Archives for November 2010

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Super Dimension Fortress Macross

Today’s Saturday morning cartoon is the opening to the classic Super Dimension Fortress Macross! I recently finished watching this series for the first time since I saw the early Robotech episodes in 1985.

I have very specific memories of going to my Grandma’s house after school and watching Robotech in her basement. I absolutely loved the show, but back then it was impossible to rewatch or see repeat episodes. I think many of my memories of the show actually came from reading the later novelizations. So when I was watching some episodes of Macross I could tell that I was seeing them for the first time even though I’d read the scenes before, like most of the Max and Miriya romance.

I’d put off trying to rewatch this series for a long time. I think I tend to put aside some of the things I was into as a kid, just because I don’t think adult nostalgia will ever measure up to the first experience of discovering a new fictional world. I’m leery of tarnishing memories, and think that sometimes reliving childhood fandom isn’t the most productive use of one’s time. There’s nothing worse than the sinking feeling of finding out that something you loved as a child is actually a little bit lame. I remember this sinking feeling all too well when I realized that Aslan in the Narnia books was Jesus a couple years after I first read and loved the books, which was probably around the same time I first saw Robotech. So that was one reason for my trepidation and procrastination about watching Super Dimension Fortress Macross as an adult.

I was surprised at how well this series held up. Part of it I think is due to some of the appealing character designs. It is easy to overlook the occasionally glitchy animation when the character designs are so strong.

Of course, what looks not very fluid today was absolutely groundbreaking to a 10 year old in 1985. Watching the series again, I was able to see how it really lay the groundwork for later philosophical fighting mecha shows. Macross has plenty of space opera, but for all the scenes of transforming mecha fighting aliens, at the core of the show is a longing for peace and a lot of heart. I was glad to finish rewatching Super Dimension Fortress Macross with the knowledge that my 10-year-old self did have excellent taste in after school cartoons. Macross is the reason why I to this day think that airplanes that transform into fighting robots are awesome. Really, it doesn’t get much better than that.

AX Volume 1: A Collection of Alternative Manga

AX Volume 1: A Collection of Alternative Manga edited by Sean Michael Wilson

I’ll be the first to admit that my tastes in manga are decidedly mainstream. I do enjoy the occasional wacky seinen title, but I generally read manga for my daily dose of escapism and don’t go out of my way to be challenged. I have a soft spot for anthology titles, because back in the dark days before the current manga explosion, all I had to read were my Eclipse/Viz floppy comics and the manga excerpted in Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics. I was interested to check out this anthology when it first came out, but decided to purchase it later. So I was excited when I managed to snag a copy in a ComicsAlliace twitter giveaway.

AX is carefully curated, with stories selected that show the true variety of Japanese alternative comics. I was blown away by the variety of art styles in this volume, from the detailed European forest city overrun by mushrooms in “Mushroom Garden” to the bean-head motorcycle lovers in “Enrique Kobayashi’s Eldordo”. “Into Darkness” featured a lush garden entwining around a corpse, while “The Neighbor” showed an inexplicable feud developing with flat, sparse sketches. The themes of the stories ranged from the surreal as shown in “Six Paths of Wealth” where a mother pushes her daughter to engage in some unconventional behavior with insects, to the everyday life of a salaryman who suddenly decides to take up boxing in “The Song of Mr H.”

As with any anthology there were a few stories that weren’t to my taste. I might be a prude, but I don’t tend to get much out of stories where the main point of the narrative is to be transgressive mainly by showing sex acts or bodily functions. If I wanted to read stuff like that, I figure I could always seek out something like Prison Pit. Fortunately the way the selection of the stories was paced, when I was reading I wasn’t mentally checking off repetitive themes like “Penis, sex with a cursed plant-woman, the runs, giant penis, penis again.” Instead there was more variation in the way the anthology was put together, so my running tally of themes was more like “Naked woman, fable about insanity told with assassins, boy falls in love with a butterfly, massive existential angst and vomiting, penis, symbolic story about a relationship breakup.”

The production quality for the book from Top Shelf Productions was excellent. I am always a sucker for paperback books with french flaps, and I appreciated the inclusion of author notes for all the stories collected in the anthology. I appreciated the variety of artists represented, especially the inclusion of many female artists. With Drunken Dreams and AX being published, 2010 is ending as a good year for providing readers with access to important and influential manga. I hope that this book does well enough that we get a second volume published. With so much commercial, slickly produced manga (that I dearly love!) out there, it is also good to take a step back and gain a wider appreciation for the sheer variety of stories that can be told in the comics medium. AX will be a great addition to the bookshelf of any well-rounded manga fan.

Tokyopop Quick Takes – Karakuri Odette, Neko Ramen, How to Draw Shojo Manga

Karakuri Odette Volume 4

I think this takes the prize for most consistently charming shoujo manga. I mean, take a look at the riff on Revolutionary Girl Utena in the cover illustration. How cute is that!? Odette makes a new friend when she meets Shiroyuki, a rich girl who lives in isolation because she can read people’s minds. When Shiroyuki meets Odette she’s happy that she can’t read her thoughts, and Odette encourages Shiroyuki to start attending school. Shiroyuki thinks that Odette must be picked on at school and is determined to save her. Unfortunately Odette already seems to have things well in hand, despite her tendency to immediately do other people’s classroom chores when asked. There’s also an appearance by Kurose, Odette’s juvenile delinquent with a heart of gold non-boyfriend. He starts getting stalked by another girl, which awakens feelings of jealousy in Odette. Suzuki’s pacing is great. There are little hints here and there that show Odette might becoming something more than just an android. Her dependence on her battery seems to be lessening, and her experiences of new emotions through her interaction with her friends seems to be increasing. There are only two volumes left in this series, and I’ll be sorry to see it end.

Neko Ramen 2

People who liked the first volume of this series about Taisho, a cat who inexplicably runs a ramen shop, will find the second volume equally enjoyable. There are plenty of gags about Taisho switching out different theme corners of his shop in an effort to find an added attraction. He goes through options like a petting zoo and spiritual fortunes in short order. Taisho also does curry experiments, with disastrous results.It felt to me like there were a few more long form comics included in this volume as opposed to the 4-coma strips. The longer stories focused on Taisho’s famous cat model father and a food competition that seemed like a satirical take on the food battles often found in cooking manga like Iron Wok Jan. Hapless businessman Tanaka gets a shock when his father has a mid-life crisis and confesses his secret desire to open a ramen shop. This is one of those manga that I think is best read in spaced-out stages, because while the jokes are funny, there’s a certain element of sameness for the reader when reading a bunch of similar gags back to back.

How to Draw Shojo Manga

I’m not an artist, but I think that this how to draw book will be interesting for shoujo fans since it was put out by the editorial teams of some of Hakusensha’s manga magazines. There’s a simple story used as a framing device – enthusiastic but slightly clueless aspiring manga artist Ena gets put through her paces under the guidance of Sasaki, a manga editor. Topics like what tools to use, drawing people and objects, composing panel layouts, working on storyboards, and developing characters are briefly touched on. While this volume is too slender to use as a true drawing textbook, it does introduce a lot of terminology and concepts that provide a basic overview of the manga-making process. Some of the details included are likely to be too specific to the Japanese system to be very useful for American aspiring manga artists. An appendix on alternate routes to publication, like how to create a webcomic, might have been useful. Still, I enjoyed leafing through this book but I was tortured by the inclusion of some of the examples from untranslated Hakusensha manga. Now I’m curious about English Tutoring School Wars, Go! Hiromi, Go!, and especially the Tea Prince’s Princess which appears to feature a hot guy playing the cello with some unfortunate bowing technique. I do think this title would be a popular addition to any library’s collection of how to draw books.

Review copies for Neko Ramen and How to Draw Shojo Manga provided by the publisher.

DMP Quick Takes: Itazura Na Kiss Volume 3 and Alice the 101st 2

Itazura Na Kiss Volume 3 by Kaoru Tada

The third volume of this delightful shoujo series opens with Kotoko and tennis club captain Sudou spying on the objects of their affection Irie and Reiko when they go out on a date. The hapless pair trail the dating couple to a showing of Edward Scissorhands. In the meantime Kotoko’s self appointed future husband Kinnosuke attempts to follow Kotoko and ends up in a porno movie theater. In one of Tada’s cute bits of character interaction, Kotoko and Sudou are destroyed with emotion by the ending of the movie, while Irie calmly proclaims that he wants to make an artificial being one day. Irie knows that he’s being tailed and ends the date, spending the rest of the day with Kotoko after telling her that her reactions to his date were hilarious. Irie announces that his life use to be boring and uneventful, with noting but trouble appearing since Kotoko came into his house. He says that she’s a trial he has to test himself against, but he doesn’t mind her being around. This is the closest thing to a declaration of affection that Irie is capable of, and Kotoko is delighted.

Later, there’s a school festival where the anime club has adopted Kotoko as their main character in an anime “Racquet Warrior Kotorin”. Kotoku ends up beating out Reiko for the title of school festival queen due to the powerful otaku voting lobby. One of things I like about this series is the large and funny ensemble cast. Irie’s mom makes a point of exclaiming over Kotoko’s skin when both families go on a hot springs vacation, very aware that her son will be able to overhear her. Kinnosuke and Sudou’s hapless attempts to court the objects of their affection continue to amuse, and it is hard not to root for Kotoko’s desired romance with Irie.

Alice the 101st Volume 2 by Chigusa Kawaii

As the volume opens Aristide Lang aka Alice is dismayed to discover that Max, the best violinist in his class is a bit of a space case. Alice’s mentor and fellow classmate Victor directed him to view Max as his rival, and Alice freaks out when the genius violinist actually seems a bit goofy. Alice has prodigious musical gifts that are hampered by his extreme ignorance. Alice has perfect pitch and can play almost any piece by ear, but he is utterly incapable of reading a musical score. He’s bullied by other students who don’t understand why he was admitted to their school as a special case. Alice’s violin teacher sets him the task of playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star “exactly as it is written,” and Alice doesn’t know who to go to for help. All of his friends are busy practicing for the upcoming concert. He ends up stumbling across Max and asks him for help.

This volume deals with issues of musical interpretation and accompaniment. While Alice can reproduce a piece of music when he’s heard it once, he isn’t sure how to answer when his classmate Georges plays Motzart’s version of song and asks Alice what his own version of the piece sounds like. Max is able to display an amazing degree of technical proficiency with a piece by Bruch, but does Alice’s innate ability to produce a more interesting tone mean that he’ll eventually be able to surpass his rival? There were plenty of amusing moments in this second volume as Alice continues to overreact to everything around him, but I continue to enjoy the way Kawaii is able to portray the process of learning how to make music.

Access to electronic copies provided by the publisher.

Cross Game Volumes 1-3

Cross Game Volumes 1-3 by Mitsuru Adachi

I will start off by saying that I really dislike baseball in real life. If I have to watch sports, I’m more interested in basketball, hockey, or tennis. So I am not necessarily the best person to review a baseball manga. On the other hand I remember so many people being excited when this license was announced, since evidently Adachi is a behemoth of shonen manga. The only series of his previously published in the US was Short Program, which now appears to be out of print. I’m glad I gave Cross Game a chance, because it is so well-written, the fact that it is nominally about baseball didn’t matter to me. I was won over by the characters and Adachi’s masterful story pacing.

Ko Kitamura is the protagonist of Cross Game. He’s a typical boy who has a bit of a hustler’s personality. He helps his family out in their sports equipment business, and doesn’t hesitate to recommend taking up sports requiring extravagant equipment to his classmates. Ko isn’t very interested in sports himself, but he does practice hitting at a local batting center. The batting center’s proprietors are the Tsukushimas, and they have four girls. Ko and the second daughter Wakaba have grown up together. They share a birthday, and Wakaba treats Ko like a steadfast friend, hitching rides to school on his bike. Ko’s friendship with Wakaba causes problems since plenty of other boys have crushes on her. On the run from bullies, Ko decides to hide by joining a group of classmates who are playing baseball after getting the hard sell from Ko. He is utterly inept in every area at baseball except for being able to hit home runs.

Cross Game has a great slice-of-life quality, but the plot does advance fairly slowly. I think it was a good decision to release the first three books in an omnibus edition. One of the things I liked about this manga was the feeling of time and place. The characters wake up and run errands on a hazy summer day. Ko deals with kids at school who now insist that he work on his baseball gloves. Wakaba’s younger sister Aoba is developing her own pitching arm. After a disappointing birthday Wakaba hands Ko a detailed list of the presents he should get for her every year, ending with an engagement ring on her 20th birthday. Wakaba’s faith in Ko is boundless. She comments to Aoba, “If you think of Ko as just another boy, you’ll get burned. If he puts his mind to it, he could be the best pitcher in Japan….But don’t take him from me.” Aoba thinks Wakaba is being ridiculous.

For the first half of Cross Game, I thought that it was on track to be an enjoyable slice of life comedy about baseball. But tragedy strikes, giving even more emotional resonance to the daily lives of the characters as they continue on with school and their family businesses. Ko grows more serious about baseball and he continues to be protective of the Tsukushima sisters even though Aoba acts as though she hates him. Ko develops his abilities secretly, without any sense of how strong he might be compared to his classmates. He still acts goofy at times, taking extra time to flail around his pitching arm when instructed to pitch “for real.”

The high school baseball team is terrible. The new coach is the type to push for a win at the expense of his players’ development. There’s a team of elites and a “portable team,” which consists of players who washed out or didn’t try out for the main team. Only a few of Ko’s classmates recognize his potential. They know the score with the new coach, and are content to stay with the portable team for the present. They don’t want to be ruined by selfish coaching. The dynamic between Ko and Aoba is interesting. She’d be an ace pitcher herself if she was a guy, but she’s only able to play in practice games. She’s set up as the final judge of Ko’s talent, and when she sees that he’s improved she states that he’s a good pitcher but he doesn’t excite her.

Adachi has a simple, cartoony style that adapts to showing showing the freeze frame action of baseball very well. Many of the characters have slightly protuberant ears, making them look a little vulnerable. The backgrounds in Cross Game are very detailed, grounding the characters in specific settings like the batting cage, school hallways, or neighborhood sandlots. Adachi peppers the manga with mini episodes where he talks to the reader, like when he sets up a gag about Ko imitating a classmate’s voice then follows it with an all too convenient scene of Ko’s father talking about his son’s amazing impression skills.

Cross Game sets up an intriguing blend of sports-based wholesomeness and corruption. There’s something very innocent about Ko not being aware of the athlete he could become and his growing enthusiasm for the game. Seeing the baseball team at his high school being put together by ringers under the leadership of an abusive coach made me very anxious to see what was going to happen next to Ko and his fellow students on the portable team. I appreciated the way Adachi handled the passing of time in Cross Game. Often manga sometimes feels fairly static, but Cross Game follows Ko across different seasons and years, making it a true coming of age story. Cross Game is by far one of my favorite shonen releases this year.