Too Long
Posted: October 28, 2009 Filed under: Too Long 10 Comments »Hee Jung Park – Tokyopop – 2008 – 1 volume
When Tokyopop released all those Hee Jung Park series last year (Martin & John, Fever, Hotel Africa), this volume was sort of the odd man out. In fact, I didn’t even know this had come out, and I was really, really into those other series by the same author. I didn’t find out about this until much later, and by then the other series had been cancelled.
This is a volume of short stories. Normally I’m a little wary of these, because more often than not wind up not liking these types of short story collections (I think reading several short stories in a row makes the flaws in storytelling much more noticeable). This one was quite different. I almost think the stories were all written to go in the volume together. While none of them have anything whatsoever in common, Park is a pretty stylish artist and great at composition and putting together different types of storytelling techniques, so it seems like the stories were written with each other in mind simply because the book fits together so well stylistically.
There are several unusual storytelling techniques used art-wise throughout the book. I liked that frequently, we were thrust into the middle of a story with no preamble, usually during its most emotional moments if the story was particularly short, and part of the fun was trying to reconstruct the circumstances surrounding the rather intense emotion on display. One of my favorite stories, the longer “Eoheulli,” starts us off in the middle of a nightmare, and from there it cuts between a flashback to her childhood and a search she is conducting as an adult. The primary focus of the story is a character she calls “big sister,” and while reading the story, it’s almost maddening the way the pieces slowly fall into place and “big sister’s” situation becomes more and more clear.
The techniques are more apparent in the shorter stories. I tend not to like really short stories since normally there just aren’t enough pages to put together something meaningful, but this technique makes them far more interesting. In particular, the very short “Insomnia” does a great job of presenting us a scene that uses the short form to its advantage as we try and figure out who the sleepless character is talking about towards the middle, and the cause of his insomnia becomes clear by the end.
There are a couple more traditional stories mixed in as well. I liked “Crybaby Angel”, which reads like a chidren’s storybook and is about an angel who cries and isn’t allowed to become a “happy baby.” I also enjoyed “Gwangrim is Awesome,” which is a more traditional shoujo high school romance story, but made far better just by virtue of having been drawn by Park.
If you couldn’t already tell, I am a big fan of Hee Jung Park. Not only do I like her less traditional narrative structure, her art is also quite excellent, including her composition and the way she mixes techniques. Some stories forego panel borders in order to be more stream-of-conscience-type narratives, and the last story in the volume (Crybaby Angel) reads exactly like a picture book, with an illustration with accompanying story text on each page. Even without special fancy techniques, each page is extremely well-composed and I enjoyed looking at her very un-traditional panel layouts.
Her stories also have a lot more emotional impact than the average manga short story. The techniques I talk about earlier help, but rather than going for the same bland subjects again and again, I also like that Park writes about a broad range of subjects and people, everything from the usual teenage fare to divorced adults to grieving young people to… well, little baby angels.
I think the only criticism I can level at the collection is that some of the stories are a bit… well, too stylish. Especially earlier in the volume. The first story, “Blood,” is a good example. This story is also hindered by being in black and white (major themes in the story are the extremely pale, colorless love interest and the heroines interest in the vivid color of blood), but I was also completely uninterested in the heroine’s insistence that the love interest have “more vivid color.” Whatever. Sometimes the storytelling techniques work against the stories a bit, too. The stories tend to open with very melodramatic declarations, and while I like to put the pieces together, sometimes the characters are a little too overwrought and verbose and I lose interest. But these were mostly only a problem with a few of the earlier stories.
Most of the volume is quite excellent, and this is probably among the best female-oriented comic short story collection that I’ve seen. I think a few people will probably be put off by its style and melodrama, but it definitely makes for a very unorthodox and rewarding reading experience. It’s also quite a long volume (just shy of 300 pages), so you also get a ton of content and a bunch of stories to go between if you find some not to your liking. Hee Jung Park comes through once again, and once again, I’m going to lament the fact that none of her stories are coming out in English anymore. She really does seem to be one of the greats, and I would love to read more than a volume or two of her best work.
[...] 6 of Sand Chronicles (Animanga Nation) Penny Kenny on vol. 1 of Soul Eater (Manga Life) Connie on Too Long (Slightly Biased [...]
I wasn’t aware of Too Long being published in USA. I think I’ll order one copy.
I am a French fan of Park Hee Jung’s work. In France, only Fever has been completely published. Hotel Africa was stopped after two volumes. It was first “delayed” for one year, and then, definitely cancelled (the publisher didn’t give any information). I hoped I could read volume 3 in English but it was cancelled as well… This author is like being cursed or something.
Now in France, Martin & John is going to be published. I’m not very interested by this one but I cross the fingers, hoping it will be enough successfull to make people willing to read Hotel Africa (and more Park Hee Jung). But it’s hard here as the manga/manhwa market is full of stereotyped shôjo romance comedies with high school girls.
Anyway, your blog is wonderful. And I also love 7 SEEDS, Basara, and of course: Banana Fish. As in USA, I can tell you shôjo manga of this kind are really not successful in French. Do you know Princess Kaguya? This one is also cursed in France: it’s been finished with 27 volumes in Japan and because it’s not successful, we can only read one volume per year! Banana Fish is a really great manga. I have a copy of Kisshô Tennyô and Yasha by the same author and they seem pretty promising. I read Kisshô Tennyô and though dealing with high school students, it is quite mature.
Ack :(
I knew that her other stuff hadn’t seen any releases for quite some time, but I hoped they had just been added to the ‘indefinite hold’ queue where theres a slim chance of return, rather than something that had actually been cancelled. Especially giving the advertising Tokyopop tried when they licensed them.
I’d never been grabbed by Hotel Africa as much as I’d hoped, though I still enjoyed it, but I really loved Fever and Martin & John so its disappointing to think that I’ll never be able to buy the rest of those series.
As it happens, Too Long is the only Hee Jung Park title I’ve yet to pick up and one that I’d sort of forgotten about, so it was good to see a review… even if your review makes me realise that it may have been a mistake to overlook it for so long. Looks like I may have a new book to pick up next time I make an order :)
Ephidel: I don’t think they were ever officially cancelled like all those Kodansha titles, but I think all the Korean series they were releasing were cut off at the same time, around a pause in the release schedule for all the company’s titles. I know the editor that was working on them left the company, and given the fact they’ve sort of… changed focus in terms of the types of series they release, I think the Hee Jung Park titles don’t have much hope of resuming.
I was the same way with Too Long, even with all the other Hee Jung Park series, I didn’t know about Too Long. I think it was excluded from the first round of advertising/press releases about the titles, and I overlooked it until much later. It is truly unfortunate that her titles weren’t given more of a chance. Fever was my least favorite of the three other titles, but I fell in love with Martin & John and Hotel Africa. Martin & John is still running in Korea, too, so I’m hoping another company like Yen Press or Netcomics will be able to pick it up and release that one, at the very least, if not the others as well.
a-yin: Aww, I had always imagined that older shoujo titles did better in France, but I may only think that because Rose of Versailles was translated in French and not English.
We did get Moon Child, by the same author as Princess Kaguya, in English, but it had similar problems towards the end of the series. One of the publishers that tries to release old shoujo manga in English just slowed the releases down to a volume every 10 months for titles like Swan and From Eroica With Love, and the last couple volumes of Moon Child came out very slowly too. I would love to read Princess Kaguya, but I think Moon Child wasn’t popular enough for another series to come out in English. Same with Basara and 7SEEDS, I keep hoping for more by that author, but I think Basara didn’t sell well enough to release 7SEEDS in English. I didn’t pick up Basara and Banana Fish until after they’d finished coming out in English, so I’m not sure how often the volumes came out. I think almost nobody read Banana Fish, including me for a long time, but it wound up being one of my favorite series, and I would love to read more by that author.
I’m sorry to hear that Hee Jung Park titles are having problems finding readers in France, too. That’s a shame about Hotel Africa, that it got cancelled in the same place. I hope Martin & John does better in France. It didn’t have much of a chance in English since only one volume came out, but it was my favorite of all of her books that I read, and I’ve heard that the entire series is one of her best.
I saw your reviews of Moon Child after posting this comment xD. And you did bring me the curiosity to know more about it so I ordered volume 1 on amazon :). I also ordered one copy of Too Long ;).
Old shôjo are not more successful in France. La rose de Versailles was a very popular anime in France (it was entitled Lady Oscar), that’s why the manga was sold. There is also an other series of Riyoko Ikeda lately published in France: Onii sama e (Dear Brother). There was also an anime here but it was censored due to ambiguous relationships between high school girls in a dormitory xD.
Titles such as Kaguya Hime, Basara or Banana Fish are not “old” enough. Moreover, lots of readers find the design poor and then, don’t really want to read them. Especially Basara. There was no anime for these manga as I was a kid so no success, even they’re old. Though Basara was not successful, 7 SEEDS is being translated. As this series doesn’t sell so well, people have to wait 4/5 months to read one volume. Normally, it takes 2 months but delay has been changed.
This is really a shame for Hotel Africa not selling well in France. I think the “manhwa explosion” occuring years before didn’t help: manhwa suffered of poor image. There were to much manhwa published at the same time, and, I have to reckon, lots of crap too. So at the time Hotel Africa and Fever were published, I guess lots of people didn’t try them because of the “manhwa” image.
[...] by NBM/Comics Lit and reviewed by me last week at Manga Recon. The second is Hee Jung Park’s Too Long, published by TOKYOPOP and reviewed by Connie at Slightly Biased [...]
I think the older series don’t do as well in America for the same reasons you mentioned. I think a lot of the younger audience that reads contemporary shoujo is used to that art style, and they have a hard time reading the older styles, or just don’t like them as much. I love Yumi Tamura’s art, but I’ve heard a lot of people can’t get into Basara because it just looks too different from what they’re used to. It’s a little strange to me since Chicago, one of her other series, was one of the first shoujo manga I really loved, and it was because the art looked so different and pretty.
I always forget about manga selling because of anime. I think that usually happens here with shounen series. We do get some shoujo anime series on DVD, but since they don’t show them on television, I don’t think many people watch the series that don’t already know about the manga. I think the last shoujo anime I can remember being shown on TV was Cardcaptor Sakura.
We had the same thing here, too, with a lot of manhwa coming out at once and then being suspended. It’s happened a few times with a few different companies, and I always think that there are very few manhwa series that actually finish properly, with the exception of one publisher (and even they have a few that got cut off early). Manhwa doesn’t do too well in English at all, I think, which is a shame since there are a lot of good series available. Or at least a few volumes of them, anyway.
I’m usually not a fan of short stories, either, but for the reasons you mentioned, I did like this collection. It was a bummer to discover Park just as she stopped being published.
It really makes me appreciate what Viz did by publishing titles like Please Save My Earth, Banana Fish, and Basara all the way through to the end, even if they had to outsource to do it. :) I was reading all three of those titles as they came out, and I can’t tell you how awful it would have been to have them just stop.
I’m a bit wary of Tokyopop titles now, since they have such a spotty record of following through. I don’t want to get invested in great new authors/series if they’re only going to get yanked, but I also want to support the good ones with my money so there’s a chance they might get to continue. It’s quite the dilemma.
It’s sad, because Tokyopop never used to be spotty like that. They always went clear to the end of everything, which was good for titles like Initial D, which I don’t think is popular at all but has been coming out continuously for almost ten years. They used to publish a lot of shorter Korean series that I’m sure weren’t terribly popular, and those always carried through to the end. A few years ago, they licensed and released a few series by Sang Sun Park. I don’t think any of them were popular, and Ark Angels was downright terrible, but they all ran to the end. I don’t think anybody liked Arm of Kannon, or Warriors of Tao, but all the volumes of both of them came out. It’s a real shame they’ve had all these problems recently.
The recent feather in their cap is that they picked DNAngel back up after the series had been on hiatus for a few years. I hope that’s a sign of good things in the future, and that maybe they’ll be able to follow through on the series they start from now on.
I used to be wary of picking up suspended series, and worried that series I read would get cut off, but I realized that the best thing for that is probably to just go ahead and buy them anyway. It’s a lost cause when it comes to those Kodansha titles since the licenses were all revoked (I’m really bummed about GetBackers, it got cut off 27 volumes in), and I worry that it may be the same for those Korean titles too, since all of them stopped simultaneously and don’t seem to be resuming, but all the same, buying them can’t hurt their cause.