Insufficient Direction

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By Moyoco Anno. Released in Japan as “Kantoku Fuyuki Todoki” by Shodensha, serialized in the magazine Feel Young. Released in North America by Vertical.

The North American market has been enjoying Moyoco Anno’s manga for years now, be it Happy Mania, Sugar Sugar Rune, or Sakuran. Hideaki Anno has also been a favorite over here, mostly for Evangelion but also for cult classics like Gunbuster and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. (And also infamous for the Kare Kano anime… and, well, Evangelion.) As a result, a volume such as this one, which is a biographical look at their married life with an otaku slant, is one that can actually be released over here and gather some interest. The book itself is a lot of fun, though it did go in a direction I wasn’t quite expecting…

direction

Of course, this is deliberate. Moyoco Anno frames the story to set up my expectations of a normal Japanese woman overwhelmed by her insane otaku husband. The first chapter shows her avatar, Rompers (so called as she draws herself as a baby in a sleeper outfit), stepping on Gigantor toys left around the house like they were a child’s Lego toys. And yet throughout this book, the message we get is somewhat different: Moyoco is a lot like him. It’s very easy for her to get drawn into the otaku lifestyle, and she’s a lot less ‘normal’ than she may pretend to be. As for Director-kun, his sense of self and peace with being a giant weirdo is so great that he ends up being the calm and collected one a lot of the time. It really reads like a great relationship.

A word of warning: there are a LOT of translator notes for this volume. The Anno life is cluttered with 60s Japanese TV series, be it familiar ones such as Ultraman and Star Blazers or untranslated works like A Karate-Crazy Life. And, like many obsessed fans (including myself), the couple tend to speak to each other in terms of the media consumed. Even an argument about proper use of Japanese is referencing Dragon Ball and Galaxy Express 999. This is not something that a casual reader should pick up, though if they do they can at least be reassured that there are lots of notes telling them the importance super sentai shows and George Akiyama.

I note that this series ran in the josei magazine Feel Young, and its presence there was not all that unusual. Most josei magazines (and many seinen ones as well) have these slice-of-life biographical “and here’s what my husband/child/cat did the other day” comics running through them, usually in short 5-6 page bursts in between the larger serialized stories. (And indeed, the chapters in Insufficient Direction are all about that length.) It’s a type of story we’ll almost never see over here, partly due to cultural translation issues but mostly because there’s not really a market for it – North American anime and manga fans tend to prefer their slice-of-life looking more like K-On!. As such, this title is not only an amusing look at the otaku lifestyle of the author and her husband, but also a glimpse into a genre that we are rarely privileged to witness. It’s a lot of fun.

Toradora, Vol. 6

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By Yuyuko Takemiya and Zekkyo. Released in Japan by ASCII Media Works, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

Given how impossible it is for most mass media to avoid cliches and tropes, the question often becomes “how well does this work manage the cliche”? This volume of Toradora! handles this in both a comedic and serious fashion. The Culture Festival rears its ugly head, and though thoughts of a maid cafe drift through our male classmates’ heads, what we end up with is far sillier, particularly after it’s subverted midway through. It’s the more serious plotline that folks will take with them, however – Taiga’s father is back in her life again, and wants her to come live with him. Something which a projecting Ryuuji can’t help but assist with.

toradora6

Ryuuji is not helped by the cover art for the volume, showing a tear-filled Taiga and Ryuuji looking askance. This clues the reader in that we are meant to be in her side in the matter. Things are not helped by the appearance of her father himself, who seems far too contrite and meek to be true. Of course he’s playing right into Ryuuji’s hands, though I don’t think that it’s deliberate on his part – her father isn’t genuinely evil, he’s just monumentally selfish. What he doesn’t know, but we do, is that Ryuuji’s lack of a father figure looms incredibly large in his life. And so naturally Ryuuji is going to move heaven and earth to see Taiga and her father reunite, just as he can never do.

On the other side we have Taiga and Minori, who have experience with her father doing all this before and know the truth. Crucially, however, neither of them tell Ryuuji that full truth. In meta terms, this is because the plot has to happen. In the story itself, though, Taiga is more understandable. She gets the reasons why Ryuuji wants this to happen, she’s in love with Ryuuji and doesn’t want to disappoint him, and she really does love her father despite everything, so she opens herself up to him one more time. Minori, though, I’m rather disappointed in, as you’d think she’d be the one to sit Ryuuji down and say ‘Hey, let me give you a timeline of the times this guy has tried this with Taiga before.’ Instead, she just gets angry, saying it’s obvious he’s being a selfish ass. And so they fight, which, Ryuuji still having lingering feelings for Minori, devastates him.

Luckily, Ami is there to be the voice of reason and get Ryuuji out of his funk. Unluckily, Taiga’s dad *is* everything they say he is, and therefore things come to a head at the culture festival with a devastating text sent to Ryuuji. And, once Ryuuji sees for himself what’s going on, he gets it all IMMEDIATELY – a sign of his maturity, even as he backslides here. Sadly, resolution will have to wait – this is the end of the volume, and so we get the horrible cliffhanger with Taiga’s appearance on stage waiting for parental acknowledgement that will never come. How is this going to be resolved? Well, Toradora! comes out about every year and a half in Japan, so we’ll likely have to wait till summer 2015 to find out. See, and folks wonder why publishers don’t want to catch up to Japan…

More License Roundups!

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They’re coming fast and furious, folks. Let’s start with Viz, which has two new shoujo titles and one big seinen one, as well as a new shonen license that surprises me.

honeyblood

Honey Blood is from racy shoujo manga Sho-Comi, and as you might guess by the word blood in the title, it features vampires. Normal girl is worried about the recent vampire attacks… could her neighbor be a vampire? Judging by that cover, I’m guessing this is in the ‘if you like Black Bird’ vein…

kissofrose

Kiss of the Rose Princess is from Kadokawa’s Asuka manga, and promises a fantasy reverse harem story. Our heroine is told bad things will happen to her if she ever takes off the rose choker her father gave her. Now it’s gone… and she’s surrounded by hot knights! This is truly terrible. This looks like a lot of fun.

masterkeaton

The big news is another Naoki Urasawa series has been licensed. No, not Billy Bat, that’s still only in Japan. No, we aren’t getting any fashionable judo girls yet either. Instead we get Master Keaton, which Urasawa co-created (and there’s a bit of controversy behind that, apparently) and features an archaeologist/ex-Armed forces member who travels the world investigating claims for Lloyd’s. This ran in Big Comic Original for 6 years, and Viz will be doing it as a fancy signature title, with color pages and everything. The anime was also released over here about 15 years ago (so in the ancient age of North American anime).

If this does well, who knows? We might get Yawara after all! Or Happy!, Urasawa’s incredibly angsty and depressing tennis manga. Or Pineapple Army, which Viz put out one volume of waaaaaaay back in the day. The sky’s the limit!

assclass

And editing my own post, because Jump has some new announcements as well! In addition to the expected Jaco graphic novel, as it’s by the Dragon Ball creator so DUH, we have the long-awaited release of Assassination Classroom! I had assumed the basic plot of “kill your teacher” made this unlicensable, so it’s great to see Viz picking it up, particularly as I hear an anime is due soon. It’s great fun and heartwarming, GTO with an alien smiley face. Definitely highly recommended!