Category Archives: Editorial

Manga Widget Retrospective 2011 Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

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At the beginning of the year, I posted my 2011 retrospective, hitting on a lot of the major news points of the 2011 year in manga and the publishing business, but I think that my retrospective had a large piece missing from it, that piece being the things that I really loved about 2011. As far as manga goes, there are quite a few things that were released or announced in 2011 that I have wanted for a long time, or found to be extremely wonderful. Today, instead of focusing on the “news” of 2011, let’s focus on the “renews” of manga – the things that renewed my enthusiasm and joy for comics.

 1. Drops of God is Licensed and Released in the USA by Vertical Inc.

 I have been writing about Drops of God well before its release in the USA. The series has always marveled me because of its wine economy-shifting powers and the way it champions the world of wine in an unpretentious, exuberant, and often fascinating way. Getting to read the first two volumes has been a fantastic ride, and a great reminder of why I love wine and comic books. I am looking forward to the identification of the disciples and the one wine to rule them all – but I am guessing I will be reading quite a while before I see that come to fruition.

2. Wandering Son Makes an English Debut

I have heard praise again and again for Wandering Son, a manga about two young children, a boy and a girl, who identify more with the opposite sex than they do with their own gender. This is a story of growing up, and of being different, and finding the support you need to live the way you want – volume one was one of my favorite manga in 2011, and having just purchased the second volume, I am looking forward to more of the simple slice-of-life that Wandering Son provides so well.

3. JManga Opens, and Actually Has Manga

I know I give JManga a lot of flak. I am a fairly demanding person when it comes to spending money on digital comics, and I don’t think that JManga is at a point right now where the service and selection are at a peak for their platform. They have been publishing 0-2 books per week now for the past few months, and while this is a fine pace, there are plenty of titles on the service that only have their first volume available to purchase.

Still, JManga represents a powerful tool to allow readers to legally purchase translated manga from Japan. If JManga continues to expand, manga that is “essential Japan” or too niche to be picked by a big publisher in the USA will become more and more a part of the offerings of the service. There have been a few great series that JManga has published that do this, and for that reason, I have to commend the folks at JManga for creating and improving their digital service in 2011. I am looking forward to more improvements in 2012.

4. Interacting With the Manga Community

One of the things I tried to focus on more in 2011 was interacting with other bloggers and writers who were talking about manga. I tend to be an internet lurker at heart – I love to sit and read other people’s comments, but I rarely talk about my own thoughts or opinions. That’s something I have slowly tried to change, and I commented more on blogs, spoke more on Twitter, and had the privilege of speaking on the Manga Out Loud Podcast twice in 2011, which was a great way to get to know more of my fellow bloggers. (Thanks to Ed and Johanna for the invitations!)

5. Hosting the Natsume Ono Manga Moveable Feast

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about the Natsume Ono MMF a few months before November of 2011. Having never hosted before, I wasn’t sure of what the requirements would be, and how I would be able to do a good job. Following in the footsteps of some very talented bloggers, I managed to write and host the MMF, and I think that the whole thing was a great success. I feel great about the content we generated in that month, and I am looking forward to the next time I host an MMF.

6. Reading A Bride’s Story for the First Time

I have read quite a few comics since I really started getting into them about 8 years ago – but nothing, not a single book, has swept me into its world like A Bride’s Story. This manga is absolutely fantastic, and I can’t recommend it highly enough to anyone, ANYONE, who likes a good story. It is wonderful. The third volume comes out this year, and I am already impatient for it.

I hope that everyone has had a great start to their new year. Hopefully this is a year of great manga (and a year to possibly get to a convention for me!).

A 2011 Manga Widget Retrospective and Thoughts for 2012

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2011 was a fantastic year for me. I effectively doubled the content on my blog, and managed to do so while earning my Doctor of Pharmacy degree, starting a post-graduate residency, getting married, and conducting a large scale research project focused on patient compliance. It has been a busy year. It has also been a great year for me in terms of my hobbies. I have read quite a few volumes of good manga, have expanded my beer brewing setup and have done all of this while blogging and doing other writing that I love. As we reach the end of the old year, and the beginning of the new, it seems customary for bloggers to wrap up their years with a “Best of 2011″ list, and I was going to write one of these yesterday.

As I worked over my list, I came upon a sort of realization: blogging in general has a sort of perverse relationship with top 10 lists. Blogging is by its nature very quick and unseasoned. It can be excellent journalism, but more often than not is an assortment of opinions and a few pictures. Top 10 lists do this excellently. There are plenty of pictures, plenty of opinions, and it all turns into one quick article very nicely. Badda bing, badda boom. But this seems to have generated a sort of “need to make a top 10 list” mentality that many people are so quick to mention or notice, and some people have broken down the general formula of the list post and displayed it for all to see in a sort of “dissected-frog” sort of way.

I appreciate the idea of a backwards glance at the year as much as the next person, but there are plenty of great Top 10 lists already on the internet. (Your local flavor may vary) So instead of a Top Ten list, I just want instead to talk about things that I thought were important in 2011, along with a few thoughts for 2012.

1. Digital manga becomes mainstream:

The biggest change to manga in 2011, in my opinion, is the push towards the digital medium. We have been seeing a bit of this for some time, but with the advent of the iPad and the B&N nook, Viz Media, Yen Press, and Kodansha have started releasing a quantity of their manga into the digital realm for download. Viz shuttered Shonen Jump magazine, and announced the start of Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha, a weekly digital anthology offering the weekly releases of the newest shonen manga in Japan. Yen Press also moved Yen Plus online in 2010 and has continued to publish the magazine with seeming success.

Gen Manga, an online anthology of seinen manga written by independent mangaka in Japan, has also jumped into the fray this year and has released an impressive lineup of seinen manga available monthly in a very accessible format. The content delivered by Gen Manga is easily accessible on most devices, and its relatively low price has made it a great investment as far as entertainment/dollars spent goes. I have been extremely impressed with the latest releases, and hope that great content continues to grow and increase. Gen Manga is one of the first digital hybrid models, where content is released first digitally and then can be printed on demand once the content has been collected.

The other big digital player this year was JManga, which opened its doors this summer. While I feel JManga had an okay starting platform, it is clear that there is a lot of work that needs to be done this year if they are going to survive as a digital content provider. Digital content has a price ceiling, and it seems as though JManga has realized that. Still, the major problem with the platform right now is a lack of continuation of content already on the service, and hopefully that will change in 2012. Additionally, JManga can only do itself good if it releases apps for the Apple and Android devices in 2012.

2. DMP utilizes Kickstarter to reprint Swallowing the Earth:

While this may not seem like much on the surface, I feel like microniche publishing has now found a unique and powerful tool to publish what would normally be considered unpublishable manga in the United States and all across the world. Microniche publishing through crowd-sourced funding can be the source of some really off-beat and fantastic comics, and I hope that DMP and other publishers try to use the Kickstarter model to their own advantage.

Think about Kickstarter as the method to get josei manga published in English. Just think about that for a second. Or, if you would prefer, how about obscure horror manga, classic shojo, or yuri? Kickstarter has proven to be a successful market for comics, and if Swallowing the Earth is any indication, DMP will be using the service again to fund future projects.

3. TOKYOPOP shuttered, Stu Levy sells TOKYOPOP brand to GeekChicDaily:

TOKYOPOP, the publisher I loved to hate, and sometimes loved, shut down after being one of the longest-lived companies in the business. While financial woes were certainly caused by the 2011 Borders closing, it also seemed as though Stu Levy was tired of publishing books. He is now off in Japan shooting a documentary of the hurricane disaster from this year.

I can understand not wanting to stick with something for your entire life. People’s interests change over time, and I can’t blame someone for wanting to stop doing what they have been doing. However, I do think that TOKYOPOP didn’t need Stu Levy at the helm to publish books, and I think shutting down the company instead of selling it or transitioning it to another CEO or publisher would have been more pleasant for the community.

The real nail in the coffin is the GeekChicDaily newsletter, which it appears Levy has sold the TOKYOPOP name to, utilizing what I am sure is the last ounce of public goodwill towards Levy for either a license or a lump sum payment for the name. Additionally, TOKYOPOP has promised to return to publishing comics, however nothing has really come of this except promises for more work and pleas for purchases of old content from current retailers. Hmmmmmmm.

4. Kodansha prints money with Sailor Moon:

This is a series that many people have been waiting on for quite some time, and Kodansha took advantage of its reverted TOKYOPOP rights to republish a new set of reprints of the books, which quickly sold out and went to second printing. It appears that a lot of people who liked the Sailor Moon anime as kids (me being one of those kids) wanted to read the manga and didn’t want to fiddle with the old versions that TOKYOPOP printed in the early 2000′s.

5. Less content was published in 2011:

This is mostly a function of a stagnant economy, the shuttering of TOKYOPOP, and the closure of Borders Booksellers, but it bears repeating that manga publishing is down from where it was in its peak days and even down from two years ago. As a function of this publishing environment, it seems as though more risky titles are not getting an opportunity in the USA, at least from larger publishers. New shonen releases have been fairly formulaic, which is fine, but some of the diversity of previous years is sorely lacking this year.

6. But even though less was published, there was still some fantastic new content published in 2011:

New series or one-shots include: A Bride’s Story, Drops of God, Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths, A Zoo in Winter, Wandering Son

Continuing series of note include 20th Century Boys, Bunny Drop, Chi’s Sweet Home, Cross Game, and Twin Spica

7. And I am looking forward to some fantastic comics in 2012:

Books that have been announced that are sure to please: Heart of Thomas, Sakuran, 5 Centimeters Per Second, A Message to Adolf, Fallen Words, Cigarette Girl

Continuing Series I’ll be reading in in 2012 not already mentioned: Sailor Moon, Blue Exorcist, The Story Saiunkoku, Kimi ni Todoke, Itazura na Kiss

I hope that everyone has a fantastic new year, and that this year is a great year for manga. I am looking forward to reading more great comics in 2012!

Kickstarter: The New Model of the Micro-Niche?

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While I was busy preparing to host the Natsume Ono Moveable Manga Feast,  Digital Manga Publishing Inc. announced a Kickstarter project to bring about another print run of Osamu Tezuka’s Swallowing The Earth, a one-shot tome of early Tezuka work from 1968 that had received a very short print run due to publishing costs. The book has been praised by many in the blogosphere, and its short-printed status means that currently, a first print copy of Swallowing the Earth will run you somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 USD – that’s double-plus MSRP (originally $24.95 in 2009). This is actually cheaper than it was 6 months ago, before the Kickstarter was announced – a “new” copy of Swallowing the Earth in March was running more around the $75-80 mark. Which is frankly absurd. But Tezuka fans will be Tezuka fans, and I, being one of those fans, had been building up a small budget for the book, until the DMP announcement.

Other bloggers have talked about Kickstarter – Johanna Draper Carlson being the most prominent, having voiced her opinions about the platform multiple times. While I agree with some of her cautionary words, I also am interested in crowd-sourcing as an idea, and the idea brought onto the consumer’s stage by DMP is the idea of niche-publishing.

Ben Applegate of DMP has gone on the record in this Kickstarter video, saying:

So in order to get [Swallowing the Earth] back out there, to let people read this really important book, not only in the history of Osamu Tezuka, but in the history of manga as well, we’ve come to Kickstarter as a new way to fund manga publishing in the United States. If this Kickstarter is successful, and we’re able to get this book back out in to people’s hands, you’re going to see more, not only reprints of older titles, but also possibly even new titles coming over from Japan aimed at a niche audience in the United States that would never have been brought over by a publisher otherwise.

The emphasis here is my own, but I think it is safe to say that Digital Manga has high hopes for a Kickstarter-like crowd sourcing model. I have high hopes for it too, which is primarily why I backed the Kickstarter (as you may have noticed from the image of the site above.) Kickstarter is a unique tool that allows a publishing company with ties in the Japanese manga business to attempt to bring manga to the United States in a way that puts relatively little risk on the publishing company. I can understand why this is important – small companies like DMP that have small operating budgets need to invest in titles that can sustain a business. For Digital Manga, that means the niche audience of yaoi, and the occasional non-yaoi comic.

As a person who reads more independent and niche manga (Bunny Drop, A Bride’s Story, Velveteen and Mandala), I am interested in seeing more content from Japan that meets my tastes and expectations. I would love to see more josei manga printed in the United States, and am willing to put my money where my mouth is. Digital Manga if you publish josei manga on Kickstarter – you have a loyal customer in me. I understand that josei is a micro-niche of manga – but this is the type of content that can thrive in  a crowd-sourced publishing system, where those that want it can buy into it, and create that opportunity for publishing that so many josei titles have been missing.

Now, I think it’s a fair criticism to ask- if you aren’t going to publish a book using your own budget, do you really need to be a book publisher? The answer here is a resounding “not necessarily.” With the appropriate contacts and contracts, it is within the realm of possibility for me to license and sell manga through the platform of Kickstarter. The thing that Digital Manga brings to the table is an honesty and a reliability as a company that has and continues to publish quality manga.

Also safe to say here that DMP‘s views on crowd-sourcing are not necessarily the same as my own. They may use Kickstarter to fund reprints exclusively, or print more yaoi manga. But my hope is that the company lives up to Ben’s words and uses the success of this first Kickstarter project to fuel the licensure and publishing of underrepresented content.

Digital Manga Publishing is on the bleeding edge of publishing. The Kickstarter initiative, in addition to the Digital Manga Guild, are two projects that may not succeed in the long term – but this type of innovation is bringing content to readers in a way that no other publisher is trying, and it is this sort of innovation that may become the new and best model for the micro-niche in years to come. I am looking forward to the results.

Especially in February of 2012, when I get a brand new copy of Swallowing the Earth shipped to me because of this Kickstarter pledge.

Natsume Ono MMF: That’s a Wrap, Folks!

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Well, it’s been a long week and a half, and we’re finished with the Natsume Ono Manga Moveable Feast – but not without some parting shots. Let’s take a look.

Jason Yadao at Otaku Ohana has a review of not simple and finds it to be a powerful work, again bring up the ties of family that others have mentioned this week:

[Natsume Ono creates] manga that are equal parts entertainment and contemplative exercise. I’ve seen this in reading Ristorante Paradiso – not enough that I feel qualified to comment fully on that book yet, but enough to know that the focus of that book, Nicoletta, comes from a family just as broken as Ian’s.

His review is the polar opposite of Jason Green’s, which I featured yesterday, but will link again, because I feel truly represents the very different perspectives of Ono’s work among the manga community.

I think I may have missed linking to a discussion between Melinda and Michelle at Manga Bookshelf in my complete archive, so to make up for that, please go read it again. Enjoy it. It is a fantastic discussion.

Last but not least, Ed Sizemore announces the plans he has for the Manga Out Loud podcast (spoiler – he’s still doing it! YAY!) and afterwards, he, Johanna Draper Carlson, Kristin, and I all have a great discussion about Natsume Ono, her works published in the USA, the works unpublished in the USA, and the MMF in general.

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Let me finish by saying that this has been an absolutely fantastic (if hectic) experience. Thank you all for participating, and for being a part of the Manga Moveable Feast for Natsume Ono. I hope you all have enjoyed this as much as I have.

I’ll be back later this week with commentary on DMP’s foray into Kickstarter. For now – this is Alex, flipping the switch. Have a good night, folks.

Natsume Ono MMF Roundup: At the Finish Line

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Well, here we are. It’s been an entire week of Natsume Ono, her comics, and a discussion of her work. This weekend has given the MMF a final burst of content, so let’s get started. I will keep the MMF call up until Monday evening, so if you have any content you want me to feature, please contact me using my twitter handle @mangawidget, my Contacts page, or by using the Manga Moveable Feast Google Groups page. Now, onward to the reviews!

First, Connie at Slightly Biased Manga has a review of House of Leaves, Vol. 3 and finds a lot to like. Still, she mentions Ono’s sketchy artwork as a source of some reader’s confusion, and I can understand that. Ono is hardly the only mangaka out there who has similar looking characters, but it’s a valid complaint, especially when volume 3 features face-0nly closeups more frequently than in previous volumes. I will be interested to see how Connie likes volume 4.

Next, Johanna Draper Carlson reviews Tesoro from the standpoint of someone who isn’t an unabashed fan of Ono (that would be my standpoint, obviously) and finds quite a bit to like despite her distaste of Ono’s longer works like House of Five Leaves. Johanna’s critique of Ono is that her writing style allows her to focus on incidents and moments, and that this style doesn’t mesh well with a longer running series, but works great for a collection of short stories.  This is a very interesting review, since many of the people writing for the Manga Moveable Feast are fans of Ono, so I invite you all to check it out.

Jason Green, host of the early October Love Hina Manga Moveable Feast, has some pretty strong words for not simple:

Given the reputation of both Ono in general and the book in particular, I went into not simple with high hopes. I finished it feeling not only disappointed but, honestly, kind of gross. Withholding spoilers, the story takes several turns that feel exploitative, even more so in the context of Ian’s mercilessly downtrodden existence.

Certainly this isn’t my experience with the comic, but I can see Jason’s perspective. not simple is a miserable- the subject matter demands it be so. Still, exploitative isn’t a word I would use to describe not simple, and I don’t think it was the experience of many other reviewers in this MMF – which is a perfect example of why this digital monthly book club is so fascinating. To get another take on not simple, Jason Green is your man.

There is certainly more content out there to be found, so I will close this post tonight and look for more tomorrow. One more day until the Natsume Ono Manga Moveable Feast is on the books. Let’s finish strong, folks!

Natsume Ono MMF Round Up: Day 4

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Welcome back! There is some dynamite content from some well known bloggers and some fresh faces. Remember that if you are interested in having your Manga Moveable Feast content featured in these round ups and the archive page, please Tweet me at @mangawidget, contact me via my Contact page, or use the #MMF twitter tag.

We have some absolutely wonderful writing today, so let’s take a look:

First up is a relative newcomer to the Manga Moveable Feast, Anna Whittingham, who has an excellent feature of one of Natsume Ono’s BL titles, Kuma to Interi. Anna is the translator for BLBangBang, a localization group participating in Digital Manga‘s Digital Manga Guild publishing project. As such, she offers a slightly different perspective (she’s read the book in Japanese) so can expound on what makes Kuma to Interi such a tantalizing target for localization.

Manga blogging powerhouse David Welsh of Manga Curmudgeon also has a feature of Ono’s unlocalized work, and looks again at a project I have been hoping to see published in the USA for quite some time – Coppers, which is supposedly Natsume Ono’s take on police drama like Law & Order. While I am not sure how Ono can handle the tension of a police title with her laid-back style, like David, I am willing to give any Natsume Ono-written comic book a try.

Two of David’s partners in crime over at Manga Bookshelf, Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith, have a great conversation about La Quinta Camera, House of Five Leaves, and Tesoro. Discussing their discussion feels a bit too meta, and I don’t want to ruin anything for you, fine reader, so just go check it out already.

On a completely non-Manga Bookshelf note,  Derek Bown at Burning Lizard Studios has a review of House of Five Leaves, who makes the claim that

House of Five Leaves is meant to be read the way an ink painting is meant to be appreciated. It’s not so much about the details that are there, but rather those that are not.

An interesting viewpoint, and my opinion of the series is fairly similar, although maybe not as direct.

Lori Henderson has her own views on House of Five Leaves on a Manga Xanadu, which recently received a face-lift. Lori makes an astute connection that while Masa is one of the least compelling characters (honestly, the guy has the personality of bag of sand) of House of Five Leaves, he is the glue that keeps the wonderful character interactions of the series running smoothly.

Natsume Ono MMF Round Up: Days 2+3

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Wow, this week is going fast – we’re already close to halfway done with the Natsume Ono Manga Moveable Feast. If you have content you would like to have featured in these round ups, please send me a message using my Contacts page or the MMF Google Group. I am also scanning Twitter for the #MMF hashtag, and you can tweet me up at @mangawidget (There are so many ways you can say hi to me, so no excuses!).

Yesterday we didn’t have too much in the way of content, but I did post an essay regarding Natsume Ono’s different styles and her choice between the two in series like La Quinta Camera versus the more serious House of Five Leaves.  Some reviewers have poo-poo’ed the rounded, less complex style she uses for books like La Quinta Camera and not simple, and I think that these reviewers are missing a very significant point. Check out the link for more discussion.

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David Welch at the Manga Curmudgeon explored one of his older reviews from his Flipped! column (which originally ran at comicworldnews.com, and afterwards at The Comics Reporter) – in this case, it was a review of not simple back when Natsume Ono was first being published in the US. I’m going to steal a quote here, because I think it’s so perfect for the spirit of this MMF:

There’s just so much to admire about Ono’s work – its variety, its uniqueness, the level of talent it suggests. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hope that she becomes one of those creators whose popularity transcends the audience specifically interested in comics from Japan and those who are interested in well-made comics in general.

It may be wishful thinking on my part, but nevertheless, I feel that this has been the case. Many of my American only comics friends have read House of Five Leaves. My little sister, who generally doesn’t read comics devoured La Ristorante Paradiso and Gente.

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Next up from this afternoon is a review of Tesoro by Kristen at ComicAttack.net. Kristen finds a lot to love about Tesoro, from the individual stories, the sketchy and spartan illustrations, and the book’s construction. Why haven’t I gotten my copy of this book yet?!?!

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Finally, Ash Brown at Experiments in Manga has a review of the first volume of House of Five Leaves. Ash points out the true strength of this series lies in the interaction between Masa and Yaichi, and how their strange friendship develops.

Natsume Ono and A Choice of Styles

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When I originally wrote my review of La Quinta Camera, I mentioned Natsume Ono’s conscious choice of style as a strong point of the book. One of the things I admire greatly about Natsume Ono is her ability to determine a specific voice for each of her written works, and varies her illustration technique with each work to match that voice. Some books like Gente and Restorante Pardiso are more expansive, more expressive, and more proportionate, and in a sense, “less cartoony,” while other works use a larger, rounder, sketchy style.

Some of the other reviewers in the mangasphere have decided that this conscious choice in style is a harmful one (at least if she is going to not illustrate in her more serious style). I disagree with this, and since this is a Manga Moveable Feast, I feel the need to address these comments as a way to discuss Ono as well as express my counter argument. A review by Snow Wildsmith at ICV2 has said that the style of La Quinta Camera makes it seem as though “the creator herself didn’t consider these characters to be overly important creations,” which not only do I find preposterous, but I also think it completely ignores the subtle intricacies of Ono’s illustration and asserts that only the most life-like illustrations can bear any critical weight.

Unlike many artists who use one voice for a majority of their work, Natsume Ono has two that she uses frequently – the more realistic, lanky, ultra-lean and long style that is evident in Ristorante Paradiso, Gente, and House of Five Leaves, and a more rounded, shorter, simplified style best expressed in La Quinta Camera. There are mixes of both – Ono’s not simple is both rounded and simplistic, but takes on some the lankiness of her other voice. These two voices play a key role in the way that Ono constructs her narratives.

I think that we can agree that La Quinta Camera has a simple art style, but it should also be mentioned that this book is less focused on the long term and developing storyline, and more interested in showing snippets of an ongoing story. This is a real slice of life, but it is generally speaking less serious in tone than Ristorante Paradiso. La Quinta Camera does not take itself quite as seriously, and its simpler artwork exemplifies that.

The simple art has a function for La Quinta Camera, and I think that is what Snow overlooked as part of her review. Just because something is more simplistic in its looks does not make it less tragic, poignant, or significant. As an example, Chester Brown, in his transition from Louis Reil to Paying For It, crushed down his fairly detailed black and white detailing into something more sparse and charged. Some might even say insectile:

(Click to enlarge)

Does this mean that Paying For It is less of a comic book, or that Chester Brown cared about it compared to his earlier work? Most certainly not – the choice of style is an artistic choice designed to create a look and feel that the artist wants to embed into the comic, just like the choices that Ono has made to differentiate La Quinta Camera and Ristorante Paradiso.

As far as Natsume Ono is concerned, yes, the imagery from La Quinta Camera is simpler than the imagery from Ristorante Paradiso. However, Ristorante Paradiso was a complex emotional grind for the main character who looked to reconnect with her estranged mother and make a name for herself in an Italian restaurant. This story demands a less whimsical attitude, and an art style that conveys the seriousness of tone that Ono wishes to convey.

La Quinta Camera is more fluid and open in its construction, and also in its storytelling. Charlotte, in the first character, introduces herself as a transient part of a story of a five-room apartment where 4 unusual men live. The story itself is as connected to the apartment as Ristorante Paradiso is to the restaurant, but the feeling is different – the people that move in and out of this apartment see into its existence like a person looks through a window, and the book follows suite, giving the reader a window into the life of these characters. The vignette-like moments are designed to do something completely different than the long form of Ristorante Paradiso and House of Five Leaves, and a different style of illustration suits that change.

While certainly I cannot fault illustration preference (I assume that many would prefer the art of Ristorante Paradiso to that of La Quinta Camera), I reject the notion that one has more heft or critical weight because it is more complex and realistic, or that an author would care less about a piece of work because of the chosen art style. Style, just like every other part of a comic, is just another piece of the story that Ono tells, and I think that the story and mood conveyed in La Quinta Camera are both beautiful and simultaneously different than those of Ristorante Paradiso. And, I think that is just how it ought to be.

Natsume Ono MMF Round-Up: Day 1

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The Natsume Ono Manga Moveable Feast started off today with a few great reviews and my own essay on Ono’s placement of the camera in House of Five Leaves – here’s the round up!

Kristin over atComicAttack.net posted a thorough review of Ono’s large work,  not simple  and likens Ian’s involvement in the other characters’ lives to the fibers of a cloth – each strand he touches, he breaks, mends, or fashions, in his own way, into a different and subtle pattern.

David Welsh, one of my favorite bloggers, has a review posted at Manga Curmudgeon, that touches on  Tesoro,  the latest content from Viz Media, and a collection of her earlier short stories. David likes what he sees, and finds the roots of other Natsume Ono epics in these small moments. I am excited to get my copy of this book later in the week.

Finally, I have an essay that looks at the unique camera of House of Five Leaves using images from the comic itself to illustrate my points (albeit not as well as some other blogs might). I think that Natsume Ono has a very keen eye for “camera placement” in comics, and has a really unique sense of motion and what is important in some complex scenes.

Please check out the Natsume Ono MMF Archive for these and other MMF content posts all week!

The Unique Camera of House of Five Leaves

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Welcome to the Natsume Ono Manga Moveable Feast. I am proud to be hosting this month – Natsume Ono is one of my favorite mangaka, and her distinct style and narrative tone are what draw me to so much of her work.

As I have been reading House of Five Leaves, I have noticed a certain cinematography that many manga lack – Natsume Ono’s staging and scene creation are a unique feature of her work.

One of the most pronounced cinematic cues that Ono uses throughout House of Five Leaves is a “cut on motion,” where Ono breaks up the actions of characters in multiple panels. For example, this image (volume 2, chapter 11, pg 102) shows Goinkyo setting down his tea cup. While the action here is fragmented based upon the medium of comics itself, the act of putting down a cup could have been incorporated into the last panel. The “cut on motion” here adds tension and allows us to focus on the silent, thoughtful stare of Goinkyo in the upper panel.

We also see this technique used in the first fight scene of the first volume, which shows us very specific portions of the fight between Masa and the hired samurai. While on first glance, the action seems almost incomprehensible, the distinct “shots” of the action show quite a bit – a determination and fighting spirit that Masa has, the results of the fight, the fluid motion and skill Masa has with a sword.

These shots also do something important in what they don’t show us – which of the two samurai does Masa wound? How did he manage to chase them off? Ono decides that this information isn’t necessary – rather, the most necessary portion of the fight is Yaichi’s look of disbelief and gaping jaw as Masa quickly and soundly defeats his enemies. This decision-making shows that Ono is not an ordinary mangaka. For many, the focus of the fight would be an interesting way to bring action to a fairly peaceful and laid-back story – but focusing on the fight actually detracts from the content and the emotion displayed.

Stepping back to the page above, it has another trait that I find unique for its use of the inanimate object – in this case, a cup. Ono will use panels like this to create a somber mood for House of Five Leaves, where her less “serious” works, like La Quinta Camera, focus more on the characters as they say and do things throughout the book. In a book like La Quinta Camera, the story is especially told by the reactions and various emotions of the characters, but in House of Five Leaves, the emotions of the various characters are a bit more muted because of the setting. Whether the panel’s focus image is candy, a snapping turtle, money, or radishes, these steps away from the characters allow us as readers to focus on either what is being said, or the lack of words – in this case, the thoughtful silence and judgment of Masa by Goinkyo.

One of the other techniques Natsume Ono uses throughout House of Five Leaves is the downwards shot. Masa is described as being a very tall man, and Ono chooses to display this information by basing her panel composition around it. We often get the viewpoint of the main character, Masa, which often involves looking down on the other characters. As a illustration and composition standpoint, I love these scenes, because they generally contrast Masa’s strong and downward-looking glance with a weak and non-confrontational main character.

On the page to the left (volume 2, chapter 13, pg 162) we see another of Ono’s favorite cinematic shots – a series of close, personal, and stark images of each of the characters, involving their conversation and getting close and personal to each. Then, a distancing shot, which shows the world around them, and broadens the scope of the conversation (and sometimes, willfully distracts from it). Then, the distance shot followed by closer feature panels. Again, what isn’t said here is far more important that what is.

Ono’s panel construction reminds me of Japanese film, in some ways. Her dedication to composition and meaningful editing, the use of cut on motion and her incorporation of the ordinary into her most impressive scenes make House of Five Leaves a unique experience, and a read that bears repeating.