Artist Spotlight: Arina Tanemura

Very rarely do we get to see a mangaka’s entire body of work in English. I can’t think of very many instances, actually. We’ve seen all of CLAMP, save for a few side projects. Rumiko Takahashi has had all her series translated into English, with the notable exception being the last 2/3rds of Urusei Yatsura. We’re missing a volume of short stories from Eiichiro Oda. We’ve seen almost all of Fumi Yoshinaga’s work, save for two one-shots and her newest series. All but the newest volume of In the Walnut may be available from Toko Kawai. So Arina Tanemura is in rare company indeed, as all her books have been translated into English at this point, save for a one-shot that came out at the end of last year in Japan.

Tanemura debuted in 1997, and has been working steadily ever since. She specializes in shoujo fantasy/romance, and her work is very much a textbook example of exactly what a shoujo manga should be. Lots of romance, action, excellent character development, a little bit of humor, unusual plot twists, and very, very pretty art.

While it’s true that her character designs are in a Ribon Magazine house style (particularly the hair and eyes), even in her very first story she uses an unusually ornate style that, while a bit stiff, was still overflowing with cute details and lacked the usual composition and flow problems young artists often have. Over the years she polished her art and made it more organic, more detailed, and now lavishes a lot of attention in particular to costumes and settings. Her books really are a feast for the eyes, and few can measure up to the insane amounts of adorable that flow off of every page.

Her work always appears in Ribon magazine, and the age range on that tends to skew slightly younger. That’s apparent in her early work, but later series become surprisingly mature, and she has a depth to her writing that makes it appeal to shoujo fans of even my age. While most of her books were published by Viz and are still in print and widely advertised, still, Tanemura is worth discussing and celebrating, and this guide can hopefully shed some light on why.

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Artist Spotlight: Senno Knife

There are many artists who were popular in the late 90s and early 2000s in the US who are completely forgotten today. And by “popular” I mean “heavily published by manga companies at the time.” I assume they were popular, because often they made convention appearances and whatnot. But nobody really reads Kia Asamiya (Silent Moebius), Masaomi Kanzaki (Heavy Metal Warrior Xenon), or even very much of Kazuo Koike (Offered) anymore, but there are plenty of bizarre relics of their popularity scattered throughout backissue bins nationwide. Hell, I found issues of Gunhed, by Kia Asamiya, in the backissues at work today. I didn’t even know that existed, and I have a manga site with 3,000 reviews on it.

One of the less conventional of these artists is Senno Knife. Unlike the others I mentioned, Senno Knife’s English catalog is completely the efforts of Studio Ironcat and its adult label Sexy Fruit. I know that Knife made convention appearances, but the largest body of his English language work was pamphlet-only releases, with only 1 graphic novel squeezed out just before Studio Ironcat went bankrupt. It’s hard to get your hands on Senno Knife today, but he’s unusual enough, and accessible enough, that it’s worth taking a look at his series.

Knife specializes in horror, specifically erotic horror. His graphic novel, Mantis Woman, isn’t erotic, but it was unusual enough that it led me back to his erotic manga releases. They’re fairly harmless softcore-type stories, as far as I’ve read, and they’re extremely cheap to come by these days, so if you’re looking for horror manga, Senno Knife might not be a bad place to start.

The images are all from Bizzarian and Sepia. It is an utter tragedy that I do not currently have my volume of Mantis Woman with me. Also, Knife is an adult artist, so some of the images are 18+ and definitely NSFW, though Knife’s art is softcore and fairly tame, so the gross-out factor is nonexistent in the images I’ve scanned. But then again, I’m a bad judge of taste, so they may still be fairly offensive.

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Artist Spotlight: You Higuri

Sometimes, I look back and am shocked by how much work certain authors have published in English. In some cases, it makes sense that we have a ton of work by, say, Rumiko Takahashi or CLAMP available. There are some artists, like Arina Tanemura or Kaori Yuki, who surprise me with their popularity since neither has had a super-popular anime in the US, but both are still fairly popular based solely on their manga.

And then there are mid-level authors like You Higuri. There’s nothing really wrong with You Higuri’s work. In fact, she’s a great artist who loves drawing detailed historical settings. Her series Gakuen Heaven and Gorgeous Carat are both fairly popular BL series. Both of those series were released by BLU in the US, but Higuri has a variety of series from many other publishers as well, none of which have been very popular. Yet here we are, with around 40 volumes of her manga from eight different series in English.

Here’s a look at her work available in English, starting from Cantarella in 2005 and working through the present.

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est em Update

At one point, I had planned on doing a lot of author-focused entries, but the problem is that I lack confidence in my knowledge. It’s not like getting the details wrong on Chameleon Army is going to incite a riot, especially if I plead ignorance beforehand, but it’s still not good.

This is a little different than what I had planned for this type of entry. I was curious to see what est em had done lately that hadn’t been translated into English, and thought others might be curious about her newer works as well, so here’s a little info. It’s not that helpful, since I’m terrified to google her name, but you might at the very least enjoy the covers.

Plus, a little info for anyone who isn’t familiar with her.

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Arakifest 09: Early Stuff

In case you missed my Jojo review earlier:  Since I share a June 7th birthday with Hirohiko Araki, I’ve decided it would be fun to call a little extra attention to all things Jojo around this time every year.  Jojo doesn’t get much love in America, I think, which is a shame because it truly deserves it.  To write an essay every year about why I like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure would be boring, because that information is readily available elsewhere on the site.  Two years ago I happened to read a volume of Jojo on my birthday, and last year I showed off some scans from the excellent Jojo a Go! Go! artbook.  This year, rather than just doing something extra in the review itself, I decided to just make a separate entry looking at other aspects of Araki/Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.  This is sort of unusual since I don’t actually create posts that aren’t reviews, but for Jojo, I can cheat a little.

Today, I’m looking at Part I of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (volumes 1-5), and an earlier series called Mashounen B.T. that I happened across in the store on Thursday.

This has been cut for spoilers, graphic violence, extreme animal cruelty, and the fact I actually display all these images instead of linking them.  All images are (C) Shueisha, Viz, and Lucky Land Communications. I honestly do hate posting images, and I know I shouldn’t have, but Araki really does have wonderful art, and it’s fun to take a look at how it changes.  If I get asked to take down the images, I will.

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