Breaking Down Banana Fish, volumes 3-4
Posted: May 27, 2010 Filed under: Articles on Other Sites Leave a comment »We convened once again to discuss the minutiae of Banana Fish, and the discussion was a lot of fun. You can read the article over at the Manga Bookshelf.
I don’t have a lot to add here, other than I love looking at stories from the perspective of self-insertion and I also hadn’t heard of the Bechdel test before this discussion. Funny, since that came up at the same time I was reading Fun Home. I suspect much of what I read does not pass the Bechdel Test.
ARTBOOK SPOTLIGHT: Vagabond Illustration Collection: Sumi
Posted: May 27, 2010 Filed under: Artbooks 3 Comments »Takehiko Inoue – Viz – 2008 – paperback – 158 pages
Sumi is still in print and available in English, so if you’re interested, try Amazon.
Viz has published a fair number of artbooks over the years, most as tie-ins to very popular series. I have most of a few of them. In the spirit of “don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” that CMX has inspired in me lately, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a look at one of them, so here’s one I picked up a few months back.
Viz’s artbooks are often near-perfect reproductions of a book that has already come out in Japan, and they are generally indistinguishable from their Japanese counterparts save for language and a few publisher logos. The books in Viz’s “The Art Of” line are almost all hardcovers, but this Inoue book happens to be paperback. I believe most of these books are printed in Japan, and I’ve never noticed any printing quality or binding issues. They are very, very nice books, and usually aren’t that expensive considering what they are.
Sumi features Takehiko Inoue’s black and white illustration work from Vagabond. There is a companion volume, Water, that features the color artwork, but I’ve never seen that one myself. Inoue is quite an artist, especially with ink illustrations. He uses gestural, heavy inks intermittently throughout Vagabond, and its one of the things I love most about the series.
So. Here’s a brief look at it. Once again, I kind of hate posting images, so if asked to take them down, I will. Also, another reminder that I don’t have a scanner, Photoshop, or knowledge of how to take good digital stills.
Real 8
Posted: May 27, 2010 Filed under: Real 2 Comments »Takehiko Inoue – Viz – 2010 – 9+ volumes
The focus in this volume shifts away from Kiyoharu and the Dreams, who had a pretty epic cliffhanger last volume, and back towards Takahashi and his rehabilitation. And alongside both, there’s Nomiya, who still can’t find his identity.
Takahashi’s story is most heartbreaking and hard to read. He’s not a very likable character, even in his condition. He’s also trying to overcome a very severe handicap and learn to function by himself. He motivates himself by looking at others he deems “below” him and seeing that they can do things like lifting themselves to and from sitting positions. This alternately depresses him (“if they can do it, why can’t I?”) and motivates him. He’s a very… er, real character, I suppose, and he does get a lot of sympathy from me for having to go through all that. It’s hard to take. But he’s also a jerk, and I have a feeling that my sympathy is exactly the kind that makes him feel bad. I’m interested to see where he ends up in a volume or two. Probably playing basketball for the Dreams, but I’m interested to see how he gets there. Hopefully he crosses paths with Nomiya again.
Nomiya… his story was also sad. He has no physical disability to overcome, and yet he just can’t win. He can’t find a job, and can’t find his place in life. He stays positive, but man is this section depressing. He is quite good with people for how intimidating he is, and after consulting an unlikely source, he decides to pick himself up and do the one thing he cares most about. Of course, he always ends volumes on a positive note, so I’m going to reserve judgment until next time.
I think I like Vagabond more, but Real does give you more to chew on, and it’s easier to relate to the characters and their struggles. It’s… probably just as meditative as Vagabond is, except the thoughts all go towards other things, like bettering yourself in modern society and whatnot, though it’s more successful than that sentence makes it sound. In fact, it’s more compelling than it has any right to be. I mean, I still can’t get over how much I like this manga. It’s not about wheelchair basketball, that’s just something that comes up every once in awhile. It’s more about the characters. This reads a lot like Inoue is taking all the themes he normally uses and making the best use possible of them. It’s excellent, and full of good characters and good messages. There’s nothing quite like Real.
Vagabond 7 (VizBig ed.)
Posted: May 27, 2010 Filed under: Vagabond 3 Comments »Takehiko Inoue – Viz – 2010 – 33+ volumes
this omnibus collects volumes 19-21.
I’m just blown away by the consistency of this series. I never really feel like I’m reading three volumes, I always want more when I finish, and every time it’s more amazing than the last.
Reading this after the volumes of Real and Slam Dunk is interesting. You can see a little of Slam Dunk in Real, though Real does completely different things with basketball. You get the impression that Hanamichi and Nomiya would be friends, though. And in Vagabond, which has nothing to do with either of those series, there’s still a little of the punk school kid in Musashi. Reading that last chapter made me smile, because I don’t think I ever would have picked up on that unless I’d read it immediately after the others. Musashi’s just too serious a guy to really think of in that way, but he acts exactly the same as the others. It also helped that I went from Hanamichi, the most comical, to Nomiya, pretty serious but still funny, to Musashi, who doesn’t have a funny bone in his body.
Anyway. The first two volumes in this collection stick to Kojiro, throwing him into an incredibly elaborate and frightening survival situation. I’m not clear on all the history behind it, but basically the locals think that any strangers they see are part of the invading army that completely ravaged their villages and ruined their lives, so they are hunting down any stragglers in big groups. Kojiro is separated from his “sensei,” and with no way to hear what the people are saying or a method to explain who he is, he is hunted relentlessly for days. He cuts down dozens, even in his sleep. He knows terror, and he must survive.
The second volume narrows the focus down to a group of men who really are soldiers trying to flee. They have the unfortunate luck of running into Kojiro after he’s been fighting for his life with no food, water, or sleep for what may have been one or several days. This scene is stretched out into an entire volume, but covers several different reactions to Kojiro, and he even makes a friend, of sorts. His handicap does figure into all the fighting, and I still can’t get over how interesting it is to structure a psychologically-oriented series on swordfighting and personal motivation around a character with limitations to personal interaction.
This is made even more interesting by the jarring switch back to Musashi in volume 21. Musashi converses with his opponent and himself, and where we’ve been accustomed to silence and reflection in the past several volumes there is now a running commentary. I think it is this transition that made the punk high school kid connection even more solid in my mind, because after Kojiro’s simple way of life (he knows nothing but swordfighting, and enjoys it in a way that he cannot express), Musashi’s obsession with becoming invincible and simply cutting down everyone in his path seems… well, silly. And it didn’t really, before.
Musashi’s back in Kyoto to face Denshichiro Yoshioka. Interestingly, the volume starts with a color sequence where Musashi cuts him down, but given the number of strange premonitions the characters have about death (basically, graphic scenes that are near-indistinguishable from the narrative) I wasn’t really taking this scene at face value. The rest of the volume builds up to their showdown after Denshichiro issues a challenge and date to Musashi. There’s Denshichiro’s preparation with the fellow swordsmen in the Yoshioka school, there’s Musashi’s preparation out in the woods by himself… and then there’s Seijuro. He’s the lazy head of the Yoshioka school, the one who’s preternaturally gifted without having to train. He puts down both Denshichiro and Musashi, and yet he persistently guards his brother under the guise of frequenting a brothel (although, yes, he does do some of that). It’s the fight between Seijuro and Musashi that the volume ends on, with a cliffhanger for next time. I found Seijuro’s devotion to his brother, and his quiet pursuit of Musashi, pretty touching, and it gave me an unexpected appreciation of the arrogant guy.
Notable moments include the very beginning of the fight with Seijuro where Musashi is honestly angry that Seijuro cut his forehead yet again, and a cute scene towards the end of the volume where all the characters (Musashi, Matahatchi, and Otsu) celebrate New Year’s Day in their own separate parts of the country. It’s a little funny, but mostly depressing and very sad, especially from Matahatchi and Otsu’s points of view.
I cannot get enough. I’m torn as to whether this or Real is my favorite Inoue series. Both are very good in different ways… but I think I enjoy Vagabond more, which is fun in these huge chunks, whereas Real gives you more to chew on in each volume.
Slam Dunk 10
Posted: May 23, 2010 Filed under: Slam Dunk 3 Comments »Takehiko Inoue – Viz – 2010 – 31 volumes
Whoo! Semifinals! Sakuragi is Rebound King! Go Shohoku! Et cetera.
Seriously, though. How is it that this series is so addictive when I don’t care one bit about basketball? This isn’t even like a Hikaru no Go situation where I might get sucked into the strategy of the game, or am learning how to play something. Basketball is impenetrable for me, and my brain shuts off whenever I try to pay attention to it. But man, I love watching Sakuragi pick up those rebounds.
Little goes on aside from basketball. There are eight teams left in the tournament, and Shohoku is playing Shoyo. Shoyo is very tall, and Shohoku is very intimidated. And then everything went blurry and the volume went by in thirty seconds. Turns out Sakuragi is kind of awesome, though he seems to be doubting his genius at one point. Honestly, I hope that he never gets humbled, because his enthusiasm is infectious.
On to the next volume! This really is a series that would benefit from a long sit-down session with many volumes, though. They just go by so fast it always leaves you wanting more.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Kobato 1
Posted: May 23, 2010 Filed under: Kobato. Leave a comment »CLAMP – Yen Press – 2010 – 4+ volumes
So. This series has an interesting publication history, which will bore the pants off most people but I will relate anyway. In Japan, it started as a series called Kobato (Temporary) in a magazine called Monthly Sunday Gene-X at Shogakukan. Then it went on hiatus for about a year, and came back to run monthly in Kadokawa Shoten’s Newtype as Kobato, but the storyline started a little bit ahead of the material that had been in Sunday GX. The first chapter in Sunday GX is the last chapter in this first volume. In America, it ran in ADV’s Newtype USA from 2007-2008, until the magazine ceased publication. Yen Press picked up the license last year, and released the first two volumes together this month.
Whew.
And after all that, and along with the confession I’ve read every single one of CLAMP’s works without exception over the years and own most in both English and Japanese… I’m just going to go ahead and admit I really don’t like this. I have the first two volumes in Japanese, but only read the first one. My Japanese is terrible, and I thought I wasn’t getting the jokes, so I was looking forward to reading it in English. The jokes… yeah, still not good.
It’s clear that this series ran on a monthly schedule, because for most of the volume, Kobato is quizzed largely on monthly holidays and what is considered “appropriate” behavior for each (Kobato and Ioryogi’s origins are not revealed, but they are clearly not “of the times” here). Chapters on Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, flower viewing festivals, and the heat of summer are included, chock full of comic misunderstandings based on pop culture and hilarious punishment from Ioryogi. The first chapter includes lessons on how to take out the trash and how to cook a nabe pot.
Yeah. Basically, none of the jokes are funny, and the material is all pretty tired. It apparently reaches out into parody territory, but just isn’t pulling it off, coming off more as one of the most cliche-ridden stories I’ve seen in awhile. Ouch, CLAMP.
The crossovers are still here, which would be great if Tsubasa didn’t exist. Well, who am I kidding, I still crack a smile when I see Chitose and the persocoms or Hikaru from Angelic Layer. Yeah, I do kind of like that part.
If the terrible, tired jokes weren’t enough, Kobato is trying to pass the “normal behavior” test in order to get a jar to fill with broken hearts in order to grant her wish. This is ripping off the worst of several CLAMP plots, or is somehow a generic version of every series they’ve ever done, I can’t decide.
Mercifully, the last chapter leads us into a different type of story, and while I’m sure the same silly, unfunny jokes will keep appearing, at least we won’t be waltzing through the hilarity of “common sense” anymore. I’m looking forward to the shift in story, but… somehow I don’t anticipate this pulling off the charm that made other sugary titles like Wish work.
The best thing about this volume was Ioryogi, the angry blue dog that acts as Kobato’s mentor. There’s just something awesome and completely out of place about a scowling, screaming blue dog in Kobato’s otherwise pristine, happy-go-lucky life. Not even Ioryogi’s jokes are funny, but the fact he exists makes Kobato a little better than it ought to be. He has a secret identity, so I’m rooting for either an old CLAMP character, or… yeah, an old CLAMP character. Maybe he’s a re-skinned Kero-chan, though Kero was never that angry (but neither was Sakura as dopey as Kobato). Maybe his eyepatch bunny friend was Spiniel Sun. That would be great.
Mad Love Chase 2
Posted: May 22, 2010 Filed under: Mad Love Chase Leave a comment »Kazusa Takashima – Tokyopop – 2009 – 5 volumes
I liked the first volume of this series well enough to continue, even though middle-of-the-road wacky comedies aren’t really my thing. It must be the demons that I like.
I still like it far more than I should, though. It would be very easy for this series to fall into a formula, with the three minions continually trying to get Kujou to strip to see if he’s got the royal emblem, but it does manage to avoid this rut. The chapters are relatively varied, too, for the type of series this is… though most take place at the school, and another at a summer festival.
Why do I like it so much, then? I think it has a lot to do with Taiki, simultaneous bad guy and best friend. He’s more of a friend to Kujou than a bad guy, and he really is a wonderful friend. He sticks up for Kujou pretty often, even when it interferes with his fellow demon’s investigations. He has to suspect Kujou… especially since he’s seen him transform back from a demon, but he doesn’t seem to be pushing the issue too hard, and actually does try to talk the others into laying off. He’s a great character, and I think his role in the story is what makes this so fun to read, especially when there’s nothing particularly interesting about the other characters.
And I do love demons. One of the short stories involves secretly slipping Kujou a drug to turn him back into a demon, and it works. Kujou makes for an awesome demon. Another chapter has Haga transform back into a cat and have a little run-in with Taiki, which is a nice, calm chapter in the middle of all the madness.
But the wacky gags aren’t really my thing, nor are the characters. I like it enough to keep reading… but it’s not really anything special.
Blade of the Immortal 5
Posted: May 22, 2010 Filed under: Blade of the Immortal 2 Comments »Hiroaki Samura – Dark Horse – 2000 – 26+ volumes
Every time I look up the volume count for this series, I’m reminded that “The Inhabitant of Infinity” is the coolest name for a comic ever.
Anyway, the second half of the maskmaker’s story. Rin decides she wants to… put a stop to all this, or something, and simply wants an apology instead of payment in blood, particularly since the latter would put the maskmaker’s son in the same position as she. There is a lot of reflection on the nature of revenge. A lot. Almost too much, but I still really liked how much the characters talked about their sides, and how the coin can flip from peace to violence so quickly.
The flashback that starts off the volume, with Rin and her grandpa, the latter explaining to Rin what to do if the past catches up with her, was quite touching. Also touching were the lengths both Rin and Manji went through to console the son at the end of the volume. Those scenes were probably my favorite part. Poor kid, and poor Manji.
Anyway, of course Rin is in over her head, and of course Manji gets involved. The fight this time wasn’t quite as epic, mostly because I could not figure out how Manji was losing. He was, pretty much the whole way through, and apparently Manji “fights fair,” a statement I find hilarious when applied to someone who has that many hidden weapons and is immortal. The battle between the two was pretty excellent, though, considering the maskmaker did try to take the advantage whenever and however he could.
The maskmaker’s methods for women… that was one of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen.
But yes, this was another excellent volume. A little philosophy-heavy, but it had the action to balance that out and illustrate its points, and the art always looks excellent. I do wonder if the series will be moving in another direction now that Rin has… decided she doesn’t want revenge? Or has she? I am interested in the direction things will take from here.
Gentlemen’s Alliance † 6
Posted: May 21, 2010 Filed under: Gentlemen's Alliance † Leave a comment »Arina Tanemura – Viz – 2008 – 11 volumes
Oh, it’s so girly. Who loves who, student council overthrows, lots of secret identities, and everyone loves Haine. Normally the latter plot point makes me hate a series, but man, it works here. Possibly because this is the absolute most girly series on the planet.
Haine is still conflicted after what she found out about Shizumasa last volume, and the student council president decides he’s going to have to win Haine over from scratch. She… resists, but not too hard. There actually is a little bit of mystery about this, because there’s no predetermined suitor. Childhood love, or current love? Hmm. Of course, one of them is a total jerk, so I am leaning heavily one way.
Mostly, the volume is about Maora. I love Maora. He decides to be very manly here, and there’s a whole thing about how he wants to date Haine and overthrow Shizumasa as the student council president. It comes down to a lover’s quarrel between he and Maguri, and Maguri is rather terrified and speechless through the entire volume. But everything is so serious and sincere, I couldn’t help but be won over in all the theatrics.
It’s just… cute and soapy. There’s not much to add, since most of the development this time around was for Maora, a secondary character. He’s a good one, though. I’m still waiting for more story time for Ushio.
Cute, cute, cute stuff. Still hasn’t trumped Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne as my favorite Tanemura series, but it’s definitely a close second at this point. It doesn’t exactly excel at anything, but it is overwhelmingly girly, and there’s only so much I, a lover of girly manga, can take before I’m totally won over.
