Kodansha’s September releases

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So Right Stuf has updated their site with Kodansha Comics releases for September 2011. The big reason to do this, obviously, is to start getting those preorders rolling in for Sailor Moon, and I know that readers of my blog will be doing that. It did have some new information, however, and I thought it best to go over it, as talking about things with only one source and no confirmation or press releases is, well, what I do best. :)

It’s a pretty packed schedule, in fact, with 13 volumes due for release that month. In terms of stuff we either already knew about or aren’t surprised to see, there’s new volumes of Arisa (4), Deltora Quest (2), Fairy Tail (15), Negima (31), Ninja Girls (7), Shugo Chara! (12), Until the Full Moon (2), and The Wallflower (26). 12 is the final volume of Shugo Chara, and the Until the Full Moon reprint should end here with the final volume. Also, the Wallfower has now ‘caught up’ with Japan, so I imagine ongoing releases may be more spaced out.

Next we have new things that we already knew about from Friday, i.e. the release dates for Sailor Moon and Codename: Sailor V. Pleased to see the latter keeping its full title. They’re both due out 9/13/11.

Lastly, we have three omnibus releases. We already knew about Negima, and this month sees the 2nd of those, which will re-release Volumes 4-6 with a new translation. This will contain the ‘Kyoto arc’, which, much like Rurouni Kenshin, is considered a great place to start by fans who know the beginning of Negima is… not as good as it gets later on.

We also see ‘Love Hina omnibus 1’, which will presumably contain Vols. 1-3 of that Shonen Magazine series, bringing it back into print. I’m uncertain whether that will have a new translation/editing the way Negima is, or whether it will be similar to Kodansha’s re-release of Akira – i.e. slap the publisher’s name on the old volumes – but I’m sure we’ll find out soon. In any case, this classic Akamatsu story in many ways is considered *the* harem comedy by many people who are too young to remember Tenchi Muyo, and is another good example of a series that shows the artist refining his art as it goes on. Plus it has Mutsumi. Who doesn’t love Mutsumi?

Lastly, we have ‘Tokyo Mew Mew Omnibus 1’, again presumably containing Vols. 1-3 of this classic magical girl series from the magazine Nakayoshi. This is another release to get an out of print Tokyopop series from the mid-00s back into print, and it’s also quite welcome, as the series was very popular in its day. It’s also been hard done by, as the anime got one of those dubs that edits and reconstructs everything to make it less Japanese, and Tokyopop’s own translation also took many liberties. If Kodansha gives this one a new translation (and again, no idea if they will or not), it could take off with fans of the magical girl genre.

For those lamenting the lack of (insert title here), I note this is merely one month of releases from a company still dipping its toe into the water. Hence, we have a lot of re-releases of very popular titles that are now out of print, quite a sensible business decision. What will October bring?

Aqua Volume 1

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By Kozue Amano. Released in Japan by Enix, serialized in the magazine Stencil. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

As part of my MMF post (and I will eventually review the book), a little history lesson. In the beginning there was Enix, a gaming and manga company that had several manga magazines it published, including Shonen Gangan and GFantasy. Stencil started out as a spinoff of GFantasy, attempting to be a bit more shoujo-oriented. It never quite succeeded, mostly as Enix has ALWAYS had an issue with basic shonen/shoujo demographics, even to this day. In any case, the magazine debuted in the late 1990s, and Kozue Amano’s Aqua debuted there. Life was apparently difficult at Enix, and their merger with another company, Square, had many of the artists and editors nervous. So in 2001, one of the editors left to form Mag Garden, and took a number of the artists with him. They also took their series, and planned to continue them in the new magazines that would debut. Oh, the lawsuits that followed! After litigation, Square Enix agreed to give Mag Garden some cash, but the titles that moved had to be renamed, even if only a little bit. And so Aqua, after two volumes, became Aria. Mag Garden bought the rights to Aqua from Square Enix at the same time, and reprinted the volumes under their own banner and with new covers. This is the version that Tokyopop has licensed.

For those who are perhaps unaware of the plot, Akari is a young woman from Earth (called “Manhome” here) in the year 2301. She is flying to the planet Aqua, formerly Mars, to become an undine – a female gondolier who guides people around in Venetian rowing boats, touring the city. Akari is bubbly and happy, and seems to find almost everything endlessly fascinating. She joins Aria company, which seems to be a company of two. The other person is her sempai Alicia, a beautiful and laid-back onee-san type. The manga continues as Akari learns the ins and outs of gondoliering, makes friends, and watches the amazing scenery.

It has been noted by many that the main reason to love Aqua/Aria is the world that we see, and indeed as the series goes on the backgrounds and settings get increasingly more elaborate, verging on what has become known as “Scenery Porn”. There’s less of that in this first volume, as Amano is still honing her craft, but we do see signs of what’s to come in a chapter where Akari and Aika (her grumpy yet lovable friend) attempt to follow their mascot through a maze of small alleys into the heart of Neo-Venezia, the city where they work. Most manga are character-based, but Aqua, while having fine characters, does manke you look at the whole page to take in everything, not just faces.

Aria was released first over here by ADV back in the day, and thus most people will be coming at Aqua after having read the ‘sequel’ series. It’s not a prequel, however, but a true start to the series, giving us many of the elements we’ll come to find familiar. The scenes with Alicia and Akari at the start will, in fact, be mirrored much later on in future volumes of Aria. I always enjoy when an artist works like that, as it gives the illusion of more planning ahead than was likely actually done. It shows they read their old work. The characters are still mostly sketches here, with Aika and Alicia not yet receiving the development they will get down the road, but we are just starting out. And there’s President Aria. I’ve learned to put up with him, but I don’t have to like him. He’s there for goofy comedy, and inescapable. Oh well.

So since we don’t have much characterization here, and plot is irrelevant to a series like Aqua, what’s left? Well, mood. While the overall effect of the series is relaxing and sunny, we do have our first example of the chapters where the sort of faux sci-fi setting becomes faux-fantastical horror with the introduction of Cait Sith, the giant leader of the cats that only Akari ever interacts with. The interaction barely occurs in this first volume – she just gets a glimpse of the huge convention of cats – but as the series goes on, she sees more and more of the beast, to the point where it almost becomes an arc of the plot. These chapters generally have a different feel from the rest of the series, with the sense of wonder being turned inward to look at darker (though not quite creepy, this is never threatening) things.

In many ways, this is a typical first volume. The art is not as good as it gets, and I note the redrawn cover has the unfortunate effect of making Akari look sad and melancholy, which she isn’t. Likewise, as we flesh out the world we get more shadings to folks like Alicia and Aika, who here are mostly just types. Still, if you haven’t read any of Aria yet, I would definitely start here, as it gives a lot of the background and information that helps you understand things as you read further. And it’s pretty. In all the best ways.

Excel Saga Volume 19

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By Rikdo Koshi. Released in Japan by Shonen Gahosha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young King OURS. Released in North America by Viz.

Sorry for the rush, but I got sidetracked for a while, and now need to wrap up these reviews so that I can review Vol. 22 when it comes out in April. :) And there’s a lot to talk about with this volume, which continues the very, very long Teriha arc.

Our ‘villains’, the City Environmental Security Administration, don’t have quite as much plot-related stuff to do in this volume. The highlight manages to be Iwata’s insane desire to get a driver’s license, which fails not because he’s a total freak who would wreck a car by merely looking at it, but because he is dead. Cyborgs with false identities have difficulties getting basic amenities. So Iwata does the next best thing, and gets a bicycle, which he can drive at superhuman car-like speeds. This goes about as well as you can expect, and he merely ends up smashing Sumiyoshi’s brand new car that he was able to buy.

They also get focus in the final chapter, which is about a bomb that’s been planted at ILL’s giant office tower. This concerns Dr. Kabapu greatly, not only as the bomb isn’t one of his, but because he did plant a different, MUCH BIGGER bomb that might go off if this other one does – and level part of the city. Well, he gets bored easily. The highlight here is seeing Misaki’s face as she realizes how screwed up the situation they’re in is. She actually facepalms twice in two pages. Il Palazzo, of course, is not deterred by something as gauche as a bomb, and tells his employees not to panic or flee but merely look for suspicious packages.

Meanwhile, we also have Hyatt, who hasn’t really coughed up that much blood lately, possible as she’s been relatively stress-free. That ends here, as she’s starting to worry about Elgala’s words to her about Excel being a replacement. This leads, of course, to copious coughing of blood and collapse. Still, she’s better off than Elgala, who really hits rock bottom here. Having already been demoted to the fifth sub-basement, she’s now been scapegoated as the culprit in an embezzlement plot that Kabapu is trying to pin on Il Palazzo. Il Palazzo solves this by simply telling Elgala to be the best fugitive she can be, and then promptly forgetting about her. And so it’s back to pursuits that are somewhat familiar to readers of Excel Saga – dine and dashing, and sleeping in a cardboard box under the bridge. Not to mention fleeing the police courtesy Iwata’s bicycle, in a nice dovetailing of plots that reminds you how insane everyone in this cast is.

She’s not alone, however, as she is joined eventually by Menchi, who gets a long chapter devoted to her, the first in several volumes. She’s been having it soft recently, and in fact has had to be put on a diet to avoid diabetes. That changes here, though, as Elgala is now on the lam, and Hyatt has fallen over dead again. So Menchi leaves the apartment to go find help, and ends up getting completely lost. Things get even worse when, at a park, she runs into Umi and Teriha – and seeing Teriha brings back all the old trauma of her time with Excel (in a full, 2-page spread, no less), causing Menchi to flee in terror and end up nearly drowning in the river. Luckily, Elgala is already there to rescue her, even if she was fishing for actual food. Menchi will do in a pinch!

And lastly we have Teriha, who gets the most serious chapter, as she writes in her journal about her life with Umi and Profession Shiouji. I’m somewhat torn here, as this is quite well-written, with Teriha noting that she’s having a pleasant, if somewhat unusual life. But she’s consumed with half-formed impressions of her past self and Il Palazzo, so everything is consumed by melancholy and the idea that she’s living a lie. There’s a rather chilling juxtaposition of a photo that was taken of Teriha with Umi, Professor Shiouji, Miwa and Iwata, which we then see at the end with Teriha completely removed, as if she’d never been there. And finally, at the end, Teriha hears about the bomb threat. And flees, headed to ILL’s office building, because even if she can’t remember anything, she HAS to do something to save Il Palazzo.

This is the last complete volume with Teriha, and it’s as frustrating as ever. Rikdo knows this, of course, and much of Teriha’s arc has played on the frustration of the reader. We don’t want this shy, passive, emotionally stunted girl, even if she may be more cute and moe. We want our heroine. We want Excel. Luckily, events are starting to come together, as Teriha, Elgala, and the Security Sentai Force are all converging on the ILL towers to try to stop the bomb from going off. Stay tuned for the exciting Volume 20!