Kamome no Koto wa Yoku Shiranai: Ikumi Nakada

Way back when I first encountered Nakada’s work in the Popocomi anthology doujin series, I wished that she would graduate to working in mainstream manga so that I could read more of her lovely stories. And then she did! So I’m assuming now that Japanese manga publishers have been carefully but belatedly scouring this blog and my wish is now their command. I must be careful to only use this power for the publication of good manga and never bad.

Surprisingly, it was Kadokawa that took a chance on Nakada to publish her stories first online in Young Ace UP and then in the print version of the magazine. I tend to associate Kadokawa with more “manga-y” manga, more fan service and mainstream art styles than what Nakada serves up. And indeed the ads at the back of Kamome could not be more unrelated to what Nakada is doing with her art and stories. So I worry a little about what kind of a readership she’ll find with Kadokawa and if a poor response there will keep more of her work from getting published, thus depriving me of her lovely comics. But I reassure myself with the fact that she got a good enough response for them to actually put out this tanko, so fingers crossed that we’ll see more.

Zassou-tachi yo Taishi wo Idake: Aoi Ikebe

Yes, as promised, the second in my hat trick of new books by favourite artists! I have thoughts on Fumi Fumiko’s latest that will have to wait for another day. But have no fear! Like John Wick, they will come whether you like it or not. But in these tumultuous times when it seems like the world is getting more horrible every time you check Twitter, what I need is a reminder that everything is not awful. And while Fumi’s Joso Danshi to Menhera Ojisan is good and interesting and worth reading and all that, it’s also full of people being awful, not necessarily for awful reasons, but just because they are human, and sometimes, human beings don’t get things right even when their intentions are in a good place. Zassou-tachi is untouched by awful things. It is the book you need to soothe your soul when the onslaught of awful becomes too much for you.

The title is a twist on the Japanese saying “Boys, be ambitious (shounen yo taishi wo idake), which it turns out was originally said in English by this old American guy and then translated into Japanese, so that strict teachers and fretful mothers could exhort generations of Japanese schoolboys to get their shit together. I’ve heard and seen this expression any number of times in my many years in Japan, but I always assumed it was some holdover from the militaristic World War II culture that somehow managed to make it into the modern era. I pictured drill sergeants shouting it as they sent young men and boys off on kamikaze missions or something. It sounds ominously euphemistic for “go die for the emperor”, and I never understood why it was still in use these days. Until reading this book! I started googling the saying for a little insight into why Ikebe would use it as a springboard for her own title, and I stumbled upon the weird world of a white man founding a university in Hokkaido.

Doujinshi Round-up: 2017 Edition

Is it that time of year already? Time flies when you are poring over stacks of doujinshi. And where did all these stacks come from?? This is supposed to be the 2017 edition of this annual tradition, in which, as we all now know, I discuss various doujins I picked up in 2016 because I like to make things difficult. And I did indeed pick up some of these last year at Comitia or J. Garden or Mandarake or just directly from the author in weird happenstance. But I came across doujin from 2003 in this pile! So, uh, clearly, the round-up devolves yet again into basically just some stuff I read lately that may or may not be recent or even attainable anymore by the casual doujinshi reader. Sorry. I feel like I’m supposed to be getting better at this book-reading thing after writing here for the last six years now, but clearly that is never going to happen. So let’s all dial our hopes to anything but up and just look at some books already!

Sennetsu: Ayako Noda

So I guess Ayako Noda is the new star of my heart? I’m not sure exactly at what point old loves like Haruko Kumota and Keiko Takemiya stepped aside to let her shine through, but judging from how eagerly I was counting down to the release of the first volume of Sennetsu, it is clear that Noda has inspired an almost frightening cultish devotion in me. All of which is to say you should never look to me for an unbiased look at her work. I love her. And that love is in a way similar to the love I bear for Itoshi no Nekokke in its white hot intensity. But whereas my love for Itoshi is gentle and rock steady, my love for Noda’s work is overly excited and a bit roller-coast-y. I see the cracks in her storytelling, the sometimes awkward and impossible human figures, and yet my heart pounds with every page.

This passion, it’s a thing I’ve been thinking about for the last couple years, this idea that when you’re an old, your love of art changes in unexpected (to you) ways. The fiery, uncritical passion of my loves when I was a teenager has shifted into something more measured, something more self-aware. I feel like I’m able to look deeper into works and examine them on more levels than I was way back when I was wrinkle-free, but I also feel the loss of that blazing fire, the ability to simply be consumed by a work and burned up by it. I will never be able to see Weetzie Bat or Geek Love or any other book I read and loved in my teens and twenties as anything other than magical and perfect. Even if in my head, I can step back and examine them with a more critical eye, my heart is filled with that pure love.

Tanizaki Mangekyo: Various

Fun fact: I learned the word “mangekyo” long before I started learning Japanese, along with “tsuki ni kawatte oshioki yo” and “henshin”. So when I spotted the lovely cover of Tanizaki Mangekyo in the bookstore, my first thought was an unconscious, thrilled “Sailor Moon!” This collection of short stories has nothing to do with that pretty sailor soldier, however. And yet every time I see the title, I start singing that song to myself. (I still sing it at karaoke with J-peeps. Nothing like singing anime songs in Japanese to knock J-socks off!)

My second thought, based solely on the erotic reveal of Asumiko Nakamura’s lady on the cover, was that this was a collection of erotic/definitely R-rated stories and therefore I should refrain from reading this volume on the train. Some salarymen might be cool with reading rape-y naked lady stories during their commute, but I like to keep my public manga reading PG. So this sat around for a couple weeks, waiting for a slot in my house reading schedule. And when that slot finally opened up and I actually read the obi, I realized that this is a collection of manga adaptations of stories by famed Japanese author Junichiro Tanizaki. And while he is known for his “destructive erotic obsessions” (thank you for that turn of phrase, Wikipedia editor), none of these stories is particularly dangerous to read on the train.

Versailles of the Dead: Kumiko Suekane

Hibana is maybe knocking it out of the park? I mean, we all mourn the early demise of IKKI, a great magazine with a great editor that featured some pretty amazing talent, like Taiyo Matsumoto, Yumiko Shirai, and est em. But the magazine that rose up in IKKI’s ashes has already made an impressive footprint of its own in the manga scene, despite being relatively new to that scene. This is the magazine that gave us this brain’s beloved Ikazuchi Tooku by Ayako Noda aka Niboshiko Arai, and Akiko Higashimura’s latest, Yukiba no Toru. So seeing Hibana on the spine of a tankobon is enough to make me raise my eyebrows and pick the book up at the very least. Because you never know what surprises this magazine is going to serve up next.

And apparently, the latest surprise is revisiting the story of Marie Antoinette with zombies. The Pride and Prejudice and Zombies strain of fiction has arrived at last in Japan! Normally, I would roll my eyes at the mash-up, being not much of a fiction mash-up person, but the Hibana name along with the utterly ridiculous Versailles of the Dead title had me sighing with resignation. I’ll just read the first volume, I told myself. Just to see what it is. But what it is is surprisingly entertaining?

Majutsushi A: Natsuko Ishitsuyo

You know you are in for something when a manga artist chooses Ishitsuyo—“strong-willed”—as her pen name. You might not like whatever that something is, but you’ll probably remember it. Fortunately for me, Natsuko Ishitsuyo is exactly what I want to read, and I am frankly astounded that Majutsushi A, a collection of six short stories, is her debut work. It’s so assured and unlike anything I’ve come across in the world of manga before. My only critique of the book is that it’s not longer. Big words, I know, but I don’t say them lightly.

I’d heard nothing about Ishituyo before I stumbled across Majutsu in my neighbourhood bookstore when I went in to wait for the light to change, as I often do. When a bookstore is so conveniently located on the corner of a street you have to cross on your way home from the train station, you should stop in whenever you have to wait for a long light change. Because you will occasionally discover magic treats like this one. But the bookstore on the corner tends to be more mainstream, and their new release shelf rarely features anything that interests me, mostly run-of-the-mill shojo and shonen, with some mainstream BL tossed in for variety. So it was almost shocking to see the stark black and red and the strange portrait gracing the cover of Majutsu. The sly smile playing on the woman’s lips practically compels you to pick the book up. Kudos to the cover designer on this one!