Manga Publishers Part 2

Recently Ed Chavez of Vertical made a request for manga licensing suggestions. The main catch is that the manga must not have been published by any of the “big three”: Kodansha, Shogakukan, Shueisha. It’s an interesting request because almost all of the best mangaka end up working for one of those three publishers eventually. Some of the mangaka that I’m most eager to see get licensed were fortunate enough to have started their careers with one of them, like Minoru Furuya and Makoto Isshiki. Any ways, after pondering over the matter for a couple weeks I’ve come up with an arbitrarily ordered list of 16 titles that I’d buy if they were licensed.

Aqua Planet Chronicle by Masaru Ohishi (Shonen Gahosha, Seinen, 7 Volumes)

Emperor of the Land of the Rising Sun by Ryoko Yamagishi (Hakusensha, Shoujo, 8 Volumes)

Maihime Terpsichore by Ryoko Yamagishi (Media Factory, Josei, 10 Volumes)

Not Love, Delicious Food by Fumi Yoshinaga (Ohta Shuppan, Seinen, 1 Volume)

Onmyoji by Reiko Okano (Hakusensha, Shoujo, 13 Volumes)

Maestro by Akira Sasou (Futabasha, Seinen, 1+ Volumes)

Shindo by Akira Sasou (Futabasha, Seinen, 4 Volumes)

Swan II by Kyoko Ariyoshi (Heibonsha, Josei, 1+ Volumes)

Shakariki by Masahito Soda (Akita Shota, Shonen, 7 Volumes (Bunko))

Panorama Toukitan by Suehiro Maruo (Enterbrain, Seinen, 1 Volume)

Sachiko to Neko-sama by Nawoki Karasawa (Enterbrain, Seinen, 3 Volumes)

Otome Youkai Zakuro by Lily Hoshino (Gentosha, Seinen, 2+ volumes)

Journey to the End of the World by Kyodai Nishioka (Seirinkogeisha, Seinen, 1 Volume)

Himitsu by Reiko Shimizu (Hakusensha, Shoujo, 6+ Volumes)

March Comes in Like a Lion by Chika Umino (Hakusensha, Seinen, 2+ volumes)

Usagi Drop by Yumi Unita (Shodensha, Josei, 5+ volumes)

I’m certain there are many other titles worthy of consideration to be found in the pages of magazines like Ax, Comic Beam, Comic Birz, Manga Erotics F, Feel Young, Melody, and others.

Beginning of the end

The World is Mine Vol. 1-2 (Hideki Arai, Young Sunday)

I should start off by saying that this series is part of the criminals on the run genre though there seems to be a lot less running than you’d expect. By the end of the second volume one of our leads has already taken siege on a police station but let’s start from the beginning. The first volume does a good job of establishing our two main characters and documenting some of their crimes before becoming wanted felons. Toshi is an emotional explosives expert who isn’t afraid to disguise himself as a woman to evade detection. Mon can only express emotions through violence and believes power is everything, and he’s terrified of dogs. Their crimes include murder, rape, blackmail, and throwing a woman out of a moving vehicle.

However the most interesting part of our leads’ initial travels occurs when they stay over with an inelegant religious girl named Maria and her family. Normally you’d expect that either the leads will play along or just take everyone hostage but here Mon and Toshi often break character and revert to their true selves. The surprising thing is that nobody really suspects anything, at least not too seriously. Maria interacts with both sides of their personalities as if they were the same. It’s like despite her self-righteousness she’s actually gleefully accepting of odd behavior as long as said behavior doesn’t entail anything she disapproves of, which it occasionally does.

The second volume opens with a massive bear-like creature, referred to as the Higumadon, attacking an elementary school located out in the country-side. The location choice served as a good springboard for introducing the animal theme into the story, which I’m glad to say accompanies the use of a killer animal beast as a plot device. One of the teachers is scolding a group of children for being cruel to a cat but after the Higumadon attacks, the same teacher tries to use the cat to distract the beast from the children, exposing her as hypocrite. The only survivor of the attack is a child who was most concerned about the life of his electronic pocket pet. Almost sensing the reader will laugh at the child’s genuine feelings for a device that may not be any more important than a real pet the author has Mon declaring that all life is (equally) worthless on the next page.

Before reading this series I had never seen an explosion interrupted by a chapter break. It’s as if there’s an effort to iconize the violence and then dismantle it by showing the consequences. Consequences aren’t new or interesting but the iconizing aspect is, because it’s shown to be one of main motivators behind our leads’ actions. Toshi carries around a camera and takes pictures of some of their crimes. He begins to convince himself that he’s living in a work of fiction. After the school attack, Mon begins to consider the Higumadon a threat to his power, which he seems to measure in terms of media exposure. And so begins the police station takeover.

Ichi the Killer Vol. 6 (Hideo Yamamoto, Young Sunday)

When I discussed the previous volume I neglected to mention the introduction of the twins, two new henchmen working for Kakihara, because they merely seemed like a couple of additional hurdles for Ichi to surpass before reaching Kakihara. Unfortunately there’s no ignoring them this time, as much of this volume consists of two torture scenes where they are the administrators… of pain.

It’s no secret as to why I don’t want to write about them… they come across as narrow minded, misogynist, and sadistic thugs who stem from and extend genre conventions. Previously I thought the series was doing a great job of not coming across like a typical yakuza series. But I think that this is the precise reaction being sought by the author. Up until now it was getting harder and harder to even pretend this was a yakuza manga of any normal sort but now the twins are functioning as a commentary on both the genre and on the torture that has permeated the series. I mean the most direct feeling that the concept of twins promotes is that of redundancy and that’s exploited to full effect here. Our twins only challenge one another in superficial ways, like who can get the loudest scream out of their victim, and hence only encourage more of the same type of vile thinking.

Now I want to apologize if any one feels the above thoughts are trying to cover up how unpleasant the torture scenes are. After reading them I doubt any one will wonder why some consider this a horror series. They only have any meaning when considered in the context of the whole volume, particularly the confrontation between Kakihara and one of Jiji’s crew members at the end. What happens is that the crew member attempts to beat Kakihara into a pulp but he only succeeds at causing physical damage, not psychological damage. That is, Kakihara’s face becomes a bloody wreck but he’s thoroughly enjoying every second of the assault. Inevitably Kakihara is able to take the upper hand (literally). The contrast between this scene and the torture scenes is shocking and as such, it effectively gets across two different perspectives on pain.

Ichi is almost entirely absent from this volume save for one scene where he’s laid out on the floor of his apartment trying to ejaculate. Apparently the body-inspired moral conflict that he began experiencing last volume has rendered him into an entirely static state.

No title necessary

Black Lagoon Vol. 2 (Rei Hiroe, Sunday GX)

This was an improvement over the first volume if only because I’m intrigued by Rock and Revy’s relationship though the longer arcs probably helped as well. But I’m beginning to get annoyed with the constant falling back on out of place “types”, whether they are maids, nuns, killer orphan children, or Nazis.

I’d like to think that the author is only using such types because they offer more variety to the people we will enjoy watching getting shot up than generic tough guys. But considering the magazine this was serialized in, I’d say a more accurate answer is that the series is intended to be used as a release of frustrations for its readers. That is, the frustration towards the fact that cutesy archetypes that have taken hold over manga.

Though I’d also say the series is calling for a return to the violent action epics of the 80s and early 90s. Basically it’s the office worker equivalent to the girl gets transported to fantasy world genre. In this version we get tropical islands and the southern seas instead of a historical backdrop and a hot, rough but tragically flawed (and hence non-threatening) action heroine instead of one or more gorgeous men. I could go on but I don’t really find any of this interesting, at least not enough to continue reading.

RideBack Vol. 1 (Tetsuro Kasahara, Ikki)

This series seems to be a strange hybrid of sci-fi action and racing genres. The titular mechanisms themselves are like a hybrid of mecha and motorcycle. Though even stranger than that is the decision to have a former ballet dancer, named Rin, as the main character. It’s certainly not unusual for the lead of either genre to be female but they rarely come across as being out of place. It’s almost as if the author has decided he isn’t even going to pretend that his heroine could be viewed as threatening by readers. So really, this is like an ideal series for an older otaku… though not quite.

The story begins with Rin walking by her college’s Rideback club where after being introduced to the machines, ends up taking one of them out for a ride. You’d expect at this point the series would become either humorous as we watch Rin struggle to get used to it or serious so she can prove herself. What actually happens is that as soon as Rin rides off campus, she’s confronted by a police officer that demands she get off the Rideback. This leads to a conflict between police officers and students which in turn leads to the Rideback club members being marked by public security.

The second chapter introduces another club member, Tamayo, who is more of a typical biker girl. The friendly rivalry between Tamayo and Rin begins when Tamayo challenges Rin to a race. The race itself isn’t too interesting. Rin uses fancy dance moves with the Rideback to get the final edge and Tamayo gains respect for her, even becoming a fan by the end. However, what I liked about it was how it was used to acknowledge the unpleasant side of the political implications of the student protestors. When Rin accidently rides off the track and into a river an observer, Professor Yokoyama, the one who seems to be running the student association, indicates that Rin should be strong enough to save herself or else she should be left underwater any ways. Haruki, being a self-described non-political, instinctively feels he should save Rin but actually, she doesn’t need his help at all.

Putting this aside, I think the real story here, at least for now, is about Rin coming to terms with and embracing her interest in Rideback culture. Admittedly the way the Rideback world and the normal world are portrayed in relation to one another is fairly simplistic, even laughably so at times. It pretty much boils down to the contrast between Rin’s shower scenes and the bad odors associated with the Rideback club and between the two kinds of local photographers; the normal ones that enjoy taking pictures of popular girls and the Rideback fans that only take pictures of and salivate over machines, even the same machines that are being used to suppress them.