Rocket Bomber - reviews

If you’d rather skip my long commentary-slash-introduction, I’ve set up a link for exactly that purpose

My first thought was to define “Movable Feast”, since it was selected as the title for this grand exercise (and hopefully future, similar collaborations).

A Movable Feast has two direct antecedents, one historical and one literary: The first, and older, connotation is a feast day or celebration that has no fixed calendar date.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moveable_feast

This is the ‘Feast’ Hemingway himself referenced, in the quote that after his death was re-purposed as the title for his posthumous work: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

By extension, and of course since any use of the phrase in our modern day will be an obvious homage to Hemingway’s book, a Moveable Feast can also be considered a collection of literary personages-of-note: in his memoir, Hemingway includes sketches of Joyce, Stein, Pound, Fitzgerald, and even Aleister Crowley.

The Paris of Hemingway’s day also included expats like Aaron Copland, Isamu Noguchi, Pablo Picasso, and Man Ray — to say nothing of the native French authors, poets, literary lights and philosophical minds. In the world of art, Paris between the Wars spawned Modernism, Dadaism, and Surrealism — in the world of literature, the Lost Generation found its voice (and evidently, started signing publishing contracts). It was truly a magical time and place — or at least, it seems that way when seen through the rose-coloured glasses of memory, and presented to us by people who really know how to write.

So our adaptation and use of the term “A Manga Moveable Feast” could be considered as both a celebration with no fixed date (or location) and also a collection of voices and perspectives that may have no other common associations past the fact that they happen to cohabit the same space at the same point in time, and that they engage each other for so long as all inhabit the same moment. (But, of course, with manga.) (and trying to catch a little bit of that Paris magic.)

We can’t all sit around a pair of cafe tables on a sunny Paris sidewalk with fine wine and strong coffee (though that’d be nice) and I think cigarettes will never again have the same appeal and mass acceptance that they did in the 20th century (or the same veneer of sophistication) and I doubt the internet will foster the same conversations on truth, beauty, art, the nature of humanity and the paradox of modern civilization: capable of both uplifting and enabling us all to our greatest potential, while also simultaneously unleashing destruction on a scale never before imagined.

We live in a different time. We also can’t afford to just up and move to Paris, and Paris is no longer a cheap place to live (if ever it was) and so perhaps Hemingway’s Paris is a mythical place, never to again exist in our mundane reality because it never existed to begin with. (I also have growing doubts that every conversation in 20s Paris was pure enlightenment in a carafe — I’m sure most of it was gossip and flirting and grumbling and arguments and weather and politics, same as today)

In the place of interwar Paris, we have the internet — and this truly is a magical place.

It allows people to talk to each other while living anywhere (no need to move to the Left Bank) while simultaneously recording a written transcript of all those conversations — at least, ideally. So much of the talk on the internet is fleeting, and forgotten, and trivial to begin with, but with a little direction and a little planning, maybe it’s possible to bottle some of the internet (just the good stuff, for the most part) so it can be savoured later. All we need is an index and a easily searchable tag.

I’d like to thank David Welsh for providing the former, and of course I’m pleased that the “Manga Moveable Feast” title can serve as the latter.

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Sexy Voice and Robo
Writer & Artist: Iou Kuroda
Published by: Viz Media

400 (387 net) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to Left
Vintage: 2001-2003, originally appearing in IKKI magazine. US edition June 2005.
Release Schedule: Single volume, done in one.
Translation: Yuji Oniki
Adaptation: Kelly Sue DeConnick
Retouch and Lettering: Freeman Wong
Cover & Graphic Design: Izumi Evers
Editor: Eric Searleman

Publisher’s Rating: T+ for Older Teens
isbn 9781591169161

Rating: 4 out of 5

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Premise: A precocious teen who fancies herself a ‘spy’ (and who genuinely has great intuition and an inherent ability to read people, among other talents) falls in with some odd people: an old man who runs a shadowy organization from a booth in a restaurant, a mecha-obsessed fan boy who can be tricked into being her mostly-willing henchman, and a string of clients (and cases) that get her into trouble. She is Nico Hayashi, code-name “Sexy Voice”, and she’s only 14 — and soon to be in over her head…

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Review:

I’d be remiss if I began this review and didn’t mention the art.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Kuroda produced the entire book with a brush, not a pen. Also, the use of screentone is spare and a lot of the art is carried by ink — some pages (the best pages) are nothing but ink work:

Not that every critic (or reader) is going to notice the skill going into the art—or will care, as art is usually just half (maybe a bit less) of the draw of any given work. But “Sexy Voice and Robo” looks so different from nearly any other manga (or comic) — and I think by immediately exploding any expectations a reader might have for the work, it enables jaded manga readers to approach the book with new eyes, and invites new readers who have no experience at all with manga to pick up a manga volume for the first time.

This is a fat paperback (400 pages, just a shade shorter than Watchmen) and in a trim size that is a match for other, American, graphic novels (it’s a quarter-inch wider and only shorter by an eighth, or a sixteenth, or some other odd but small fraction).

Even back in 2005, this was intended to be something different, something more, than the mass-produced market-ready Shonen Jump Viz comics like Naruto and Yu-Gi-Oh. Not only did it break out of the mould set by Dragon Ball and other popular Viz properties, it was literally bigger: a thick two-volume omnibus in a larger format, with a distinctive black cover. This sucker popped on the shelf. Even in clearance racks and bargain bins (which, unfortunately, is where this volume ultimately ended up) it still stood out and of course, there was the ready draw of the title “Sexy Voice and Robo” which inspired one to at least pick up the book, and start to flip through it.

In other words, it likely should have sold better than it did. It’s not ninjas, though, or ultimate fighting tournaments, or an action comic in quite that vein, and it also certainly wasn’t a romance comic (the other main thread of manga in the Aughts; note: the first issue of Shojo Beat released the same month as Sexy Voice and Robo, June 2005) — so Kuroda’s work never found the audience that it should have.

Maybe it was too early — if released today it would be just as good (obviously) but also, I don’t think it’d be able to find its audience. In 2005 it was an obvious outlier — in format, in content, in presentation, in that it is a single-volume omnibus of what is often called an unfinished series (it works as is, though of course if Kuroda wants to write a third volume there are a number of readers on both sides of the Pacific waiting to read it) — on the one hand, now five years on, the market would be more accepting of the book as a lot of similar work is out there and does quite well, but that also shows that the market in 2010 is more crowded than the field in 2005, and Sexy Voice and Robo would not only be lost in the shuffle, but discounted as ‘old’ (even though it isn’t even a decade old yet, and it’s aged quite well).

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I’ve said a lot about the surroundings of the book without talking much about it’s insides.

Really, Sexy Voice and Robo is a great story, and moves quickly from it’s premise (14 year old genius-of-a-type Nico, and her odd circumstances) to strong action plots: kidnapping, death threats, terrorism, hit men, corporate espionage, stolen millions…

But then it loops back around from action plots to character studies: of the perps, of her employer, of Nico and Iichiro (the Sexy Voice and Robo of the title) — Since Nico is only 14, there isn’t a romantic subplot (though human relationships, including sexual relationships and their complications, are covered in the book) and while Robo gets co-billing he’s hardly a heroic figure. Though it is odd: Iichiro is an under-employed, toy-obsessed slob at the beginning of the book, and at the end, he’s the same slob — with the same flaws — but through his friendship with Nico (and it does seem to be genuine, no matter how it started or the, um, odd circumstances of all their interactions) he actually grows as a character.

This sort of nuance, though, is one of the reasons I love the book.

It’s a great mix of art and story and character, and I can only imagine what it’s reception would have been if Kuroda had been an American comicker in 2008 rather than a manga-ka in Japan in 2001. For the life of me I can’t imagine why this book isn’t better received, or why it tetters now on the very edge of being out of print, to the extent that some bloggers & fans who wanted to participate in the Manga Moveable Feast had to demure (or barely made it in by the deadline) because they couldn’t quite get their hands on a copy in time.

(I bought my copy 9 months ago — but I plucked it out of a clearance bin at a local bookstore. Special Bonus: I bought it for $3. Alas: that means it was already on it’s way out of the regular distribution chain last year. Such is the fate of all print, but a scant four years to prove yourself? —well, actually, four years is a pretty good run…)

The work is undervalued and so I’m happy to be a part of an effort to focus attention on the book.

I don’t know how, or if, this kind of exercise might promote similar works, or even what the impact might be on Sexy Voice and Robo — sure, it’d be nice if this led to a spike in sales, maybe even going so far as to inspire a second printing of the Viz edition. But I love the fact that we can have this conversation on the internet, and I look forward to the next property to be considered by the Manga Moveable Feast roundtable.

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Conclusion: Sexy Voice and Robo gets 4 marks out of 5 — only 4 marks because it’s not quite for everyone (only for those folks who, you know, like mysteries and character studies and smart, saavy heroines who still have flaws; and who can appreciate some really excellent art, and who don’t mind that occasionally a story is about the now, and about the process and the journey, and that the story may not have an ending. yet.)

And Sexy Voice and Robo has my strong recommendation, whether you like manga or comics or not. In fact, now that I’ve rediscovered the book and pulled it out of its storage box, the first thing I’m going to do is take it into work and start passing it around. Several of my co-workers are also going to love this book, I’m sure.

A semi-regular reader of this blog will note 3 things:

“Wait, wasn’t this feature called 26 Weeks with Rosetta Stone?”

“Um, that last update was six weeks ago, dumbass, you’re actually on week 7.”

“That reminds me: You are such a slacker, slackass — you haven’t posted an update in seven weeks. Did you blow $500 to post a few pictures, kinda-sorta-take the first lesson and then drop it?”

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Yes, and yes, and no.

Like anyone else, there are other demands on my time. While some of these are common to almost all [work] and others more idiosyncratic [blog, beer, anime, manga] I have to say that, yeah, I’ve been ignoring RS Japanese almost as assiduously as I used to avoid class, back at uni. Since I’m the only one who suffers, one has to wonder why — and I’ll be able to answer that question after I go in to work the 3pm-11pm shift at the bookstore, down a couple of beers while reading a hundred pages of text (or 200 of manga) and fall asleep after an episode and a half of Le Chevalier D’Eon. Again. (It’s a good show; I’m nodding off because I’m tired — and the beer doesn’t help — so don’t take my comments as an indictment.)

You’ll note there’s not much room there for writing blog posts, even, let alone the amount of time necessary for language lessons.

I need to find, or make, an hour’s worth of time in my schedule every day for Rosetta Stone, to make the most of the both the product and the opportunity it provides. As far as a review of the product, though: Isn’t an amount of hesitancy and procrastination to be expected from most users?

Armed with a blatant disregard for the included documentation (which I’m sure is lovely and to which I’ll resort when I get stuck, but one of the things I’d like to test is how idiot-resistant the product is) along with my preferred means for ripping audio CDs to mp3, and also a stopwatch, the first thing in my nifty new Rosetta Stone Japanese Box that I tackled were the audio CDs.

Personally, for my mp3 needs I like an older, free program called Audiograbber [link] which uses LAME mp3 encoding [also free, link, and which can be downloaded from either sourceforge or the Audiograbber site] and when running on a computer with modern CD/DVD optical drives and a decent (3 year old in this case) processor the two in combination can rip a CD in about a fifth of the time it takes to actually listen to it.

(Audiograbber can also use different encoders but I’ve had no problem with LAME, and as stated: free)

Audiograbber connects to freedb.org [wiki] to check for the track titles and other disc info [thankfully Freedb is still under GNU, which is nice considering the CDDB/Gracenote/Sony debacle, and so this free search function still works — and so Audiograbber is able to ID the discs, track info and all, at a click of a button]. Some other user or users (or perhaps, Rosetta-chan herself) have entered all the requisite info for the Rosetta Stone discs, but naming conventions on Freedb are inconsistent — I had to do some minor tweaks to ensure file-naming consistency (and so that a mp3 player would be able to default to playing the tracks in the proper order) but that only took a minute. After that, it was just a matter of swapping the CDs and figuring out what else to do for the next 65 minutes. (hint: I started writing this post)

And Please Note: Did you hear me complain about DRM or restrictions or hassles in converting the audio to mp3 or anything like that? The answer is no. Straight up, no problems. At no point was I prompted for a code or a password. All it took was about an hour of my time. Kudos to Rosetta Stone Ltd. for making this matter this simple: a technical problem rather than a legal one.

Also: 12 discs, no errors — I know there are occasionally manufacturing errors (though nowhere near as many as claimed by customers when they attempt to return product in stores) and while my laptop stuttered slightly while reading the last three tracks on level 2, unit 3, it wasn’t a irrecoverable error and it stalled the whole process for all of 5 minutes, before I could correct it.

And of course, someone who doesn’t have an mp3 ripper (let alone a preferred program) can still listen to the CDs — that’s 30 year-old technology right there, and nothing wrong with it; I’m just weird in that I haven’t played an actual CD for 5 (or maybe 6) years — I always rip them to mp3 files first.

At 128kbps, the 249 audio tracks found on the 12 CDs (4 each for the three levels) take up 612 megs and constitute 11 hours and 7 minutes of audio.

Installation of the base software took just a few minutes; adding on each of the three Japanese language levels took a bit longer. All in all, I want to say it took just a half hour but I was tired (this was right before bed) so I wasn’t as assiduous in timing this portion; nodding off (half-asleep, and smidge over half-drunk) I still managed to install the program without touching a single piece of documentation. …OK, so I had to touch one piece of card stock: the one with the activation code on it.

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The following evening I finally had a chance to try out my shiny new toy.

There are options for allowing more than one user on the software (just create another user name and sign in) which is handy — if you’re planning to travel it would be nice if your chosen travelling companions could also speak the language (or at least bothered to learn some basics). RS has set things up so everyone can learn at their own pace, with independent tracking — even if they’re all on the same machine.

For my needs, it might be interesting to set up two ‘users’ so I can run two tracks simultaneously: one for learning the kana and kanji, and one for speaking Japanese — a thought that hadn’t even occured to me before I saw this popup window while starting the program the first time

So if all you want to do, say, is read Japanese Manga in the original you could just take that fourth option “Reading and Writing” and go with it. Similarly, if you only had two weeks before your flight and wanted to rush through the speaking/listening portions without getting bogged down in the convoluted writing system, it looks like RS anticipated that use as well.

Concerning the hardware: The included headset is plug-n-play, a breeze to install (Windows recognized it right away) and additionally,

the Rosetta Stone software picked up my current mic, so if I wanted to I could use whatever I’m most comfortable with. Even if you are currently using a headset for the pronunciation lessons, but would rather skip it (maybe you’re dragging the laptop to the coffeeshop or library for an afternoon) there is the option to turn off the feature temporarily. I’ll leave a review of the speech-recognition-part of package for next week; for now, let’s go over some first impressions and post a few images.

Each level is split into units, and each unit into at least five parts that deal with five language competencies: Pronunciation, Vocabulary, Grammar, Reading/Writing, or Speaking/Listening — or some combination of these.

(The very first time you run the program, RS runs a nice little intro video explaining the course)

The lessons are immersive: the only language in the lesson is Japanese, and you either pick it up fast or learn by guessing (given the solo, self teaching aspect: many questions in the first Vocabularly unit were multiple choice). While a straight line graph (like on the ‘title page’ pictured above) may make the course seem short and fairly linear, let me just point out that this is the first unit of four in Japanese Level One, and each little check box is a bit more involved than the included time-estimates would indicate. Sure, they say a grammar lesson is ‘about 10 minutes’ but my guess is we’ll be coming back to this several times before we ‘get’ it.

Fortunately, you can repeat each lesson as many times as you’d like. At least to start off with, the concepts are presented clearly and repetition and reinforcement make it easy to pick up the gist of what’s being taught. Retention is a different matter, and how each lesson builds toward overall language proficiency is one of those things that no one would be able to tell from just a day — or even a week (which is why I’m willing to give this 6 months).

Since the very first part of Level 1 > Unit 1 > Lesson 1 is a pronunciation exercise, we’ll cover the included harware and speech recognition next week. Following that, I’ll see if I can describe how learning a language with a logographic writing system and a syllabary rather than an alphabet differs from, say, learning a western European language (or even Greek and Russian).

(I’ll try to have these posted on Mondays, but as you’ve already guessed it depends on my work schedule.)

This wasn’t an advance reader’s copy (more’s the pity) but as readers of the Del Rey Manga Newsletter might have noted, it was still free: I won a random drawing and UPS dropped off a rather unexpected copy of Shugo Chara earlier this week. (I say unexpected because I myself only skimmed the April newsletter and kind of missed my own name in it.) So here’s the disclaimer: if you think it skews the bias, take the “free” part into account.

Shugo Chara, vol. 1
Published by: Del Rey Books
Story and Art by Peach-Pit (Banri Sendo & Shiguko Ebara)

208 (190) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2006. US edition April 2007.
Translation: June Kato
Adaptation: David Walsh
Lettering: North Market Street Graphics
Publisher’s Rating: Teen, ages 13+

Rating: 3 out of 5

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Premise: A wish from your heart to be more than what you seem on the outside can take the form of a “guardian character” — small, cute guardians who can give you skills, confidence, or even powers you didn’t know you had.

Synopsis:

Amu Hinamori is the coolest kid in the fourth grade at Seiyo Elementary. At least, that’s how it looks on the outside. But inside she’s just a shy kid who still isn’t sure what’s she’s supposed to be or how to act with other people. And then one morning, she wakes up to find three colourfully painted eggs in her bed, and soon discovers that inside each egg is a Guardian Character, an aspect of herself as she would like to be.

With her new-found abilities, Amu should be happy — but she doesn’t like the sudden changes or being pulled pulled in so many new directions, and though she’s told these are all aspects of who she could be, she doesn’t quite believe that yet either.

There are some other important plot points, but let’s break those down in the review:

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Review:

The rating (please flip your copy of the book over to look at the back cover) is 13+. Let me start with the most obvious disconnect: the main character is 11. She’s about to enter fifth grade, so she’s going to be 12, but there’s no way she’s older than that. The story does have certain appeal no matter what your age, but I personally would peg the target demographic as the kids who are buying the Hannah Montana albums. (That’s 10 or 11, or younger… for those of you who just said “who?”)

My guess would be that Del Rey maybe doesn’t have a lower age rating? (Or didn’t want to use one.) I just feel that this title may have a little trouble finding an audience. Some fans of Peach-Pit will buy the first one, but this is different enough from DearS and Rozen Maiden that I’m not sure of the overlap there.

The story is about a young girl, who feels phony in how she dresses and the act she puts on for others, but who manages to find new aspects of herself with the help of übercute chibi Guardian Characters (the Shugo Chara of the manga title). But sometimes change is hard, and we can’t always be sure what we want. This is even more true in Amu’s case, as the effects of not one but three meddling guardians often lead to more complications, rather than happily ever after. Sure, suddenly it seems she can do anything but when she comes back to normal she can be embarrassed by what she did or said when a guardian was helping her to be “more herself”.

By itself, that premise would work pretty well, and we could follow Amu as she grows as a person and discovers things about her character and “characters” through the modest challenges of various school activities. It would have been a nice (if saccharine) slice-of-life comic.

What we have grafted on to that baseline is first, a shoujo drama about the student council (perhaps confusingly referred to as the School Guardians). Amu is selected to be a member of the School Guardians, and there she meets a new friend Nadeshiko Fujisaki, the VP. The President is the cute Tadese Hotori, whom Amu has a huge crush on. The gimmick for the council is that they are named after playing cards: Tadase holds the King’s or “K” Chair, Nadeshiko is the Queen’s or “Q” Chair, and similarly there are positions for Jack and Ace (unlike say, poker, the ranking here appears to be K-Q-J-A). The School Guardians are held in high esteem by other students, which is odd because it doesn’t seem like they do much but have tea parties.

If we were to follow this plot line we’d have a mostly harmless bit about adapting to new roles, & learning how to deal with first loves and crushes while staying best friends forever with the new gal pal, and given the ages of the characters it would all be very cute and chaste, with maybe a first kiss (on the cheek, of course) and some heavy handholding.

Overlayed on top of that however, is the shades-of-Card-Captor-Sakura mystic quest element. The Guardian Characters are born of eggs. Each person’s heart has an egg, though as people get older the egg and it’s character sort of fade away, unused. Some eggs are good, but some (X eggs, in the comic) are bad and could change the character of their owner into something darker.

The School Guardians, like Amu, all have Guardian Characters (though they just have one each) and part of their mission is to hunt down bad eggs and seal them, or destroy them if things really get out of hand. Amu is very special to have three Guardian Characters, so of course the School Guardians want her to join them to help seal the bad eggs, while also searching for the mysterious Embryo (an egg that can grant any wish) before a rival, presumably evil cabal finds it first.

Amu has already had run ins with this other group as one of their agents, the wily catboy Ikuto, had tried to steal Amu’s eggs before they hatched. Though of course Ikuto is also pretty (though dark, where Tadase is blond) and the way he is behaving toward Amu is absolutely scandalous.

It would be hard to imagine how all this could be more complicated. The three plots are tightly wound together, so a single scene or action beat often serves to advance all three at once, but it still took 190 pages to just introduce characters and concepts, and we didn’t even get the main plot device running (bad eggs, gotta catch ‘em all) until 10 pages from the end. Of course the story ends on a cliffhanger.

The art is great, and despite the plot is part of what raises my overall rating, though with a caveat. The character designs, the wardrobes, the fact that each important character is going to have at least one cute pint-sized sidekick… you might guess where this is going. If you were a fan of the cute & sweet side of CLAMP, or of chibi-fests like Snow Fairy Sugar or Di Gi Charat, then you will be able to enjoy this more than a fan of, say, western comics or most other manga.

This isn’t my cup of chai, but I can recognize a well done example even if I don’t particularly like the genre; 3 marks out of 5.

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Check out the art for yourself: Del Rey has an eight page preview.

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

The weekly columns are fun, and the watch lists are also certainly an important part of our mission here, but I really should be getting back to our bread-and-butter; dare I say, our whole raison d’être: the comic reviews!

Genshiken: the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture, vol. 8
Published by: Del Rey Books
Writer & Artist: Kio Shimoku

208 (182) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2005. US edition March 2007.
Translation & Adaptation: David Ury
Lettering: Michaelis/Carpalis Design
Publisher’s Rating: Older Teen, ages 16+

Rating: 4 out of 5

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Premise: The geek field guide turns it’s attention to geek love. [*heart*] …but with a side of yaoi dojinshi.

Synopsis:

Oguie isn’t quite ready to admit her feelings for Sasahara. She likes him, he likes her, but both are a bit socially awkward and shy — so much so that even after advanced plotting and a fair amount of prodding from all of their friends, it still looks like the relationship will never go anywhere.

Is it just that she’s shy, or is there something deeper that prevents Oguie from responding to Sasahara’s confession?

(some things from here on in might be considered spoilers)

##

Ah, geek love. The furious blushing, the uncomfortable silences, the unshakable conviction that even when opportunity knocks, she’s coming for your roommate, not for you.

Volume 8 isn’t the best place to just jump in, but this volume almost works as a stand-alone story; most readers will be fine even if they haven’t been following the series thus far. The focus is on one of the newer members, the manga artist Ogiue, and her struggles on the way to love as she comes to terms with all her emotional baggage: a past that haunts her, a future in art that seems to elude her, and a love she can’t bring herself to accept…

Hey, who spilled all this shoujo crap in my perfectly good otaku paean/parody? [*grin*]

Actually, it’s still the Genshiken you might all remember; a touch of “romance”, if we can use that word for this manga, has always been a part of the series. The first couple, Kousaka and Saki, outlined the problems two people have—or, that Saki has—when her love interest is an otaku but she isn’t. The dynamics and comedy potential of that pairing was the hidden engine in the first few volumes, to the point where one might almost have thought Saki was actually the main character. The next time a couple of characters got together it wasn’t as much of a plot point; since the two had complementary interests (cosplay) — it was pretty obvious. A “discovery” B-plot was all that relationship could manage.

This third go-around is a little different, in that we are dealing not just with geek love, but with geek love denied. These two are both so socially inept that it’s no wonder they need all the interference from their friends that they can get. The oddly touching part is that the relationship only seems to work when the two embrace what is geeky, about themselves and about each other, and figure out that they don’t need to be “normal” to be happy.

This is actually my favourite storyline in the series so far: yes, a lot of the humour is in the overall “geek field guide” premise for the series, and for some folks just seeing the culture (perhaps for the first time) is going to be the best part of the manga — but I feel that in this volume we’re moving beyond that, finally seeing at least a couple of these characters as real people with real problems. They happen to be manga and anime related problems, but still. (and the humour is still there; I almost shot beer out my nose when I saw Sasahara reference dating sims, trying to figure out how to handle a real-life encounter — )

Sasahara and Oguie are also a pair of characters with whom the readers could easily identify. Back in volume one, he was a fan but not yet an otaku, and his story arc takes us from an entry point into the odd subculture all the way to gainful employment in the industry. Oguie, when introduced in volume 4, bluntly stated that she hated all otaku, especially other female fans. Her story arc has been one of acceptance, finding both personal confidence and professional competence while coming to terms with her own “inner otaku”. (or should I say, “inner fujoshi“)

The climatic scene between these two works even better if you’ve read volume 7 and recall that recent-graduate Sasahara just landed a job as a manga editor, so it is not just a meeting where a girl shyly shows off her drawings to the guy she likes, but one where an aspiring manga-ka is presenting her work and asking the opinion of a professional editor. There’s a lot of depth to the scene.

Like all good things (or natural disasters) of course Genshiken can’t last forever. I understand that volume 9, currently scheduled to release at the end of November, is the last volume. With the series having survived one “reboot” I can understand that perhaps it is time to let the Genshiken go, but it seems like just now, in the penultimate volume, we were finally getting past the jokes to see something of the characters. I feel hesitant to leave this odd world writer/artist Shimoku has invented.

Volume 8 isn’t perfect, but works very well even on it’s own. 4 marks out of 5.

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

Errant Story, vol. 1
Published by: Keenspot Entertainment
Writer & Artist: Michael Poe

134 (127) pages.
Original Language: English
Orientation: Left to right
Vintage: June 2004

Rating: 4 out of 5

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Premise: Swords, sorcery, and sarcasm, with healthy doses of ninja-like assassins, gunplay, and humour, a sprinkling of anachronisms and fourth-wall assaults, and a touch more satire and social commentary than you’d expect from what at first blush merely seemed a light-hearted RPG-fantasy-influenced black comedy.

Too wordy? Hm. How about this: Psycho Teen Mage Chick vs the Universe.

Synopsis:

Meet Meji Hinadori. She’s a half elf, a student of magic who is on the verge of graduating from her academy. …at least she would be graduating, if she hadn’t slacked her way through most of the past year and was about to fail miserably. Her only hope is to get an ‘A’ on her senior project. She’s a slacker, not stupid, but her prospects seem pretty dim.

In a flash of inspiration, she recalls an old school rule that states if a student can challenge and defeat the entire school faculty, then they are automatically graduated with honours. Of course, to win out over a whole ivory tower of crotchety old mages, one would need the power of a demigod, at the very least — and with that much power and to spare, the risk of eventually becoming corrupted by it and enslaving the whole world…

Well, Meji is already a tad corrupt, so she decides to make enslaving all reality her senior project. It’s a handy side benefit that she’ll also graduate.

Helping, or at least commenting sarcastically, is Meji’s familiar Ellis, a talking winged cat. Ellis is nigh indestructible, which Meji proves on a fairly regular basis as Ellis’s running commentary usually goads her into blasting the housecat-demon with a handy lightning bolt spell or three.

A quick trip to the school library (and a flashy [*cough*] “divination” spell) provides the lead she needs to actually pull off this mad project, if only it weren’t a continent away and in a country run by mage-hating religious fanatics.

You didn’t think that would stop her, did you? This is just the first chapter.

The rest of volume one follows Meji on her “heroic” quest, and introduces two traveling companions for her. The first, Jon, is a Gewehr Assassin and general bad-ass who becomes a bodyguard of sorts after a rather complicated introduction & re-introduction, and for reasons largely his own; the second is Ian, another mage on a similar (but more noble) quest for knowledge. After a hundred or so pages of action, there is also a little handy exposition toward the end of chapter four, outlining in thumbnail sketch the larger struggles ahead as both the characters and the plot take a necessary breather before volume two.

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Review:

First off, the writing is excellent. Each character’s voice is pitch perfect, the dialog trips along like this was a Whedon or Sorkin TV show, and the fantasy universe being built up here is both true to the form–with elves, mages, talking cats–while simultaneously poking fun at all of the hallowed precepts that are the supposed unshakable foundations of the genre.

It’s a fantasy, but written with modern sensibility. Amazingly, it’s done with almost no pop-culture references; other comics that take this route (and there are quite a few webcomics trying) usually pick a single property to spoof (RPG World, Order of the Stick) or are dropping names and quotes in every other panel so you know (wink wink nudge nudge) that the author is ‘making funny’.

Poe manages to capture that feeling while making it all work within the context of the book. And he also makes the jokes work while he’s doing it. Not only does this give us chuckle-inducing dialog on every other page, it adds to the unique setting of Errant Story: here is a fantasy world as complex, jaded, and absurd as our modern one. It’s high satire, worthy of literary study… though of course it’s also profane, lewd, coarse, crass, and damn damn funny.

I wouldn’t call Errant Story a comedy, though. Action and [*gasp*] story are in full evidence as well. There is a building plot with numerous forces and factions hinted at; though not a classic struggle of good against evil, since it looks like everyone is really just acting in their own self interest. We’ll have to see where all the foreshadowing is leading us in future volumes.

Poe is both writer and artist, and for the most part I can’t fault his artwork either. (go see for yourself at www.errantstory.com) Two issues we run into with the art aren’t faults, per se, but artefacts of the adaptation from screen-to-page. First, all the gutters are black, sort of like the flashback convention adopted by most manga titles. This isn’t bad but rubs me the wrong way, and distracts in some cases from the art on the page. The other thing is that a 1024×768 or 1600×800 monitor is going to give us a lot of lovely fine detail that doesn’t always make it to the 5×8 page, at least not in this printing. Some of our screentones become smudgetones and whole pages roll by where shading isn’t evident at all, and it looks like it was all done in ink. This isn’t bad either, but having seen the computer image originals, I know the book isn’t supposed to come across as that dark, or stylized.

This one is definitely worth seeking out — and it may take a little searching, unless you buy direct from the author — but it comes with my hearty recommendation, and aside from printing issues would have received my highest rating. As it is, I give volume one 4 marks out of 5.

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe
Published by: Sterling
Writer: Roy Thomas, with audio commentary by Stan Lee
Artist: reproductions of covers and panels by Kirby, Ditko, Romita, and the rest of the Marvel bullpen

200 (189) pages, hardcover.
Vintage: 2006

Rating: 3 out of 5

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Premise: Excelsior! via 50 “Marvel Moments” (seminal issues, and a few multi-part series) this book captures Stan “in action” over his many decades at Marvel (’41-’97 are covered in the book), though with an obvious emphasis on his work from the 60s.

Synopsis:

The book features a nifty electronic gadget, affixed to one side of the over-long back cover so it is always there to the right of whichever pages you happen to be reading. The gadget allows the selection and playback of any one of 68 audio clips, where Stan the Man can tell you himself what they were thinking when first writing and drawing the comics in question.

The book isn’t so much a history of Marvel itself, but more a series of Stan’s career highlights: starting with his first writing credit (Captain America #3) to his own early co-creations (with Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) the Fantastic Four and Spider-man, and covering how both the Marvel cast and Universe continued to grow under Stan’s tenure as editor-in-chief and occasional writer.

Included are descriptions of the origins of FF and Spidey, along with the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, the Avengers, Sgt. Fury (later Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D), the X-men (both in ‘63 and the re-launch in ‘75), Dr. Strange, Daredevil, the return of Cap (as he joins the Avengers in ‘64) and even the origin of some villians, noteably Dr. Doom & the Sub-Mariner (a Golden Age character re-introduced as a foil for the Fantastic Four).

Oh, and the last time Captain America died, back in ‘69. What, you thought the recent Civil War was the first time they pulled stuff like this?

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Review:

One of the best features of the book is the audio commentary.

One of the worst features of the book is the audio commentary.

…if you didn’t happen to like Stan Lee as a speaker, or perhaps got a little sick of the Stan-central focus of the book. Also, there isn’t a headphone jack (mercifully, there is volume control) so if you’re listening to Stan talk about why the Avengers line-up continually changes, so is everyone else in the room.

Stan deserves a lot of credit, obviously, but since his commentary reflects the memories and experience of just one of many Silver Age comic creators, (especially if you’ve looked into comics history of this era) it often seems one sided. A complete noob might read this book, and come away thinking that Stan was entirely responsible for anything innovative or dramatic about a whole decade of comics.

He probably was… but no other viewpoint is given. The author, Roy Thomas, does a good job with the text though, so there is a fair amount of background presented (usually 2-3 pages) to go along with one of Stan’s 20-30 second sound bites. Also, the panels and pages included are great. Some are chosen for the dialog bubbles more than the artwork, but seeing classic Marvel 4-color action, even in small snips and bits, is almost worth the cover price by itself.

About that price… Originally, this book listed for $50; and even a full-color 200 page book, with gizmo, was a bit over-valued at that price — at least for me. Quite a few other folks agreed with me, I suspect, because now 6 months after it first appeared on shelves, you can find it here and there for $15 or $20, which seems a bit more reasonable.

One for the fans, or for folks looking to pick up a little history, or perhaps for someone who has enjoyed the recent onslaught of Hollywood adaptations from Marvel’s back catalog, and wanted more insight on where these iconic heroes got their start.

And, thankfully, you don’t have to listen to Stan if you don’t want to — the book holds up pretty well on it’s own without the electronic add-on. 3 marks out of 5.

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

In the Starlight, vol. 1
Published by: Netcomics
Writer & Artist: Kyungok Kang

224 (216) pages.
Original Language: English
Orientation: Left to right
Vintage: 1987. US edition February 2007.
Translation: Jennifer Park
Production: Ecomix Media Company
Cover Design: purj
Editors: Nick Aires & Philip Daay
Publisher’s Rating: for ages 13+

Rating: 3 out of 5

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Premise: High school girl with her head in the stars, figuratively, finds herself with her head in the stars, literally.

Synopsis:

Shinhye Yoo is an ordinary student, maybe a bit more serious than most, maybe just a bit cuter than others, but other than an intense interest in astronomy inherited from her college professor Father, she’s no different than most girls her age.

Donghoon Soo is interested in Shinhye, and asks her out. As he gets to know her better, though, he sees that she and her family are ideal for a program run by his uncle, a bigwig of some sort in the Ministry of Science. (We’ll set aside for the moment how a high school kid is involved with top secret government programs, let alone held in high enough regard that he has influence over policy. Maybe it’s covered in volume two?)

Donghoon convinces Shinhye to host Sarah, a foreign exchange student. Sarah is a little different though… just how different will become very clear to Shinhye before the end of the volume.

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Review:

Comparisons to To Terra… [previously reviewed] are going to be inevitable, so let me clear that smoke out of the room first. First, the other is manga while In the Starlight is manhwa, and To Terra pre-dates Starlight by a decade. Takemiya’s work is a space opera set in the distant future, while Kang’s comic is a light drama with hints of romance set in a present day (80s, at the time) Korean high school (at least for now).

What the two share is a stylistic sensibility (both have been influenced by the same predecessors, I think) and a general sci-fi overlay on what are essentially human dramas. That and a little ESP. The comparisons are inevitable because the two properties were each pulled from a little deeper in the past archives (20-30 years back) and came out in US editions within a month or so of each other.

I’m not going to say one is better than the other. [*sigh*] Though I suppose I have, since we do rank these on a 5 point scale — but the good points of one should not be immediately taken as faults of the other. So there.

Enough with Terra and the distant future. What do we have here?

“In the Starlight” is a intriguing title, obviously an earlier work but from an artist that shows great potential. (I’m not familiar with Kang’s later work but I invite anyone who is to let us know in the comments.) In fact, in some cases the retro, “cuter”, unpolished style allows the book get away with story points that might otherwise be cringe-worthy: Flying saucer? Well OK, yeah, that fits.

It’s easy to get caught up in the style and story of writer/artist Kang’s book. The characters are all likeable and engaging (even the “villain” in his own bishounen way) and it seems like everyone but Shinhye has some secret hidden in their backstory that portends even more drama for future volumes.

This is a vision of the sci-fi future that was set up by Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., a more innocent view untainted by the X-Files, Aliens, and other 90s pop-culture. Volume one serves merely as a introduction and launching point; later volumes will no doubt take us deeper into the romantic future-that-was.

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

Hayate the Combat Butler, Vol. 2
Published by: Viz Media
Writer & Artist: Kenjiro Hata

192 (182) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2005. US edition February 2007.
English Adaptation: Mark Giambruno
Translation: Yuki Yoshioka & Cindy H. Yamauchi
Touch-up Art & Lettering: Freeman Wong
Design: Yukiko Whitley
Editor: Kit Fox
Publisher’s Rating: Older teens, ages 16+ (strong language, realistic and fantasy violence, and crude humor)

Previously Reviewed: Vol. 1
Rating: Upgraded, 2 out of 5

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Premise: Hayate, the Combat Butler. Through a series of misunderstandings, a young man down on his luck gets a break (we won’t call it a lucky break, yet) and goes to work as a Butler-slash-bodyguard.

Synopsis:

Hayate Ayasaki is 16. He works as a butler. His employer is Nagi Sanzenin, one very rich little girl. Though despite the size of the mansion and all of Nagi’s wealth, there are only 2 other staff: Maria the maid and Klaus, the head butler.

Hayate hasn’t been employed long: the first book, you know, 180-some pages, nine chapters, all that? That just covered how he got hired, and then his first day at work.

And the day isn’t over yet: We wade into the second volume with the return of the killer nursing robot, #8, who demands a rematch with Hayate and Tama (the talking 300 lb. tiger). Actually, this serves as a fair re-introduction of the characters while providing a neat little action sequence along with a punchline.

After the appetizer, we get to the meat of the book, a sequence of episodes each of which introduces a new character or two, and explains their relationship to the young Miss Nagi. She has a few friends her own age, all of whom happen to also be filthy rich (makes sense) and it turns out she’s not the only member of the Sanzenin as might be assumed; she has a grandfather (who lives at the “main” house, which looks likes a small principality) and numerous, more distant relatives. As the closest blood relation, Nagi is the currently the only heir, but Grandpa is a bit eccentric. I sense a major plot point coming… which I won’t spoil for you.

Aside from the disposition of the inheritance, which is put to one side for the remainder of the book, episodic hijinks continue in much the same ways as volume one, but with Hayate’s situation more settled (though he still owes 150 million yen) he seems to be in a better position to handle it. The last chapter begins ramping it up again as a lead in for volume 3, with a new character and a reveal on the last page [cue dramatic “dum, dum, DUM”] that isn’t all that much of a surprise but is as close to a cliffhanger as we’ll get.

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Review:

More combat and more housework for our Hayate, along with slower pacing and an opportunity to explore character as opposed to merely being as zany as possible, makes volume two a vast improvement over volume one.

Still only giving it 2 marks, but really: big improvement, I’m impressed.

Most of my complaints about the first volume have been addressed, so I suspect someone at Shogakukan is exerting a little more editorial pressure. Or who knows? Maybe it just took writer/artist Hata a little longer to find the right groove, or it’s just an illusion caused by how the individual installments were pulled together into the tankoban.

The art is adequate but not exceptional, and works just fine for a light comedy. The story, likewise, is adequate but not exceptional and aside from the so-wacky-it-must-be-manga premise, is much like any other action-comedy. It’s a quick read, nothing substantial but just fine as an afternoon snack.