Category Archives: manga moveable feast

Yotsuba & Strawberry Marshmallow!

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Yotsuba&! By Kiyohiko Azuma, Strawberry Marshmallow by Barasui. Released in Japan by ASCII Media Works, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Yen Press and Tokyopop.

First off, a disclaimer: I am technically breaking the rules of this month’s Manga Movable Feast. As a result, if the moderator doesn’t want to link this post, that’s perfectly fine. I am well aware that I am outside of the defined rubric for this month.

I want to tell you all about an amusing manga series. It’s a comedy about kids, but runs in a magazine for young men – specifically, young ‘fanboy’ men. Nevertheless, you read it for the kids. You watch them get into hysterical situations, and identify with your own past childhood. And sometimes you just sit back and boggle at the absolute strangeness of it all. It’s a story about kids, but it’s not FOR kids. It’s for adults. As has been noted, kids generally like to read about contemporaries about 3-4 years older than they are, and would probably find the manga too ‘cutesy’. But it’s perfect for the target audience.

Now, all of this applies to both of the two series mentioned in my header. They’re both running in the same magazine at the same time (even if Barasui is putting out his series at a more and more irregular pace as the years go by). But only one cute comedy for kids is kid-safe in North America. That is, of course, Yotsuba&!, the subject of our monthly roundtable. Something about Strawberry Marshmallow, which is a very funny, slice-of-life manga which makes me laugh out loud multiple times, makes you realize that if you gave it to a child, you would be screamed at at the very least.

I will assume, as it’s consistently hit the bestseller lists, that you are all familiar with Yotsuba&!. You may be less familiar with Strawberry Marshmallow, which Tokyopop has brought out five volumes of to date. It’s the story of five girls and their everyday interactions. Nobue is the detached, chain-smoking older sister, Chika her younger sister who has the misfortune to be the straight man and best friend of Miu, a hyperactive and obnoxious pest. Rounding out the cast is Matsuri, a rather pathetic drip who has difficulty with even the most basic interaction with daily life, and Ana, a half-British girl who is suffering from having been in Japan too long. Nobue finds Ana and Matsuri adorably moe, and fills in for the Japanese reader in watching them be cute and loli. Which is amusing, as most of the actual readers in North America are far more interested in seeing Chika and Miu’s comedy antics.

Please be assured that Strawberry Marshmallow is not pornography, nor does it contain ‘adult themes’. There is no actual sexual content, the violence is of the slapstick ‘Looney Tunes’ variety with large bumps on the head, and there are no dark themes at all. But the presentation is laid out in such a way as to emphasize the five main cast members, four of whom are twelve years old (but look younger), and one of whom is sixteen (the anime made her twenty so they could show her smoking). Their poses, their outfits (the fashion in this manga is one of the main reasons to read it, and I’m not kidding. They’re very stylish), everything they do is meant to have an undertone of ‘hey, look at the little girls’.

Yotsuba&!, on the other hand, is about the sense of wonder. Yes, you watch Yotsuba get into weird or fascinating situations, but the emphasis is on her reactions, and the reactions of the people around her. I honestly can’t recall what any of the main cast of Yotsuba wear when they aren’t in costume, whereas I can picture 3 to 4 of Miu and Chika’s outfits in my head without even getting out the books. Yotsuba is about the magic of childhood, seeing things through a child’s eyes, and trying to reclaim some of that lost innocence. Strawberry Marshmallow is about the bits of childhood we aren’t really trying to recreate; the petty jealousies, the sibling rivalries, the days spent doing nothing but being stupid, and there’s no sense of nostalgia at all.

That said, I find Strawberry Marshmallow’s interaction far more real. Yotsuba almost seems to take place in a sort of world removed from our own. I don’t think of it as a fault – I’m not asking for the manga to be realistic. But there’s almost a fairy tale quality to the action. Strawberry Marshmallow has a sense of taking place in today’s world. This is all the more astounding when you consider what Yotsuba has that Strawberry Marshmallow lacks – adults. The occasional adult pops up in the manga, mostly as a foil to Miu or as a teacher figure, but the only vaguely parental person we see is older sister Nobue, who is a very poor role model. Strawberry Marshmallow is literally all about the kids, whereas, while the focus of each chapter of Yotsuba is on her, the adults get large roles and many varied things to do.

The main difference between the two titles, which I’ve been dancing around this entire review, is that Barasui, the author of Strawberry Marshmallow, is a lolicon. He’s stated in interviews that he loves drawing pre-pubescent girls, and it’s obvious in every frame of his manga. It never quite goes over that edge, and is certainly safe enough that Tokyopop feels no qualms about putting it out with a T rating, but certainly enough that I’d never recommend it to a parent myself, a problem I don’t have with Yotsuba&!. (An Amazon.com review of the Strawberry Marshmallow review noted it was for little girls, and that adults might find it cloying. Showing that despite all geographical evidence, Amazon *is* a river in Egypt…)

That said, just because something has elements of lolicon does not make it BAD, or without redeeming social importance. Yotsuba is funny, and I love the warm fuzzies it gives me every month. But I find Strawberry Marshmallow makes me laugh out loud more. Miu is one of the great comic creations of the past decade, and she is note perfect in managing to be utterly horrible to everyone around her and yet at the same time likeable and cute enough that you come back every month to see what insane stuff she does next. Yotsuba is naive, but Miu is just WEIRD – some of the manga she draws and shows Chika defies explanation, and her text messages are… she is her own adjective. She’s totally Miu. As the manga has gone on, we’ve seen her and Chika get the spotlight more and more as the author realizes that he has a goldmine of endless Osaka-style call-and-response humor here.

So what makes Yotsuba&! a great title for kids over here, and Strawberry Marshmallow a great one that’s strictly for manga geeks? (Note I haven’t even gotten into Gunslinger Girl, which is a *third* Dengeki Daioh series about young girls with a very different feel from the first two.) Simply put, Yotsuba&! is safe. That’s it. And it’s not meant to be a criticism, just an observation. I honestly don’t feel either series is written, in Japan, for children. And I think North American kids, provided they don’t mind reading about other kids their own age, would enjoy both series (certainly the obnoxiousness of Miu would strike a chord with many kids). But as a gift for a parent to give their child? Stick with Yotsuba&!.

Paradise Kiss

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By Ai Yazawa. Released in Japan by Shodensha, serialized in the magazine Zipper. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

When I first picked this series up several years back, I was getting into the habit (which I still have) of researching a series before I read it, to find out what I can. Paradise Kiss was a rather unusual oddity in that respect. It was put out by Shodensha, but did not appear (as one might expect of this material) in their josei magazine Feel Young, but in a fashion magazine for young adults, Zipper. It was also a semi-sequel to another serial of Yazawa’s, Neighborhood Story, that had run in Shueisha’s Ribon 4-5 years before ParaKiss came out.

I had worried that I wouldn’t be able to get ParaKiss as its prequel had not (and still has not) come out in North America, but there’s nothing to fear here. ParaKiss takes place several years after Neighborhood Story, and most of the cameos that the prior cast make are seamless (Miwako’s sister Mikako being the exception, as she was the star of the previous series). No, the sequel uses the world of Neighborhood Story, but has its own story to tell, about fashion, getting over your past regrets, and finding the right future.

It also features one of the great supporting casts in manga. Each of the six characters I’d call leads (Yukari, George, Arashi, Miwako, Isabella and Hiroyuki) are well-written characters with their own lives and problems, and the manga succeeds very well in avoiding a typical shoujo pitfall of having everyone be there to facilitate the heroine’s romance. Partly this is because they’re all so interesting in and of themselves (it’s arguable that the Arashi/Miwako/Hiroyuki subplot is more fascinating than Yukari’s), but partly because for once, this is a romance you may not want to see helped along.

Don’t get me wrong, as a hot couple, Yukari and George are pure win. (They’re also fairly explicit, something that startled me as I re-read this series in the children’s section of my local library, as it sat next to Pokemon Adventures. And people wonder why there’s always articles about evil manga in the papers.) But it’s made fairly clear from the start, and hammered home several times, that as a lifelong romance, the two would be horrible together. This is not something we see a lot of in shoujo romance, where the hero bringing the heroine out of her shell and showing her how to live life would be offset by his sweet moments. Sweet moments for George are few and far between.

But then, this is not just about the romance, it’s about Yukari’s realization that she can be so much more. As she begins to do model work and realize how much she enjoys it (and how good she is at it), her maturation is almost startling. The manga actually manages to have it both ways, having Yukari become a famous successful model while at the same time having people complain about how wretchedly difficult it is to actually do so. But then, this is a cast full of Beautiful People. :)

The ending was slightly controversial at the time, and still provokes some discussion. The anime adaptation did not help, as they made Yukari’s breakup with George seem like a sad and depressing thing, and did not feature the flashforward epilogue. But it made sense with Yukari’s character, whereas trying to shoehorn her in with George did not. It’s very refreshing seeing the bad boy lose for once. Also, I love her monologue about getting less model work as she ages, but being able to use all the contacts she’s made to parlay that into other work that keeps her career going. The whole epilogue is the definition of a feel-good happy ending, even if it ends with Yukari saying she’s going to cry.

I haven’t mentioned the art, have I? Well, it is why this ran in a fashion magazine, rather than Ribon like all her other stuff. It helps to make Paradise Kiss less of a manga to read and more of an experience, a world to immerse yourself in. There’s lots of sensory stuff here, not just the pretty visuals. And it’s the sort of manga where I look back and realize there’s so much more that I can still talk about. I didn’t even mention Yukari’s relationship with her mother, or Arashi and Miwako’s somewhat tortured relationship. And to think it’s just five volumes long. One of the best manga Tokyopop put out. Highly recommended.

The Color of Earth

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By Kim Dong Hwa. Released in North America by First Second.

I admit I don’t read a lot of Korean manwha. The decision is mostly financial; I spend far too much money on manga as it is, and wanted to draw a line somewhere. I also rarely review things I don’t have a pre-opinion on, as I don’t get reviewer’s copies, so am relying on things I’ve gotten myself. If I didn’t at least like the premise, I wouldn’t have gotten it. But it’s roundtable time, and so I picked up the first volume of Color of Earth, a series I’d seen at bookstores but never really paid attention to.

It’s certainly a handsome and well-presented volume, and I’ve no issues with the translation. The art is gorgeous, and one of the main reasons to pick it up. As the entire book seems to be made up of similes comparing men and women (and their body parts) to various plants and flowers, it’s appropriate that the backgrounds should be overflowing with blossoming and flowering trees, shrubs, and bushes. Our two heroines are also quite pretty, although I think that the artist overdoes Ehwa’s ‘demure blush’ looks a bit.

Likewise, much of the dialogue is poetic, and it’s worth reading aloud at times to get into the flowing lyricism of the words. Ehwa’s mother in particular is fond of teaching Ehwa like this, almost via parable. This can also be frustrating – there are many times when I wish Ehwa’s mom would simply set her down and be blunt, rather than another elliptical speech about gourds. Most of the time, though, it helps to add to the mood of the book, which is relaxed and nostalgic.

Perhaps a bit too relaxed. It took me forever to finish this volume, mostly as there was little sense of urgency to it. Even in the climax, which Ehwa running for the train and then being spotted by her unfortunate first crush, it’s almost like we’re seeing the whole thing through a filter of gauze. I have similar problems with Mushishi, which I noted in an earlier roundtable review. This manwha meanders, and while this too helps to evoke the mood, it can also put me to sleep when there’s nothing going on but Ehwa mooning around and thinking about her loves.

I can’t really go on about the sexual politics too much, of course, as this is meant to be a historical book, and this is pretty much what Korean women were supposed to be like at the time, I’m led to understand. I will note I was irritated at the character of Bongsoon, who seemed to be there merely to show how much more demure and maidenly our heroine is.

Lastly, an irritation that is not the author’s fault. In famous works of the past – say, a collection of Little Orphan Annie cartoons, or an early Tezuka collection – I don’t mind an afterward with someone else providing context and showing how influential the work is. However, the afterword here grated on me, as it seemed to be trying to convince me after I’d read the book that this manwha that came out only a few years ago was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I didn’t really like it in Pluto either, although that one was less self-serving. But come on, I’ve already got the book and read it – don’t sell it to me again. Let the work speak for itself.

This is a very pretty book, both in terms of its prose and its art. But its pacing didn’t really grab me, and I don’t think I care enough about what happens to Ehwa to get the other two. I’m guessing she ends up happily married in the end.