Category Archives: Manga
I have a conceptually unique subject to review tonight; a short-story collection of Shojo manga. Now, I am not talking about a collection of manga pilots called one shots, but real honest to goodness short stories. In the past, I used to think that this way of writing was uncommon in modern Shojo manga, and from what I could find, outside of the nominally Josei on the surface works of Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories and Yoshinga Fumi’s All My Darling Daughters, I cannot think of any other manga that fit the bill. When it comes to short stories I consider them to be the norm in horror manga like Kazuo Umezu’s Scary Books, which now that I think about it was also written with a young girl audience in mind. I guess I will just have to add 2005’s Himeyuka & Rozione’s Story to this small list.
Himeyuka & Rozione’s Story contains four short stories written and drawn by Sumomo Yumeka. Sumomo Yumeka has a relatively heavy release footprint here in America, with companies like Digital Manga Publishing releasing her titles like the Day I Become A Butterfly and Same Cell Organism. What I found interesting was that she works under the name Mizu Sahara to draw Seinen manga, like the manga adaptions for two of cloud obsessed anime director Makoto Shinkai’s films, The Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days.
Full Review
Leave a comment | tags: 2005, Himeyuka & Rozione's Story, Makoto Shinkai, Shojo, Short Stories, Sumomo Yumeka, Yen Press | posted in Manga
Of all the tons of manga released in the United States over the last ten years, encompassing various out-there titles, very few would go classified as the adult woman world of Josei. This manga’s demographic, constitutes an audience of older teen girls and women up to their early forties. There have been some shining examples of Josei cherry picked for the American market like Yen Press’ With The Light by the late Keiko Tobe and Viz’s Ristorante Paradiso by Natsume Ono, both titles led by a female who is a good step into her adult life. The market even witnessed an attempted Josei publisher by the name of Aurora Publishing that released to (sadly almost) completion Chihiro Tamaki’s Walkin’ Butterfly, but they closed up shop a few years back. I personally believe that the last decade’s teenage female manga readers might have given Josei its fair run once given the chance, yet all I can do now is ponder as I take a look at 2005’s Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy! and see what stories those readers might be missing.
Not Love But Delicious Foods is a short single volume of work by Yoshinaga Fumi. Yoshinga Fumi currently has a wide breadth of works released by multiple publishers yet she is usually traced back to her most popular work Antique Bakery, entailing the lives of four adult men running a cake shop. Works like Flower of Life and Garden Dreams fit into the pseudo-Josei that is actually Shojo (an audience consisting of girls in their late teens) category, sharing the same place as Antique Bakery by being serialized in the manga anthology Wings. I bring this up because the line distinguishing between Shojo and Josei is finer than the embolden equivalent for Shonen and Seinen titles; I want to try to cover manga that conveys an age but it is not easy to compare an English counterpart.
Full Review
Leave a comment | tags: 2005, Food, Josei, manga, Yen Press, Yoshinaga Fumi | posted in Manga
Released and serialized by Shueisha, Zombie Power premiered in 1999 within Weekly Shōnen Jump. Created by Tite Kubo (Bleach), Zombie Powder follows the story of Gamma Akutabi and his search for the twelve legendary “Rings of the Dead.” The rings are said to hold immense power, even over death itself. Gamma wants them in order to become immortal but others want them as well; and they will stop at nothing to get their hands on them.
Zombie Powder is your everyday generic shonen manga. Its story is not original; you’ve got your “badass” hero and the young naïve companion on a journey. The journey is to collect X number of legendary items in order to fulfill their wishes. It is similar to a number of titles under Shonen Jump and does not differ from the pack in terms of storytelling or art to a degree. Our main hero Gamma is similar to Vash the Stampede from Trigun or Kenshin Himura from Rurouni Kenshin in that he is serious when he wants to be and seemingly weak the next. There are also archetypes in this manga; from the eye candy of Wolfina, to C.T. Smith the mysterious character you know nothing about. Zombie Powder is filled to the brim with generic components but that does not mean there are no good points to it.
Full Review
Leave a comment | tags: 1999, Kubo, manga, Powder, review, shonen manga, Shueisha, Tite, Viz Media, Weekly Shonen Jump, Zombie | posted in Manga
We here at Children of The Blazing Fist are fans of Japan’s famed Colonel Sanders impersonator Kazuo Koike. Series like Crying Freeman, Wounded Man, and Lone Wolf and Cub have entertained us to no end with absurd exploits with this gekiga (dramatic pictures) movement’s long withstanding torch-bearer. Yet while he is a great representation of this form, he is not its earliest practitioner. That title goes to Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Tatsumi’s fight to counter modern (at the time) ideals about what manga represented as a medium influenced future writers; going as far as at one point influencing Osamu Tezuka. But instead of hitting up one of his more gritty stories during his heyday, I decided to drift back to 1956 where a twenty-one year old Yoshihiro Tatsumi sits at his desk, as he works on tonight’s review known as Black Blizzard.
Yoshihiro Tatsumi is best known in the States from his 2008 memoir work A Drifting Life, but has other titles published here like Abandon the Old In Tokyo and The Push Man and Other Stories. To be honest, my experience with Yoshihiro Tatsumi before Black Blizzard was his short story Lover’s Bride found inside the pages of AX Vol. One. This story details with an often heard commonplace in Yoshiro Tatsumi’s manga; the discouraged man who is brought down by the woman in his life. And as I will go into detail later, contrasting the two really showcases just how far his art style has come in fifty years (you might be surprised to learn that he still keeps many of the same traits).
Full Review
Leave a comment | tags: 1956, AX Vol. One, Black Blizzard, Drawn and Quarterly, gekiga, Kazuo Koike, Yoshihiro Tatsumi | posted in Manga
Many of you have been reading manga long enough to know that most manga were originally released in anthologies. Magazines like Shonen Sunday, Cookie, and Weekly Young Jump (the last one I might add contained Tetsuya Saruwatari’s Tough and Kazuo Koike’s Mad Bull 34) are just some examples of such anthologies. One such magazine, Manga Erotics F, with its pages filled with the works of Natsume Ono, Hiroaki Samura, and Usamaru Furuya, purports itself to be an anthology housing creators with very distinctive art styles. One such individual is Jiro Matsumoto; the mind behind the 2007 dystopian manga Velveteen & Mandala his American debut (got you thinking that I am going to cover Furuya’s Lychee Light Club; but that manga is for another day).
Years ago, I stumbled upon two of Jiro Matsumoto’s titles, Freesia and Keep on Vibrating online. Freesia’s cop drama story seemed pretty straight- laced to me, granted with the occasional weirdness, but Keep on Vibrating was the one-two punch in illustrating to me just “who” Jiro Matsumoto was. Keep on Vibrating is a short story collection centered on violence and sex, to say the least, Matsumoto gets to go a little nuts.
Full Review
Leave a comment | tags: 2007, Jiro Matsumoo, Manga Erotics F, Seinen, Velveteen & Mandala, Vertical Inc. | posted in Manga
As a fan of hand drawn mediums, I grew to distinguish things based on the style influence of the original creators. As anyone who might have read my other articles, I have a tendency to lean on a works character design. If there are large noses and ever morphing eyes, then I think of Osamu Tezuka. If there are pages after pages of children staring mouth agape drawn from one point of view, then I consider Kazuo Umezu. If everyone has large mouths, heavy eyelids, and are drawn in single lines strokes, then I must be looking at Natsume Ono’s work. But tonight, I will be talking about a work that purports my focus on character designs; as I review 2006’s Shoulder a Coffin Kuro.
Shoulder A Coffin Kuro was created by Satoko Kiyuduki, who I recognize exclusively for her character designs (later I will go over her work in better detail). She is the mind behind the GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class series, turning her use of 4-koma style and random color pages into a manga that teaches commonplace things done in an art class. Satoko Kiyuduki might be known by some as the character designer for the Yggdra Union strategy games.
Shoulder A Coffin Kuro has a semi-linear plot, so describing it accurately might leave some confused. The story starts in medias res during a fictional medieval time (thing the fifteenth century but with a bike or plane showing up once in a while). An inn girl self-monologues on the three individuals buying hotel rooms, they include an older girl and two twin sisters. She tells the reader that her regular life was stilted by the appearance of the oldest girl (her given name is not revealed until later), who is wearing all black and carries a coffin behind her. Jumping to conclusions, she thinks that our lead is a vampire, staying terrified of what might be in the coffin. Night sets in and a bandit lurks around while everyone is asleep. But the inn girl, still worried about the new guests, is patrolling the halls with crosses and garlic. The bandit finds her and holds her captive. Suddenly, hundreds of bats show up and ambushes the bandit. We find out that the bats came from the women’s coffin, and that they are controlled by a talking bat that the girl calls Sen. When tomorrow comes, the girl says goodbye to the travelers with food as they walk out-of-town.
Full Review
1 comment | tags: 4-koma, manga, Satoko Kiyuduki, Shoulder A Coffin Kuro, Yen Press | posted in Manga
When I was younger, a friend of mine taught me about something that spoke to the way I look at a creative medium. He said (and I paraphrase) “If you really want to understand a creators’ mind, see who influenced them.” I took this into consideration and started to research the influences of one of my favorite creators, Junji Ito. Junji Ito as a horror author was influenced by two influential creators; the cheerful easygoing Kazuo Umezu, and the strict samurai looking Hideshi Hino. Well tonight Umezu’s fantastic catalog will have to wait, for tonight I am reviewing one of Hideshi Hino’s few in-print manga series, 2005′s Lullabies from Hell.
Hideshi Hino has been working on manga for over forty years; going back to his start in Osamu Tezuka’s anthology magazine COM. Hino is known for his gore centric horror tales, many of which were based around his childhood growing up in China after World War II. A life filled with fleeing anti-Japanese-Chinese citizens permeated his life and influenced his work. While Hino has an enormous bibliography, very little of his work can be found in English (or even in print). So I guess Lullabies from Hell is your easiest choice.
Full Review
1 comment | tags: 2005, Dark Horse, Hideshi Hino, Horror, Lullabies from Hell, manga, The Collection | posted in Manga
This was an AP Government book review assignment that I wrote last month. I want to say that I got an A minus, but I am not sure. Outside of the beginning and the end of this review, and the usual photos, everything is a complete reinstate of that essay. The format was a little random, and I don’t dig to deep into the plot, but I hope you find it to be interesting.
Hidaka Yoshiki joins together with artist Tsugihara Ryuji to adapt Yoshiki’s novel The Birth of a President in Japan into the four volume political manga First President of Japan, introducing the first appearance of a popular vote elected Prime Minister. Hidaka portrays the main character, Sakuragi Kenichiro, as a clever revolutionary thinker who will be able to reform Japan’s stilted government; while Tsugihara draws him as a handsome man who can be a convincing leader that looks good at the same time. First President of Japan’s plot encompasses a fictional “what if” story on Japan’s East Asian relations. Japan has a detailed history of using its comics during political strife’s against World War II era America. First President of Japan strives to create a fictional situation utilizing Hidaka Yoshiki’s strict, journalist experience.
Full Review
Leave a comment | tags: First President of Japan, Hidaka Yoshiki, manga, Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics, political comics, Rajin Comics, Tsugihara Ryuji | posted in Manga, Special
“If I lived in Japan I could be de me, the real Milton” Milton
One of the many things that I look at in a work circles around one sentence, “Can you excite me enough through the imagery you create better than the last guy”. I hold up artists like Salvador Dali and H.R. Geiger (that’s just for the high art crowd) to this standard because they are able to translate the vivid recesses of their minds into the visual world. Not many creative people can do that; really shock me in the back of my mind like a hammer. Thankfully, the creator of the Vertical title Peepo Choo, Felipe Smith, can do just that.
Felipe Smith’s art plays heavily in the world he is trying to convey. Similar to Kinichi Sonoda’s work in Gunsmith Cats, his Chicago background holds a special place. From the fashion, to the look of his characters, to even the dialog shared between characters, Felipe draws heavily from Chicago life. Smith is really into putting names on things. Let me explain; throughout Peepo Choo, Smith’s name and the name of his characters appear constantly in both the clothing and things in the backgrounds. Smith’s artwork sometimes does not hit its mark, with people’s faces often clash strangely from panel to panel. Granted, it is the ability to give a level of visible uniqueness to each character, but it does stick out too much at times. The shading in the interiors that Smith’s creates are interesting; I would compare them to door-less, square rooms with the only light coming from the ground, sort of like the floor lights in a dark movie theater.
Full Review
Leave a comment | tags: Felipe Smith, manga, Peepo Choo, Vertical Inc. | posted in Manga
I’ve got some Valkilly (or “Ghost in The Shell” soundtrack, if you prefer) playing in my ears, an image of that one Aerosmith album with the robot on the cover in my head (you know the one I am talking about), and a destaine for all human life. That’s right, I’ve got A.D. Police on the cyberbrain. Well, the AD Police manga and the A.D. Police Files anime that is, which I will review in a two part installment. The very early ninties prelude, to the eighties anime classic Bubblegum Crisis, comes as a (maybe?) needed backstory for the character Leon McNichol. Some say that the Cyberpunk genre is dead; but as long as I have my A.D. Police, I should be just fine.
I’ll start with the Viz released manga first, considering that it was being worked on by Toshimichi Suzuki and Tony Takezaki a few months before the OVA* (Original Video Animation). What I found out about the artist, Tony Takezaki, is that the only thing he did outside of A.D. Police was the Genocyber manga and some mecha designs for some episodes of Bubble Gum Crisis. Personally, I think in the vain of cyborg design, he did a pretty good job; I liked most of the robots that showed up in the A.D. Police. Toshimichi Suzuki on the other hand seems to lay more on the executive producer end of the process. Playing these roles in A.D. Police Files, Bubblegum Crash, and Gall Force he seems to find himself connected back to the Mr. 80’s character designer Kenichi Sonoda (a name that will most probably show up in this blog again). Be it Bubblegum Crisis, Bubblegum Crash, or Wanna-be’s (which Suzuki wrote himself), he planned a part in it.It seems by this point that I haven’t really written about what the manga itself is about.
Full Review
Leave a comment | tags: A.D. Police, BubbleGum Crisis, cyberpunk, manga, OVA, Tony Takezaki, Toshimichi Suzuki | posted in Manga
