Manga update
I have been having problems with movies, in that they have all been a) not that good and b) too long and c) just not theatre, but tonight I saw I'm Not There (the Bob Dylan movie) and loved it. Even the bits with Richard Gere, who normally annoys the heck out of me - obviously what I needed to enjoy Pretty Woman was escaped zoo animals and a semi-apocalyptic Western setting (well, that and extensive feminist rewrites).
Anyway. My manga log for this year has gone over 100 volumes and, frankly, the chances of detailed updates on all of them are slim. This seemed like a reasonable compromise. I have included multiple links to Shaenon Garrity's overlooked manga festival entries, which are funny and have scans and are where I got a number of recs from anyway. I'll start with current reads, and then post finished series and those I am currently stalled on.
Currently reading:
My current favourite series are Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service and After School Nightmare, only one of which (ASN) I’ve actually posted about on here, because a) I keep lending out The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, and b) to do justice to Monster I really need to re-read it, but all three of these are excellent and all strongly recommended. I skew towards shonen/seinen and have stalled on a number of shojo series, as apparently I am just not girly enough for them; I’m also not mad keen on BL stuff unless there's a really strong nonrelationship storyline, and I get very twitchy about fixed sex/gender roles.
After School Nightmare. See here. I think there are only two more volumes of this, and one’s out overseas. Vivid, troubling and engrossing.
Battle Royale. This started like a freight train - fast, unexpected, bloody - and then volume 3 had a rather dodgy final chapter (explicit and technically underage sex scenes), and volume 5, which I was reading in Borders (I’m reading the rest of it in the manga library, as this isn’t a series that has made me want to own it), was incoherently offensive in a number of ways. Some of this may be the translation (by Keith Giffen), which feels like it’s trying too hard to get between me and the story, but there's a lot of nastiness in the art - which also does the characters in a shiny, sculptured style - I'm not sure how to describe it. Similar to the art in Sanctuary, which I've just glanced at, and a bit like Parasyte - everyone's just slightly too pretty, but in a more hard-bodied way than the shojo I've seen.
Comparing the number of volumes of manga left to the number of surviving classmates suggests I’m in for increasingly prolonged and probably fairly grotesque fight scenes. I'm not sure I like anyone enough to stick with that, but I'll see.
Black Sun, Silver Moon. Picked up because I really liked what GoComi! was doing with After School Nightmare *and* it has an incredibly cute zombie puppy in it. I am not convinced there’s an overall plan here and there are unrelated single shot stories in the back that I’m not wild about, but enough neat moments to keep me reading.
Flower of Life. Apparently there’s some hold-up with the fourth and final volume, which is madly annoying because this is great. Slice-of-life high school stuff and plots that often rest on the most simple events - accidentally bending the cover of a borrowed book, for example - but it’s all tone-perfect and warm and just great (although there is one plotline I would really rather wasn’t there). Fuzzy and life-affirming and funny. Shaenon Garrity's OMF is here.
Hands Off! I really like the main cast in this, who are all rather endearing and trying hard to do some good with their psychic powers, although Kotarou must be single-handedly responsible for a massive increase in crime figures since moving to Tokyo given that he gets abducted at least three times per volume. Annoying blurbs that push the comedy aspects, counteracted by the Jason Thompson review that made me expect gritty urban gloom; it's somewhere in the middle.
Kekkaishi. I have draft comments somewhere for this. Also the next volume of this on the bedside table. Quirky shonen, great characters and nifty world-building, with a nicely laid-back pace. Also, the pastry chef cabbage subplot made me cry. Shaenon Garrity's review is here.
Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. Brilliant. Sarcastic, well-plotted, great characters and the best translation notes I’ve ever encountered. Largely stand-alone stories, but hints at an arc, and a fascinating historical flashback in the last one. Very, very good. It is horror and the last volume I read did have a maggot theme going on, which did not stop me from reading half of it over my beetroot risotto. Shaenon Garrity's OMF here.
Legal Drug. I’m reading this and X/1999 in the manga library as antidotes to Battle Royale, so I can go from rolling my eyes at gratuitous panty shots to rolling my eyes at slender blonds collapsing in the arms of tall dark haired emotionally reticent types. I like the art and one or two of the stories - the book/tree one - are rather cool. Apparently CLAMP may get around to finishing this one.
Loveless. I have multiple notes for this series that veer between elaborating on how dodgy it is and then justifying why it’s still worth reading, and they all tend to sound wildly defensive. As does this. Anyway, I do like this series while being a little disturbed by it (not to mention a lot disturbed by the Tokyopop editorials and what little I’ve been unable to avoid encountering of the fandom) and I like Ritsuka, and I am reading this because I want the really rather broken characters to find some sort of equilibrium. I may also drop it instantly if the series goes the way that, apparently, thousands of fans are waiting for.
To specify: the dodginess involves a very intense, quasi-sexual relationship between Ritsuka, who’s 12, and Soubi, who’s 20, although the traumatised reader can be assured that they have not, in fact, had sex, because in the series’ version of contemporary Japan everyone has cat ears and a tail until they lose their virginity (resulting in, amongst other things, a brisk trade in mock ears for teenagers wanting to avoid parental conflict). This is explained if not necessarily justified by the backgrounds of both characters (largely via Ritsuka’s psychopathic brother, Seimei, who used to kind of own Soubi and had a very odd idea of brotherly closeness plus a possible touch of OCD, and was found burned alive in Ritsuka’s seat at school shortly before the start of the series). Ritsuka does have power in this relationship - there is a major subplot involving magical fighting pairs with bonds and names, which I have failed to mention but is behind the title of the series - and in many ways is the most adult character in the whole manga, but he is still, definitely, a child. I want to see him grow up and I want to see Soubi sort himself out as well, and I guess I'll see what happens.
Monster. I'm two-thirds of the way through v14. I will comment on this at some stage, but it's brilliant - a thriller, set in eastern Europe (pre and post Berlin war), following Kenzo Tenma, a Japanese neurosurgeon who saves the life of a boy who grows up to be a mass murdering psychopath. The plot on this is tight, complex and twisty, the characters are all amazing (I'm particularly fond of Grimmer and Dieter, but also find Tenma disturbingly attractive when he's all escaped convict with gun) and the art is great. Viz is bringing this one out quickly - four more volumes to go. Shaenon's OMF is here.
Mushishi. Very atmospheric, quietly disturbing stories, about a travelling mushishi, a man who tracks down and deals with the damage done by primitive spirit-type creatures; nicely done, and the art is perfect. The lack of an overall plot arc means I tend to pick these up and put them down again, but they’re worth reading.
Parasyte. Alien things land and take over human bodies, but one of them gets stuck in the main character's arm (rather than the brain, its intended target) and the two of them have to work together. The strength of this so far has been the working through of this concept, with unexpected twists and implications, although expected twists also showed up a lot sooner than I was expecting - I'm interested to see where this is going. This has been translated before, but flipped and in more volumes - I think this is supposed to be 8 volumes, and 3 is just coming out. Shaenon's OMF here.
Pumpkin Scissors. I haven't actually finished this, but I've picked up volume two - post war reconstruction effort in another world. Interesting characters and art.
X/1999. Not so much a fan of the art style CLAMP’s gone with here, and so far there’s a lot of swooping around and standing on tall buildings, as well as rather melodramatic references to the imminent end of the world. I know this is unfinished as well (and likely to remain so), which makes it hard to get all excited, but apparently the leads from Tokyo Babylon show up again and I was curious. Plus this is my other counterweight to Battle Royale.
X-Day. V2 is inconveniently out of print, and I need to track it down. I like this and think the emotional connections work really well, but am not so convinced by the story.
Yotsuba&!. Possibly alien small child experiences the world. Excellent pacing and very funny, with great characters. Episodic, which can be good - during a rather stressful time last year I was reading a chapter before going to bed to soothe my unravelled nerves. Shaenon's OMF here.
Magicians and conspiracies. Slow-moving, so far, but rather compelling. I'm still not sure why this is shipping plastic-wrapped with large parental advisory stickers on it - possibly violence? Maybe I'm missing something.
Anyway. My manga log for this year has gone over 100 volumes and, frankly, the chances of detailed updates on all of them are slim. This seemed like a reasonable compromise. I have included multiple links to Shaenon Garrity's overlooked manga festival entries, which are funny and have scans and are where I got a number of recs from anyway. I'll start with current reads, and then post finished series and those I am currently stalled on.
Currently reading:
My current favourite series are Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service and After School Nightmare, only one of which (ASN) I’ve actually posted about on here, because a) I keep lending out The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, and b) to do justice to Monster I really need to re-read it, but all three of these are excellent and all strongly recommended. I skew towards shonen/seinen and have stalled on a number of shojo series, as apparently I am just not girly enough for them; I’m also not mad keen on BL stuff unless there's a really strong nonrelationship storyline, and I get very twitchy about fixed sex/gender roles.
After School Nightmare. See here. I think there are only two more volumes of this, and one’s out overseas. Vivid, troubling and engrossing.
Battle Royale. This started like a freight train - fast, unexpected, bloody - and then volume 3 had a rather dodgy final chapter (explicit and technically underage sex scenes), and volume 5, which I was reading in Borders (I’m reading the rest of it in the manga library, as this isn’t a series that has made me want to own it), was incoherently offensive in a number of ways. Some of this may be the translation (by Keith Giffen), which feels like it’s trying too hard to get between me and the story, but there's a lot of nastiness in the art - which also does the characters in a shiny, sculptured style - I'm not sure how to describe it. Similar to the art in Sanctuary, which I've just glanced at, and a bit like Parasyte - everyone's just slightly too pretty, but in a more hard-bodied way than the shojo I've seen.
Comparing the number of volumes of manga left to the number of surviving classmates suggests I’m in for increasingly prolonged and probably fairly grotesque fight scenes. I'm not sure I like anyone enough to stick with that, but I'll see.
Black Sun, Silver Moon. Picked up because I really liked what GoComi! was doing with After School Nightmare *and* it has an incredibly cute zombie puppy in it. I am not convinced there’s an overall plan here and there are unrelated single shot stories in the back that I’m not wild about, but enough neat moments to keep me reading.
Flower of Life. Apparently there’s some hold-up with the fourth and final volume, which is madly annoying because this is great. Slice-of-life high school stuff and plots that often rest on the most simple events - accidentally bending the cover of a borrowed book, for example - but it’s all tone-perfect and warm and just great (although there is one plotline I would really rather wasn’t there). Fuzzy and life-affirming and funny. Shaenon Garrity's OMF is here.
Hands Off! I really like the main cast in this, who are all rather endearing and trying hard to do some good with their psychic powers, although Kotarou must be single-handedly responsible for a massive increase in crime figures since moving to Tokyo given that he gets abducted at least three times per volume. Annoying blurbs that push the comedy aspects, counteracted by the Jason Thompson review that made me expect gritty urban gloom; it's somewhere in the middle.
Kekkaishi. I have draft comments somewhere for this. Also the next volume of this on the bedside table. Quirky shonen, great characters and nifty world-building, with a nicely laid-back pace. Also, the pastry chef cabbage subplot made me cry. Shaenon Garrity's review is here.
Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. Brilliant. Sarcastic, well-plotted, great characters and the best translation notes I’ve ever encountered. Largely stand-alone stories, but hints at an arc, and a fascinating historical flashback in the last one. Very, very good. It is horror and the last volume I read did have a maggot theme going on, which did not stop me from reading half of it over my beetroot risotto. Shaenon Garrity's OMF here.
Legal Drug. I’m reading this and X/1999 in the manga library as antidotes to Battle Royale, so I can go from rolling my eyes at gratuitous panty shots to rolling my eyes at slender blonds collapsing in the arms of tall dark haired emotionally reticent types. I like the art and one or two of the stories - the book/tree one - are rather cool. Apparently CLAMP may get around to finishing this one.
Loveless. I have multiple notes for this series that veer between elaborating on how dodgy it is and then justifying why it’s still worth reading, and they all tend to sound wildly defensive. As does this. Anyway, I do like this series while being a little disturbed by it (not to mention a lot disturbed by the Tokyopop editorials and what little I’ve been unable to avoid encountering of the fandom) and I like Ritsuka, and I am reading this because I want the really rather broken characters to find some sort of equilibrium. I may also drop it instantly if the series goes the way that, apparently, thousands of fans are waiting for.
To specify: the dodginess involves a very intense, quasi-sexual relationship between Ritsuka, who’s 12, and Soubi, who’s 20, although the traumatised reader can be assured that they have not, in fact, had sex, because in the series’ version of contemporary Japan everyone has cat ears and a tail until they lose their virginity (resulting in, amongst other things, a brisk trade in mock ears for teenagers wanting to avoid parental conflict). This is explained if not necessarily justified by the backgrounds of both characters (largely via Ritsuka’s psychopathic brother, Seimei, who used to kind of own Soubi and had a very odd idea of brotherly closeness plus a possible touch of OCD, and was found burned alive in Ritsuka’s seat at school shortly before the start of the series). Ritsuka does have power in this relationship - there is a major subplot involving magical fighting pairs with bonds and names, which I have failed to mention but is behind the title of the series - and in many ways is the most adult character in the whole manga, but he is still, definitely, a child. I want to see him grow up and I want to see Soubi sort himself out as well, and I guess I'll see what happens.
Monster. I'm two-thirds of the way through v14. I will comment on this at some stage, but it's brilliant - a thriller, set in eastern Europe (pre and post Berlin war), following Kenzo Tenma, a Japanese neurosurgeon who saves the life of a boy who grows up to be a mass murdering psychopath. The plot on this is tight, complex and twisty, the characters are all amazing (I'm particularly fond of Grimmer and Dieter, but also find Tenma disturbingly attractive when he's all escaped convict with gun) and the art is great. Viz is bringing this one out quickly - four more volumes to go. Shaenon's OMF is here.
Mushishi. Very atmospheric, quietly disturbing stories, about a travelling mushishi, a man who tracks down and deals with the damage done by primitive spirit-type creatures; nicely done, and the art is perfect. The lack of an overall plot arc means I tend to pick these up and put them down again, but they’re worth reading.
Parasyte. Alien things land and take over human bodies, but one of them gets stuck in the main character's arm (rather than the brain, its intended target) and the two of them have to work together. The strength of this so far has been the working through of this concept, with unexpected twists and implications, although expected twists also showed up a lot sooner than I was expecting - I'm interested to see where this is going. This has been translated before, but flipped and in more volumes - I think this is supposed to be 8 volumes, and 3 is just coming out. Shaenon's OMF here.
Pumpkin Scissors. I haven't actually finished this, but I've picked up volume two - post war reconstruction effort in another world. Interesting characters and art.
X/1999. Not so much a fan of the art style CLAMP’s gone with here, and so far there’s a lot of swooping around and standing on tall buildings, as well as rather melodramatic references to the imminent end of the world. I know this is unfinished as well (and likely to remain so), which makes it hard to get all excited, but apparently the leads from Tokyo Babylon show up again and I was curious. Plus this is my other counterweight to Battle Royale.
X-Day. V2 is inconveniently out of print, and I need to track it down. I like this and think the emotional connections work really well, but am not so convinced by the story.
Yotsuba&!. Possibly alien small child experiences the world. Excellent pacing and very funny, with great characters. Episodic, which can be good - during a rather stressful time last year I was reading a chapter before going to bed to soothe my unravelled nerves. Shaenon's OMF here.
Magicians and conspiracies. Slow-moving, so far, but rather compelling. I'm still not sure why this is shipping plastic-wrapped with large parental advisory stickers on it - possibly violence? Maybe I'm missing something.