I thought I’d celebrate moving into my new digs over here at Manga Report and do a manga giveaway. I’m going to give away to one reader:
INVU #5
A Tale of an Unknown Country #1
Nana #21
Butterflies, Flowers #4
Kobato #1
To enter, just leave a comment on this post with the name of your favorite manga heroine. I’ll select a winner at random on Nov 11. You must be 18 to enter.
Today’s Saturday morning cartoon is the opening sequence of Princess Jellyfish, a new anime that Funimation just started streaming. The characters are shown reenacting scenes from classic movies like Star Wars, Mary Poppins, James Bond, and The Graduate.
Ordinarily I don’t automatically tend to go for stories about female otaku, but Princess Jellyfish is very cute. Tsukumi from the first moment her mother took her to visit an aquarium. She moves to Tokyo to become an illustrator and moves into a shared apartment house owned by a shut-in manga creator who only communicates through papers shoved through her door. “The Sisterhood” that lives in the house are all made up of female otaku. One loves trains, one loves Kimono, there’s a woman obsessed with martial arts and the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms. When a beautiful woman helps Tsukumi take home a jellyfish that is being mistreated by an ignorant aquarium owner, Tsukumi discovers that her unwanted new friend is actually a cross dresser.
Here’s the Hulu Channel for the show. Two episodes have been posted so far.
Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales Volume 1 by Melissa Marr and Xian Nu Studio
There have been quite a few manga style adaptions of young adult books. I find the idea of reading original side stories set in an author’s universe more interesting than reading a manga adaptation of what I’ve already read. I’ve read the first three books in Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely series and mostly enjoyed them, although the third book teetered on the edge of being a little too emo for my taste. I wrote about Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange over on the Bureau Chiefs site. Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales features characters from the main books, but the focus is on a new character named Rika.
The Wicked Lovely series is an urban paranormal fantasy series. Keenan, the Summer King of the fairies has been on the hunt for his Summer Queen for centuries. He chooses his queen candidates from mortal girls. There’s a test they have to pass – if they grasp the staff of the Winter Queen and survive the ice, they’re his destined mate. If not, they’re iced over and turn into the Winter Queen, the Summer King’s most hated enemy. Rika is a mortal girl turned fairie by her experience being forced to serve as Winter Queen. She’s taken refuge in the desert, far away from Keenan. Her main distraction is watching a mortal boy – an artist and rock climber named Jayce.
Rika is careful to observe the usual fairy rules about contact with mortals and keeps herself carefully invisible. But the wild desert fey threaten Jayce and she intervenes in order to keep him from being injured. Jayce is mystified at the sudden appearance of a beautiful girl, and they have an awkward first date which consists of them wandering around a nearby town while Rika tries to fight off invisible assailants. Her one local ally is a faerie named Sionnach who seems to be pushing Rika towards the mortal for reasons of his own.
Melissa Marr excels at writing about romance in the initial attraction stage. Jayce and Rika meet, she bandages him up, and as they start talking to each other they share their interests in art and the desert landscape. The character designs fit with the slightly punked out sensibility of the Wicked Lovely books. Rika has pale eyelashes and a choppy bob, providing a contrast to Jayce’s dark skin and dreadlocks. The mischievous desert fey that harass the budding couple are drawn with lines of sand scattered across their skin. I found the story a little more interesting than the art, and there were a couple places in the book where I wished for better transitions between panels or across pages.
I think that fans of the Wicked Lovely series will enjoy this book. I’m not entirely sure how accessible it would be to someone who isn’t already familiar with Melissa Marr’s world. I found reading this manga to be a bit of a relief after Ink Exchange. The love triangle in the main series with Seth, Aislinn, and Keenan has just gotten a little bleak and depressing so I enjoyed being able to visit the Wicked Lovely world with some fresh characters who aren’t bogged down with the continuity in the main series. There are two additional volumes in the Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales manga series, the concluding volume comes out in February.
Japanese publishers tend to shy away of digital distribution, so I’m finding the case of Shuto Sato‘s Say Hello to Black Jack really interesting. I was interested to see the notice at Anime News Network that he’s seeking English translators for his online comics site. Sato disclosed financial numbers for what he was making as a mangaka before switching to online distribution. I’ll be curious to read an authorized English translation of Say Hello to Black Jack when it becomes available.
Here’s some links for more information about Sato and Say Hello to Black Jack:
Manga Reality: The Case of Say Hello to Blackjack
Japanese Live Action Drama site
Mangaonweb (Sato’s digital comics site)
One of this week’s spooky manga picks is the always excellent shonen monster hunting series Kekkaishi. It is daunting sometimes to try to catch up on a long running series like Kekkaishi, but Tanabe’s excellent pacing and character development make it possible to keep following the story even if you have skipped a few volumes. I’ve read the first five volumes of the series previously.
Kekkaishi Volume 8 by Yellow Tanabe
Things are growing more complicated for monster hunters Yoshimori and girl next door Tokine. Performing their duties as protectors of the mystical energy site located by their school used to be fairly straightforward, but now they’re dealing with an organized effort from a group of ayakashi (monsters) who even have the ability to take on human form. They’ve been sent an ally named Gen from the Shadow Organization, where Yoshimori’s brother has now risen to a position of power. Gen has been taken out of the fight and Yoshimori and Tokine have to fend off a large group of monsters by themselves. Yoshomori’s latent power briefly manifests when Tokine is frightened, and the leader of the monster pack inexplicably calls off the attack, perhaps content in finding out something about Yoshimori’s power levels that young kekkaishi doesn’t even know himself. The remainder of the volume shows some of Gen’s backstory as he struggles with the idea of continuing his assignment to help Yoshimori and Tokine. Gen is half ayakashi, and has the potential to turn entirely into a monster if he isn’t careful with restraining his power. Yoshimori’s older brother Masamori placed him with a special class within the shadow organization called the Night Troops, which is made up of other children similar to Gen. Masamori also seems to be playing politics within the Shadow Organization, so it is easy to see why Yoshimori might be suspicious of him.
It seemed to me like there was a tiny bit of character progression in the way Yoshimori was drawn. I thought he looked a little bit more angular in the face, perhaps showing him as becoming more mature as a person and in the use of his power since the series started. Tanabe’s monster designs are always a highlight of the book, with Yoshimori’s foes looking like demonic versions of a squid, Cousin It, a mutated bat, and an odd insect.
Kekkaishi Volume 9 by Yellow Tanabe
The ninth volume is devoted to some fun training sessions for Yoshimori, Gen, and Tokine when Gen’s monster trainer Atora shows up suddenly to put them through their paces. She challenges them to capture her, and they’re forced to work together as a team. Tokine and Yoshimori already have a rapport, but Gen just tends to rush off into battle and doesn’t coordinate his actions with others. Due to some traumatic events when his power manifested Gen tends to hold himself apart from others. Atora was a fun character, who was always drawn with a sunny grin on her face. She announces her presence by blasting the door in and seems absolutely delighted at the opportunity to stage a mock battle. More importantly, she wants to check up on her pupil to see if he’s finally making friends. She’s accompanied by a giant bear named Raizo who is extremely cute even as he starts emitting dangerous electricity.
While the new three person team of kekkaishi begins to work together, the organized group of akakashi start acting up in mysterious ways. One of them drinks up the mystic swamp where the spirit Lord Uru lives, and Yoshimori is concerned about the fate of the nature god. This volume contained some of Tanabe’s great arresting images. Yoshimori’s grandfather thinks one of his old friends might be in danger of an attack, and a representative of the Shadow Organization breaths a giant smoky scorpion into existence in order to provide transportation. Gen and Yoshimori bond over lunch as they float on a cube of energy far above their high school.
I think it says a lot about Tanabe’s skills as an author that a manga that juggles complex plots and a variety of characters is still easy to follow even if there are gaps in the volumes that you’ve read. One of these days I’ll be totally caught up! In a world filled with formulaic shonen, Kekkaishi really is something special.