Posts Tagged “Manga”

When I picked up an issue of Daisuki a week ago, I came to like one series in particular. That was “Idol”, created by Dortmund resident Stella Brandner, which began serialization in May. Since then, I’ve bought the other three chapters through issues of the manga magazine and enjoyed what I’ve read thus far. The main plot is that 19-year-old Elle is a photographer and painter who is a fan of the rock band Sub Four, whose tour through Germany happens to make a stop in her home city of Dortmund. She goes to the concert with her best friend Sascha but is mistakenly pushed out by security and loses her sketchbook in the process. The lead singer of the band, 27-year-old Damien, picks up and goes over to her apartment to return it to her while offering her a job as the band’s tour photographer.
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Yesterday I was walking down Immermannstrasse, the main street of Düsseldorf’s Japanese district, and went into a comic book store. Inside there were manga and American comics translated into German as one would expect. I ended up buying an issue each of Daisuki (think Shoujo Beat), Animania (comes with pack-in DVD), and Manga sZene as well as some sticker sheets and a couple Chibi mangas (small sized 56 pages long from German authors). Gonna try to translate some of it during my downtime…

Anyway, I found out through a free Tokyopop pamphlet I picked up that they have already put out the first six volumes of Honey and Clover in Germany (webpage for vol. 1) and volume 7 is coming out in September. Each volume costs 6.50 Euro, which right now converts to just under nine US dollars so not much difference from US manga prices. Speaking of America, Viz Media announced last weekend at Comic-Con that the manga will replace Nana in Shojo Beat next March and that the first volume will also debut that month. Concidentally, just as the series starts its release in the US, the tenth and final volume will likely come out in Germany that same March.

Fujiwara Sunao is a girl who dresses like a guy, casually rebels against the principal, and has the ability to manipulate water. She tries to keep her secret hidden while solving problems like dying birds and a single father unable to control his little daughter. Meanwhile, the class president Ikushima makes “advances” on her and the school nurse “Mr. Shizuki” has playful stalker tendencies.

I liked the stories and their morals as well as the art by author Setsuri Tsuzuki but most of the little comedy there was didn’t really connect. Then again, I didn’t expect much as it was labeled “Fantasy/Romance” so it doesn’t negatively impact it too much. I was already accustomed to woman-in-men’s-clothes gender subversion with Ouran so I didn’t have problems following Sunao but having to remember that the nurse was actually a man took a bit more work considering his pigtails. The rating of “Older Teen 16+” is applied because there are a couple pages where Sunao is naked and there is some contact between Ikushima and a fellow student.

My damn scanner was being cranky so I had to go the analog route.

I stayed up all Sunday night trying to write a paper so I read the first volume of Chibi Vampire (aka Karin) while eating breakfast at about six Monday morning. I thought it was an enjoyable introduction to the romantic comedy story of a high school girl who is a “reverse vampire”. That is, the main character Karin likes the day, hates the night, and produces blood rather sucking it from people. Her “victims” become more energized than before when they were stressed out due to her infusions. Why she is different from the rest of her vampiric family has yet to be explained but I think it will be as the plot progresses further.
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Last night, I had to carry a large bag (seen above) back to my apartment. Okay, I didn’t have to tote it all the way as I rode the bus from campus to my part of town but I did have to carry it to the station and from the station to my place. Damn, it was heavy! Anyway, about the stuff in the bag: it’s various things like buttons, cards, drawings, and postcards that are to be given away/auctioned off at my anime club’s Big Showing in late May. Apparently, since I’m the interim president, the officers who are graduating this quarter trust me to keep it for two months.

When I finally got the bag home and looked through it to write down what was in it, I saw there was a lot of manga, about 40 volumes of various series. Some of it was yaoi (I can handle it? right?) and a couple are in Japanese and German but a majority were in English. So I thought it would an interesting challenge to see if I could read - and post reviews of - all 38 or so English-adapted manga by the time May 19 rolls around. You can see my progress on a seperate page I created for this endeavor, which I will hopefully finish.

[via Digg]
According to Consumerist, Wal-Mart and Target had listings on their websites today for volumes 1 and 3 of the “Yaoi Hentai” series. (Consumerist is part of the snarky Gawker Media family of blogs.) When the blog asked Wal-Mart about it, the response was that the titles “erroneously appeared [on the site] due to an isolated system filtering issue”. Unfortunately for their PR team, the blog later found more explicit titles for sale.

This doesn’t make me roll my eyes as much as hearing a mother complain about suggestive manga in libraries but it still makes me a little uneasy about the current perception of yaoi/yuri/erotic manga among ordinary Americans. Personally, I’m fine with it being sold in stores as long as they are not sold to minors - even the covers of Yaoi Hentai clearly say “Absolutely Not For Children”. These would definitely be wrapped in any brick-and-mortar bookstore and it seems very unlikely that manga of this ilk is actually on  shelves at “big box” stores. Still, if it’s possible for a teenager to use a gift card and purchase yaoi manga through an online retailer, it should be a concern and the retailers should somehow, upon checkout, verify the purchasers’ ages or simply not stock explicit material at all.

As of this post, the story has been dugg 1,578 times and one commenter was smart enough to point out that the title of the story - “Walmart.com and Target.com Sell Anime Porn” - is misleading as the products in question are manga (i.e. non-moving pictures). Wal-Mart’s image of a family-friendly store may be affected by this a little bit but not a lot if this story stays out of the mainstream press. Anyway, I doubt that Kevin and Alex will discuss this on Diggnation but if it does happen to come up, I’ll be sure to post a clip with added commentary.

I have a soft spot for cute violence and the one-shot manga Yoki Koto Kiku has plenty of it. Apparently, the head of the Nekogami family has died and his grandson and rightful heir Sukekiyo is off at war in someplace unknown. This obviously creates a problem within the family and each of the family’s triplets Yoki, Koto, and Kiku are now scheming to off the other two siblings, as well as Sukekiyo’s fiancee and family maid Tamayo, with axes and traps because only one of the four can claim the inheritance.
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Reading it on and off for the couple weeks, I finally finished the first volume of Nodame Cantabile today. Just in time for me to pick up the next couple volumes and read them over winter break before the anime begins airing in mid-January. Might have to check out the live-action drama as well…

Anyway, this initial volume started out slow for me (perhaps that was due to the bite-sized portions I took) but then I started to warm to it halfway through, about the time Mine was introduced. A quick re-read assured me that I enjoyed it enough to move on to the next volume, ready to become slightly more cultured in classical music while reading in the same way I picked up things about art from watching Honey & Clover.
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The Borders bookstore in Davis recently put up the above signs along the shelves of their manga section. Apparently there is now a time limit of 10 minutes for reading manga. I didn’t attempt to test the system but I think it’s a “soft” limit. That is, Borders employees wandering around the store helping people might politely ask you to move along if they continually to see you sitting or standing there reading the same volume. I also didn’t bother to ask whether the 10 minutes starts over each time you pick up a different volume or an overall thing but I think it’s an overall period of time.

The timing of it coincides with the Christmas shopping season and the anticipation of more foot traffic, although I’m sure a number of complaints could have been another factor. Unlikely but still plausible. We’ll see if the signs stay up past January…

I want to know if this is an isolated phenomenon or if it’s happening across the country (or around the world). Has anyone else experienced a similar thing in their local bookstores recently? If so, is it limited to manga or do the advisories apply to the other sections as well?

I must be some kind of stupid because it took me until halfway into the third volume of Love Roma to actually understand why it’s called that. The four circles in the series’ logo should have been my first clue because the title has four kana when written in Japanese (ra-bu-ro-ma). I think the catalyst for my “a-ha” moment was looking at the title of chapter 15, “Another Love Roma”. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed the series so far and am looking forward to reading the final two volumes. Warning: the summary below is longer than most of my recent ones for single anime episodes.
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