Weekly Recon, 12/5/07

This week, Tokyopop and Viz blitz the market with over forty new volumes of manga. Among Tokyopop’s best offerings are new installments of M. Alice LeGrow’s darkly stylish Bizenghast, Matsuri Akino’s coming-of-age drama Genju no Seiza, Yuriko Nishiyama’s sports saga Rebound (a.k.a. Harlem Beat), and, just in time for New York Anime Fest, Svetlana Chmakova’s wildly popular Dramacon. Viz serves up another helping of Naruto, releasing volumes 25-27 of this perennial fan favorite, as well as new volumes of Beauty Pop, Crimson Hero, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Muhyo and Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation. And for connoisseurs of Korean comics, UDON Entertainment unveils Magical JxR, a new series about two teens who attend a school for aspiring magicians. Gee, that sounds novel…

In lieu of writing about this week’s new releases, I decided to focus on two recent titles that I genuinely enjoyed: Suppli (Tokyopop), a series about a twenty-something’s struggle to find love and success in the workplace, and Translucent (Dark Horse), a slice-of-life drama about a teen coping with an unusual medical condition. Both are a welcome antidote to the seemingly endless supply of wan shojo romances and supernatural shonen series crowding the shelves of your local Borders, and would make great gifts for the manga maniac on your Christmas or Hannukah list.

And speaking of Chrismukkah, I have two copies of Shakugan no Shana (Volume 2) to give away. If interested, send me an email with the subject line SHAKUGAN NO SHANA. Be sure to include your name and address. The first two people to respond will receive the books—provided, that is, that you’re at least 18 years old and live in the US.

REVIEWED LAST WEEK: Alice on Deadlines, Vol. 1 (Yen Press), Asian Beat, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop), Baku (Tokyopop), Heroes Are Extinct!!, Vol. 2 (DMP), I Shall Never Return, Vol. 1 (Aurora/Deux), Operation Liberate Men, Vol. 1 (NETCOMICS), Parasyte, Vols. 1-2 (Del Rey), Smuggler (Tokyopop), Spring Fever (Aurora/Deux)

REVIEWED THIS WEEK: Suppli, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop), Translucent, Vol. 2 (Dark Horse)

SHIPPING THIS WEEK:
+ANIMA, Vol. 6 (Tokyopop)
Atelier Marie and Elie Zarlburg Alchemist, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Beauty Pop, Vol. 6 (Viz)
Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
Bizenghast, Vol. 4 (Tokyopop)
Buso Renkin, Vol. 9 (Viz)
Crimson Hero, Vol. 7 (Viz; click here for a review of volume 6)
Dragon Drive, Vol. 5 (Viz)
Dramacon, Vol. 3 (Tokyopop; click here for a review of volume 2)
Eyeshield 21, Vol. 17 (Viz)
Faeries’ Landing, Vol. 18 (Tokyopop)
Fool’s Good, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop; click here for a review of volume 1)
Genju no Seiza, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop; click here for a review of volume 3)
Gentleman’s Alliance, Vol. 3 (Viz)
Girls Bravo, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
Go Go Heaven, Vol. 4 (CMX)
Good Witch of the West, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Grenadier, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Heaven, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Hoshin Engi, Vol. 4 (Viz; click here for a review of volume 1)
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Vol. 9 (Viz)
Kamiyadori, Vol. 4 (Tokyopop)
Life, Vol. 7 (Tokyopop; click here for a review of volume 1)
Love Attack, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
Magical JxR, Vol. 1 (UDON Entertainment)
Mobile Suit Gundam Ecole de Ciel, Vol. 7 (Tokyopop)
Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation, Vol. 2 (Viz; click here for a review of volume 1)
Naruto, Vol. 25 (Viz)
Naruto, Vol. 26 (Viz)
Naruto, Vol. 27 (Viz)
Ninja High Scool, No. 155 (Antarctic Press)
Nosatsu Junkie, Vol. 4 (Tokyopop; click here for a review of vols. 1-2)
One, Vol. 11 (Tokyopop)
Peace Maker Kurogane, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Pieces of a Spiral, Vol. 10 (CMX)
Pretty Face, Vol. 3 (Viz; click here for a review of volume 1)
Rave Master, Vol. 26 (Tokyopop)
Rebound, Vol. 18 (Tokyopop)
Saver, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Shonen Jump, January 2008
Somedays Dreamers Spellbound, Vol. 4 (Tokyopop)
Stand By Youth, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Street Fighter III: Ryu Final, Vol. 1 (UDON Entertainment)
Tactics, Vol. 3 (Tokyopop; click here for a review of volume 1)
Tail of the Moon, Vol. 8 (Viz; click here for a review of volume 7)
Trinity Blood: Rage Against the Moons Novel, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Tsukuyomi Moon Phase, Vol. 9 (DrMaster)
Welcome to the NHK, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
XS Hybrid, Vol. 3 (Dark Horse; click here for a review of volume 1)
Yu-Gi-Oh Duelist, Vol. 24 (Viz)
Zapt!, Vol. 3 (Tokyopop)

Suppli, Vol. 1

By Mari Okazaki
Tokyopop, 208 pp.
Rating: M (18+)

I used to avoid josei, as I often find entertainment aimed at female audiences (Lifetime movies, Sophie Kinsella novels) dull, formulaic, and obvious. Imagine my surprise when I discovered just how funny and honest “chick lit” could be in a manga-ka’s hands. After devouring the first thirteen volumes of Yayoi Ogawa’s totally awesome Tramps Like Us, I embarked on a tour-de-force of Tokyopop’s josei catalog, sampling works by Moyocco Anno, Erica Sakurazawa, and Mari Okazaki. And while I wasn’t crazy about Okazaki’s Sweat and Honey, I liked the artwork enough to try the first volume of her latest series, Suppli. I wasn’t disappointed.

Suppli focuses on twenty-seven-year-old Minami, an up-and-coming advertising executive. Though Minami has a long-time beau, she feels ambivalent about their relationship, maintaining a separate apartment and making work a higher priority than spending time at home. Her boyfriend responds by dumping her. Minami then begins carving out a new identity for herself, accepting more challenging work assignments, forging friendships with her office mates, and exploring her feelings for two very different men: Ishida, a blunt co-worker with bad-boy sex appeal, and Ogiwara, a Tokyo University grad who looks great on paper, but has some nasty romantic baggage of his own.

Suppli vividly and humorously evokes office life, from the unproductive meetings and grueling all-nighters to the horseplay and flirtatious banter between co-workers. The denizens of Minami’s office are colorful, if one-dimensional, characters: a salty old maid, two flamboyant karaoke fiends, and a tart-tongued temp who offers sound relationship advice to her officemates while sleeping with a married man. To be sure, anyone who’s watched Ally McBeal, The Office, or Ugly Betty has encountered these types before, but Okazaki breathes fresh life into her scenario with stylish artwork and several funny, sexually-charged exchanges between Ishida and Minami. Okazaki occasionally clobbers the reader with obvious symbolism; in one sequence, for example, Minami’s thoughts about the road not taken are superimposed on images of diverging railroad tracks. On the whole, however, Suppli is an engaging mixture of wry humor, real-life situations, and romantic intrigue that should appeal to fans of Tramps Like Us and Hataraki Man.

Volume one of Suppli is available now.

Translucent, Vol. 2

By Kazuhiro Okamoto
Dark Horse, 200 pp.
Rating: 13+

Kazuhiro Okamoto isn’t the first auteur to represent adolescence as a disease; stories as different as Teen Wolf and Lament of the Lamb have used extreme physical conditions to underscore the emotional and social difficulties of being fourteen. In Translucent, invisibility is a metaphor for the way many of us bumbled through junior high, simultaneously hoping to escape certain kids’ notice while worrying that kids we deemed cool (or cute) didn’t know we existed.

The heroine, Shizuka Shiroyama, suffers from a mysterious ailment that temporarily causes her limbs (and sometimes her entire body) to disappear whenever she feels anxious, depressed, or hormonal. Early in volume one, fellow eighth-grader Mamoru Tadami develops a crush on Shizuka. Though Mamoru seems immature—he still plays with model planes and rides the swings—he proves unwavering in his devotion to Shizuka, helping her cope with crises big and small, from a sprained ankle to a badly-timed bout of invisibility. Shizuka also befriends Okouchi, a high-achiever who finds everyone’s high estimation of her burdensome (she hopes to “catch” Translucent Syndrome from Shizuka, thus escaping her teachers and parents’ gaze), and Keiko Hamna, a twenty-something glassblower who, like Shizuka, lives with the disease.

Throughout the series, Okamoto avoids the slapstick, deformations, and contrived subplots that can make high school dramas a chore to read, instead emphasizing ordinary moments over manufactured drama. Not much happens in either volume; most chapters depict such normal junior high rituals as dodge ball, cultural festivals, and first dates. (There are a few exceptions, however, such a goofy, over-the-top fist fight between Mamoru and Shizuka’s father.) Okamoto’s artwork is as restrained as his storytelling, favoring delicate lines over heavy shading to give his panels depth and detail. The result is a beautiful, bittersweet portrait of early adolescence that wears its metaphorical conceit lightly.

Volume two of Translucent is available now.