Manga the week of 5/5

Leave a reply

Midtown Comics has released next week’s list of things mostly shipping from Diamond except the ones that don’t (Midtown’s lists are sometimes different). What’s good out there?

Let’s start with the not-Viz titles. Code Geass: Knight is an interesting experiment from Bandai. It’s an anthology comic, released directly to tankobon by Kadokawa Shoten. They’re basically short parody comics, though there may be serious things as well. Knight, meant for women to read, is devoted to the guys of Code Geass. Queen will come out later, for the guy fans to read about the women of Geass.

The 6th volume of Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei is out from Del Rey. No matter who the adaptor, this is a fantastic title. This volume introduces Kaga Ai, who will become one of the more featured regulars. She apologizes for my singling her out like this.

Well, that leaves Viz. We have five more volumes of One Piece, taking us from the end of Water Seven into the middle of Thriller Bark. I’ll be honest, Thriller Bark is my least favorite. But even sub-par Oda has some great moments.

Gin Tama has been on a roll lately, and I look forward to seeing in Volume 18 is comedic, serious, or veering back and forth as usual.

Lots of shoujo as well. I’ll be interested in Kimi Ni Todoke 4 (which Diamond put out a week early, and which I have in my review queue), Otomen (Ryo needs more love, dammit. It’s not a yaoi title, honest. Much.), and Flower in a Storm, a 2-volume short series from LaLa that’s not actually CMX for once.

Ending this week are Shueisha’s Wāq Wāq, which I did not read, at 4 volumes, and Square Enix’s Record of a Fallen Vampire, which I also did not read, at 9 volumes. I dunno, it’s a vampire title but never hit the charts? How can this be?

Karakuri Odette Volumes 1 & 2

Leave a reply

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

I have to wonder what demographic Tokyopop was going for here. A very, very pink cover (girls?) with the original Japanese title (manga nerds?), noting it’s from the creator of the unlicensed Akuma to Dolce (which is actually on hiatus in Japan – HARDCORE manga nerds?), and featuring the back cover copy “She’s a hot robot in high school – what’s the worst that could happen?” (sleazy guys). I have to assume that the audience they want is number 1, but the audience they’ll get is numbers 2 and 3. And that their editorial department is number 4.

It’s a shame, as this is a really fantastic title, one which gives a genuinely sweet look at what a robot girl deals with in trying to learn about humanity. Japanese manga is littered with robot girls, of course, but most of them tend to be in titles for boys and men, and they’re very much of the “what is this Earth thing you call kissing” variety of emotion-attaining robot girls. Odette’s counterpart in Negima, Karakuri Chachamaru, for example (Karakuri means robot in Japanese, by the way) also is seen as basically trying to discover real human feelings and know what it’s like to be alive, but almost all of the development she’s attained has come from her crush on Negi.

With Odette, though, romance has not yet factored into it at all. I’m pretty sure that will change soon, and we do indeed see someone confess to her at the end of the second volume. But Odette’s growth is shown through her friendships. First with Yoko, then with Asao, she’s clearly desperate to try to be like everyone else, not realizing how human she already is. We see her curiosity itself changing – in Chapter 1, she comments in a deadpan way about wanting to eat food or be less strong, but by the end of Volume 2 she has better reasons for wanting to do these thing. Human reasons, like wanting your friend to like your cooking.

This is contrasted very well by the two main male characters, Chris and Asao. Chris, originally a one-off character, is reintroduced in Volume 2, and right away we see why. Because we’ve been following Odette all along, we don’t realize how far she’s come from the first few pages till we see Chris, also emotionless but trying to become more human, contrasted with the already quite emotional Odette. He clearly admires her, though I’m not sure I’d call it romantic love – I think in the end he’ll be the guy who winds up needing an older sister/mother figure, kind of like Yuki in Fruits Basket – but it’s clearly what’s driving him to be less passive. Unlike Odette, Chris’s changes ARE driven by love, just like the shonen robot girls. His first genuine response is to get angry at Asao – both for Asao’s grumpy bitching at Odette, and for Odette clearly not minding it.

Speaking of Asao, he’s a case in point that humanity can be difficult to achieve for actual humans as well. He’s grumpy, he’s mean, he gets into fights (but doesn’t start them) all the time, and he’s constantly saying the wrong thing around Odette and then having to fix it later. He’s exactly the sort of ‘mentor’ figure Odette needs, giving her “tough love” through simply trying to deal with her everyday “wacky schemes”.

The best thing about this manga, though, is hard to describe. It’s what I call “those moments”. The ones you want to read over and over again, and quote to others. Karakuri Odette is absolutely littered with them. Odette’s tears in Chapter 1 as she flashes back to asking for less strength, now realizing what that means. Odette telling off Yoko for dissing Asao (but allowing her mere acquaintance Miwako to do so). The entire 2-page spread that can be summed up (with a shudder of horror) as “I LOVE CATS!”. Asao’s “Well, right now you look like you’re so sad that you’re about to cry.” Julietta Suzuki is simply a good writer. And it shows.

I’m pleased that Tokyopop is releasing this, despite their ludicrous back cover copy. (Perhaps they can license Akuma to Dolce once Viz licenses Tokyo Crazy Paradise?) For all the talk of hot robot girls, this *is* a shoujo title. The goal is seeing Odette grow up and make friends. And yes, a lot of it is quite pink, if a rather deadpan sort of pink. Can’t wait for more.

Ōoku Volume 3

6 Replies

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

Let’s get one thing out of the way immediately, and talk about the adaptation and translation of this title by Akemi Wegmuller. It’s rare that I mention an adaptor/translator in my reviews, unless they’re either Carl Horn or there’s a big noticeable change between two of them (see: Zetsubou-sensei, Negima… Del Rey has this issue a lot). This particular title has gotten a bit of controversy due to its language choice, though, so it seems unfair not to note the adaptor herself.

I don’t really have too much of an issue with the faux-Jacobean style that most people speak in this edition of Ooku. As long as it’s consistent, I can simply roll with it, and it does help to establish that 1639 is not just 1992 with horses instead of cars. The trouble is that it’s not always consistent. When used by the upper-class it seems to be, but sometimes Wegmuller is dealing with more of a rural character, such as Sutezo in this volume, and she tries to show his accent/speech pattern by slipping in some modern words. It reads horribly. “I must hie! ‘Tis my dad!” Later on he even starts using ain’t and leaving the ends off of words, which might be fine in a title like Dr. Slump, but here just makes him sound like Gomer Pyle, Ooku Veteran. I appreciate that translating accents is a herculean task, and that there is no good way to go about it. This was a particularly jarring one, however.

As for the volume itself, I think it’s worth dealing with the translation issues. This is riveting stuff, almost impossible to put down once you begin to read it. Sometimes I put off volumes like these, knowing they’re going to be heavy stuff with very little humor. But then I begin, and suddenly it’s 200 pages later and I’m checking Viz’s calendar to find out when the next volume is out. (August, in case you wondered.)

We’re still in flashback mode here for the whole volume, and it would seem we will be for Volume 4 as well. This means we’re still focusing on the first female Shogun Iemitsu and her bedchamber lover Arikoto. Considering the petulant brat we met in Volume 2, seeing Iemitsu in this volume is startling. We’d seen before that she was clever but petulant and damaged. Now that she has her lover and a sense of balance, the cleverness comes to the fore as she’s already out-thinking most of her advisors as to how the country should be run. It does seem a tad rushed and unbelievable, but I’ll OK the sacrifice of pace to see Iemitsu come into her own as a regal leader.

Unfortunately, the goal is not to have a great female Shogun, the goal is to hide things until a male heir can be produced. And Arikoto is not cutting it, for some reason. So he’s removed, and another guy, Sutezo, is brought in. Sutezo is meant to be a simple man out of his depth, but merely by coming between the couple we’ve come to love, he’s not winning fans. He reads like a creepy opportunist. Unfortunately, Yoshinaga must have thought so too, as he’s written out in an almost ludicrous way, but not before fathering… a girl. Oh well.

The most interesting and chilling chapter is the one showing Iemitsu (who is in disguise as herself, a very clever notion considering the Shogun is still “hidden”) walking around a village and seeing the sick, starving people. No punches are pulled here in showing the utter brutality of this famine (which lasted several years), and her solution is cold but very politically apt. This all leads up to the climax, where another death, this one not so sudden, allows Iemitsu to finally come out, so to speak, and reveal herself as Shogun as the volume ends.

It can be very easy to forget the ‘alternate-universe’ premise of this and just get caught up in the history, especially since at this point there are still a number of men still around. Still, it’s good to see Iemitsu develop, and now we can see the strong beginning of the female shogun line (which apparently decays into luxury later on, going by Volume 1 – yeah, remember Volume 1?). And the relationship between her and Arikoto is passionate yet pragmatic. I’d love to see them have a happy ending, but fear that Volume 4 will put paid to that. I’ll still read it.