In observance of this week’s Paradise Kiss Manga Moveable Feast, I thought I’d extract a bit about the title’s prequel, Gokinjo Monogatari, from this more general request for… well, for more Ai Yazawa manga.

“Next is Gokinjo Monogatari, also originally serialized by Shueisha in Ribon. Aside from being a Yazawa creation, Gokinjo Monogatari (or Neighborhood Story) has the added allure of being a prequel to Paradise Kiss. (Okay, maybe “prequel” is the wrong word. That’s reserved for stories set earlier in continuity than the one that spawned them, right? Then again, since it would be published in English after Paradise Kiss, it would technically count as a prequel, right? Sorry. Moving on.) Mikako, the story’s protagonist, is the older sister of Miwako, one of the designers from Paradise Kiss. It follows the lives, loves and ambitions of students at Yazawa Arts, and nobody portrays young artists quite as well as Yazawa. It spanned seven volumes, so it wouldn’t lend itself to easy doubling, but seven is a lucky number. Delcourt has also published Neighborhood Story as Gokinjo: une vie de quartier.

“And since I’m on the subject of Yazawa, I’ll restate something I’m sure I’ve mentioned before. I would really love it if someone published a handsome omnibus of Paradise Kiss. At five volumes, it would be a bit chunky, but the story and style almost beg for high-end packaging, and it would be a great way to introduce the series to readers who may have missed it the first time around. If Tokyopop isn’t up for it, they could always partner with Dark Horse, which seems to be quite interested in repackaging super-stylish manga (mostly by CLAMP) in aesthetically worthy vessels.”

The Manga Moveable Feast for Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss is underway. As I sometimes like to do, I’m going to take a second look at a Flipped column I wrote at some point in 2005, I think. So heaven only knows how much freshening it’s going to require. Updates will appear bracketed in italic.

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There’s been a dust-up on the comics internet over the past week or so. It started at The Engine, Warren Ellis’s forum, with a discussion of Tokyopop’s contracts for the creators of its Original English Language manga. What started as a conversation about creators’ rights has spun off far and wide into sometimes heated exchanges over creativity, independence, and risk. It’s charged with generational conflict, creative philosophy, big dreams, and bitter experience. [Man, remember when Ellis was the hot club owner of the nerd internet and all the kids would hang out there? Probably not, but this was the first big controversial deal I remember coming out of The Engine, and it got nasty. This was back when people cared about manga-ka being appropriately compensated before the current post-legal era. Also, I’m older than Warren Ellis, which is depressing, but what can you do? Still, nobody should be older than Warren Ellis except maybe Alan Moore.]

Throw in some sex and wry humor, and it would make a pretty terrific manga. Add some gorgeous art, and you’d have Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss.

Nana, Yazawa’s current series, is getting lots of buzz lately. It’s a perennial best-seller in Japan, with a recently released live-action movie. It’s currently being serialized in Viz’s Shojo Beat, and I like what I’ve seen. But I’ve decided to go the tankoubon route, preferring to consume my manga in digest-sized chunks rather than monthly chapters. [This ended up being not entirely true, as I did intermittently pick up a copy of Shojo Beat every now and then, so I’m not really responsible for the demise of the magazine. I particularly renewed my devotion when Honey and Clover and Sand Chronicles launched. Why is it taking Viz so long to start a Shojo Beat web portal? Do they not think that teen-aged girls and middle-aged gay men like to sample comics online?]

So I’ll have to content myself with frequent readings of Paradise Kiss, which has a lot of things going for it. I can think of ten right off the top of my head:

1. The art. Paradise Kiss is glorious to look at, which is only apt with its high-fashion milieu. Yazawa’s character designs are terrific, richly detailed and endlessly expressive. Settings are vivid and rendered with care. While Yazawa employs some familiar shôjo techniques, her work doesn’t look like any other shôjo title on the shelves. There’s a much higher panel count than average, but pages still have the fluidity and elegance of composition that characterizes the best shôjo. At the same time, it has an edge to it that’s surprising. And while Yazawa clearly adores rendering all kinds of couture, her illustrations are never fashion-spread flat. She may revel in an eye-popping outfit, but she never forgets the person wearing it. [I think Yazawa may have improved slightly between Paradise Kiss and Nana, but she may just have hired a larger staff of assistants to take some of the load off.]

2. The plot. Stripped to its bones, the plot of Paradise Kiss sounds like magic-girl manga. An average schoolgirl is swept into a world of creation and illusion, surrounded by mysterious, exotic people, finding hidden strengths and romance along the way. In this case, though, it’s cranky, middling student Yukari discovering the transformative power of style and passion. The exotics are student designers at Yazawa School for the Arts, who want leggy Yukari to model for them in a competition. As Yukari spends more and more time with the designers of Paradise Kiss, she questions her priorities. Her world view expands, and she finds the courage to chart her own course in life. It’s really that simple, but Yazawa fleshes it out with poignant emotional detail. [There’s also the prince-bad boy dyad of love interests, which is very popular in some magic-girl stories. Will Yukari connect with the ostensibly ideal but possibly dull guy from her class, or will she make it work with the hot, conceited bisexual clothing designer? Oh, we all know the answer to that before Yazawa even tells us, don’t we?]

3. Yukari. Nicknamed Caroline by her new friends, Yukari isn’t always the most agreeable tour guide. She’s short-tempered, sarcastic, and given to hysterics. She makes bad choices and acts rashly. But she learns, taking responsibility for her actions and doing her best to stick to her decisions. Over the course of the manga’s five volumes, she goes from pretty kid to lovely person, and it’s a pleasure to watch it unfold.

4. Miwako. At first glance, the reader might be justified in cringing at the sight of wide-eyed, childlike Miwako and wince at her tendency to refer to herself in the third person. But before you can write her off as another cutesy kewpie doll, it becomes evident that there are all kinds of layers under the ribbons and curls. She’s got a heart of gold and a spine of steel, and her friendship with Yukari is genuinely touching. Her relationship with ill-tempered punk Arashi is equally surprising. Their connection is conflicted, but it’s very layered and mature. In spite of her doll-like appearance and demeanor, she carries a lot of the book’s emotional weight like a champ. [While I like Arashi and Miwako’s moments of conflicts and connection, I actually think I prefer the bits where George willfully triggers Arashi’s gay panic. I love seeing fictional gay guys’ egos get the better of them to the point that they actually believe someone of George’s impeccable standards would be attracted to them.]

5. Isabella. I was initially a bit annoyed by the suspicion that Isabella, the elegant transvestite, would stay too far in the background, looking lovely and composed and not doing much of anything. And while it’s true that she gets the least amount of time in the spotlight, well, somebody has to be the grown-up in this crowd. Isabella is the quiet, reassuring eye of a storm of self-reinvention, and it makes perfect sense. Isabella has already reinvented herself to her own satisfaction, so who better to nurture her works-in-progress friends?

6. Hiro. In many other shôjo stories, Hiro would be the… well… hero. He’s handsome, popular, studious, and kind. It’s a testament to the appealing weirdness of the Yazawa Arts crowd that Hiro is left spending most of his time on the margins, worrying over Yukari’s well-being and future. But there’s something compelling about his decency, and I found myself rooting for him every time he appeared. He isn’t the flashiest character, but he strikes a chord.

7. The faces. When characters cry in Paradise Kiss, their soulful eyes don’t glisten with aesthetically pleasing tears. They cry ugly, faces contorted with frustration and sorrow. When they laugh, you can hear it. A blush isn’t just a flattering flutter of shadow across the cheekbones. Yazawa’s characters feel big and show it, which brings readers even further into their emotional states.

8. The complexity. Those emotional states aren’t cut and dried. Yukari embarks on an ill-advised romance with suave, bisexual George, the creative force behind Paradise Kiss and owner of a set of designer emotional baggage. While a lot of shôjo romances make mileage out of those standby traumas – Does he love me? Does he even know I’m alive? – Paradise Kiss asks harder questions. Yukari is swept away by George’s charm even as she’s repelled by his arrogance. She doesn’t wonder if George loves her so much as if he loves her enough, and she isn’t proud of what she’s doing to herself to be with him. It’s not a question of “will-they/won’t-they”; it’s more “should they?” [By “complexity,” I also mean “sadness,” because things don’t end the way you might expect them to in a manga of this category. There’s real disappointment and pain, though everything ends up being for the best, which is a really rare argument for a shôjo manga-ka to make.]

9. The words. I wonder sometimes if I don’t give enough credit to the translators and adaptors who work in the manga industry. Part of it comes from my complete inability to read Japanese, so I’m reluctant to single out that part of the process when I can’t make any kind of informed comparison. But the group responsible for the English-language of Paradise Kiss has given readers a sharp, layered script. The characters have distinct voices. The comedy has punch, and the drama is rich with memorable turns of phrase.

10. Holes in the fourth wall. I’m usually a big fan of the fourth wall, and I can find coy meta references a little irritating. But Yazawa has a real facility for these moments, when her characters wink at the audience. They make for some delightful levity, and given the hyper-dramatic nature of her cast, they make a weird kind of sense. Instead of undermining the world of the manga, they contribute to its charm and even its coherence. (And if Yazawa didn’t indulge in them, I’d have been deprived of the exchange where Isabella tells George that he’s failing to live up to the manga hero standard.)

So if, like me, you’re waiting for the trade on Nana, you should really consider wiling away the weeks with Paradise Kiss. It’s an engrossing, unconventional shôjo.

[I sort of neglected George in this, didn’t I? One would conclude that I don’t like him, or that he ranks eleventh or lower. I don’t really dislike George, but he always felt more like a catalyst in terms of this particular story. To my thinking, this is because he’s the character with the clearest view of what his future will be like. He’s written the interviews and can hear the glowing reviews in his head. There are variables in this future, and I don’t think he’s biding his time with Yukari. I genuinely believe that he’s open to a future with her, but I also believe he recognizes the possibility that she won’t be a part of the future he imagines for himself. He feels for her, but she’s not one of the givens of his future. I think that’s a fascinating stance for a character to assume, but it doesn’t make him immediately likable, if that makes any sense.
[I’m sure there’s fan fiction that features George’s future romantic misfortunes, and there’s probably stacks of doujinshi that features a full range of possible boyfriends for him. I’d be willing to read them, especially if they believably portray him getting his heart broken.]

By Erica (Okazu) Friedman

Is there anything more delicious than a really juicy story?

Tohko Amano, self-styled “Book Girl,” doesn’t think so. And to indulge her passion for delicious snacks, she’s grabbed underclassman Konoha Ionue to write for her. Indulge she does, as she *actually* eats what she reads.

As a member of the Book Club, Konoha rapidly becomes used to Tohko’s idiosyncracies, foibles, habits and other words that mean “Tohko’s a strange bird.” But Konoha was totally unprepared to find himself writing love letters for a first-year student… or to find that the recipient of these love letters doesn’t actually exist.

Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime is a series of slightly too many plot twists strung together like beads, to form a complete, eccentric whole. Sketch-like illustrations add to the atmosphere of reading one of Konoha’s handwritten “snack” stories.

Fans of the Suzumiya Haruhi novel series are likely to find the combination of Konoha’s sarcastic, not-quite-milquetoast personality and Tohko’s overbearing weirdness (and the subtle tension between them) to be a familiar – and entertaining – formula. Fans of books about books, such as the Dante Club, or Name of The Rose and fans of the ROD series are also likely to find this series worth a read.

As a fan of all of the above, I personally found the novel engaging from the first word to the last – something I can honestly say about very, very few light novels – heck about very few *anything* these days.

The subject matter, as the title suggests, is grim in places, but I can’t think of too many teens for whom this would be a traumatic read… and the subtext of the story is about redemption and being weird yet functional, in a totally honest-to-yourself way. Although the age rating is 15+ because of the subject of suicide, I myself would have enjoyed it at a much earlier age.

Yen Press has given this series a fetching YA-novel look, and without the baggage of an a priori anime or manga fandom, this series has a good chance of just being appreciated for what it is – good teen lit.

I’d recommend this book highly to any book-y teen or precocious pre-teen or any adult that isn’t turned off by the idea of reading teen lit.

Bottom line - I enjoyed the heck out of this book and eagerly await the next one in the series.

There’s a perfectly mammoth volume to this week’s ComicList, and a lot of it looks really good. I’ll just take things as they come in alphabetical order.

It’s a big week for Del Rey, which has revised its web site and is now seemingly impossible to navigate in terms of finding information about specific books. Let’s head over to the Random House site instead. There you can find details on the omnibus collection of the last three volumes of Mushishi, written and illustrated by Yuki Urushibara. I love this episodic series of environmental folklore stories. It’s been the subject of a Manga Moveable Feast, hosted by Ed Sizemore at Manga Worth Reading. I’m a little bit behind on Koji Kumeta’s very enjoyable satire, Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, which sees its seventh volume released on Wednesday. And I was pleasantly surprised by the oh-so-formulaic-sounding Code: Breaker, written and illustrated by Akimine Kamijyo.

You can call pretty much any book from Fanfare/Ponent Mon either “eagerly awaited” or “long-awaited.” Korea as Viewed by 12 Creators has been in the pipeline for years, and it’s finally due in comic shops, which is very exciting. It features “[twelve] insightful short graphic stories into the “Hermit Kingdom”, six by European and six by indigenous creators, including award winning Park Heung-yong and “Best Manga 2006” artist Vanyda.” I’m equally excited about the second volume of The Summit of the Gods, written by Baku Yumemakura and illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi. It’s about mysteries and manly mountain climbers circling around Mt. Everest, and it’s very beautifully drawn. (I know I pre-ordered both of these, yet they don’t seem to be arriving at my local comic shop, which I hope is just a function of warehouse weirdness at Diamond and not something… ahem… local.)

I’m surprised by how much I’m liking Marvel’s Secret Avengers, written by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Mike Deodato. It’s always nice to see super-heroes behaving like well-intentioned professionals, and this may be the first time that the “proactive super-team” concept has actually worked. I’m not entirely sold on Deodato’s mildly cheesecake-y art, and Valkyrie’s braids are completely insane, but it’s a minor quibble.

Comics by Osamu Tezuka are always a welcome pleasure, and that certainly includes his episodic medical melodrama, Black Jack, about a mercenary surgeon dealing with more bizarre maladies than House could ever have imagined. The 12th volume arrives Wednesday.

Viz offers quite the mixture of titles from along the quality spectrum, so I’ll focus on the good and/or promising. Personal highlights include the 20th volume of Hikaru no Go, written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, and the fifth volume of Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You, written and illustrated by Karuho Shiina. On the confirmed debut front is Bakuman, written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by the aforementioned Obata. This one’s by the creators of Death Note, which is still selling tons of copies ages after the series concluded. That series was about using a notebook to rule the world. This one’s about using a sketch pad to make lots of money: “verage student Moritaka Mashiro enjoys drawing for fun. When his classmate and aspiring writer Akito Takagi discovers his talent, he begs Moritaka to team up with him as a manga-creating duo. But what exactly does it take to make it in the manga-publishing world?” If anyone should know, it’s these two.

Over at The Comics Journal, Shaenon Garrity has published a perfectly gorgeous interview with Moto Hagio:

MH: In America, comics were always seen as a boys’ thing?

SG: Yes, or at least that was the case for many years.

MH: So now there’s a great big market opening up.

It’s really the only thing you need to read today.

Back when Digital Manga was switching from being an edgy, seinen-focused publisher to a purveyor of boys’-love and yaoi, one of their first Juné titles was Chigusa Kawai’s La Esperança. It’s seven volumes of exceedingly chaste romance between two of the moodiest boys you’re ever likely to find at a private school somewhere in the more scenic parts of Europe that’s kind of like a high-end Epcot. The lack of physicality to the romance may be explained by the fact that it was originally serialized in Shinshokan’s Wings magazine, which seems to traffic more in suggestion than explication. (It also traffics in awesome comics like Fumi Yoshinaga’s Antique Bakery and Flower of Life. And it traffics in cheese-cart casts of attractive men, offering varieties designed to maximize the chance of reader enchantment.)

Digital Manga’s new Kawai title, Alice the 101st, seems even less romantically inclined, but it gets off to a very nice start thanks to the creator’s engaging characters and gorgeous art.

It’s about an elite music school, also in one of the more scenic parts of Europe, because Kawai loves her grand arches and spires, and she draws the hell out of them. She also likes her youthful characters, and they end up looking even cuter against the imposing hallways and elegant chambers of scenic Europe. The most cherubic member of the student body is Aristide Lang, who lags far behind his classmates in terms of technique or fundamentals. He can’t even read music. (Kate Dacey, who knows from technique and classical repertoire, shares some thoughts on the title’s musicality in her review.)

So why is he here? Well, his father was a gifted violinist, and Aristide does seem to have some innate talent, though it only emerges on certain pieces of music. Some of his teachers are understandably frustrated, and his classmates are alternately intrigued and annoyed that this late-coming amateur made the cut, even motivating the school to make a special admission and add one to their usual 100-student limit. On the whole, even Aristide doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing there, just that important adults in his life wanted it for him. That’s a realistic note.

I like that Kawai isn’t particularly unkind to the people who find Aristide’s presence annoying. They’re kind of jerky as a rule, but it seems like Kawai understands their point. None of them turn from detractors to cheerleaders in the first volume, and there’s a nice sequence illustrating one of Aristide’s teachers progressing from derision to acceptance. It seems clear that the teacher more or less resigns himself to Aristide’s presence rather than entirely bowing to the boy’s hidden brilliance. It’s clever stuff.

And Aristide does have his advocates. There’s his nerdy room-mate (a four-eyes without the glasses), and an older student who takes a teasing interest in the kid he calls “Alice.” (One of the best jokes in the series, at least for me, was the fact that the older student gave up the violin for the viola. The horror!) The cadre of friends and foes will undoubtedly offer plenty of friend-maybe-more geometry, with various students taking sides and gazing with innocent longing at their peers.

Kawai also created a one-volume boys’-love vampire series, written by Isaya Takamori and published in English as I Want to Bite (DokiDoki). I’m not going to run out and track down vampire yaoi, but I’m sure it has its audience (which probably doesn’t include me), and I’m sure it at looks great.

Updated: Awesome as the two titles below sound, Yen Press pulled into the lead of winning Comic Con International by announcing the following license:

Yes, they will be publishing Kaoru (Emma) Mori’s Otoyomegatari, which moves Yen into the august group of publishers who have fulfilled one of my license requests. Others include Vertical and NBM.

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Updated again: But the Mori book still holds the top spot. Brigid (Robot 6) Alverson reports on a couple of upcoming books by Shigeru (GeGeGe no Kitaro) Mizuki from Drawn & Quarterly. At least one has been published in French by Cornélius. With the other, I’m not sure what the original Japanese title might have been or how it might have been translated. Sounds dramatic, though. Updated: It was confirmed for me that the second book has also been published in French.

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They may not have been on my wish list, but Comic Con International has already yielded two really interesting-sounding licenses, so we’ll take the week off from requests in favor of pointing you towards more information on these announcements.

Vertical will be publishing Usumaru Furuya’s Lychee Light Club. Brigid Alverson has the details at Robot 6. Maybe this will do really well, and someone will decide to rescue Furuya’s 51 Ways to Save Her. Think of the headline puns!

Brigid also has details and some preview pages of Masahiko Matsumoto’s Cigarette Girl, due out from Top Shelf, who seems to want to give Drawn & Quarterly a run for their gekiga money. Competition is healthy!

I had a great time participating in Melinda Beasi’s Gerard & Jacques roundtable over at Manga Bookshelf. It’s always a pleasure chatting with some of my favorite manga bloggers about work by one of the most interesting creators out there, even if this isn’t one of my favorites of Fumi Yoshinaga’s works. (Manga Bookshelf has devoted the entire week to Yoshinaga, which has resulted in some great reading.)

I keep meaning to do a post on yaoi and boys’-love titles that gay guys might like. I don’t think I’d put Gerard & Jacques on that list, though there’s other Yoshinaga manga that would be right up near the top. First place would obviously belong to Saika Kunieda’s Future Lovers (Deux), but that’s about as concrete as my thinking is on the list so far. That’s because I’m lazy and easily distracted. I’ll get around to it someday, though.

The Eisner Awards will be presented tomorrow night, and I thought it would be fun to handicap the chances of the manga and manhwa nominees in various categories:

Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys (Viz) is nominated for Best Continuing Series. This is quite a feather in Urasawa’s cap (which, come to think of it, is more of a headdress at this point), and this is my favorite of his series that are available in English, but I don’t think it will win. There are some Eisner favorites in this category, and Urasawa has a bunch of other nominations in other categories.

Urasawa’s Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka (Viz) is nominated for Best Limited Series or Story Arc. I suspect Pluto will win another award, so it likely won’t claim this one. It’s also kind of strange that the series is nominated in this category. When a manga series concludes, is it put in the Limited Series or Story Arc category and nominated in the Continuing Series category when more volumes are on the way after the end of the nomination period?

Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life (Drawn & Quarterly) is nominated for Best Reality-Based Work. Tatsumi certainly deserves the nod, but more recent and widely acclaimed books like Footnotes in Gaza and The Photographer will probably take the prize.

Jiro Taniguchi’s two-volume A Distant Neighborhood (Fanfare/Ponent Mon) is nominated for the Best Graphic Album – New prize. This is another nomination that seems a little off to me, as the category seems best suited for stand-alone work rather than something in two volumes. The competition is also rather fierce here, and this isn’t even my favorite Taniguchi work that came out during the nominating period (though he only drew Summit of the Gods, also from Fanfare/Ponent Mon). I would love to see My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill take this one, but again, this category features some serious heavy hitters.

I think Urasawa’s Pluto will claim the Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Asia prize, and voters in a poll that I ran agree. They also think it should win, though I disagree. It’s a very strong series, but I found it a little overly serious on the whole. But it’s a lot like Watchmen in its dramatic, revisionist take on a property for children, and those are apparently very hard for people to resist. Of the remaining nominees, I’d rather see Oishinbo a la Carte (Viz), written by Tetsu Kariya and illustrated by Akira Hanasaki, win, because it would boost sales for the existing volumes of this fascinating series and increase the possibility that we might see more. I don’t think it stands much of a chance, as it cherry picks stories from the series’ very long run rather than offering a contained narrative. There’s an okay chance that Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life might take this prize, but I still think Eisner voters have been looking for a chance to honor Urasawa for a while now. I hope to heaven that The Color Trilogy (First Second) doesn’t win, but the last time I mentioned my dislike of that series, I was subjected to condescending psychoanalysis, so I’ll just move on. If you’d like to see my dream Eisner ballot in this category, click here.

Urasawa is nominated again in the Best Writer/Artist category. Given the number of nominations he’s received this year, you’d think he would be a lock, but he’s up against stalwarts like Darwyn Cooke, R. Crumb and David Mazzucchelli. This might be one of those “honor just be nominated” moments.

Adrian Tomine is nominated for Best Lettering for A Drifting Life. I don’t remember the lettering being particularly noteworthy on that book, especially in comparison to Mazzucchelli’s on Asterios Polyp.

What are your thoughts on the chances of the various manga and manhwa nominees?

Some of the books I thought were coming out last week are actually coming out this week, but they’re still worth a look, so hop in the wayback machine to double-check. I’ll note that there have been a lot of fun-looking events around the release of Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, so go look at Kevin Melrose’s round-up at Robot 6. I can’t wait to read this book, and I’m grateful to everyone who’s resisted posting spoilers to those of us who don’t live near a shop that felt it could host a release party.

Not counting stuff that I mentioned a week early, this Wednesday’s highlight is the fifth volume of Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip from Drawn & Quarterly, which “features the final strips drawn by Tove Jansson and written by her brother Lars for the London Evening News, before Lars took over both the art and the writing.”

The manga highlight of the week is the 23rd volume of Hiromu Arakawa’s excellent Fullmetal Alchemist from Viz. This one wraps up in the 25th 27th volume, and I’m really going to miss it. It’s one of the best action-fantasy series I’ve ever read.

Over at Robot 6, J.K. Parkin lists “Six announcements [they'd] love to hear in San Diego this week.” I can’t pass up a chance to mention some of my most-wished-for manga.

Princess Knight, written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka. Is there anyone who doesn’t want to see this book published in English?

Jirilove, written and illustrated by Utaguwa: I’ve read some really good Japanese comics about or featuring gay characters, but I don’t think I’ve ever read one by a gay person about being gay. Updated: Wait, I have read a comic like that: Rica ‘tte Kanji!? written and illustrated by Rica Takashima. It’s wonderful. You should go read it right now.

Speaking of good comics about gay people, I’d love to read some of Natsume Ono’s yaoi work, created under the name “Basso.”

Nasu, written and illustrated by Iou Kuroda: Isn’t it well past time we got more comics by Kuroda in translation?

Vinland Saga, written and illustrated by Makoto Yukimura: I could ask the same question about the creator who gave us Planetes.

What Did You Eat Yesterday? written and illustrated by Fumi Yoshinaga: It’s Yoshinaga manga about gay foodies. Do I need to expound any further?

What books are on your wish list?

Update: Erica Friedman crafts a yuri-centric list over at Okazu.

Anyone who’s read this blog for any length of time knows that I’m a huge fan of Fumi Yoshinaga, so I’m delighted to point you over to The Manga Bookshelf, which is observing Fumi Yoshinaga Week! Melinda Beasi kicks things off right with a review of Flower of Life (DMP) , which may just be the Yoshinaga series I like best. (I’m not going to say it’s Yoshinaga’s best work, but it’s the comic of hers that makes me smile most frequently and the one I’m most likely to reread when I need a boost.)

Perhaps some kind publisher will announce the licensing of Yoshinaga’s What Did You Eat Yesterday? It’s a Kodansha title, and they’ve been rather tight-fisted with their properties of late (or at least since they announced their direct entry into the market, which is either ironic or perverse, depending on your point of view).

Of course, we can all at least look forward to the November release of Not Love But Delicious Food from Yen Press. And, awkward Fakespearean adaptation aside, we can continue to enjoy Yoshinaga’s award-winning Ôoku: The Inner Chambers from Viz’s Signature imprint. The fourth volume will arrive in August.

Library Wars: Love and War: In the near future, the federal government creates a committee to rid society of books it deems unsuitable. The libraries vow to protect their collections, and with the help of local governments, form a military group to defend themselves–the Library Forces! (Viz)

Doesn’t that sound awesome? A tough heroine fighting the forces of censorship! It could still become awesome, but the first volume trades in some plot devices that put it at a distinct disadvantage, at least with me. Kasahara, a young trainee in the Library Forces, has decided to join that august body in part because one of its members “stepped in to protect her favorite book from being confiscated in a bookstore when she was younger.” That’s still not problematic, as there’s nothing wrong with pursuing a career because of the inspiration of someone you admire. Unfortunately, Kasahara refers to that mysterious figure as a “prince” and layers dippy, ill-conceived romantic notions on her otherwise totally admirable ambition.

I’ve got to tell you that this kind of thing – a person falling madly in love with someone they don’t know anything about based on a brief, largely forgotten encounter during their formative years – gets on my nerves. I can get over it, as I did with Kitchen Princess (Del Rey), but the first volume of Library Wars doesn’t fill me with confidence. Kasahara isn’t very bright, and she doesn’t work very hard at her training. I’m inclined to side with her bright, hard-working rival when he suggests that she doesn’t really deserve the preferential treatment and opportunities for advancement she receives. (She hasn’t even bothered to learn the shelving system!)

Maybe future volumes will focus less on dumb mooning and more on information specialists promoting the free exchange of information and ideas by any means necessary. I’ll give Library Wars another volume, but Kasahara needs to get her dopey act together. Good intentions only go so far.

(Library Wars: Love and War was based on a novel by Hiro Arikawa and adapted by Kiiro Yumi.)

Code:Breaker: Rei seems like an affable transfer student to everyone around him, but quirky high school beauty Sakura sees his true face as a terrifying vigilante—a “nonexistent” Code:Breaker who cannot be touched by the law. And since Sakura has just witnessed the effects of his deadly blue flame, she’s slated to be the next to burn! (Del Rey)

Doesn’t that sound just too generic for words? It’s not, largely because high school beauty Sakura is actually quirky, and she’s tougher and smarter than Kasahara by a wide margin. All of the boys in Sakura’s school view her as a delicate flower they’d love to protect, in spite of the fact that she’s better versed in the martial arts than all of them combined. She’s too busy thinking about things that matter to be offended by their condescending entreaties, which makes for some pretty funny moments.

One of the things that matter, at least in Sakura’s considered opinion, is an apparent mass murder that she witnesses while riding the bus home from school. She goes to investigate, but there’s no evidence. When a new boy, Rei, shows up in class, she recognizes him from the massacre and looks into the mystery, putting herself in danger in the process.

Sakura’s tough, principled approach to life pretty much carries the book. She never cringes, and she has a really firm grasp on right and wrong. Rei’s vigilantism offends her notions of order and justice, and I’m looking forward to seeing their philosophical back-and-forth. Code:Breaker could become as bland as its premise suggests, as much more promising manga has gone off the rails by the second volume, but I think I’ll enjoy this one as long as Sakura’s spine endures.

(Code:Breakers was written and illustrated by Akimine Kamijyo and debuts from Del Rey in late July. These remarks are based on a review copy.)

It’s Bastille Day, so I thought I’d put together a quick list of some of my favorite comics by French creators and some of my favorite comics set in France. It’s tough, because so many of them are so great, but I’ll try not to go overboard. Off the top of my head, here are some of my favorite comics by French writers and artists:

And here are a couple of comics set in France that I really like:

What did I forget? Or what should I look into? What about comics from or set in France that have yet to be translated? Between their indigenous talent and the volume of licensed manga they enjoy, the French are sick with awesome comics.

It’s a momentous, manga-influenced week for the ComicList! Let’s take a look.

I can’t do any better than Oni in describing the sixth and final volume of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s wonderful Scott Pilgrim Series, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour:

“It’s finally here! Six years and almost one-thousand pages have all led to this epic finale! With six of Ramona’s seven evil exes dispatched, it should be time for Scott Pilgrim to face Gideon Graves, the biggest and baddest of her former beaus. But didn’t Ramona take off at the end of Book 5? Shouldn’t that let Scott off the hook? Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn’t, but one thing is for certain — all of this has been building to Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour!”

O’Malley could be said to embody one version of the dream of creators who list manga among their influences. He’s got a hugely successful series, critically and commercially, with a major movie adaptation about to hit theatres. Another enviable outcome went to Felipe Smith, who first saw print as one of Tokyopop’s Original English Language manga creators with MBQ. He then went on to secure a spot in Kodansha’s Morning Two line-up with Peepo Choo. The three-volume series is now being released in English by Vertical, and the first volume arrives in comic shops tomorrow.

I read a review copy from the publisher, and I wish I liked the book’s narrative as much as I like the story behind the comic. It falls into the category of comics that aren’t really for me. It’s about a young American otaku who wins a dream trip to Japan. The kid has romanticized Japan beyond all proportion, picturing it as an Eden of manga- and anime-loving cosplayers who can all get along by virtue of their shared love for a particular character. Little does the kid know that he’s going to be mixed up with vicious gangsters, assassins, brutal teen starlets, and the far-less-idyllic reality of indigenous otaku.

Smith shows terrific energy as a creator, and I appreciate his satirical intent, but Peepo Choo is a little coarse for my tastes. I know that’s weird to say, given how much I love Detroit Metal City and Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu, but Peepo Choo doesn’t quite have the precision with which those books use their gross-out material. The vulgarity doesn’t say as much as it could, and the satire is a little too broad to be as effective as I’d like. Still, this book should have no trouble finding an audience of comic fans who like to see their hobby tweaked and their fandoms punked, and it’s amazing that Smith has been published in a highly regarded manga magazine by a major Japanese publisher.

Over at the Manga Bookshelf, Melinda Beasi is running a mid-season poll on the year’s best new manhwa so far. I’m hoping that I can include Youngran Lee’s There’s Something About Sunyool (Netcomics) on this list, as it looks really promising. Here’s what Melinda had to say:

“Born the illegitimate child of a big-time politician, Sunyool has been accepted officially into her father’s household as an adult and thrown straight into negotiations for arranged marriage. While the premise seems rife with cliché, the execution (so far) is anything but. What could easily be a typical rags-to-riches or fish-out-of-water story actually appears more likely to be a thoughtful, wry look at two young people from vastly different backgrounds learning to make a life together within the cold world of politics. Sunyool’s smart (occasionally cruel) sense of humor and self-awareness make her a very appealing female lead, while her pragmatic young husband is still a bit of a mystery.”

I also might have to pick up a copy of the Young Avengers Ultimate Collection (Marvel), written by Alan Heinberg and penciled by various people, mostly Jimmy Cheung, just so I can have all those stories in one convenient package. I really enjoyed the first issue of Avengers: The Children’s Crusade that came out last week, mostly for the adorable gay super-hero boyfriends being adorable with each other, and also because a Marvel character finally suggested that there might be more to the Scarlet Witch’s behavior than her just having a bad case of babies rabies and not being able to handle her powers because, well, chicks. Also, no one suggested killing the Scarlet Witch, though her fair weather friend Ms. Marvel seems like she’d be more than happy to do so. Shut up, Ms. Marvel.

The Harvey Award nominations have been announced, and the Best American Edition of Foreign Material shouldn’t make people feel ashamed of themselves. That’s a nice change of pace.

Speaking of upcoming comics awards programs, it’s almost Eisner time. Back when the nominees were announced, I ran will win/should win polls for the Best U.S. Edition of International Material-Asia. I thought I’d check back and see how those panned out, and the clear winner of both is Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka (Viz), written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa and inspired by the work of Osamu Tezuka. This seems likely enough, as Eisner voters have always appreciated Tezuka, and they’ve come this close to giving Urasawa a prize several times. (Monster was nominated repeatedly, and Urasawa is also nominated in the Best Writer/Artist category.) Now they can honor both at the same time.

If I had my way, the Asia prize would go to Oishinbo and Urasawa would get the Writer/Artist nod, and if I really had my way, voters would have had the chance to honor Kaoru Mori’s Emma (CMX), but…

It’s Shojo Manga Week over at The Manga Critic, and it’s evolved into Link to The Manga Critic Week here at The Manga Curmudgeon. In honor of both, I wanted to put out a plea for some kind publisher to pick up two of CMX’s shôjo titles that saw only one volume released before DC pulled the plug on the much-loved manga imprint.

Miku Sakamoto’s Stolen Hearts has several things going for it. It’s about an ongoing relationship rather than a potential relationship, which is almost always entertaining. It also explores fashion in its way, which puts it in the same category as Banri Hidaka’s V.B. Rose and Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss (both from Tokyopop). It’s about a tall, menacing-looking boy whose family runs a kimono shop who starts dating a short, innocent looking girl who becomes the shop’s model. There’s a bossy, conniving granny involved, and just about every comic can be improved by the inclusion of a bossy, conniving granny. Here are some of my thoughts on the book, which basically repeat what I just said.

I think the book is still ongoing in Hakusensha’s Hana to Yume, which has given the world a lot of great shôjo manga. CMX was also planning to release Sakamoto’s Nadeshiko Club, another Hana to Yume title about a girl who joins a home economics club filled with hot guys. It staggers me that nobody has picked up this reverse-harem title yet. It ended up being seven volumes long.

We also only saw one volume of Mayu Fujikata’s My Darling! Miss Bancho. This makes me sad, as I was looking forward to reading more of it:

“It’s a likable, well-executed variation on a very common theme, and its clear-headed freshness keeps it from seeming derivative to the point of superfluous. Fujikata also gives good author’s notes in which she expresses pixilated amusement that her editor keeps letting her get away with this stuff.”

Snarky author’s notes are always welcome, especially when they’re the icing on a generally tasty cake. This ongoing title is currently being serialized in Hakusensha’s LaLa DX. I wonder why Hakusensha never started its own stateside manga imprint? In retrospect, it’s probably just as well, as there was never any shortage of outlets for their licenses, but still… they have so many great books.

Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey is running a Half-Time Poll: The Best New Manga of 2010, and it’s illustrative of how much good manga has launched this year, in spite of the various woes the industry has faced. Just about every candidate has at least a couple of votes, which is nice to see. I wanted to post a few more thoughts on my five choices and cite a couple of runners-up, since some of my picks were very close shaves indeed.

All My Darling Daughters, written and illustrated by Fumi Yoshinaga (Viz): This book has garnered a lot of critical acclaim since its release, some of it from me:

“Everything is more complicated than it seems in Yoshinaga’s narrative universe. People are both nicer and meaner than they initially seem, and relationships are more quietly satisfying and functional than an observer might assume. Yoshinaga is deeply interested in the grace notes of interpersonal interaction, even in her slighter works. That’s the source of a lot of the pleasure for me – the apparently minor, digressive moments that get to the heart of her characters.”

I always at least like Yoshinaga’s work, and I usually love it. This book is no exception, and it’s one that I’d recommend to non-manga readers without hesitation, especially if they like slice-of-life stories with complex women characters.

My runner-up for this slot would be Natsume Ono’s Ristorante Paradiso, which I reviewed here. When Ono’s House of Five Leaves is released in print, it will certainly be in my top five if Kate does a similar poll for the second half of 2010.

Bunny Drop, written and illustrated by Yumi Yunita (Yen Press): I’m so delighted to see that this book is tied for the lead in Kate’s poll, as I hope its critical acclaim results in solid sales. It’s from the often-neglected josei category for adult women, so I’m automatically inclined in its favor, and it’s also really, really good:

“Under another creator, this might be fodder for wacky domestic comedy, with the bachelor dad screwing up in ostensibly hilarious ways. (The back-cover text tries to imply that this is the case. Only one sentence ends with a humble period, with the rest sporting exclamation and question marks.) Unita’s approach is in a much lower key, and I think the results are distinctly satisfying.”

I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow, written and illustrated by Shunjo Aono (Viz): I haven’t properly reviewed this series yet, but I’ve written about it fairly often, usually to note that it’s one of my favorite series in Viz’s SigIKKI initiative. This should also lead you to conclude that it’s one of my favorite current manga series, period, as I love a lot of those books:

“It’s always possible that the schlub who stars in Shunju Aono’s I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow (Viz) will eventually succeed, or at least that he’ll stop quitting halfway through whatever he happens to be trying, but in the meantime, we can revel in the crushing disappointment. I should also note that the series is really funny and that Aono seems to be trying to eschew the “But isn’t this loser secretly really awesome?” undertones that inform similar schlub-centric comics.”

Natsume’s Book of Friends, written and illustrated by Yuki Midorikawa (Viz): You only have to look at the poll to conclude that a lot of great shôjo launched this year, so picking a single favorite is tough. It’s not impossible, though, especially with this supernatural, episodic charmer from Midorikawa in the running:

“I like the variety that Midorikawa finds in the premise and the mix of comedy and sentiment in the individual episodes. Her view of the relationship between humans and yôkai is complex, and I particularly love the counterpoint between grandmother and grandson. Reiko turned her isolation and otherness into hostility and control. Takashi turns his into generosity of a sort, or at least into enlightened self-interest. And young Reiko is a sly hoot, even if she is nasty, or maybe because she’s nasty.”

I’m not generally interested in anime, but I have watched a couple of episodes of this book’s adaptation, and they are glorious, just what you’d hope the comic would become if given motion and sound. As for the other exemplary shôjo arrivals so far this year, it saddens me to note that both only got one volume out before their publisher, CMX, got its plug pulled by DC. I’ll talk more about Miku Sakamoto’s Stolen Hearts and Mayu Fujikata’s My Darling! Miss Bancho tomorrow when I beg another publisher to rescue them.

Twin Spica, written and illustrated by Kou Yaginuma (Vertical): Are you sick of me writing about this book? Too bad. It’s too good to neglect:

“Yaginuma renders all of Asumi’s difficulties with admirably straightforward delicacy and attention to detail. There’s plausibility to the process Asumi pursues and the examination system itself. There’s also a wonderful earnestness to Asumi’s dreams and her desire to reach out to the people who share them. Factor in the aching sadness that provides underpinnings for Asumi’s quest and you have a moving, unusual finished product.”

Much as I love it, it was locked in a death struggle with runner-up Saturn Apartments (Viz) written and illustrated by Hisae Iwaoka, which offers another gentle and unexpected take on science fiction.

On the subject of excellent manga, take a few moments to go read some great pieces on the best manga you aren’t reading by Brigid Alverson, Robin Brenner and the aforementioned Kate.

As we dive into this week’s ComicList, I’ll remind you that I’ve already named a pick of the week (the second volume of Kou Yuginami’s Twin Spica from Vertical), but there’s lots of other interesting material on its way.

I was a big fan of Chigusa Kawai’s dreamy, intense La Esperança (DMP), so I have high hopes for Kawai’s Alice the 101st (also DMP). It’s about an elite music school that admits an out-of-nowhere prodigy at the violin. Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey gave it a provisional thumbs-up, noting that it’s “haping up to be a very entertaining series about a young musician learning the hard truth: there’s only one way to get to Carnegie Hall.”

If Young Avengers had come out with any regularity, I might not have abandoned Marvel entirely after the systematic trashing of the character of the Scarlet Witch. Young Avengers creators Alan Heinberg and Jimmy Cheung reunite for Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, which features the teen super-team searching for the Scarlet Witch and teases the possibility that one of the company’s first major heroines might be repaired and redeemed. It’s nine issues long and will be released bi-monthly, which is kind of frustrating, but it’s not exactly onerous in terms of cost, just patience.

I’m always game for one of Rick Geary’s Treasury of XXth Century Murder offerings. This time around, he tells the undoubtedly gruesome tale of The Terrible Axe-Man of New Orleans, which promises “Nights of terror! A city awash in blood! New Orleans right after the First World War. The party returns to the Big Easy but someone looks to spoil it. Grocers are being murdered in the dead of night by someone grabbing their axe and hacking them right in their own cushy beds!” It sounds perfectly charming, doesn’t it?

It’s a big week for Viz, so I’ll focus on two books. My Viz shônen pick of the week would have to be the 54th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece. I’m a little behind on the recent volumes, but it won’t take me very long to catch up.

My Viz shôjo pick of the week would have to be the 21st volume of Ai Yazawa’s gorgeous NANA, sexy rock-and-roll soap opera that should appeal to anyone who might like that sort of thing, because it’s really one of the best examples. Speaking of Yazawa, her English-language debut, Paradise Kiss (Tokyopop), will be the next subject of the Manga Moveable Feast.

Last, but not least, I’m always up for a new volume of Time and Again (Yen Press), sly supernatural comeuppance theatre from JiUn Yun.

What looks good to you?

You know how the voting experience is usually one of holding your nose and trying to figure out who’s going to do the least damage? Well, Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey offers a welcome change of pace with her “Half-Time Poll: The Best New Manga of 2010.” There may be a blog post in this.

Updated just to have a reminder of how I voted, as it was almost impossible to pick only five, and I may possibly write a self-justifying follow-up post: