like real people. It really captures the feeling of college, a certain love of meat, and the absolute terror of “What am I going to do for the rest of my life?”

The manga is only 11 volumes, so it seems compact compared to the 36 episodes of anime. Viz is releasing the live action film adaption later this year (I’ll review it soon! I promise!) and there is a live action drama TV series adaptation currently airing in Japan. H&C and Nodame Cantible are giant josei hits in Japan.

Honey and Clover volume 1 (of 11) will be in stores on March 4th. It is currently running in Shojo Beat magazine.

The Sand Chronicles, Vol. 1

By Hinako Ashihara
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teens

The Sand Chronicles is shojo that picks you up by the collar and beats the shit out of you just for fun. One minute it’s all flowers and screentone and the next it’s TEAR JERKING MELODRAMA OH SHIT DID THAT JUST HAPPEN!? No wonder it won the Shogakukan Award.

Ann lives a total hick town which has driven her mother to suicide. In her grief, Ann clings to her boyfriend Daigo, wishing desperately that they’ll be together forever. He gives her an hourglass (thus the title). Ann’s estranged father lives in Tokyo, but that story is for a later arc (currently running in Shojo Beat). Ann feels like she’s got nobody but her friends and her boyfriend. She signs up for a summer camp to spend more time with her friends and inevitably twists her ankle while hanging out in the woods alone with a boy who is not her boyfriend (it was bound to happen, Marmalade Boy, Kodocha, Absolute Boyfriend, My Heavenly Hockey Club) - but damned if there’s not a thunderstorm and a cliff and THERE WILL BE BLOOD!! No, literally, this is the only manga I’ve read since High School Girls with a serious discussion of menstruation.

Sand Chronicles knows how to turn the drama up to 11. I find myself reading the next chapter every month because I’m worried about Ann. I’ve got no complaints about the art. Ann and Daigo’s character designs aren’t the most memorable, but Ann’s big eyes were clearly drawn for crying sweet, sweet shojo tears. This is the perfect storm of a shojo title.

David Welsh called Sand Chronicles one of the best manga of 2008 already, and he reviews it more elegantly than I have here. I guess I’m still a greenhorn puking reviews onto the ‘net.

Sand Chronicles volume 1 (of 10) is currently available. It is currently running in Shojo Beat magazine.

Fall in Love Like a Comic, Vol. 2

By Chitose Yagami
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teens

My review of Fall in Love Like a Comic volume 1 received a lot of comments, leading me to believe this title is pretty popular, perhaps because of the hilarious sample chapter that ran in Shojo Beat. Since the series is only two books long, it will likely find it’s way to the shelves of many shojo fans.

In volume two, Rena and Tomoyo’s relationship is threatened when Rena’s new tutor turns out to be Tomoyo’s [hot, older] ex-girlfriend. This standard romance plotline used to really annoy me - why would an ex be a threat? Do the characters lack confidence in their relationships? Looking back on my own love life and the love lives of some friends, it’s easy to find examples where this actually happens. Just because I’ve never dumped anyone to go back out with my ex… However, I’ve never been jealous of a younger cousin dominating my boyfriend’s time, as it happens later in book.

Volume one made me wonder about the age rating. Older teens? Really? Volume two quickly made me understand the chosen rating as Rena shouts the word “SEX!!!” in large bolded letters about five pages in. Things get steamy but never hot and heavy so it turns out the rating was appropriate. Well played, Viz, well played.

The plot wraps up rather quickly two-thirds of the way through the book. At first I thought the final chapter was some kind of dream sequence, but no, it’s really happening! The ending is over-the-top happy. The final third of the book has an epilogue chapter, an extra story, and a series of pages about how to draw manga which were dense and informative.

The book delivers everything you could really hope for in the second volume of a two volume series - lots of mero mero moments, Tomoyo being a hot guy with a heart of gold, a cute epilogue, and a good solid lesson about making your own manga. The short “Bewildered Princess” falls a bit flat, but otherwise, I’ve got no complaints.

Chitose Yagami has several other titles, all published in Ciao magazine or Ciao Deluxe, none of which have been imported. Most of them have “Kiss” in the title and are 3 volumes or shorter.

Fall in Love Like a Comic volume 2 (of 2) is currently available. A sample chapter ran in Shojo Beat’s September 2007 issue.

Better late than never, I guess!

More fun, less fiber at Minx.
The basic impulse behind DC’s Minx imprint was a noble one: create a line of comics that would appeal to young female readers. Though DC drafted some top-notch talent for its first Minx titles, the results were decidedly mixed, producing one entertaining book (The Re-Gifters), one middling book (Good As Lily), and two very pedestrian ones (Clubbing, The Plain J.A.N.E.S.). The biggest problem with these early Minx offerings was that they wore their literary aspirations on their sleeves, trying too hard to be the graphic novel equivalents of Judy Blume. Most of the titles were earnest and dull, with teens speaking in the slightly stilted patois of Dawson’s Creek and The OC as they fumbled their way to Very Important Life Lessons. No wonder many teenage girls continued to beat a path to the Borders manga aisle instead of seeking out Minx books at the local comic book store. My suggestion to DC is to stop treating Minx like a prestige project, cranking out respectable books that parents won’t mind buying for their teens—focus on making the books fun.

Fewer attempts to retell the classics in graphic novel form.
I don’t mind comics in the classroom—there’s ample evidence that comics can help a variety of students become more proficient readers. My curmudgeonly side is less enthusiastic, however, about the growing number of publishers hawking graphic novels as tools for teaching teens the classics. These pow-n-splat editions of Great Books prove just how difficult it can be to capture the poetry and mystery of the original works when you boil them down to plot—the least difficult element of Shakespeare or Homer for readers to grasp. And if the artwork isn’t good… well, anyone who’s ever lived with a teenager knows that high school students are quick to reject whatever doesn’t meet their platonic ideal of coolness or authenticity, especially if adults are calling it hip. (Or worse: manga.)

A moratorium on Spider Man movies.
The third Spider Man movie was a tedious, loud affair that ran too long, featured too many villains, and touched on too many iconic plotlines to give any of them satisfactory treatment. Even Rosemary Harris’s expert line-readings and Bruce Campbell’s deliciously obnoxious cameo couldn’t redeem this overstuffed turkey. Best to let this franchise lie fallow for a few years before making another movie… preferably with a new director.

And while we’re at it…
Let’s declare a moratorium on X-Men movies and movies based on C-list Marvel properties.

More funding and publicity for CMX.
Pssssst, DC… you already have a line of comics that appeal to girls: CMX! If you invested half the money and promotional energy in CMX that you do in Minx, you might be pleasantly surprised by the results. As commentators around the mangasphere have noted, the CMX catalog boasts some amazing titles, from old-school shojo like Swan, Moon Child, Cipher, and From Eroica With Love to kid-friendly fare like Chikyu Misaki and The Palette of 12 Secret Colors. But if you’re not making an obvious effort to promote them, how will the Fruits Basket crowd know that there are other titles besides Vampire Knight, Kare Kano, and Fall in Love Like a Comic? Take a page from the Go! Comi playbook and try some fun, creative, inexpensive strategies for building brand loyalty and increasing awareness of the CMX catalog: Fan art and poetry contests. Forums for discussing CMX products. Unusual giveaways. Fan-friendly panels at conventions. (Translation: give the Wildstorm folks their own separate forum for interacting with Ex Machina fans.)

Bring out your dead…
Now that the manga market has matured—and there are readers hungry for the kind of weird, edgy, WTF?! stuff that Viz and Dark Horse licensed five or ten years ago—I’d like to encourage publishers to revisit past under-performers with an eye towards reissuing them. Topping my list of titles I’d like to see in 2.0 versions: Clover, Rumic Theater, and What’s Michael. Given how beautiful the original presentation of Clover was, I think Tokyopop would be wise to reissue it as a four-volume box set (as it had planned to do in 2006 before dropping the project), while Rumic Theater and What’s Michael seem better suited to the omnibus treatment. I don’t need bells and whistles on any of these editions, though I wouldn’t mind seeing them issued with the artwork unflipped and, in the case of Clover, the translation refreshed. A new font for the lettering would also be most welcome—the original edition is typeset in what looks like Times New Roman.

More Tezuka, Toume, and old-school shojo.
I must have been good last year, because Santa rewarded me with a big-ticket item from my 2007 wish list: a new edition of Black Jack, courtesy of Vertical, Inc. That news has made me greedy for titles such as Kei Toume’s The Hour of the Mice and Fuguruma Memories, as well as shojo classics The Rose of Versailles, The Song of the Wind in the Trees, The Poe Family, and Princess Knight. What would really make my heart sing, however, is an English language edition of Ludwig B., Tezuka’s final project. Though Tezuka intended Ludwig B. to be sprawling, panoramic portrait of Beethoven and his times, Tezuka only completed two volumes before his death. It’s a pity he didn’t start the project earlier, as its superb layouts, vivid Viennese street scenes, and glorious images of Beethoven at the piano need no translation for music lovers to enjoy. Pair it with some CDs, and you might just have a bitchin’ music appreciation book that captures the spirit of the Classical style, if not all the historical details. No doubt Charles Rosen would approve, though he might not know what to make of the nekomimi in volume two.

Save titles from licensing limbo.
With so many series debuting each year, it’s inevitable that many won’t post sales figures big enough to justify their continued publication. But when it’s a title I love… well, I become a crusader, forgetting that manga publishers are in business to make money, not please (almost) middle-aged fangirls. Three titles that I’d love to see rescued from licensing limbo are Ai Morinaga’s Duck Prince (CPM), Masato Kobayashi’s Club 9 (Dark Horse), and Hiroshi Hirata’s Satsuma Gishiden (Dark Horse). Of the three, Duck Prince seems like the most likely candidate for a license rescue, perhaps by Tokyopop. As for the other two… there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of seeing the full run of either. I just have to accept that unpleasant truth.

Better mainstream coverage of comics.
I’d been struggling to pull together my thoughts on the subject when Tom Spurgeon and David Welsh posted thoughtful critiques of the comics coverage in Newsweek, The New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly. I don’t have much to add to the discussion, though I can think of two suggestions for big-city papers interested in covering comics.

First, stop ghettoizing comic reviews and best-of lists to your websites. We still live in a world where “print” equals “prestige,” and when you can’t be bothered to give regular print space to comics, you send the message that comics just aren’t as important as the other media you cover. Second, don’t confine your reviews to literary comics (i.e. Shortcomings) and event comics (i.e. Civil War); try to cover a more representative sampling of the market. If you applied the same selection criteria to determining which movies, books, and TV shows to review, your Arts & Leisure section would be mighty slim indeed. (And given how miserable your high culture coverage can be, you can’t claim to be taking the aesthetic high road by thumbing your nose at Death Note.)

So that’s my wish list for 2008. Many thanks to the bloggers and readers who made 2007 a great year for us at PopCultureShock. Here’s to an even better 2008!

The last week of November 2007 saw a lot of Del Rey titles come out all at once: the last volume of Genshiken, Mamotte! Lollipop volume 4, Aventura vol. 1 and My Heavenly Hockey Club volume 3. I thought I’d take the opportunity to do an all-Del Rey column and make good on my promise to review My Heavenly Hockey Club volume 2 as well. I’d read a sample chapter of Mamotte! Lollipop volume 1 and was intrigued; I foolishly decided to catch up on volumes 1-4. Unfortunately, the Lollipop beat me into the ground spiritually and mentally and I only just now made it to the end of volume two.

Admittedly this column is over a month late. During the month of December when Mamotte! Lollipop wasn’t kicking my ass, I covered NYAF in three different capacities, made buttons dedicated to Jason Thompson, wrote a review for Otaku USA magazine, reviewed other stuff for PW, participated in three year-end-critc’s polls, and hosted my parents the week of Christmas. I also worked on my podcast and found a new apartment. I’m just saying… it’s not like I’ve been playing Rock Band this whole time.

Aventura, Vol. 1

By Shin Midorikawa
Del Rey, 192 pp.
Rating: 16+ (Older Teen)

Lewin Randit is an infamous redhead at the Gaius School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Gaius has only two majors to choose from: Wizardry or Swordsmanship, and Lewin is a Swordsmanship major. Exactly like Naruto and Harry Potter, Lewin is extremely clutzy and unskilled - but he just might grow up to be the greatest wizard/ninja of all time. It’s the shonen plot we’ve seen a thousand times before, but instead of crippling the story, there’s a comforting familiarity to these clichés balanced out with terrific art.

The art of Aventura is amazing, with it’s detailed linework and Ah! My Goddess-style antenna-like bangs on Record of the Lodoss War-style elves that I kind of want to own posters by the artist. Unfortunately at times the hyper-detailed backgrounds clutter up the panels and make the action hard to follow. At least for volume one, I would prefer pin-ups by Shin Midorikawa instead of sequential art. I had to re-read several pages to understand the flow of the action.

Lewin makes friends with Chris Cottenburg, a high elf Wizarding major, and his “teammate” the token girl Soela Evenport. Soela takes on the Misty-from-Pokemon role in Adventura, as she’s raising a monster egg, similar to Togepi from Pokemon. Two of the teachers take on important roles in the story, favorably reminiscent of Hogwarts staffers, but they are totally hot elves instead of Professor McGonagle or Hagrid.

The characters all wear Kingdom Hearts-style shoes, which will hit home with the teenage Kingdom Hearts cosplayers for whom this book is intended. Periodically the text is broken up to give one omniscient information like a videogame walk-through. To introduce a living Beauty and the Beast-style candelabra the book offers this pop-up text box:

“Shokuoki: One of the few fire attribute dolls capable of summoning magic. It powers all the lights in school.”

Thanks! Now I feel like I’m playing a videogame. Fortunately, the text boxes calm down a bit after the first few chapters.

Volume one culminates in a battle against some skeletons Lewin and his friends spawned accidentally in a lab accident. “Lewin! Don’t touch the claws!!” Soela yells, “Undead claws are coated in septic poison!!” And again, I feel like I’m playing the walk-through.

Aventura isn’t for me specifically, but I still found it appealing (high elves!). I want to read doujinshi about the teachers and try drawing the characters myself. Perhaps Aventura’s resemblance to Harry Potter goes much deeper than surface level - like Harry Potter, Aventura strikes me as a work that could be improved upon by some amusing works of fan fiction.

Volume 1 of Aventura is available now, volume two will be released in April of 2008.

My Heavenly Hockey Club, Vol. 2

By Ai Morinaga
Del Rey, 208 pp.
Rating: 13+ (Teen)

Had I reviewed My Heavenly Hockey Club volume 1 instead of Katherine, I would’ve given it an A- instead of a B. I took Hockey Club to be a male-harem parody title like Ouran High School Host Club but with better visual gags (the bear! I was laughing out loud on the subway) and a sillier premise (I’ve got a soft spot for obscure sports. Curling, anyone?). The paper-thin characterizations, predictable romance and bishonen all take a back seat to the comedy and the all-consuming Japanese pastime of traveling to onsen and eating local food specialties. I terrifically enjoyed going to onsen and acting like an intra-Japanese tourist when I was in Japan. I also strongly identify with Hana, who’s character motivation is primarily to sleep in as long as possible, and secondarily, to eat delicious things.

Volume two finds Hana mysteriously attracted to a chubby kid (for all the wrong reasons). No one will face off against the club after they used a bear as a goalie - except for a school in Yamagata. The team travels to Japanese cherry country, primarily to eat a lot of cherries, but also to face off against a desperately under-funded field hockey club. All the kids use cardboard shin guards! I’m certain that the shaved heads of the rival team are a parody of sometime specific, but the translator’s notes imply they might just look like ascetic monks.

The volume briefly becomes My Heavenly Judo Club when Izumi reads the famous Judo Dreams manga and forces everyone to practice judo. In the final chapter, the team heads to the Izumi family vacation house in Okinawa for a summer training camp. Hana doesn’t want to go, but caves in when she find out she’ll be able to fulfill her lifelong dream of napping in a hammock.

The end of the book was derivative of early volumes of Host Club; Instead of Tamaki and Haruhi, it’s Izumi and Hana who are trapped alone together during a power outage. The storm in Host Club reveals that Haruhi is afraid of lightning, but in Hockey Club the typhoon is just another funny episode.

It’s really incredible to me how little time manga characters spend alone with members of the opposite sex. The storm is a paper-thin excuse for Hana and Izumi to be alone together, which normally would make a shojo protagonist blush, but Hana is too pragmatic for that kind of nonsense.

My Heavenly Hockey Club, Vol. 3

By Ai Morinaga
Del Rey, 192 pp.
Rating: 13+ (Teen)

My Heavenly Hockey Club volume 3 kicks off with the cliché of getting-lost-with-a-boy-alone-on-a-school-trip (Marmalade Boy, Sand Chronicles, and more) as Hana and Takashi end up lost in the jungles of a private island in Okinawa looking for the legendary iriomot wildcat (read Azumanga Daioh for more details). Any romance Hana might have had with Takashi is overshadowed by encounters with poisonous snake, falling off of cliffs, and gags about nearsightedness.

Cut to the next chapter where the hockey club takes a trip to a rustic hot springs (a vacation from the precious vacation), which turns out to be much, much more rustic than advertised. The club is quickly forced into host-club-type indentured servitude. In case you had any doubt this was shojo, check out the totally unwanted nudity on page 62. It’s the opposite of fanservice!

The first half of the book is pretty funny, although still not as hilarious as the second half of volume one. In the weak penultimate chapter, Hana competes for Izumi with his second cousin, an obnoxious blond half-Japanese girl named Tamako. It’s a total shojo cliché (even Fall in Love Like a Comic has the competing cousin character) and it’s not terribly entertaining, although there are one or two good gags about Hana’s lack of ladylike elegance. Hana explains her lack of cooking ability: “I specialize in eating.”

There are two brilliant things in this volume: First, Izumi’s father has only one hair on his bald head, and this figures into the plot in a hysterically funny way in the final chapter. Second, one of the translator’s notes (Del Rey does such great translator’s notes!) actually changed the way I think of the world forever! Page 171 explains a line from page 18 where Hana screams “Whose dad are you!!?” The translator explains:

Fathers the world over love to make bad puns, and in Japan, such puns are referred to as “dad gags.”

I had no idea old men telling bad jokes is universal to all cultures! This blew my mind. I even started thinking of my 30-something male friends telling bad jokes as future dads, practicing their horrible puns in advance.

Volumes 1-3 My Heavenly Hockey Club are available now, volume four will be released in March of 2008. The series appears to be six volumes long in total.

Mamotte! Lollipop, Vol. 1

By Michiyo Kikuta
Del Rey, 224 pp.
Rating: 13+ (Teen)

Mamotte! Lollipop drew me in by having the most awesome first 20 pages of practically any title I can think of:

12-year-old Nina is describing her ideal boyfriend to a friend while eating cake, “He should be strong, kind, good-looking, and someone who’d protect me.” She eats a mysterious piece of candy on the cake AND SUDDENLY A CAR BURST THROUGH THE WALL OF THE CAFE! INSIDE THE CAR ARE TWO HOT TEENAGE WIAZARDS! Sorry, but it’s really an all-caps moment.

When I was 12 my fantasy was to have a cute blonde guy fight for my affection against a cute brunette. Nina’s new wizard friends are a cute blue-haired kid named Zero (close enough to blond), and a cute brunette named Ichi. The candy Nina ate is a jewel Ichi and Zero need to pass the wizarding exam. Suddenly two more wizards BUST THROUGH THE WALL RIDING A GIANT OWL. Our heroes escape in a flying car.

And after that you can just put the book down because it’s pretty disappointing from there on out. More (uninteresting) pairs of wizards are introduced: Forte and Sun, Go and Rokka (puns on the Japanese words for numbers). In a total manga cliché, Ichi and Zero start living at Nina’s house and attending her school. They’re not waiting for her to pass the jewel (Re: Hal Johnson), rather, they must protect Nina for six months.

Rokka is a five-year-old who casts a spell on herself to look like a (more) sexually mature teenager. It an innocent trope of magical girl anime to have a protagonist who can magically transform from prepubescent to post-pubescent, as in Creamy Mami, Fancy Lala, and Full Moon O Sagashite. However, there’s a darker side to this 5-going-on-15 transformation, as seen in Nanaka 6/17 and UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie. A teenager with the brain of a kindergartener can be considered sexy to the Japanese. Rokka is drawn in a Playboy bunny suit in the author’s notes the end of volume 2 by reader request - and that kind of creeped me out. Rokka’s proportions as a 5-year-old are also a bit off in volume one.

Forte is hilariously referred to as “For-chan,” which I snickered at, as it is one letter away from the infamous “fourchan” website here in the U.S. - Hopefually the 13-year-olds reading Mamotte are unfamiliar with the site.

Nina gets turned into a baby for one chapter, and a lackluster hot springs episode follows. Volume one closes with a gameshow/exam involving a lot of puns - Del Rey’s translation notes here are priceless.

During the test Nina loses her voice, is forced to wear a fancy dress, and is made into a princess to be rescued. I strongly prefer princesses like Nausicaa and Utena to the helpless kind who need protecting.

The final chapter is an unrelated short story called Medical Magic.

Mamotte! Lollipop, Vol. 2

By Michiyo Kikuta
Del Rey, 224 pp.
Rating: 13+ (Teen)

At the opening of volume 2 Mamotte! Lollipop is already crowded with characters when Zero, Ichi, Sun, Forte, Go, and Rokka are joined by another wizard pair: Nanase and Yakumo. All six of the original characters, despite being contenders for the magic jewel, have befriended each other hang out in a massive posse with Nina. This makes the panels feel cluttered. I can only imaginee that if I were a kid reading this, and my favorite character was Sun, I would appreciate that she appears so often, despite having no action or plot reasons to be present. As an adult reader I confused Go with Nanase and Forte as I stumbled through the crowded panels.

Yakumo’s kansai dialect is portrayed in a bolded font to set apart his speech from everyone else’s; it’s an interesting choice, although perhaps not aesthetically pleasing. I think it does accomplish what Del Rey hoped it would.

The book opens with a chapter about exploring the school at night in pairs; this is a common Japanese game and an anime/manga staple plot. The next chapter is the inevitable (and perhaps required by law?) beach episode. The book closes with a couple chapters about Zero and Ichi’s backstory and a short unrelated manga called “Kaito Papillion” about a phantom jewel thief/prince.

The backstory is darker than the rest of the series so far, and contains a step-sibling love story, which is one of my personal manga pet peeves. The tale of Zero and Ichi becoming friends is suspiciously reminiscent of yaoi: Young innocent light-haired Zero stalks and befriends Ichi, the brooding brunette with a dark past.

Kikuta reveals in the author’s notes that she named the series after a song called “Bizarre Lollipop” by the band Flipper’s Guitar. Mamotte means “to protect,” so the title is “Protect Lollipop”.

Interestingly enough, a 12 episode anime series of Mamotte! Lollipop was produced in 2006. Del Rey has an uncanny knack for picking up manga titles with anime counterparts, whether or not the anime is licensed in North America. In the case of some titles, like The Wallflower, the manga was being distribute by Del Rey prior to the anime’s air date in Japan.

Volumes 1-4 Mamotte! Lollipop are available now, volume five will be released in March of 2008. The series is seven volumes long in total.

Here are a few more great anime and manga that didn’t make the initial cut for our “best of manga, worst of manga” master list.

Anime

ONGOING RELEASES

• Hikaru no Go (Viz): This is one of my favorite anime series of all time.

• Death Note (Viz): I’ve only seen a few episodes, but the anime seems like a great adaption. It’s even available on iTunes!
• Welcome to the NHK: This was one of my favorite shows of 2007. It’s surprisingly suspenseful for a show about a guy who’s stuck in his apartment most of the time…

TOO EMBARRASSING TO ADMIT I LIKE

• Peach Girl (FUNimation): I really loved the Peach Girl anime. I’m so ashamed! I’m a sucker for the love triangle! Sae is so evil!

• Baki the Grappler (FUNimation): Definitely not for everyone, you’ll know if it’s for you based on your reaction to this: Baki’s dad is so tough he fought a polar bear shirtless in a snowstorm.
• Girls High (Media Blasters): This sub-only release that will only appeal to fans of the manga. I love this manga (titled High School Girls)! The anime is pretty good, I swear!

CLASSIC RE-RELEASES

• Gunbuster (Bandai Visual USA, $64.99): Everyone should own Gunbuster.

• Golden Boy (Media Blasters, $19.95): Golden Boy is a unforgettable, hysterically funny classic which you should own.
• Dragon Half - Puni Pui Poemy (ADV, $19.98) Two of the craziest comedy OVAs ever in one cheap set?! This is a great!!
• Ranma 1/2 (Viz, $49.98): The first season of Ranma is the best one, and a classic! It’s now more affordable than ever.
• Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (Bandai Entertainment, $19.98) Look, don’t show Jin-Roh at a party or anything, but you should really watch it. So should I…

I HAVEN’T ACTUALLY WATCHED IT… YET

• Black Lagoon (Geneon): I’ve heard so many good things about this!

• Mushi-Shi (FUNimation): Mushi-Shi is supposed to be really great, accessible, and the episodes are stand-alone… I’ve seen part of the first one.
• Cat’s Eye (imagineAsia TV) This super-cheap, sub-only release of a much older show is really remarkable. I just haven’t seen it…
• I Shall Never Return (Media Blasters, $19.95): I just read the manga of this yaoi series! It was amazing! I’ve got to watch this!
• Zipang (Geneon): A modern warship is sent back in time to change the course of WWII, y’know, or not. I haven’t seen it.

Manga

TOP SERIES I HAVEN’T ACTUALLY READ
I know I need to read these series - they are all either critically important or historically classic. They’ll appear on other people’s end-of-year lists, but for one reason or another, I haven’t gotten around to actually reading these books yet.

1. Phoenix (Viz)
2. Buddha (Vertical, Inc.)
3. Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Last Gasp)
4. Andromeda Stories (Vertical, Inc.)
5. To Terra (Vertical, Inc.)
6. Dr. Slump (Viz)
7. Emma (CMX)
8. Mushishi (Del Rey)
9. Drifting Classroom (Viz)
10. Hikaru no Go (Viz)

I read the first few volumes of Hikaru no Go, but fell behind. It’s one of my favorite anime series.

NOTABLE SERIES ENDING

• Iron Wok Jan (DrMaster, 27 vols.) The penultimate volume of Iron Wok Jan really knocked my socks off. I haven’t read 27 yet.

• Love Roma (Del Rey, 5 vols.) I haven’t read volume 5 yet, but I loved 1-4…
• Genshiken (Del Rey, 9 vols.) Genshiken came to an immensely satisfying conclusion.
• Kare Kano (Tokyopop, 21 vols.) I may have said the end of Kare Kano was like a knife to the face, but at least now I know how it ends.