Tag Archives: shonen

Review: Heroman, Vol. 1

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Heroman, Vol. 1Heroman, Vol. 1
Written and Illustrated by Tamon Ohta | Original Concept Stan Lee + BONES
Genre: Shonen/Science Fiction
Publisher: Vertical Inc.
203 pages | $10.95 US, $11.95 CND
ISBN-13: 978-1935654582

Imagine, for a moment, that you could turn a toy robot into a hulking super hero, just by wanting to be special. In a nutshell, that is the premise of Heroman, an anime from studio BONES, in coordination with Stan Lee. Tamon Ohta’s adaptation of this  television show into the medium of comics has its high and low points. Let’s run it through. Joey Jones is a pretty average kid who ends up finding a toy robot that’s been smashed. He uses his scientific know-how to fix it up, but when a strange calamity strikes, Joey finds out that his toy robot can transform into Heroman, a powerful semi-sentient robot.

First, without getting too specific about plot, Stan Lee’s influence is immediately visible. From the setting, the stereotypes (the nerd, the blonde cheerleader, the football jock, the supportive minority friend), to even the names of the characters, its clear that Stan Lee’s influence is pervasive. For those of you who don’t read American comics, Stan Lee is the creator of comics like The Amazing Spiderman, X-Men, The Fantastic Four, and more. Lee is even featured in some of the panels of the comic (much like his walk on appearances in most of the Marvel movies). And while Lee can construct some interesting fantasies, he requires that your suspension of belief be at maximum – and that’s not something that generally works for Heroman for an analyzing or critical reader.

Most stories in manga are implausible. Psyren for instance, is about a game where people travel back and forth through time, called forth by a mental psychic program called Nemesis Q. Not exactly believable. But what makes these implausible stories interesting is how characters interact, how the fantasies are called forth, and if the world created by these fantasies is cohesive. While Heroman certainly has its own breed of storytelling, I can’t say that it works for me as a critical reader. I find the characters to be what are essentially one-note stereotypes (our hero, Joey Jones is especially so, being nothing but a characterization of faith and doubt), and their interactions are then doomed to be similar stereotypes (the jock vs. the nerd, the hottie defends the nerd vs. the jock, etc.). The fantasies constructed are interesting enough (bug creatures invade the Earth, Heroman is our only hope, “with you, I can fight!”) but the way that they are constructed is haphazard.

More interesting is Joey Jones’ internal struggle in the later half of the book, although it ends in a very spectacular, over-the-top manner like the beginning of the book. We see him trying to come to grips with Heroman and his abilities, and his responsibilities (a la Peter Parker). Our hero manages to come out of his slump and successfully battles more bugs – with a bit of a twist ending that is certainly going to escalate the action in Volume 2.

Dispite my misgivings about the story construction, Heroman feels great for younger readers. There are a lot of messages about hope and friendship that we often see in shonen manga, but they are amped to 11 in Heroman. Younger readers who are more likely to suspend their disbelief, will find this bug squashing, ghost busting beat-em-up to be a real thrill, and it has a typical shonen ethos. I like this comic a lot in the traditional shonen age group, because it looks good, there is a lot of action, and it doesn’t bother getting technical about the fantasy. It’s all POW and WOW, and very little else. This is an untapped audience for most manga in the USA, Chi’s Sweet Home being a notable exception.

The production value on Heroman seems a bit lower than Vertical‘s regular releases. I assume this is because they are trying to fit into a price slot controlled by Viz Media, Kodansha, and Yen Press, but I am used to cleaner, whiter paper and higher-quality inks. This type of production is also present in releases of The Limit, which I will likely review next week. (of note, josei works like Sakuran and Paradise Kiss both have beautiful production, Vertical‘s standard).

Overall, I recommend Heroman to younger readers, but find that if you want your science fiction to be better explained, you aren’t going to enjoy Heroman. If you are turned off by stereotypes, Heroman again might not be your thing. Slightly lower production quality keeps it in an affordable price range, and this book (plus or minus a Heroman DVD) would be a great present for a 8-12 year old.

For Fans Of: The Amazing Spiderman, One Piece, “Friendship, Hard Work, and Victory”
Final Verdict: Recommended with reservations

Review: Attack on Titan, Vol. 1

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Attack on Titan, written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama
Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Genre: Shonen/Speculative Fiction/Horror/
|208 pgs|$10.99 USA| $11.99 CDN|
ISBN-13: 978-1-61262-024-4

I have been lucky in my reading that I rarely come across things I actively hate. Sure, I have had a few instances (Sasameke comes to mind) but the stuff I don’t like I just don’t like, and there are no hard feelings. But there are times when I consider a new title to add to the “shit list,” and unfortunately, Attack on Titan is one of those times.

At the core of Attack on Titan is a futuristic version of the Earth where the human race has been driven nearly to extinction by a race of giant monsters called Titans. These creatures seem only to exist to devour human beings. Humanity has responded to these alien creatures by building a giant walled city to protect themselves, and created an elite group of fighters who protect the human race by using retrofuturistic grappling hooks and natural gas to propel themselves through the air and kill Titans. As far as end of the world stories go, it’s a fairly original premise.

While the premise is original, the execution in Attack on Titan is poor. The tone of the dialogue is always some flavor of “I’m so scared/I’m the best patriot/We are all going to die/I’m the best fighter” that the writing flows together in a monotonous mess. Indeed, the entire driving force of the story of Attack on Titan is a mawkish “patriotism vs. individuality” argument. The humor and mystery that Isayama attempts to weave into the book do nothing to dispatch the overwhelming sense of fruitless angst and horror that  permeates the book. The ending of the first volume is even more underwhelming, building  an entire team of characters only to kill them all off at the end – not that I was expecting anything less. The question remains though – why kill off your main character after 1 volume?

Not horrifying – just miserable. From Attack on Titan, Vol. 1

The misery of the story of Attack on Titan is fueled by sketchy, dark art. Isayama uses an abundance of cross-hatching and thick black shading lines that blur faces and make action scenes incomprehensible. What Attack on TItan could have really used was a couple of packs of grey screen tone – it would have made flaws in the art such as improbable posturing and odd arm and leg lengths much less glaringly visible. Eyes are also not Isayama’s strong suit – they are either white circles, almost haunted-looking, or dark black circles – these can be with or without straight shading lines drawn down over a person’s face. Needless to say, it is at times hard to read characters and their projected emotions without Isayama forcing them to say “I’m so scared!” The style is certainly gritty, and I suspect that is part of the point, but I feel the style accentuates flaws and makes the entire comic much harder to read.

I really don’t have a problem with the violence or the pessimism of Attack on Titan. My main issue is how shoddily the whole book is done. Bakurano: Ours is a similar piece of fiction, heavy with the weight of death. But where Bakurano gives each of its characters the stage of death in which to tell his or her life, Attack on Titan is a veritable slaughtering, and without regard to the expectations of the reader. Killing off the main character, the only character you have allowed the reader to connect with, seems fruitless. Perhaps volume 1 of Attack on Titan just ends in a bad spot for the story… but I wouldn’t be able to tell, since there’s no chance I will be reading future volumes.

For Fans of: Bokurano: Ours, Gantz, incomprehensible bloody messes
Verdict: Not Recommended

Review: Soul Eater Not! vol. 1

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Soul Eater Not!, written and illustrated by Atsushi Ohkubo
Publisher: Yen Press
Genre:  Slice of Life/Action/Fantasy
|203 pgs|$11.99 USA| $12.99 CDN|
ISBN-13: 978-0-316-21362-2

It makes sense to me that one of the most cutting edge manga in Yen Press‘ manga collection is Soul Eater Not! The series is published on the same day and date in the USA as it is in Japan, and is the only series that Yen Press releases with that schedule. In Japanese comics, it stands beside Rumiko Takahashi’s Rin-Ne from Viz Media as the only other mainstream* comic that is released day and date in both Asia and America. The reason why this makes sense to me has quite a bit to do with the characteristics of Soul Eater Not! - it is neither shojo, shonen, or moe, but rather a strange mix of all three.

The best way to describe Soul Eater Not! is that is not the same manga as Soul Eater, another popular release from Yen Manga. Written and illustrated by the same author and set in the same world, it even uses some of the same characters to tell a much different story. Tsugumi, our main character, is a girl enrolled in the DWMA, a international organization in charge of training meisters and “weapons” in order to make sure they are able to control their abilities and support the greater good. Think of it like a Tim Burton-flavored Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Students are categorized into two different groups – the EAT group, full of characters from the regular Soul Eater and badassery, and the NOT group, the mostly nonviolent portion of meisters and weapons at the school.

While Soul Eater is firmly in the camp of shonen with its ridiculous battles and the odd wars with witches (as far as I was reading at last mention), Soul Eater Not! is more slice of life fare, wherein its three female characters fit neatly into three separate manga tropes, do very cute things like work at a café, and go to class together, and more actiony things like decide what two people are going to be meister/weapon partners, fight some zombie-like interlopers, and protect each-other from marauding dorm-room evils. The tropes that the girls fall into are recognizable from manga like K-On!, but the action and potential love interest business also push it into both shonen and shojo territory. Frankly, it’s a bit of a everything, and because of that, it’s a pretty fresh read.

Ohkubo’s art is quite similar here when compared to Soul Eater, albeit a bit more refined. The volume itself has a lovely matte cover with glossy illustrated overlays. The pacing works for the odd mix of comedy and action, and the page layouts flow seamlessly from goofy moe-style humor to extreme action scene.

While I am not certain where Soul Eater Not! will head after this initial volume, I can say that it a fun, lighthearted popcorn read that offers a well formed fantasy world and hints of darkness lurking underneath a metric boat-load of cuteness. I found Soul Eater Not! fun and amusing, and having read some of the original Soul Eater, it’s a nice complement to Yen Press‘ more shonen-oriented flagship title.

For Fans Of: Soul Eater, a softer side of your favorite shonen beat-em-up
Final Verdict: Recommended

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*GEN Manga‘s releases are all same day and date, however the GEN Manga Anthology
 purposefully represents itself as cutting edge doujinshi manga.

Review: Psyren, Vol. 1

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A few weeks ago, I talked about the way that Shonen Jump was changing in a review of the first five volumes of Blue Exorcist, one of the latest series from Viz Media‘s Shonen Jump line. Now that the transition to Shonen Jump Alpha has had a bit of a rocky start it has been an interesting reading experience for me (as a reader who has never read the anthology before in my life). I find myself a little out of sorts with all of the stories running in the magazine currently – they are either far ahead of where I am reading, or I gave them up after a few volumes, meaning that while I can enjoy the moment, I have to play a lot of catch up. This is not a bad thing, but I already have quite a bit of reading to do!

In the interest of beginning new things, another new Shonen Jump title has recently crossed my review stack – the first volume of Psyren. This manga focuses around a punk Ageha Yoshina who “helps people out” to the tune of 10,000 yen ($100). This generally involves kicking the crap out of some gang of losers or roughnecks. Ageha is a good guy with a Robin Hood personality, but he’s rough around the edges. After a run-in with a local stalker, Ageha hangs out with some friends and has a strange hallucination which leads him to a pay phone and a red Psyren phone card. While at first, he doesn’t think much of it, he soon discovers there is a lot more to this phone card than he initially thought. Ageha learns of the Psyren secret society and that people are willing to pay any amount of money to get their hands on the cards. But this isn’t fun and games. The first volume of Psyren shows Ageha exactly how dangerous this Psyren phone card is. Strangely, one of his friends from school, Sakurako Amamiya, also has a Psyren card, and I won’t spoil the big first twist of the volume, but it’s a whopper. Let’s be brief and say that Ageha gets to put his fighting skills to good use as he fights for his life, and the lives of a few other unlucky souls who have entered the Psyren game.

Psyren has the advantage of coming out of left field in a number of ways – it develops in a very unexpected way, and it has some really stellar art for the style of story it is trying to tell. The art is rough, sometimes sketchy, and it is very telling that this is only the second work for Toshiaki Iwashiro, (his original was another Jump comic, Mieru Hito) but he commands his style in a way that is either indicative of a sure author or a skilled editor, or some combination of the two.

My initial impressions were that Psyren was going to be a very odd conspiracy manga, something like Maoh: Juvenile Remix, a comic I originally gave high marks to, but I fell out of reading after a lull between the third and fourth volumes. The idea of a secret Psyren society and these magical red phone cards was a very interesting setup for a conspiracy thriller. But what Psyren actually delivered was something about as high energy, high violence as shonen manga can get while still being cerebral. The first volume of Psyren is a complete 360° that feels neither ratings-inspired or editor forced.

I really enjoyed this volume of Psyren, and am looking forward to reading more of the series. Having recently ended in Japan at 16 volumes, I hope that future volumes will be just as entertaining.

Review: Cross Game, Vol. 2

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Cross Game, Volume 2 Omnibus ( Japanese Vols. 4-5)
Written and Illustrated by Mitsuru Adachi
Publisher: Viz Media’s Shonen Sunday Line
Rated T – Teen
Genre: Comedy/Sports/Shonen
$14.99 US, $16.99 CAN, 376 pgs, ISBN 1421537664

Mitsuru Adachi is the one of the best, if not the most, skilled mangaka being published in English right now. That’s a pretty bold statement to make, I admit. There are wonderful artists who I’m ignoring here, like Natsume Ono, Fumi Yoshinaga, Eiichiro Oda, and Rumiko Takahashi, just to name a few. But the second volume of Cross Game has convinced me that Adachi not only knows how to set up and write a good story, he also understands how to make excellence look natural.

One of the most outstanding portions of the second volume of Cross Game is the interaction between Ko and Aoba. When Ko is out pushing himself, giving it his all, Aoba is behind him, cheering for him in her own way. When Ko wants to know how good of a pitcher he is, Aoba tells him he’s “okay… I guess,” which is probably the highest honor she can bestow upon him, and he knows it. The rivalry and friendship between these two characters drives some of the most wonderful exchanges I have ever read in a comic book.

Adachi also really knows how to draw a baseball game, which is important, considering it takes up most of the second volume. The skillful and varied panel compositions make the game between Ko’s farm team and the varsity team both exciting and energetic, while at the same time allowing Adachi to maintain the charm and wit of his characters.

The moments after the ball game are equal in quality. We see Ko humiliate himself to get an item for Wakaba’s birthday. Ko is still dealing with her loss, and we get to see that in striking detail, but without the melodrama that many writers would have injected into these scenes. The moments are significant and moving, without being overwrought.

Cross Game continues to perform when it comes to art. The scenes of the baseball game are both well drawn and fluidly composed, but the characters are also well designed and emotive. As a side note, it seems as though Adachi likes to draw these, I guess you would call them pin ups, of Aoba to separate various chapters of the book. Unlike many writers, who could use this time to get a little fan-servicey cheese in, Adachi declines. Surely, these images are meant to be admired, but Adachi never allows his characters to become overtly sexualized, which is something I admire, because it’s a road that many writers go down to the detriment of their work.

I really don’t know how to praise Cross Game more than to tell you that it is an absolute home run and if you haven’t picked up the first volume yet, you are really missing out. I can’t recommend Cross Game enough, and I think that it will continue to be the strongest series in print for as long as the series is in print in the USA. I hope that readers latch on to this series – it is the strongest piece of fiction in Viz Media‘s Shonen Sunday collection, and, perhaps, the strongest work in their entire catalog. I implore you to try it and see what the entire manga blogsphere is talking about. You won’t be disappointed.

Review: Tegami Bachi, Vols. 1-3

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Having moved all over the country for the better part of a year working one-month stints as a pharmacy student, I have come to appreciate the postal system. It has often been a physical link to family and friends when I was in an unfamiliar location. When everything was an unknown to me, I was always able to get a good-luck letter or care package in the mail, send a post-card, thank you note, or birthday wish. That sense of closeness despite my distance from what I know and care about has been a source of comfort in some pretty dreary times. The lengths that the postal service will go in order to deliver packages to me has also impressed me, especially during this harsh and unforgiving winter. However, just because I like getting mail and I don’t complain all of the time about the post office being a government-sponsored monopoly doesn’t necessarily sell me on a manga that is focused on these ideals. But, they say you can write comics about anything, and Tegami Bachi is one that does its darnedest to prove it.

The series features a young man named Lag Seeing in a perpetually dark world called the Amberground. Man-made stars are the only source of light in the world, and the rest of the Amberground is darkness and Gaichuu, monsters made of plate metal and bad intentions. In order for people to communicate with one another, they must send letters using the Letter Bees, a group of men and women who valiantly traverse through dangerous territory in order to make sure mail and other packages reach their intended destinations.

The setting is vibrant and beautiful. Hiroyuki Asada is an excellent illustrator, and uses the thick black lines and swaths of black and white to infer depth and shadow, instead of specifically drawing it. This is unlike most art in manga, where the artist uses screen tones or cross hatching to develop depth. The art really sets Tegami Bachi apart from other books in the Shonen Jump imprint.

It is unfortunate that the writing that accompanies the great art of Tegami Bachi is not nearly as strong. This book took a while to get going, and while the setting adds a lot of interesting twists to the story, for now, it seems like the only things happening in the book are:

1.    Killing Gaichuu
2.    Crying
3.    Delivering Letters
4.    Proclaiming that Lag is going to work hard and become the Head Bee
5.    Some combination of the above

While the specific missions have a bit of backstory, they aren’t that interesting, and Lag Seeing is one of the least interesting heroes in a shonen manga currently being published in the USA. Far more interesting is the enigmatic and talented Gauche Suede, a character who delivers Lag to his family in the boonies from the City, and becomes Lag’s role model and reason for joining the Letter Bees.

Asada is not talentless when it comes to writing. He adept at slipping little notes of discord into moments that wouldn’t normally have them. He drops hints about things not necessarily being as they seems, so a sense of ambiguous foreboding as well as the bizarre premise of the book keeps you turning the pages. He also has the ability to create truly touching stories, and while he hasn’t hit all the right notes with some of his more poignant tales, he has gotten fairly close.

Tegami Bachi is a bit of a mixed bag, but it proves that you can write a manga or a comic about anything. I love flipping through the pages and looking at all the wonderful art; that said, I can’t recommend it for those who need their shonen manga to have a strong main character or find Lag’s crybaby antics annoying. Still, Tegami Bachi has a sort of unique charm not normally found in shonen manga, and Asada’s writing may improve over time, so for now, I will keep reading.

Where All The Good Books At? My My Appraisal of Kodansha’s Release Slate

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When Kodansha first announced their slate of series that would be released this summer, I was excited. Here was a new company taking over from Del Rey, and since the manga was coming straight from the publisher, it would be easier to get more obscure titles, more josei and seinen, and other manga oddities into print. I was excited to see some of the work from Morning and Afternoon, and I was hopeful that Kodansha would exceed my expectations of Del Rey acting in their stead.

They released their announcements list in mid-December, and since then I’ve been doing a fair bit of investigation into Kodansha‘s announced title list. There are a few titles that were getting reprinting (which I will get to in a minute), but there were a slew of new titles that I had never heard of. Let’s take a second to review what we know (and my first impressions).

Cage of Eden and Bloody Monday, (two series I’ve already done workups on) look to be some of the stereotypical manga that Del Rey is/was known for; overly complicated shonen titles with plenty of fan service (see Negima!, in comparison). Both Bloody Monday and Cage of Eden promise something other than the shonen stories that dominate Viz‘s Shonen Jump lineup, but that does not necessarily make them good reading.

Little information is available about two of Kodansha‘s other series, Deltora Quest and Mardock Scramble. Deltora Quest is a completed ten volume shonen fantasy about an Evil Shadow Lord, Seven Magic Seals, and the giant battle between GOOD AND EVIL, which honestly just sounds like a bad The Dark Is Rising. Mardock Scramble is a bit of an enigma, since its promise of cyberpunk noir seems at least a bit more interesting than a bad redo of a Susan Cooper novel, but information is scant. We do know that Viz‘s Haikasoru imprint printed the novel this manga is based on. However, my experience with adaptations of previous series seems to indicate that this will probably not be all that great.

Other titles are similarly uninteresting. Animal Land by Mokoto Raiku, the author of Zatch Bell, looks pretty poor. I wasn’t a fan of Zatch Bell, and I doubt that this series will get much traction in the shonen community. Another Pheonix Wright, Ace Attorney manga is also going to print. Weeeeeee.

Monster Hunter Orage is probably the most interesting of the series announced, but only because it is written by Hiro Mashima, the author of Fairy Tail.

Until the Full Moon, which is a boy/boy romance about a half vampire/half werewolf is getting a reprint. It was originally printed by Broccoli Books back in 2005, with excellent production values and a high price tag. I’m not sure what this reprint is supposed to represent, but it is one of the only shojo series that Kodansha announced in December. I am sure that some look at Broccoli‘s releases with fondness, but that was quite some time ago. Many new manga readers have never even heard of Broccoli Books. While I am happy to see Kodansha bring back this title, which is both bizarre and interesting, I don’t know how well its old-school art will be handled by a new audience.

Likewise, it is good to see Gon getting reprinted, but this will be the third time the series has been printed, and there’s only so much Gon a guy can take.

If you couldn’t tell already, I am not that impressed with Kodansha‘s announced releases. They all seem like fine titles for a certain crowd, and I’m sure that they will sell copies. I just don’t see a whole lot of value in them.

I haven’t read any of these announced series, and so I can’t doom them to mediocrity immediately. It is not as if these series are all going to be bad, but all of them are very… predictable. In a shrinking market where all series need to pay for their costs, printing “safe” series makes for an adequate return on investment, and I suppose that’s what the business of comics is all about. Unlike Viz, which has Pokemon, Naruto, and Bleach to give them some extra funds with which to print more experimental titles, Kodansha does not have that built up business. Theoretically, they don’t have as much financial room to work with. Realistically, Kodansha can publish whatever it pleases, but we are discussing business here, and Kodansha is not necessarily in the “make Alex happy” business.

Kodansha has time to develop its properties and generate some sales this summer. I think it’s probably a bit hasty to ask them for miracles as soon as they come out of the gates – at the same time, if Kodansha is going to just print the same old Del Rey manga, there’s no reason to get excited about them printing titles like Drops of God or Saint Young Men.

Note: Thankfully, we have publishers like Vertical Inc. to publish Drops of God! Check out my reaction here!

Still, comics like Saint Young Men are the reason why I was excited that Kodansha was starting its own imprint in the USA to begin with. I suppose my expectations are a bit too high. I wanted more complex, adult series to be released here in the States, and I am a bit disappointed that we don’t have any evidence of that yet from Kodansha.

Review: Itsuwaribito, Vol. 1

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Viz Media rolled out a few great new shonen series under their Shonen Sunday imprint in 2010. One Shonen Sunday imprint, Cross Game, a baseball manga by Mitsuru Adachi, made my Best of 2010 list for its excellent pacing and natural slice-of-life storytelling. In addition to the new series released in 2010, The Shonen Sunday imprint looks to continue putting out new work in 2011. Two new series recently were released as part of the Shonen Sunday imprint – the horror/action/suspense manga Kurozakuro (which I will review next week), and the historical action manga Itsuwaribito.

Itsuwaribito is a manga about lying, or more appropriately, about a chronic liar named Utsuho. After telling a group of bandits the truth about where he lived, one of those stereotypical “great shonen tragedies” occurs, and Utsuho vows never to tell the truth ever again. After an introduction to Utsuho and his background, he sets out on a journey to help people with his lying.

There are a few things that separate Itsuwaribito from other shonen manga currently on the market. The most recognizable is its penchant for violent action. Other shonen manga have a tendency to have violence, blood, and gore; series like D.Grey-man thrive on this sort of content. Most of these series are more serious in tone than Itsuwaribito, though. When Utsuho throws a bomb at a group of bandits, their deaths are shown pretty graphically as he shouts out a chipper, “I was lying!” to the dying fools. I am not necessarily saying the violence is over the top, but the depictions of violence in this book are at an extreme contrast with the personality of the main character, which makes the violence a little more unsettling.

Another interesting trait of Itsuwaribito is its use of companion characters for Utsuho. Although things aren’t very far along in the first volume, Utsuho only has a single companion, a fluffy talking raccoon-like pup called a tanuki named Pochi. He is adorable and his trusting attitude and naivety are a good foil for the jaded Utsuho. He is the star of multiple scenes, and his little side observations about what is going on in the story are funny and cute.

For a shonen story, Itsuwaribito holds its own fairly well in the first volume. Its introduction seems a little standard, but for a comic that has to make its name in a busy anthology like Shonen Sunday, you can expect things to be more or less the same in most introductions. Itsuwaribito delineates itself from other shonen manga quickly with its use of the lying theme and Utusho’s penchant for poisons, explosives, and other trickery make it more interesting than it really seemed like it would be at the beginning.

The art is fairly standard shonen fair. Yuuki Iinuma has an affinity for extra screen tone in his action sequences and panelling, but the result isn’t unpleasant like it could be. The line-work is pretty thin, which give Iinuma’s characters a sort of slender look, and also makes his villains a little creepier. The panel composition is also fairly good, and the book reads fairly easily.

One of the things I do not like about Itsuwaribito is Utusho’s constant confessions. He pulls off these grand fibs and deceits, only at the last second to say, “I was lying!” or, “I was lying about lying.” Part of what is interesting about a character that is a compulsive liar is that you never truly understand if what he says is true or not. A confession here or there will help keep you on the level with the character and give you a sense of his morals, but constantly seeing him confess takes a little wind out of his sail. Hopefully, as the series progresses, this will stop. I’d prefer the ambiguity.

While Itsuwaribito isn’t perfect, it is a fun comic, and it is easy to enjoy the convoluted tales that Utusho spins, and the cute fluffy woodland creature he befriends. If Iinuma adds a few other cast members, or introduces some sort of idealistic crisis to Utusho and his resolve to continue to lie, I think this could be a pretty regular read for me. As it stands, I am ready to pick up volume two when it is released in April of 2011.

Or maybe I’m just lying.

This review is based on a copy of the book provided by the publisher.

MMF: Why Start Now? Lessons from One Piece

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I’m sorry there isn’t a review here, or a critique of One Piece as an antiestablishmentary epic focused on philosophy-based moral battles. That will have to wait until the next time One Piece gets an MMF – which, considering the length of the series, might be possible. Instead I would like to look at what One Piece means to me as a person who needed to learn a lesson.

I’ll come right out and admit it so that we can all be horrified and then move on: I didn’t read any One Piece for this MMF. My knowledge of the series comes from the first two omnibus volumes released by Viz Media, so that gives me volumes 1-6 of the original manga of which to give my opinion on. And, to top it off, I received the first of those volumes in the mail as a part of a manga exchange program that had me sending the first volume of AIshiteruze Baby to Ed Sizemore of Manga Worth Reading. (Don’t worry, I’ve got the next two omnibuses to read at the house, but other things on the stack are more important now)

Before receiving a copy of One Piece in the mail, I was skeptical about the series.  I feel that skepticism is a natural reaction when considering whether or not to delve into a 60+ volume series, especially ones like One Piece where the end is probably greater than another 60+ books away. I was worried that the series would be too large of an investment of time. I swore that it was ridiculous for me to spend all that money on a series, especially if it meant that if I liked it, I’d be shelling out something close to $400 per series just to have the series in its entirety. I doubted I could like it, and told myself that these popular series were for people with undiscerning tastes.  For that same reason, I had not read any Naruto, InuYasha, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, or any Bleach. I became so defensive in my pursuit to stay away from these giant shonen epics that I completely avoided any of these series. My fear of large series built concurrently as I wrapped myself up in other large series: Negima!, D.Grayman, and Monster all were slowly building up on my bookshelves.

When Daniella at All About Manga started the manga exchange letter back in March of this year (wow that seems like a long time ago), I never expected to be getting a volume of manga in the mail that I could keep. I sent out my volume with the full intention of getting something that I would need to  send back. What I got was the first One Piece omnibus, for keeps. At first, I was unappreciative. I swore that I would hate this comic, and of all things, I got it in the mail! To top it all off, part of the requirement for being in the exchange letter group was that you had to review the comic you received. *gulp* Guess looks like I had to just wade in and hope that it didn’t kill me.

What I found, after I had read the book, was that, well damn, I actually enjoyed it.

It was preposterous. How could this behemoth have sucked me in? I swore that I’d never read it. But I failed to discover the reason why so many people liked it – because it was good. Folks like David Welsh, Kate Dacey, Melinda Beasi, and Lori Henderson had all given the series a thumbs up. I generally like what they recommend; why would One Piece be any different?

I’ve learned two lessons from One Piece. The first is that it’s okay to try new things, even if you don’t think you will like them. Knowing is far better than just avoiding something. In a manga case-in-point, I have now tried Naruto and Bleach since picking up One Piece. They were okay, but I stopped reading after a few volumes. But I tried them. That’s a step forward.

The second lesson is that while there are times when the crowd is wrong, the crowd can also be right. If someone recommends a series to me, it’s for a good reason. Being receptive to other people, and listening to them, is something I need to work on, and One Piece was another step in that direction.

I love comics. Comics are fun, entertaining, and plenty of times, thoroughly enjoyable. But sometimes comics, like art, music, painting, or sculpture, can reach us at different levels and show us something about ourselves. One Piece is one of those comics.

Will Akamatsu Change Content for Changed Readership?

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Canned Dogs reported on Sunday that Ken Akamatsu has seen a trend in his readership; lately, the people that have been sending in the most fan letters and illustrations to the famous manga-ka for his latest series Negima are girls. Younger girls, at that. Akamatsu has declared that it’s the sign of changing times in Japan, that women are reading shonen comics because there are more “attractive men” to look at. Someone in the comments even posted the idea that Negima has more “pairings” (a la yaoi) than its spiritual predicessor Love Hina, and I can’t necessarily say I disagree. What makes me think isn’t necessarily that more women are reading what is considered a man’s comic, but whether or not Ken Akamatsu is going to do anything about it. Will the fan service and other things we’ve come to expect from Akamatsu take a decidedly female-oriented turn?

I wonder what this means for shonen manga as a whole. Does this change in readership make mangaka want to change the way they write their shonen manga? Or is this more an affirmation of the appeal of shonen style manga? I really can’t say what the change means, but I can say that it’s very interesting.