Monthly Archives: January 2010

Portrait of M & N Volume 1

Leave a reply

By Tachibana Higuchi. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

We’ve all seen the ‘from the author of’ phenomenon before. Tokyopop has already gone this route, in fact, by licensing all the Natsuki Takaya they are able to in order to try to strike lightning twice with the success of Fruits Basket. Unfortunately, frequently what you find is that the artist, like any other, was honing their craft, and there’s a reason that the later series was licensed first – it’s better.

Portrait of M & N is from the author of Gakuen Alice, which was Higuchi’s breakout hit, one that’s still running in Japan. This one ran for 7 volumes, which is about average for a ‘mild’ hit in this magazine. There was a two-month gap after Volume 1, and the author admits in the notes to this volume that it was designed as a 5-chapter story, then she was asked to expand on it.

Our two heroes are fortunate that their names match their traumas. Mitsuru, due to a crappy family history, is a masochist who loves pain and beatings. Natsuhiko, due to bad family upbringing of a different kind, is a narcissist who ogles himself in any handy mirror.

(I am so tempted to add “Together, they fight crime!”, but sadly the book is not that interesting.)

The premise isn’t bad for a shoujo manga, really, but it’s the sort of thing that needs to be handled very carefully. The author makes, in my opinion, a very bad choice at the start by having Mitsuru be a shy wallflower-type. If you’re portraying a girl who gets off on pain, she had better be a loud sporty tomboy type or the readers are going to have trouble finding the humor. Indeed, Higuchi admits that the heroine was originally a strong, tough girl. But since her masochism clearly devastates her, it just makes you feel horrible. Bad news in a comedy.

Actually, for a comedy this is entirely too serious. Natsuhiko is pretty dull, even when he is being a narcissist. There are some funny moments (the rival’s reaction to dogs, Mitsuru trying to disguise herself), but for the most part this is played very earnestly, with Mitsuru and Natsuhiko desperately trying to not stand out and erase their personalities. Come on! You’re writing a series about a masochist and a narcissist! Have some freaking fun!

Even the one-shot at the end falls into a similar trap. (This is a common occurrence in Hakusensha works, by the way. Most manga artists have their first or second successful series collected with earlier one-shots they did that they feel are worthy of a book but weren’t long enough). The story itself is rather predictable, but I did like the heroine, who seems very down to earth. Unfortunately, the cage metaphor keeps reminding you of the violence and threats that led to her relationship with Sagisawa. Even though it ends up with her taking control, it feels wrong because of that metaphor of entrapment.

I’ll get another volume of M & N, because I find myself wondering if once the artist was told to expand the series, she started to paint everything with broader strokes. But as it is, this is a serious romance that’s crippled by its wacky premise.

Rin-Ne Volume 2

Leave a reply

By Rumiko Takahashi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

This volume of Takahashi’s latest work has a lot of fun stuff going on within its pages. A ghost wants to be reunited with his Edo-period love, a swimming ghost can’t quite remember why she’s unable to pass on, and Rin-Ne’s rival Masato shows up, and is a shallow jerk. (No really, he even defines himself as such.)

As in previous Takahashi works, she’s good at giving her characters inherent flaws. The swimmer, for instance, comes across (in death and in life) as a vapid princess, and the pair of lovers that Masato is messing with seem incredibly quick to assume the worst about each other. The only two people that seem remotely sensible are our heroes.

That’s one of Rin-Ne’s flaws so far. I think maybe Takahashi got tired of hearing fans yelling about her angry violent heroines and unthinking jerk heroes, as Sakura is rather sweet and doesn’t leap to conclusions, and Rin-Ne (aside from his money fixation) is a pretty nice guy. There’s even little to no sexual tension between them so far. I expect that to change. It does mean, however, that she went a bit too far in the *other* direction. Rin-Ne and Sakura are bland.

To be honest, the same might be said for this volume as a whole. There’s nothing actually wrong with it. It’s laid out nicely, the story arcs are just long enough, the translation is fine. But you won’t remember any of it 24 hours after you read it.

I’ve been reading Rumiko Takahashi manga for almost 15 years now, between Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, Ranma 1/2, and her various shorts. You can tell I enjoy her work, as I continue to read it. But she’s fast-food manga. You don’t get any extra pizzazz. Maybe once or twice a series you get something utterly riveting (like the Herb arc in Ranma, or UY’s finale). But mostly, I don’t expect anything from Rumiko Takahashi other than the cliched Rumiko Takahashi manga.

I don’t go into a Takahashi manga asking if she’ll knock my socks off. I ask for some funny action with a dash of fantasy and some romance that drags on and never gets anywhere. I expect I’ll get that with Rin-Ne. It’s still a series worth picking up, as it reads fast and is enjoyable. But it’s not inspirational. The main problem is that, art style aside, there’s nothing here that she couldn’t have drawn in 2000. Or 1990, for that matter.

All My Darling Daughters

1 Reply

By Fumi Yoshinaga. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Melody. Released in North America by Viz.

I will admit that I’m a little behind in my reading of Yoshinaga compared to other manga bloggers. I’ve read Ooku, and think it’s excellent so far, but Antique Bakery and Flower of Life are on my ‘when I get some spare cash’ list, and I was mostly unfamilar with her until recently.

That may change if her other books are as good as this one was. All My Darling Daughters is a short 1-volume book she wrote for Hakusensha, published in their gateway shoujo/josei magazine Melody, which features both younger shoujo titles for their Hana to Yume imprint and older josei works for their Jets Comics imprint. This title (and Ooku, which also runs in Melody) falls into the latter category.

The bookend characters are Yukiko, a 30-year-old salarywoman living at home, and her 50-year-old mother, who has recently fought a battle with cancer. The familial relationship between them is not only obvious, but also well written. Yoshinaga doesn’t really beat us about the head with temper tantrums and storming out of rooms (even though both those things happen), and the book feels very realistic as a result.

As the book continues, we see Yukiko and her family’s friends and old schoolmates, and I gradually came to realize that Yukiko is probably one of the happiest and most together characters in the entire book. This comes as a surprise, as she tends to walk through it with a perpetual scowl, but her job (never shown, only inferred) and relationship (misunderstood by many of her friends, but her guy seems very nice) show she’s come through life well.

Many others who’ve reviewed this have touched on the longest story here, which deals with a sweet young woman trying to reconcile falling in love and the words of her old grandfather, but the one that hit closest to home for me was the fourth, which starts with Yukiko reading a yearbook showing two old middle-school classmates. She sends them a letter catching up, as she hasn’t spoken to them in ages.

This leads to a flashback narrated by Saeki, one of the girls, in which we see Yuko, the other one, discussing her hopes and dreams, and how she’s going to change things and make the world better for women. And then, over the course of the rest of the story… that just doesn’t happen. We see Saeki as an adult gradually realize things that her childhood self didn’t pick up on regarding Yuko’s abusive childhood, and then we see her meet Yuko as an adult, now with a husband, and the wasted potential hits us full in the face.

The final image of that chapter, with Saeki reading Yukiko’s letter and crying, was for me the saddest and best page of the entire manga.

Luckily, we get a more hopeful chapter to end on, returning to Yukiko and her mother, and also touching on her mother’s own daughter relationship. Words taken to be deliberate cruelty are shown to have far subtler reasons, and the whole thing ends with a fantastic “I Love You”… even if those words are never said.

At times haunting, and at times very sweet, this book isn’t easily classifiable. It even has some occasional humor, and I love Yoshinaga occasionally slipping into caricature when she’s drawing Yukiko’s snarling face. I’d love to see more titles like this from Viz, be they by Yoshinaga or someone else.