Weekly Recon, 11/14/07

Heads up, otakus! Your LCS may be mobbed on Wednesday by legions of Scott Pilgrim fans eager to see if he Gets It Together. If by some small chance Brian Lee O’Malley’s series has escaped your notice, now is a great time to bust out of your comfort zone and try it.

Scott Pilgrim pokes fun at comic book, video game, and manga clichés; everyone has something to knowingly laugh at, from the League of Evil Ex-Boyfriends to the vintage video game references. O’Malley also wrings a lot of yuks from his affectionate send-up of the indie music scene. The perpetually underemployed Scott plays in Sex Bob-omb, a band whose lyrics are so purple they’d make Billy Corgan blush. For music nerds, O’Malley has thoughtfully included the songs’ chord progressions above the panels. You can play along as you read, though you may discover—as I did—that the music is even worse than you’d imagined. (Take it from someone who’s studied counterpoint—there’s not a whole lotta functional harmony goin’ on.)

But the best part of Scott Pilgrim is its central conceit: our hero must defeat all seven of his girlfriend’s exes before the couple can enjoy true relationship bliss. It’s a nice metaphor for the way most of us feel when we embark on a new relationship. We’d like to leave our baggage behind us and make a fresh start of things, but it usually takes a whole lot of effort—and maybe some Mortal Kombat—to get there. (N.B. If you’ve already read volumes one through three, check out David Welsh’s glowing, spoiler-free review of volume four at Precocious Curmudgeon.)

OEL not your bag? You’ll find a new assortment of Tokyopop titles on shelves this week, including Asian Beat, an anthology of short stories by Demon Ororon creator Hakase Mizuki; Suppli, a josei title about a twenty-something woman looking for love in the workplace; and The Good Witch of the West, a novel from Dragon Sword and Wind Child creator Noriko Ogiwara. You’ll also find the latest volumes of such long-running crowd pleasers as Fruits Basket, Get Backers, King of Hell, Loveless, Samurai Deeper Kyo, and Trinity Blood. DMP also makes a strong showing this week with two exciting new titles: Garden Dreams, a one-volume tale from the prolific Fumi Yoshinaga, and Hideyuki Kukuchi’s Vampire Hunter D, a manga adaptation of the beloved novels. Last but not least, ALC Publishing releases its annual Yuri Monogatari collection featuring stories by Japanese, American, and European artists. For more information visit Okazu, the personal blog of ALC publisher and Yuricon founder Erica Friedman. It’s always entertaining and frequently educational, even if you aren’t a big fan of yuri.

By the way, if you’re looking to score some free manga, John Jakala of Sporadic Sequential is running a cathartic contest. Send him an email describing your worst manga shopping experience no later than 11:59 EST on November 15th. Make it good, and you’ll receive a sweet reward: copies of Dragon Head (Vol. 8), The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Vol. 4), and Presents (Vol. 1).

REVIEWED THIS WEEK:

• Dorothy of Oz, Vol. 1 (UDON Entertainment)
• Psycho Busters, Vol. 1 (Del Rey)
• Togari, Vol. 3 (Viz)

SHIPPING THIS WEEK:

• After School Nightmare, Vol. 5 (Go! Comi)
• Asian Beat (Tokyopop)
• Basara, Vol. 25 (Viz)
• Chibi Vampire, Vol. 6 (Tokyopop)
• Fandomonia: Characters and Cosplay (Aperture)
• Firefighter Daigo of Fire Company M, Vol. 20 (Viz)
• Flame of Recca, Vol. 25 (Viz)
• Fruits Basket, Vol. 18 (Tokyopop)
• Garden Dreams (DMP)
• Get Backers, Vol. 21 (Tokyopop)
• Good Witch of the West Novel, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
• Hayate the Combat Butler, Vol. 5 (Viz; click here for a review of volume 1)
• Hideyuki Kukuchi’s Vampire Hunter D, Vol. 1 (DMP)
• How to Draw Manga: Manga Sketching Style, Vol. 3
• King of Hell, Vol. 17 (Tokyopop)
• Legends of the Dark Crystal: Garthim Wars, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
• Love Pistols, Vol. 3 (BLU Manga)
• Loveless, Vol. 7 (Tokyopop)
• Manga Literary Classics: Gulliver’s Travels (Youngjin Singapore)
• Me & My Brothers, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop; click here for a review of volume 1)
• Million Tears, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop; click here for a review of volume 1)
• Missing: Story of Kami-Kushi, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
• Musashi #9, Vol. 13 (CMX)
• President Dad, Vol. 7 (Tokyopop)
• Project DOA, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
• Psychic Power Nanaki, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
• Rose Hip Zero, Vol. 4 (Tokyopop)
• Samurai Deeper Kyo, Vol. 25 (Tokyopop)
• Shojo Beat (December 2007)
• Street Fighter Sakura Ganbaru, Vol. 2 (UDON Entertainment; click here for a review of volume 1)
• Suppli, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
• Togari, Vol. 3 (Viz; reviewed below)
• Trinity Blood, Vol. 4 (Tokyopop; click here for a review of volume 1)
• Utopia’s Avenger, Vol. 4 (Tokyopop)
• Vampire Hunter D Novel, Vol. 9: The Rose Princess (DMP)
• Venus in Love, Vol. 1 (CMX; click here for a review)
• Voice or Noise, Vol. 1 (BLU Manga)
• World’s End (DMP)
• Yakitate!! Japan, Vol. 8 (Viz; click here for a review of volume 4)
• Yuri Monogatari, Vol. 5 (ALC Publishing)
• Zig Zag, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)

Dorothy of Oz, Vol. 1

By Son Hee-Joon
UDON Entertainment, 184 pp.
Rating: Teen (13+)

Chimeras and clones and cyborgs, oh my! This Korean take on Frank L. Baum’s classic novel preserves the most famous elements of the original—Toto, the yellow brick road—while recasting Dorothy and her traveling companions as a scientifically enhanced posse of secret agents. Some of these updates work well: Son Hee-Joon reimagines the Scarecrow as a tow-headed clone who’s prone to malapropisms, and the Tin Man as a cyborg baffled by human emotion. Other liberties with plot and character make little dramatic sense. Volume one begins not with Dorothy’s arrival in Oz, as one might expect, but with a lengthy fight scene between Dorothy et al. and a group of zombies. Only after 100 or so pages of combat, jibberish, and intimations of a greater, pan-Oz conspiracy does the author bother to explain that Dorothy is, in fact, the codename/alter ego of Mara Shin, an ordinary Korean teenager who bumbled into Oz via the yellow brick road. Help me, Auntie Em!

If I was a little underwhelmed by the story, I was genuinely impressed by the overall quality of the presentation. Dorothy of Oz is slickly packaged, with an oversized trim, embossed covers, and several glossy, full-color plates. The translation, too, is idiomatic and edited with the same degree of meticulousness I’ve come to expect from the biggest manga publishers. Such attention to detail bodes well for UDON’s new manwha line, and may help persuade otakus that Korean comics aren’t just a pallid imitation of the “real thing.”

Volume one of Dorothy of Oz is available now.

Psycho Busters, Vol. 1

Art by Akinari Nao, Story by Yuya Aoki
Del Rey, 216 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Like hundreds of shonen heroes before him, Kakeru is blissfully unaware of the hidden, earth-shattering power lurking within him—that is, until a beautiful girl informs him that he’s destined to save the world. In Psycho Busters, that thankless role falls to Ayano, a psychic who’s being pursued by a secret government agency. She pleads with Kakeru to rescue her and her friends, even using her powers of astral projection to seize control of his body and lead him to an abandoned house where paramilitary forces have trapped them. Though Kakeru hasn’t a clue what he’s capable of, he reluctantly agrees to help Ayano.

One of the hazards of any popular medium is that a hit begets dozens of clones as producers and editors try to duplicate the formula that made the original a success. In the case of Psycho Busters, that means revisiting the well-worn paths traced by manga-ka like Tite Kubo and Oh! Great. I can almost imagine the pitch that gave rise to this very generic shonen series:

You want fan service? Why, we’ve got panty shots, busty lasses, and discrete nudity! You want a non-threatening hero that anyone can identify with? Well, the hero of the story hates school and likes manga, just like many of the boys who will be reading this book! You want action? Don’t worry—lots of stuff will blow up because one of the psychics can start fires with his mind!

Save for a throwaway joke about Nana (yes, that Nana) and a brisk, take-no-prisoners pace, Psycho Busters never rises above the level of so-so shonen titles like Shiki Tsukai.

Volume one of Psycho Busters is available now.

Togari, Vol. 3

By Yoshinori Natsume
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Tobei is an SOB whose 300-year stay in hell has done nothing to soften him up. Lady Ema, one of hell’s wardens, offers Tobei a chance at redemption: if he can collect 108 toga, or sins, in as many days, he’ll be allowed to live out his days on earth; if not, he’ll be cast into a deeper rung of hell. She then dispatches him to the modern world armed only with Togari, a seemingly useless wooden sword. As Tobei quickly learns, however, Togari thrives on malicious energy, consuming fierce-looking toga more efficiently than a gun or metal blade. In his quest to bag 108 sins, he crosses paths with Itsuki, a spunky tomboy with a mean right hook; Ose, one of hell’s correction officers, who’s been assigned to monitor Tobei’s progress; and Detective Sawazaka, an ambitious police officer who wants to know why Tobei always hangs around crime scenes. (The answer: that’s the best place to collect toga!)

Yoshinori Natsume’s artwork is both a strength and a weakness of Togari. On the one hand, his spiky character designs and rough, sketch-like title pages infuse the story with fresh visual energy. On the other hand, his fight scenes are a hot mess of speed lines and awkwardly posed bodies. It’s frequently hard to tell how Tobei slays each toga, a problem compounded by the fact that the monsters look like tracings from A Field Guide to Insects, rather than organic elements of the story. Natsume does earn props for his efficient exposition, wit, and equal-opportunity fan service; male and female readers alike have plenty to engage their interest besides lengthy fight scenes and fish-out-of-water humor. Togari may not be the best-looking shonen title on the market, but it’s a solidly entertaining supernatural thriller that never takes itself too seriously.

Volume three of Togari will be available on November 14th.