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GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class, Vol. 4

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By Satoko Kiyuduki. Released in Japan by Houbunsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Manga Time Kirara Carat. Released in North America by Yen Press.

It may seem like forever, but in reality we’re getting two new volumes by Kiyuduki-san this fall, with this and the 3rd Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro. This series ended up being far more popular in Japan (much to the consternation of Western fans, who I think prefer the darker Kuro), probably due to its dynamic – let’s face it, if every series you do with cute high school girls living their ordinary lives sells well, you’re going to want more of that. The artist does use this fourth volume to provide a bit more depth and characterization than we’d seen previously, though.

This series has always been compared with Sunshine Sketch (and not just over here – Japanese fanartists cross the two series over a lot), but GA is far more serious about its art. Previous volumes have dealt with color choice, textures, and lettering. This one has the color pages dealing with fashion from early to modern, and the chapters cover topics like the best way to convey water, how to get your model to not pose stiffly, and (in the best sequence) Kisaragi losing her glasses and seeing the rest of the cast as indistinct, vegetable-like shapes. For a 4-koma cutie series, the artist is not afraid to experiment within its boundaries.

Speaking of which, one series starring Noda, the flakey and eccentric girl, shatters the fourth wall in what turns out to be a long dreams sequence (which surprised me, as usually it’s Kisaragi who gets those sorts of stories). Noda, by the way, enjoys teasing Namiko, the straight woman of the group, about her weight and her larger chest. It was entertaining seeing that Namiko is starting to fight back in a deadpan way, and seeing Noda getting all upset is quite amusing, given she’s normally so hyperactive and cheery. Speaking of Namiko, she may be the perfect oneesama character to keep everyone else in check, but apparently her home ec skills show she’s not ready to be a perfect Japanese housewife just yet.

As for the third-year group that’s our secondary cast of GA characters, they get some nice spotlight time as well. Awara ends up wandering into said home ec class, and gets corralled into helping Kisaragi and Namiko make pasta. We also learn her eyesight is exceptional, almost preternaturally so. This is a contrast to the bespectacled Uozumi, who not only needs glasses but turns out to be color-blind (which, this being GA, leads to a discussion of how color-blind people see art and what Van Gogh painted). And in the final chapter of the volume, we see the sickly Tomokane brother, having passes out in the sun (his being sickly has been a plot point throughout) musing on the relationship between him and his sister (also Tomokane – the artist has deliberately avoided giving them first names) and how they contrast perfectly with each other. Not to mention how his sister apparently has psychic powers to know when he needs her help…

As I noted above, there are a ton of cute girl 4-koma series out there, even in North America. Most need something beyond the initial gimmick to keep you reading. And besides the bond between the cast members, humor, and occasional bits of character development, this series simply makes you more interested in art, and how artists see things. It’s great fun, and I’m pleased that we finally have the 4th volume. It’s coming out very slowly in Japan, though, so it may be a while before we see it again.

GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class Volume 3

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By Satoko Kiyuduki. Released in Japan by Houbunsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Manga Time Kirara Carat. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I can’t imagine how fierce the competition must be at Houbunsha to find the next new 4-koma hit… given that most 4-koma have to all obey certain rules, at least the ones I’ve seen. “This group of girls are music students!” “This group of girls are teachers!” “This group of girls are sparkly vampires!” All of which are different, but share a similar mindspace: are they teenage girls? Are they cute? Are they funny? If so, they can be Ninja Pirate Zombie Robots for all we care.

The girls we see in GA happen to be art students at a school devoted to the Arts in general. They’re in the Art section, which is division A (B being music, though sadly it does not contain the girls from K-On!). They are a band of five; our naive and clumsy yet sweet heroine; the ‘big sister’ tsukkomi girl; the hot-head who speaks and acts without thinking; the eccentric weirdo; and the emotionless deadpan genius. This being Manga Time Kirara rather than Asuka, together they do *not* fight crime. Instead, they go about the daily life of art school, learning about layout, lettering, textiles, illustrations for advertisements and the like, and so forth. There’s far more color pages in here than in most manga; of necessity, as so much of the talk relies on the colors we can see.

There’s a lot of fun humor here, which is what you want in a title like this. Nothing laugh out loud hilarious, but several moments that make you smile. I liked the spontaneous organization of a haunted house in the class, and found it refreshing that it didn’t stem out of a culture festival like all other manga. It’s also good to see the topic of art is a constant focus; there is the occasional mundane chatter about favorite types of cake, or girls being sick, but mostly it’s about their art, and the jokes come out of that, be it trying to please an unpleasable teacher with fashion designs, or visiting a museum to try to ‘get’ modern art. Even the non-art strips are a bit different than most high school 4-komas; the girls are learning etiquette by getting tea ceremony training (our heroine is the best at it, but also the most clumsy.)

I also appreciated the fact that we see other students being just as strange as our heroes. Frequently in series with eccentric girls at school as the leads, we find the other students around them being depressingly normal and boring, sometimes staring in disbelief at the antics of the wacky group. Here in GA, the 1st years may be our focus, but frequent attention is paid to the third year girls, who have a different group dynamic but can be just as bizarre; in fact, the president of the Fine Arts Club, Awara, may be crazier even than the crazy girls in first year! (I loved when Noda, the flakey one in first-year, is walking around with a bunch of boxes on her head with faces drawn on them. As she staggers blindly through the halls, everyone thinks she’s Awara.)

There is not particularly any character development here – the most we get is in the final chapter, when Kisaragi (our sweet heroine) goes to see Professor (the stoic one) to drop off a sketchbook, and Professor reveals she’s already engaged to be married to a guy she’s never met… and that she’s feeling very ambivalent about the whole thing. Not only does the old Japanese tradition of arranged marriage feel out of place in a series about goofy art students (and deliberately so), but Professor is the one girl who’s always calm and emotionless amongst the chaos. Seeing her depressed is very odd (Professor even notes that it’s not like her), and I wonder if the arranged marriage plot will go anywhere in future installments.

We have now ‘caught up’ with Japan in this series, as Volume 4 is not out there yet. The series is still running in its magazine, but as with most 4-koma series, it takes a while for new volumes, as the chapters aren’t as long as your average manga series. Still I’ll wait for the next one, as it’s fun spending time with these weird yet fun-loving art students.