whimsical manga journal
Hmm. I haven't been reading as much manga lately. Or I've gotten lazy about writing about it. I think it's both-I've had a lot of art project deadlines lately to keep my time occupied. Anyway, I went to the library with mum t'other day and looked at their graphic novel section. I got a Babysitters' Club comic (don't laugh, the other one I read was great! So nostalgic~) and a graphic-novelization of Jane Eyre... I'm wondering if it's wrong to read that without having read the original source material, but.... well, it has pretty-looking pictures. So we'll see. Anyway, I haven't read those yet, and this is a manga journal post, so! The other thing I picked up was Petshop of Horrors, quite on a whim.
I'm not sure why it occurred to me just then, and never before. Anyway, I got what I thought were the first three volumes, but I noticed after getting them home that the font on the spine of v3 was different than on the first two. "That's my Tpop!" is what I said to myself... but then tonight I sat down to read volume 3 and realized, "OH NO!! It's volume 3 of the second series, Petshop of Horrors: Tokyo!!!" And then I was conflicted over whether or not I should read it without reading the volumes in between. But I gave in, because I'd already discovered from the first two volumes that the stories pretty much stand alone, and I was in the mood to read it so it would be such a let down if I just didn't!
And it was really good. I should start my thoughts from the beginning though. Okay: starting the series, I pretty much didn't know a thing about it except it had really lovely, vibrantly coloured cover illustrations. I almost wish the whole thing could be in colour, but I know that's not practical. Still, the covers alone are such a delight to look at. All the colours and patterns and detail.... oooh♥ So, other than that, I didn't know anything. It was called "Petshop of Horrors" but I didn't know if that meant it was actually "horror manga" or what exactly that would mean if it was... So I started reading, and found an interesting blend of funny and bizarre and thoughtful storytelling. I realized it was set in the US, in Chinatown, and I thought that was interesting-Akino-sensei seemed to want to convey a certain sense of "place" beyond a shallow "Ooh, it's America, how exotic!" (I noticed this in the Tokyo series too, which is set in Kabuki-cho, apparently a similarly(?) diverse part of Tokyo, in terms of foreign workers/tourists/etc). Although... I don't know if it was Akino-sensei's original script, or a dumb translator/rewriter, but the first two books had a lot of unnecessary (I thought) swearing. Especially a lot of the "f-word." I think, if it was in the original script as a sort of "American-language flavour", it should probably have been changed, since I don't think non-English-speakers have quite the same understanding of its connotation as someone from the US does. It was just kinda weird to me, seeing all that in my (shoujo? josei? something) manga. My guess is Tpop was just trying to be edgy or something. Laaaaame. I'm glad they don't do that (as much?) anymore though. The Tokyo-volume I read seemed much better.
Getting off track! What else...? Oh, from the premise of the story: a shop that sells "love and dreams [...] in the form of mythical creatures-but not without a catch," I kinda expected all the endings to be like a "Ha! you got what was coming to you, sucker!" but they weren't really like that at all (except a couple). So that was good, and the couple that were like that were good too because they had some impact. The Count is awesome. In many ways... as a weirdo, as a sugar-addict (hee! that won me over instantly), as an animal lover, as a seller of love and dreams... His interaction with that detective Orcot guy in the original series was amusing. The building-manager guy in Tokyo isn't quite as cool (well, actually he's a little more amusing(ly annoying) than the detective, but D's reactions aren't quite as interesting. so I dunno) And... I just thought the stories showed an interesting perspective about life, animals and humans and whatever all else. You can clearly see that D loves animals, though it isn't really explicitly stated in the series or by any of the characters. It's rather sweet. The last chapter of volume 2 was a dream about a world before humans and brought up topics of extinction. That was rather bittersweet. Anyway, it was all pretty good.
And then Tokyo v3 hit me with a bunch of really fascinating stories. The first two both dealt with women who had immigrated from other countries-the Philippines and Vietnam, and there was some discussion in both chapters about how they weren't really accepted in Japan. The second chapter also dealt with the bird flu, which I found rather interesting with all the recent fuss here about swine flu (rambly aside: the owner of the store my mum and I work at handed out to all the employees a "study" he had written up a couple years ago, based on various media sources, about how to deal with bird flu. it included a list of a "stockpile of food for an average family of 4 for six weeks" that consisted of about 80% meat (chicken, beef, corned beef, pot roast, beef hash, corned beef hash, vienna sausage, beef gravy, etc...) and then a couple vegetables (like potatoes!) and canned fruit and pasta/instant rice/peanut butter. I was rolling as I read that page... an "average" list for our family would probably be 60-70% vegetables!). And then there was a chapter about a hikkikomori(?) girl (who had a really adorable bedroom and fashion sense, which struck me because I found myself admiring aspects of her, even though such a tendency to lock herself away from reality/life is pretty sad) which ended with jellyfish. Hahaha! (It's nice that this series has touches of humour, as well as seriousness, and occasional (frequent) divergences into bizarro-land. I like the fantasy aspects of the series because they occur within "reality," and Akino-sensei seems to delight in highlighting their very strangeness. If that makes sense) And then the last chapter was about cats. And it made me cry! In a good way. I hardly even knew what hit me, but the end of the chapter was just so sweet and beautiful and perfect. I wanted to share it with everyone. So... you all should go out and read that chapter, even if you never read any more of the series. (though reading it having some understanding of the series would maybe give it a greater impact. but I was missing some details (like who one of the major characters in the chapter was) and it still had plenty of impact!) So... well, I'm trying to be wise in my manga-buying these days, but when I got to the end of the volume and saw that the next volume would be out later this lovely month of May (and then saw that it's still even scheduled that way on Tokyopop's own website!) I thought, maybe I better go and buy that one too, so they don't drop yet another good series!! (seriously. vbr, and then the latest volumes of your and my secret and love attack don't seem to be on any of the official release schedules either. Tokyopop, I can't support you with my consumer-dollars if you're not publishing any of the series I like! this pretty much just leaves Gakuen Alice and Me & My Brothers. (oh, and Shinobi Life (with a 6 month wait). And Maid Sama! Okay, so there's a few series I'm following)) Sorry y'all. Just ignore my whining. I get anxious about this stuff and need to vent, but I don't expect anyone to listen to it! (haha)
So the point is, I need to read some more of this series. But I'll probably library-borrow most of it. Because... it's a long series, you know? Oh, okay, 10 volumes isn't that long. But it's harder to buy 10 volumes all at once than to buy them one at a time over a period of years, you know! Maybe someday. When I'm rich and have my own house filled with awesome plants like Agapanthus and am living a luxurious life in delightfully-not-cold Oregon-or-Washington...
Whoops, I stayed up till 3am again! My bad...
I'm not sure why it occurred to me just then, and never before. Anyway, I got what I thought were the first three volumes, but I noticed after getting them home that the font on the spine of v3 was different than on the first two. "That's my Tpop!" is what I said to myself... but then tonight I sat down to read volume 3 and realized, "OH NO!! It's volume 3 of the second series, Petshop of Horrors: Tokyo!!!" And then I was conflicted over whether or not I should read it without reading the volumes in between. But I gave in, because I'd already discovered from the first two volumes that the stories pretty much stand alone, and I was in the mood to read it so it would be such a let down if I just didn't!
And it was really good. I should start my thoughts from the beginning though. Okay: starting the series, I pretty much didn't know a thing about it except it had really lovely, vibrantly coloured cover illustrations. I almost wish the whole thing could be in colour, but I know that's not practical. Still, the covers alone are such a delight to look at. All the colours and patterns and detail.... oooh♥ So, other than that, I didn't know anything. It was called "Petshop of Horrors" but I didn't know if that meant it was actually "horror manga" or what exactly that would mean if it was... So I started reading, and found an interesting blend of funny and bizarre and thoughtful storytelling. I realized it was set in the US, in Chinatown, and I thought that was interesting-Akino-sensei seemed to want to convey a certain sense of "place" beyond a shallow "Ooh, it's America, how exotic!" (I noticed this in the Tokyo series too, which is set in Kabuki-cho, apparently a similarly(?) diverse part of Tokyo, in terms of foreign workers/tourists/etc). Although... I don't know if it was Akino-sensei's original script, or a dumb translator/rewriter, but the first two books had a lot of unnecessary (I thought) swearing. Especially a lot of the "f-word." I think, if it was in the original script as a sort of "American-language flavour", it should probably have been changed, since I don't think non-English-speakers have quite the same understanding of its connotation as someone from the US does. It was just kinda weird to me, seeing all that in my (shoujo? josei? something) manga. My guess is Tpop was just trying to be edgy or something. Laaaaame. I'm glad they don't do that (as much?) anymore though. The Tokyo-volume I read seemed much better.
Getting off track! What else...? Oh, from the premise of the story: a shop that sells "love and dreams [...] in the form of mythical creatures-but not without a catch," I kinda expected all the endings to be like a "Ha! you got what was coming to you, sucker!" but they weren't really like that at all (except a couple). So that was good, and the couple that were like that were good too because they had some impact. The Count is awesome. In many ways... as a weirdo, as a sugar-addict (hee! that won me over instantly), as an animal lover, as a seller of love and dreams... His interaction with that detective Orcot guy in the original series was amusing. The building-manager guy in Tokyo isn't quite as cool (well, actually he's a little more amusing(ly annoying) than the detective, but D's reactions aren't quite as interesting. so I dunno) And... I just thought the stories showed an interesting perspective about life, animals and humans and whatever all else. You can clearly see that D loves animals, though it isn't really explicitly stated in the series or by any of the characters. It's rather sweet. The last chapter of volume 2 was a dream about a world before humans and brought up topics of extinction. That was rather bittersweet. Anyway, it was all pretty good.
And then Tokyo v3 hit me with a bunch of really fascinating stories. The first two both dealt with women who had immigrated from other countries-the Philippines and Vietnam, and there was some discussion in both chapters about how they weren't really accepted in Japan. The second chapter also dealt with the bird flu, which I found rather interesting with all the recent fuss here about swine flu (rambly aside: the owner of the store my mum and I work at handed out to all the employees a "study" he had written up a couple years ago, based on various media sources, about how to deal with bird flu. it included a list of a "stockpile of food for an average family of 4 for six weeks" that consisted of about 80% meat (chicken, beef, corned beef, pot roast, beef hash, corned beef hash, vienna sausage, beef gravy, etc...) and then a couple vegetables (like potatoes!) and canned fruit and pasta/instant rice/peanut butter. I was rolling as I read that page... an "average" list for our family would probably be 60-70% vegetables!). And then there was a chapter about a hikkikomori(?) girl (who had a really adorable bedroom and fashion sense, which struck me because I found myself admiring aspects of her, even though such a tendency to lock herself away from reality/life is pretty sad) which ended with jellyfish. Hahaha! (It's nice that this series has touches of humour, as well as seriousness, and occasional (frequent) divergences into bizarro-land. I like the fantasy aspects of the series because they occur within "reality," and Akino-sensei seems to delight in highlighting their very strangeness. If that makes sense) And then the last chapter was about cats. And it made me cry! In a good way. I hardly even knew what hit me, but the end of the chapter was just so sweet and beautiful and perfect. I wanted to share it with everyone. So... you all should go out and read that chapter, even if you never read any more of the series. (though reading it having some understanding of the series would maybe give it a greater impact. but I was missing some details (like who one of the major characters in the chapter was) and it still had plenty of impact!) So... well, I'm trying to be wise in my manga-buying these days, but when I got to the end of the volume and saw that the next volume would be out later this lovely month of May (and then saw that it's still even scheduled that way on Tokyopop's own website!) I thought, maybe I better go and buy that one too, so they don't drop yet another good series!! (seriously. vbr, and then the latest volumes of your and my secret and love attack don't seem to be on any of the official release schedules either. Tokyopop, I can't support you with my consumer-dollars if you're not publishing any of the series I like! this pretty much just leaves Gakuen Alice and Me & My Brothers. (oh, and Shinobi Life (with a 6 month wait). And Maid Sama! Okay, so there's a few series I'm following)) Sorry y'all. Just ignore my whining. I get anxious about this stuff and need to vent, but I don't expect anyone to listen to it! (haha)
So the point is, I need to read some more of this series. But I'll probably library-borrow most of it. Because... it's a long series, you know? Oh, okay, 10 volumes isn't that long. But it's harder to buy 10 volumes all at once than to buy them one at a time over a period of years, you know! Maybe someday. When I'm rich and have my own house filled with awesome plants like Agapanthus and am living a luxurious life in delightfully-not-cold Oregon-or-Washington...
Whoops, I stayed up till 3am again! My bad...