Fujoshi Grossie

Japan is a haven for independent comic publishers to publish whatever they want.  Even high profile artist such as Range Murata (Blue Sub #6, Last Exile) and Yoshitoshi Abe (Serial Experments Lain, Haibane Renmei) can easily release a self-published comic (doujinshi) at a convention and pretty much guarantee their whole printing will be sold out. 

ROBOT is a rare peak into the doujinshi industry, and it’s essentially a comic collection full of mini-stories by various manga artist friends of Murata he asked to “play”, big names and small.  Even better, it’s in full color, something rare for the most part in terms of manga.  Unfortunately the full color pages push the price tag way up (average 24.99-29.99).

Robot’s collection of short stories varies greatly with genres that range from sci-fi, horror, moe, historical fiction to even some things bordering on loli-con.   You can be grossed out by slightly disturbing mixes of cannibalism, sex, and human butchery by Mami Itou, or charmed by colorful flashes of childhood memories.  You can laugh at Sabe’s humourus sci-fi robot cyberpunk sparrow manga, or get pulled into Yoshitoshi Abe’s sci-fi action in Wasteland. There’s something in Robot for everyone, however the lack of a womanly touch is obvious with Robot missing a female artist element.  The exclusion pretty much makes Robot a Boys-Only club, but still, it doesn’t mean we girls can’t have fun with it either. (more…)

No, those Naruto characters didn’t just get flashes Kakashi’s face, or find out they’re gay, or whatever it is you more than likely thought caused it, they just found out how much money they’re making for someone other than their creator.

In a recent report, it has been announced that OneManga, an infamous scanlation aggregator site, gets over 4.2 million unique page views a day, and over a billion page hits a month.

This translates as a LOT of money for whoever owns the site, and a sources at Anime News Network say that the owner of OneManga is looking to sell the site for an 8 figure sum (that’s in the 10+ million dollars for those of you who have problems with numbers)

I personally read scanlations, and I know it’s bad, but it’s hard for me to say no when there are so many great series yet to be brought to North America, and I’ve gotten into the addictive habit of reading chapters each month.  I’m not about to tell people to stop reading scanlations, but I will say this:

STOP HELPING THESE BASTARDS MAKE A PROFIT OFF YOUR ADDICTION.

Can we all agree with this here?  Can we?  If you want your manga and anime to continue to make it over here, you need to change the hurtful addiction now.  Manga companies here are losing profits, and the result is dropping series, and releasing fewer and fewer titles every month.  Sure, there’s a possibility that you may not like these companies for some bizarre, more than likely immature reason, but still, if they sell a book, the original creator gets some money. (more…)

Revolutionary Girl Utena is the story of depressed young girl who has a prince show up after tragedy falls on her, and he in turn inspires her to live.  But he didn’t just inspire her to live, he inspired her to be like a prince by helping those in need.  Flash forward to her middle school and she suddenly finds herself in a series of mysterious private duels put on by the student council, the winner of which possesses the Rose Bride, a girl named Anthy Himemiya.  Anthy has a mysterious power to apparently revolutionize the world, little of which Utena understands or cares for.  Instead, she strives to help Anthy in her plight, and from there is dragged into the weird games the student council is playing.

That’s the simplified version, but the series is so much more and I’d be at a loss on how to even beginning explaining it all.

The manga is mainly void of most of the metaphors, allegories, and psychology the anime is known for, and instead gives you a slightly different version of Utena with a simplified plot and explanation of the ending.  It’s for this reason any fan of the anime should look into the manga to see a slightly different explanation of the story from BePapas, as well as seeing a lighter side of the student council as a whole.  Chiho Saito’s experience with shoujo manga for example makes Touga Kiryu a character much harder to hate than his anime counterpart, and in general Saito gives this manga a lighter, more shoujo feel versus an anime heavy with various dark themes. (more…)

Suzuki Yasushi is a Japanese artist not many have heard of. His biggest claim to fame here in the west would probably be artwork for games such as Zone of Enders: The 2nd Runner, or some Duel Masters card illustrations.

Suzuki’s art book, The Art of Yasushi Suzuki, contains various, handpicked pieces from Suzuki’s professional portfolio, most of which are book jacket illustrations for various Japanese books. This book is a bit of a novelty in the art books we have here in America because Suzuki Yasushi is one of the few Japanese illustrators to get an English language release of an art book without working on manga or widely known for his work in anime or video games, meaning he doesn’t have much of a fan base to sell this book to. Meaning people such as myself, avid art book collectors, or people actually familiar with his work, are more than likely the only ones who have bought it. (more…)

Tokyo Boys & Girls Vol 1
By Miki Aihara

Mimori Kosaka’s dream comes true when she’s accepted to the Meidai Attached High School and gets to wear their super-fashionable uniform!  She’s excited about having a fun freshman year, but things don’t turn out as effortlessly as she had hoped.

The school year starts off well when Mimori befriends the beautiful Nana, but things quickly sour for her when she is chosen to be the class representative.  Through a series of unfortunate events, she finds herself the focus of attention of three boys and her teachers for all the wrong reasons!  Mimori is reunited with Atsushi, a boy she knew in elementary school- and it turns out he despises her for allegedly bullying him in their grade school days.  In fact, he plans to exact a little revenge.

Tokyo Boys and Girls was one of Miki Aihara’s first manga, and it shows.  Where previously with Aihara’s Hot Gimmick we had a manga dripping wet with drama in every chapter, here we have a lack luster story of a girl who seems to be overblowing the state of her situation, and a story premise which just isn’t that interesting.  Funny enough the theme of a guy wanting revenge and taking it out on the main female character (a main premise in Hot Gimmick) shows up in this early Aihara work, but it’s nowhere near the level of page clenching drama that Hot Gimmick managed to pull off.  For Aihara’s credit however her maid character Mimori isn’t as spineless as Hot Gimmick’s Hatsume, but you still have to dislike a girl who based her high school selection solely on the school uniform.  Way to have your priorities straight, girl! (more…)

Pig Bride Volume 3
By KookHwa Huh and SuJin Kim

The momentum in Pig Bride volume 3 is increasing. Volume two left us at a cliffhanger where DoeDoe tried to steal Mu-Yeon’s mask, revealing to us readers a long awaited peek at just what’s under the mask.   Add to this that we’re told more about Mu-Yeon’s pass life with Si-Joon, and why exactly Mu-Yeon was cursed to wear that sad little (but still cute) pig mask, hiding her face from all.

To make things even better we’re given a proper introduction of the protagonist who wants to kill Si-Joon, meaning the introduction of a new character, all together these occurrences make Pig Bride volume 3 the most eventful volume yet in the series. (more…)

A question was brought up in a forum (yes, I spend way too much time on the internet) about why Naruto was so popular got me to thinking. I mean really thinking, on why this manga is topping our charts where other popular manga in Japan (such as One Piece) fall short over here.

I’m a girl who generally stays away from the shonen manga, but I make an exception for Naruto because I just can’t stay away. I hate long, drawn out fights, so things like shonen jump manga usually loose my interest after a couple volumes. I’ve tried Bleach, One Piece, Fairy Tail, etc, and I even quit Naruto for a while, but Naruto is the only one I’ve gone back too.

I’m not sure how it is in Japan, but we in the West have an obsession with a certain archetype called the lonely orphan. Looking at it from a psychological point of view we can relate to this archetype any losses we ourselves have experienced, be it loss of family, friends, relationships, attachments, etc, they’re all things that everyone must conquer or live with themselves as they grow up, the orphan just gets it all at once, and at a young age when they are most vulnerable. They also have an independence some envy in their lack of parents (recall an early comment Sakura made in vol 1 that pissed Sasuke off), and they like most of their readers are searching for a sense of purpose. Classic novels and books like Oliver Twists (a lot of Dickens even), Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn, Jane Eyre, Anne of Green Gables, Harry Potter, most fairy tales, all feature this sort of archetype, so it apparently doesn’t get old with us in our culture. (more…)

(Kaichou wa) Maid-sama!
By Hiro Fujiwara

Synopsis from the back of the Book:

The class president has a little secret she’s keeping from the sexy bad boy in school…

As President of the Student Council, the overacheiveing feminist Misaki really socks it into the guys in an attempt to make the former all-boys’ school attract a more female student body. But what will she do when the sexiest boy in class finds out Misaki’s after-school gig is a maid café?

That summary makes me want to hurl up my insides and decorate them in lace. Tokyopop, really? What sort of audience are you trying to attract with that summary? (more…)

Subaru by Soda Masahito

What started as a way to express emotions and help her dying twin brother remember things sets young Subaru on the demanding path of a professional ballerina. But on this journey Subaru has many things in the way of her goal with everything from rivalries, racism, and herself.

I don’t know jack about ballet outside of a random Nutcracker performance I witnessed when I was little, the anime Princess Tutu, and the delightful movie Billy Elliot. However, as sports oriented manga has shown before in the past you don’t need to know jack about the sport if the manga-ka is good at their job. They manage to pull you into the story of the athlete; their passion, their goals, and their struggles in being the best they can be, so much that you forget you just don’t get the sport to begin with. Subaru is such a manga that manages to do so, and with all things; ballet. It doesn’t bog you down with the technical aspects of the sport, instead it lets the reader just ride with the raw emotion and drive of the main character who the series is named for. And yeah, I’m calling ballet a sport. If you read this manga you’ll see ballet just as physically demanding as any other sport out there. (more…)

Heart no Kuni no Alice (Alice in the Country of Heart)

By Quinrose and Hoshino Soumei.

Alice in Wonderland themed manga anyone? Yeah… I know, like we don’t have enough of those in existance already.

During an outing in the garden with her sister, Alice is kidnapped by an odd man with rabbit ears who promptly jumps into a hole that seemed to appear out of no where. There the white rabbit man forces Alice to drink an odd concoction, and once that’s done announces she is now part of The Game (please… no you lost the game jokes please). She’s given the container and is told that it’ll fill with liquid with everyone she meets, and once it fills up she’ll be able to return home. Unfortunately the world Alice is now in is insane, confusing, and full of hot guys who develop some odd attraction to her because she’s a foreigner, and everyone seems to be playing The Game. (more…)