Some Thoughts on a Decade as a Scanlator

Let's see if I can go another 10 years before YHWH give me arthritis or some shit.

I wasn't planning on this post, but a 10 year-anniversary literally doesn't come every year, so allow me to ramble a bit today about my thoughts on the past 10 years as a scanlator.

Some Thoughts on Hyougemono and Kōraimono

"A month and a half and still no manga release, Hox?" Sorry, I swear I'm busy so the drought will continue probably for the remainder of this month. In the meantime, I offer this post on manga and history (though it's more about history) as an appeasement. The topic today will be about Kōraimono (高麗物) in Hyougemono.

Some Thoughts About Manga 20

Download:
My Name s Nero v1:   Mega
My Name is Nero v2:   Mega
My Mega folder

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of historical manga. Yokoyama Mitsuteru is one mangaka near and dear to my heart for his works in this genre. As I've noted before, he has a dry, almost laconic, narrative style where the actions speak louder than words, and the driving motives of characters are only shown a few times in the story. And then there's Yasuhiko Yoshikazu. He too, like Yokoyama, is a man who has decided to specialize in historically-themed works in the latter half of his career. However in style, he's the polar opposite of Yokoyama. Yasuhiko's characters are extremely expressive and flowery dialogue is not uncommon. And unlike Yokoyama's preference for an orthodox approach to telling history, Yasuhiko prefers to tell history in ways it often is not.

Some Thoughts About Heterodoxy and Heresy

Download:
Innocent Children's Crusade v3:   Mega
My mega folder where you can find all 3 volumes: Mega

Here it is, the final act in Usamaru Furuya's bloody tragedy, volume 3 of Innocent Children's Crusade! Much thanks goes to Kennit for doing a fantastic job with the cleaning and typesetting. He definitely put in a lot more effort than I would have, had I tried to do this alone. Now as requested by a few people, I'm going to try to do a Some Thoughts post for all the new projects I pick up from now on, so as to explain why I thought a particular work was interesting enough to bother translating.

Some Thoughts on an Adaptation: Sangokushi

Downloads
Sangokushi v60:   Mega;   Mediafire
All Previous Sangokushi volumes:   Mega;   Mediafire

IT. IS. D-O-N-E. 6⅓ YEARS. 438 CHAPTERS. 60 VOLUMES. ONE TRANSLATOR. YYYYYEEEEEESSSSSS!!!

With that burst of elation out of the way, I have to admit it's as sad as it is rewarding to finally hang this project on my completed-shelf. The 60 volume length was naturally daunting when I first decided to pick up this series, but as a labour of love, I enjoyed every moment of translating this series. But as they say, every end is a new beginning. While I'd be perfectly content to have this remain as my magnum opus (excuse my unwarranted self-importance here), there's still a whole world of great manga out there and I will most definitely be picking up a whole bunch of new manga so look forward to it!

For the curious, I'll begin work on the following projects this year:
Innocents Shounen Juujigen (no, I did not forget about this!)
Waga Na wa Nero
Zettai Anzen Kamisori
Dousei Jidai
Teito Monogatari

For Yokoyama fans looking for their next fix of Chinese history after Sangokushi, I will also start work on Shiji this year, though I'll be releasing it sporadically as it suits the nature of the work, being a collection of only loosely related stories taken from Sima Qian's Shiji (think of it like a collection of one shots).

Now on with my Some Thoughts on Sangokushi...

Some Theories About Good Manga 14

Yes, I have 90s bias. Not that I'd willingly return to the days of dial-up internet if I had a time machine, but since the universe intertwined my childhood to this decade, home sweet home it is. It's a decade that the anime and manga industry can definitely look back fondly on, despite the burst of the Japanese economic bubble, as it gave birth to multiple series so popular as to become icons of their respective mediums and even Japan itself. For most Westerners, series like Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, or Pokemon immediately come to mind. But for me, there's another series I look more fondly back on than any of these. A manga I fell in love with at the exact same age as its titular protagonist.

Some Thoughts on the Man and the Manga: Chinggis Khan

Happyscans and I finally bring you the last volume of Chinggis Khan, covering the brilliant, final two decades of his life. I meant to get this done by the end of December like I promised before, but what's life without a few bumps along the road? Now I know far more eloquent and well-learned people than me have already given their opinions on this controversial figure. Still, as a fan of history, there's no way I could pass up the opportunity to give my 2 cents on him, no matter how naive or poorly informed my ideas may be.

*Also, I'll be taking the rest of this month off to watch AGDQ2015 to be a more productive member to society.

Download:
Chinggis Khan v5:   Mega;   Sendspace
Chinggis Khan v1-5:   Mega
Hox's Mega Folder

Some Thoughts About Webtoons and Panelling

The dominant players in the Korean webtoon market: Naver (left) and Daum (right)

This time for my Some Thoughts series, I'll take a break a from the usual post about a specific work or author and instead talk generally about a medium known as webtoons, or as I like to call them, "mobile comics." For those of you who've never heard of webtoons, they're basically Korean webcomics. The language barrier has kept much of it closed off from Westerners, like how manga used to be back in the 80s, but I've noted they've begun to gain some fans overseas through fan-translations of works like Tower of God, Noblesse, or Annarasumanara. Now, you might be thinking, "Well, that's hardly a distinct medium. It's just the term Koreans use for webcomics, which itself is a sub-medium of comics." And yes, that is true, but there's an aspect in this "sub-medium" that makes them distinct to most Western webcomics, which I've already alluded to in my first sentence.

Some Thoughts About Good Manga 9

Time for another Some Thoughts post. I recently had the chance to read two works by the French comic artist Bastien Vivès, and I feel like commenting on them while they're still fresh in my mind.

First one up is A Taste of Chrorine (Le Goût du chlore). This is one incredibly chill book that won the best new artist award in the Angoulême International Bande Desinée Festival. By chill, I mean it captures the ambience of a swimming pool perfectly. The showers before the pool, getting water in your eyes, the feeling of breathlessness as you struggle to reach the other side of the lane, and even the unpleasant sights of people you rather hadn’t seen in their swimsuits… Yup. It’s all here. But what really allows the smell of chlorine to come out from the pages are the perspectives. 

click to enlarge

The pictures above are some panels which I particularly liked for their use of perspective. Usually, the view is kept low just above the water-level to make you feel as if you’re there in the pool, right beside the protagonist. Others are from a first-person view, like in the very middle picture above, where the protagonist practising his backstrokes are simply shown by an overhead arm and a roof. All in all, there’s a very good mix of shots from first and third person, from above, below, and at the water-level to immerse the readers figuratively in the pool.

west vs east

One thing about the art that immediately sticks out to me as a person who usually reads manga is the depiction of motion. Manga tend to heavily use speed lines, after-images, motion-waves, impact/shock bubbles, and extreme perspective to make you feel like you’re moving along with the characters to convey a real sense of kinetic energy. Western comics traditionally tend not to rely on such techniques, preferring to show motion from the sidelines. Although A Taste of Chlorine doesn't really need to show motion all that well since it relies more on the ambience to pull in its readers, I have to admit the rather static art did take me out a little bit. Even so, there are some bits where I thought it was done reasonably well without resorting to generic speed lines. For instance, in the pic below, a simple warping of the background gives the illusion that the character is lunging backwards to spring into a backstroke. Or at least, it does to my eyes.

As for the plot [minor spoilers ahead], it’s a minimalistic tale about a boy swimming to ease his back problems, who becomes more interested in swimming as he develops interest in a girl who frequents the same pool. I actually came in expecting a romance story and was pleasantly surprised to find out that wasn't the case. While there definitely is an element of romance, it’s really only there to add to the mood and serve as a vehicle to move the story along. The real “story” is a coming-of-age tale about a weak-willed boy getting his first taste of desire, ambition, a real sense of drive to accomplish something, whatever it is. It’s done in a very clever and subtle way in which the theme is only vaguely hinted once around the middle of the story, which the author then tries to make the reader temporarily forget through the romance sub-plot, all in order to surprise you just as much as the protagonist in the epiphany that occurs in the memorable final panel. If you read through the story too fast, you’ll likely miss it, making you go “Huh? That’s it?” So slow down and pace yourself while reading this. All in all, a good comic. It even made me want to go swimming (actual swimming, not just riding water slides), which is quite the feat since I hate/suck at swimming. I think even an 8 year-old can out-swim me. 

The only real complaint I have is that you have to shell out $15~20 for what's basically a short oneshot. I don't like to comment on pricing since that's got nothing to do with a work’s quality, but you have to admit that it can still affect your final opinion (video game reviewers, please take note). The book itself is about 130 pages but most are dialogue-less atmosphere pages and I'm certain a skilled mangaka could have easily achieved just as much in half the length if he had to work under a more constrained page limit. Of course, the main reason why the book costs this much isn't due to the page length but because of the cost of printing in colour. Thank god the manga industry publishes almost always in B&W, which allows good lengthy stories at a much cheaper price. Admittedly, a black and white version of A Taste of Chlorine would certainly lesson the great ambience afforded by turquoise and blue shades, but… I don’t know, I think it’d still be fine. I mean, look at Urushibara’s art in Waters.

The next Vivès work, Polina, is in black & white and substantially longer. Well… Technically, it’s only about 70 pages longer but there’s a lot more dialogue so it feels a lot longer. In any case, the story is about Polina's life from childhood to adulthood, and her difficulties in becoming a professional dancer. Speaking more generally, however, the story is essentially about what it takes to become a successful artist. For this, Vivès paints a very ascetic portrayal, in which "satisfaction" is a non-existent concept to the artist. He must constantly strive for greater heights and complacency in either his skill or position is to signify his downfall. Love seems to be an unnecessary distraction, if not almost detrimental to this end, since an artist must never rely too much on others and should learn to stand on his own. This is reinforced by the role of Polina's teachers who prove the old adage that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. In the first three-quarters of the story, Polina is still too young, too inexperienced to understand the advice given by her elders and would rather dismiss it as incomprehensible. But as her outlook in life matures, the truth behind these once-nonsensical maxims are revealed and she finally understands why an artist practices his craft. Bojinski, Polina's influential teacher (the man in the cover pic above), is given a fair amount of screen-time but I don't think it's too appropriate to liken this comic to a mentor-student story like The Karate Kid, which heavily emphasizes the bond between the master and the student. Polina's narrative is one-sidedly focused on the student and the relationship is too subdued and solemn for a comparison like that to work. Instead, Bojinski's memorable scenes at the beginning and the end serves to provide a light framework in which you can evaluate Polina's journey as an artist.

As for the art, it's done in quick impressionist-style sketches and it works quite well for the most part. I particularly liked the character design for Bojinski, whose eyes and mouth are hidden by his glasses and beard to effectively hide his facial expressions, transforming him into an enigmatic and intimidating authority-figure. Kind of an Ikari Gendou, if you will. The best part about his design is at the story's end, where these obscured features are illuminated for the first time, breaking the illusion of an aloof teacher that Polina had formed in her mind since her childhood. My only gripe with the art is Polina's nose. I don't know why but Vivès decided to give only Polina a thick black shade on her nasal bridge, which annoyed me because it kept reminding me of the infamous "tumblr nose," if you know what I'm referring to. It's not as if Polina's nose is uniquely hooked upwards or anything. The side profile shots of her gives a very average outline for a nose. So why the shade? To distinguish her from the rest? She already stands out well enough though. I don't know, it's... a mystery.

In any case, both stories are solid and I wholly recommend them. Although A Taste of Chlorine is the only one that's available in English at the moment, Polina too will be translated by next year so keep it in mind if you're looking for something interesting to read.

Alexandros - Dream for World Conquest (Some Thoughts About Good Manga 8)

Happyscans and I would finally like to present the scanlated release of Yasuhiko Yoshikazu's "Alexandros - Dream for World Conquest." As a big fan of Yasuhiko Yoshikazu and history, this project was an absolute dream and I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed working on it.

Since this is the first (of hopefully many) Yasuhiko manga I did, I want to take the time to comment on him, because as famous as he is, his contributions to manga are often out-shadowed by his work in the anime industry. It can't be helped though, when you have a hand in creating something as iconic and seminal as the Gundam series, but it's in manga where Yasuhiko shines best. Why? He is a FANTASTIC artist. My golden rule of setting apart good character designers from bad ones is if you can still differentiate characters even if their hair style, colour, and eyes were interchanged. With a simplified, "cartoonier" style like Tezuka's, this is far easier to do, since the artist isn't restricted by strict human proportions.

However, if you're going for a more semi-realistic artsyle, this is quite difficult to do without actually drawing the minute features of the human face. Now I might be just biased because I grew up with manga, but I think a lot of Western comic artists try to overdo the realism and end up compromising the appealing approachability afforded by simpler character designs, as Scott McCloud points out in the above picture. I think the current Yukimura and Yasuhiko are solid examples of artists that can strike just the right balance between this "distinct realism" and "approachability." Of course, as I've said before, my personal favourite is Katou Shinkichi (see pic below). That man knows all about this balance. Never goes overboard with cross-hatching and still keeps his designs distinct but clean.

In any case, let's go back to Yasuhiko Yoshikazu. He's a fantastic character designer as I've just said, and the only place you can appreciate this is in his manga because hell, it's just too damn costly to do in anime. But what about his stories? Is his writing as good as his drawing? Well, in the case of Alexandros, I think the answer is a definite yes.

Every good biography needs a focus. When you're telling a story spanning several decades (only about 3 in Alexander's case), you need a tight focus to tie it all together so it doesn't feel like the loose ramblings of an old man. For Alexander the Great, that focus has usually been to question his "greatness." Views on Alexander have ranged anywhere from a cultured conqueror spreading Hellenism for the world's benefit to an alcoholic, megalomanic, and brutish tyrant. "Alexandros - Dream for World Conquest" is Yasuhiko's own attempt to answer this question. Like a proper historian, Yasuhiko breaks away from Alexander's popular depictions in the media and presents a balanced picture. We see him at his best, bravely leading his hetairoi into the thick of every battle or nobly treating Darius' mother and daughters after the battle of Gaugamela. We see him at his worst, murdering Cleitus, torturing Philotas, or sacking Persepolis. As we follow his campaign, we see him understandably and naturally transform from a mere idolizer of Achilles into a ruler self-assured in his greatness and divinity. Lysimachus, our neutral narrator, never wears anachronistic modern-day morality-goggles, and is careful to only gently nudge the reader along in ultimately deciding for themselves on which side of the greatness-spectrum Alexander lies. Whatever your conclusion, Lysimachus' rousing monologue at the end reminds us that Alexander's deeds were something no man could follow up, and that alone deserves respect, regardless of the man's moral fiber. By the way, Lysimachus is a choice pick as the narrator, since he, as the second longest-lived diadochi, is in a prime position to look back on the effects that Alexander had, both during and after his life.

Of course, nitpickers might point to the omission of Alexander's consolidation of power through assassinations upon ascending to the throne, or the scant mention of the sack of Tyre (a pity, since it's one of the most interesting sieges in antiquity) and his purges, but that was really because Yasuhiko was restricted to a length of 1-volume, since this was supposed to be just a standard adaptation of the NHK channel's history special. So even though it'd be great to see a more detailed view of the Battle of Hydaspes or the various rivalries among Alexander's generals, you can understand how these aspects aren't as essential when considering Yasuhiko's goal in this manga. Still, you have to give credit to Yasuhiko for doing his utmost best at maintaining historical accuracy (except his handling of the march through Gedrosian Desert since he never met up with Nearchos' fleet). 

One final thing I'd like to mention as the translator is the spelling of human/city names. I often went with the ancient Greek spelling for flavour reasons, so you'll see Thebai instead of Thebes or Tyros instead of Tyre. Looking back, however, I wasn't very consistent, as I sometimes used Latin spellings like Ptolemaeus, Lysimachus, and Issus, instead of Ptolemaios, Lysimachos, and Issos. I sincerely apologize if this caused any confusion.

Download:

Alexandros - Dream for World Conquest:   Sendspace

Some Thoughts About Good Manga 7

My apologies to those who look forward to these segments, but it took me almost 4 months to get in the right mood of doing another Some Thoughts post, thanks to in no small part to the above-pictured Italian cartoonist Manuele Fior. In 2010, he released a comic that's since won quite a few awards and the approval of another comics-blogger I like, so I decided to give it a go as well.

The work I'm talking about is Cinquemila Chilometri al Secondo (5000km per second), a story about a love that's not meant to be and told through minimalistic dialogue and a few timeskips to show how each partner has moved on or not. For any anime fan, both that title and synopsis should sound familiar to you, because just about everybody gushed about Shinkai Makoto's 5cm per second back when it came out in 2007. And there's a reason behind that because Fior's work was apparently inspired by it (don't quote me on this though, as I haven't been able to find a concrete source for it). Now I'm not ashamed to admit that I HATED that movie and I'll regret seeing it until the day I die. I certainly understand why others liked it and I know what Shinkai tried to do with that movie. It's just that it failed to arouse any emotions out of me outside of disappointment. However, after reading 5000km per second, I'm a little less angry about 5cm per second because Fior showed me what the same concept would be like with prettier, more mature, and just plain better execution.

Before I can talk about why I think 5000km per second is better, let me first concisely state why I disliked Shinkai's movie first. The least interesting element (the romance) is given priority and carried by dull characters while the most interesting element (learning to move on) is given little focus and poorly wrapped-up with a half-assed montage. It's no wonder then I liked 5000km per second because it does the exact opposite of this. The actual romance isn't told at all! In fact, it's only through snippets of conversation taken place after the lovers have broken up that we the reader even realize that they had hooked up in the past. The vast majority of the story actually focuses on the challenge of moving on from the perspective of both partners, as opposed to 5cm/second's singular perspective. [Spoilers ahead]At first, the characters try to abandon their emotional history behind and move to different countries, one going North to Norway while the other goes South to Egypt. As time passes, they meet new people and start families of their own. But no matter how many years pass by, neither can really forget the moments they've shared and they realize that to leave is easy. To return is difficult. Manuele Fior skillfully tells us that we and the human experience aren't discrete, and to make a clean break is a futile endeavour. Our identities and relationships are continuous, and to deny it will lead to emotional unfulfillment in life... Or at least, that's my interpretation of 5000km/second.

As for the art, it's all-around gorgeous. Suffused with distinct ambience of each locale, these watercolour paintings are lovely to look at and their slightly amorphous outlines, the lack of clear black-boundaries unlike so many comics, complement the theme beautifully. In any case, I'd highly recommend this comic whether or not you liked 5cm per second. Although it's not currently available in English, Fantagraphics Books is scheduled to release the English version early January of next year (according to amazon).

Some Thoughts About Good Manga 6

Anybody know who this is? The answer is Morohoshi Daijirou. If you've never heard of him, that’s because not a single work of his has been translated to English officially or unofficially to my knowledge.* His obscurity in the West belies his importance however, considering his influence extended to big-weights like Miyazaki Hayao or Hideaki Anno. In fact, an interesting piece of trivia even I didn’t know before writing this post was that Morohoshi Ataru, the main character of Takahashi Rumiko’s Urusei Yatsura, owes the first half of his name to this mangaka. So what about this guy makes him special? To give an analogy, Morohoshi is to dark fantasy as Hoshino Yukinobu is to hard sci-fi manga. Incidentally, the two are long-time friends.

Morohoshi debuted in '70 with his oneshot Junko Kyoukatsu published in COM (Tezuka's famous response to Garo). At first noted only among the manga subculture crowd, he then went on to achieve more widespread recognition with his series Youkai Hunter and Saiyu Youenden (loose adaptation of Journey to the West), the latter of which was awarded in the Grand Prize category of the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize. His works are primarily noted for their unique sense of dread or wonder when myths or the occult cross the realms of reality and meet fantasy. For instance, in Ankoku Shinwa (Dark Myths), Morohoshi weaves myths of Buddhism and early Jomon and Yamato cultures to tell the tale of one boy's divine awakening. Fans of H.P. Lovecraft will no doubt feel right at home with Morohoshi's works. Just the fact that he disliked the title Youkai Hunter (a terribly generic name suggested by his editor) and later changed it to From the Field Notes of Hieda Reijirou, which is more reminiscent of the academic journal-style retelling prominent in stories like At the Mountains of Madness, should make his Lovecraftian influences clear. Having said all that, I don't want to hem him inside only within the borders of Lovecraftian horror, as he's also quite adept at doing surreal or fairy-tale-esque fantasy with no grim or eerie elements.

His relatively recent oneshot collections are excellent examples of Morohoshi's non-Lovecraftian fantasy. Their titles are Personal Illustrated Reference of Fish (Shikaban Gyorui-Zufu) and Personal Illustrated Reference of Birds (Shikaban Chourui-Zufu). As the title implies, the stories center around either fish or birds, but each story feels quite different from the next. Some are set in the ancient past steeped with divinity, some are set in the modern-day tinged with magical realism, while some are set in the post-apocalyptic futures where fish and birds are things of the past. Other stories mirror creation myths, Aesop's fables, or fairy-tales. And still others are explorations of dreams, psyches, or even just short gag comedies. A very impressive range of stories indeed. It's always a pleasure to see even established authors like Morohoshi trying new and different avenues.

What touched me most in these two collections was Morohoshi's unique take on Hans Christian Anderson's famous fairy-tale, The Little Mermaid. Just a warning, minor spoilers ahead. Morohoshi's version has mermaids living near the bottom of the ocean, where there is almost no oxygen and no light (curiously enough from an evolutionary standpoint, the mermaids have normal human-shaped eyes, however). Furthermore, these mermaids do not live prosperously in an underwater kingdom but rather a frugal existence with their population in very few numbers and scattered sparsely. Whereas in the original tale, the mermaid is motivated by love to seek a life above waters, Morohoshi adeptly uses these aforementioned elements of setting to have his mermaid be motivated instead by loneliness tinged with curiosity. I, being admittedly a rather aloof and unromantic person, quite like this change as I find it makes the little mermaid more sympathetic. This theme of loneliness continues onto the second part (her life on land), where the story changes to more of a realist drama about lost love and nostalgia for the past. This change might sound sudden and jarring but I assure you it's not. For one, the two parts of the story are split into two chapters and they are respectively placed as the first and last chapters in Personal Illustrated Reference of Fish. Also, the second half actually starts from another character's perspective so we don't initially realize that this is a continuation, and thus we also don't expect the fantastical elements present in the first half. It's only much later that we the reader comes to the slow realization that we're reading a continuation. This little split might not seem like much, but it's actually quite ingenious in getting a reader to follow a set path of expectations. It's these little things in a story's execution that can make all the difference. I won't spoil how Morohoshi's Little Mermaid ends but it's quite fitting and neither overly sappy (like Disney's version) nor overly cruel (like the original). Now maybe it's because I haven't read a fairy-tale since I was a kid but I found myself absolutely enchanted by this story, and Morohoshi's unique alterations really changed my perspective of a tale I once didn't think anything more than "Under the seaaaaaa~"

Well, that's it for now. For those who're wondering, yes, Happyscans and I are making progress on Alabaster right now. And no, there is no set release date for Gyanki-Hen v7 but I believe it'll come out in Japan sometime this spring.

*Correction: Actually, a very short oneshot called On the Way Home (Kaeri Michi) was scanlated years ago. Not really what I'd call ideal in introducing someone to Morohoshi, but better something than nothing, I suppose. I can't find a download link, so if you want to read, you can read it here at mangafox.

Some Thoughts About Good Manga(ka) 5

Considering both Sturgeon's Law and the fact that there's so many manga out there, buying something new to read, especially from an unfamiliar mangaka, can be risky. But at the same time, it makes it that much more satisfying when you do discover a new artist to fanboy over. This time, I owe that pleasure to the mangaka pictured above, Asakura Sekaiichi. Since I don't expect most English manga-fans to be knowledgeable with him, here's a short bio:

He graduated from an industrial design school but with no real job lined up, as is the fate of so many students. While working part-time here and there, a friend introduced him to a part-time illustrator job for an erotic-magazine. From there, the 23-year old Asakura made his debut (if you could even call it that) with a 4koma manga titled Ura Bidet no Hoshi in '88. He was then noticed by Manga Club (the same magazine that Bonobono ran in) and made a more legitimate debut with Osaru de Grazie, as pictured above. Oh, and as a sidenote, I should add Sekaiichi is merely a pen-name which more or less means World's #1.

With that out of the way, let's talk about his style and appeal. In case the above pics haven't tipped you off by now, yes, he falls in the school of heta-uma artists. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, it literally means "bad-good," referring to art that's good because of how "bad" it is. Examples would include Hanakuma Yusaku (Tokyo Zombie) or Yoshida Sensha's works (Utsurun desu). Although naysayers would only see it as a glorified excuse for having no drawing skills, I think the style is particularly well-suited for nonsensical-gag manga because what goes along better with unorthodox humour than unorthodox drawings? Until now, that was the only real appeal of heta-uma art that I could see. But along came Asakura Sekaiichi who convinced me otherwise. He showed me that it can also be quite cute.

At first, this statement seems entirely worthless. If there's one thing Japan can do, it's to make things really fucking kawaii~(｡◕‿‿◕｡)❤♡❤. The big eyes, small mouth, non-existent nose, blush marks, cat mouth, single fang sticking out, and you know the rest. The above-pictured cute-deformations are the tried-and-tested tools of any artist in the anime/manga industry today. However, its over-usage has rendered what was once cute into a generic and boring patent symbol. In response to this staleness, some Japanese designers have experimented with "counter-cuteness" giving birth to kimo-kawaii, a term which literally means ugly-cute or gross-cute. But a lot of these are merely ugly things ironically trying to be cute, and thus hard to accept as legitimate cuteness.

Asakura Sekaiichi, however, offers an alternate path to cuteness. Instead of trying to make things ironically cute, he displays a style that's genuinely cute, but without relying on standard cliches of Japanese cuteness. You can immediately see this just from how he draws the eyes alone, as pictured above. They don't cover a third of the face, nor do they have that...glossy/shiny-look. It's kind of like Hara Kazuo's art (Noramimi), but more unorthodox and much, much cuter. In fact, I feel almost hesitant to label him as a mere heta-uma artist because of how deliberate his style of cuteness is. If you're still unsure of what I exactly mean, go read his oneshot Nyanderful (one of his two only works scanlated in English, the other being Green Beans). The download link is here. If you can't understand how refreshingly cute and charming his style is from that oneshot, then I doubt you ever will. A real shame, but Asakura is definitely not for everyone.

At this point, I was planning to talk about the two works of his I read recently, Apollo and Debonair Drive. The former is about the daily life of a robot with heart problems while the latter is about a road trip between 4 very odd people, each tied down by their pasts. But I now realize there isn't too much that I can say about them. That isn't to imply they're not good or anything of the sort. In fact, they're fantastic reads (except Apollo's ending). The problem is that the story's appeal comes not from standard things like character depth, plot, or engaging themes, but the overall cute, funny, and light-hearted atmosphere which really can't be done justice with words. It's like trying to explain why Hirano Kouta's linework is just cool or Araki Hirohiko's poses are so fabulous. You either see it or you don't. So consider the Some Thoughs About Good Manga post this time as more of a Some Thoughts About Good Mangaka instead.

Some Thoughts About Good Manga 4 (and Status Update)

In case the absence of releases this past week hasn't tipped you off, I'm heading towards hibernation-mode for the next month (possibly 2 months) due to real life. So here's the basic project status for the curious.

Goodnight Punpun: Asano said on his twitter that v11 is expected to be out at the end of November.
Gyanki-Hen: Wait another 3 months. So probably this Nov/Dec.
Sangokushi: Will resume after my break is over.
Tomorrow's Joe: Will resume after my break is over.
Alabaster: Real sorry that I'm slowpoking on this. I promise both volumes will be out by at least spring '13.
Monthlies (Vinland and Historie): Will still do but the releases might come 2-3 days later than I would normally have it out by.

With that out of the way, it's time for another section of Some Thoughts About Good Manga. First one up is Aoi Honoo by Shimamoto Kazuhiko. He's probably best known in modern times for the Anime Tenchou mascot he created for Animate (which had a promotional video directed by Imaishi), but back in the 80s/90s, he was noted for other works such as Blazing Transfer Student, Gyakkou Nine, and Burning Pen. Speaking of Blazing Transfer Student, there was a 2-episode OVA of it made by Gainax, but for some reason, they seem to have forgotten/disowned it and don't even have it listed as one of their works on their official website (what the hell, Gainax). If anybody knows the reason for this, please do tell. But I'm getting side-tracked here, so back to Shimamoto. Well actually, I don't really need to talk any more about him because Aoi Honoo is a loose autobiography of his life.

(The white bars on this inside cover page are comments from Adachi Mitsuru and Takahashi Rumiko)

The basic plot is that Shimamoto Kazuhiko Honoo Moyuru is a first year student enrolled in Osaka (大阪) Osakka (大作家) University of Arts who dreams of making it in the anime/manga world. Unfortunately, his skills can't quite keep up with his ambitions, making his journey a bumpy one. Now maybe you've read other autobiographical manga such as Disappearance Diary or A Drifting Life and didn't like them very much (unlike me) so you want to know why you should be any more excited over this one. To that, I can confidently say this: If you consider yourself to be an anime/manga otaku, you have a very good chance of enjoying Aoi Honoo. The reason is that Shimamoto, unlike Azuma or Tatsumi, tells his story from the perspective of a die-hard otaku.

A die-hard otaku primarily influenced by the holy trinity of Ishinomori Shoutarou, Nagai Go, and Matsumoto Leiji, Shimamoto/Honoo gives a window for us young'uns to see what life was like for an otaku at the dawn of the 80s, a decade which would bring many changes for the anime/manga industry. It was a time in which Takahashi Rumiko and Adachi Mitsuru were starting to become the new faces of Shounen manga, while the likes of Ootomo Katsuhiro and Takano Fumiko would distort the traditional boundaries that separated shounen, shoujo, and gekiga manga in a movement later termed the New Wave. A time in which a group of college nobodies would take the otaku world by storm with the animated shorts Daicon III & IV and later go on to found Gainax. A time in which Betamax, VHS, Walkmans, and even Pocari Sweat were starting to sweep over Japan. These are all events witnessed first-hand by Shimamoto and covered in Aoi Honoo.

Honoo marvelling at the joys of Kanada-esque animation

Shimamoto's usual hot-blooded enthusiasm and passion are absolutely contagious for fellow anime/manga fans and arguably the best scenes come from him (over)analyzing his hobbies, whether it be Doraemon's new opening, the implications of long and short-hair on the heroines of Adachi Mitsuru's manga, or his doubts on Ootomo's future due to his art's realism and detail.

Gendou wishes he could be this badass.

The next best scenes are any time Honno's eccentric classmate and character foil, Anno Hideaki appears (yes, the Anno). Whereas Honno is a loud-mouthed, marginally talented but self-deluded youth aspiring to become a mangaka, Anno is a genuinely gifted aspiring animator who lets his work (see video below) do the talking.

As the 2nd protagonist of Aoi Honoo, the story periodically switches from Honno to Anno in order to tell the behind-the-scenes story on how Daicon III & IV were made by a group of college students barely in their 20s. So if you're interested at all in Gainax's beginnings, you ought to give Aoi Honoo a chance (but if you can't read Japanese, there's always the book Notenki Memoirs).

Yamaga Hiroyuki

Having said all this praise, there is one problem I have with Aoi Honoo. Though I'm not yet caught up with the latest volume (currently ongoing in Japan at 8 volumes), when looking back, I feel that the story hasn't progressed quite as much as I'd expect it to after 6 whole volumes. There's been quite a few unnecessary chapters covering stories that're hardly related to Honoo's actual quest to becoming a pro-mangaka. Some are understandable based on the fact that Shimamoto's trying to paint a better picture of life in the 80s but others just seem...pointlessly meandering. Then again, there's no such thing as a tight, focused plot in the thing called life, and perhaps I'm unfairly carping on elements inherent to autobiographies. Overall, it's a highly entertaining read and I really do hope some translator will step up and pick it up (my hands are a little tied at the current moment).

The other manga I want to talk about is Spinamarada! (the title comes from the mispronunciation of Spin-o-rama) because HOLY SHIT, IT'S A MANGA ABOUT ICE HOCKEY. Now Japan and hockey aren't exactly a "winning combination" (above vid related) but surprisingly enough, there actually have been several other ice hockey related manga in the past, as listed by the Japanese wikipedia page on ice hockey. But a lot of them, like Kumeta's Go!! Southern Ice Hockey Club, have rather mediocre artwork when it comes to the actual depiction of the sport, so it's hard to get excited as a hockey fan. But along comes this manga with a cover page like this:

Finally, a sports manga where I actually like the sport being played.

Realistic equipment, brands, and serious-looking art? Damn, sign me up. It might seem like a trivial reason to pick up a manga for, but ice hockey's just one of those sports that's hard to find any good depictions in media, much less serious ones. Hollywood, for one, gets carried away with the fact that physical contact is allowed and ends up showing nothing but over-the-top goon hockey comedies (thank god for movies like The Rocket though). In any case, as soon as I heard about this manga, I immediately grabbed the raws and dove right in, giddy with expectations. After reading all 4 volumes currently out, I came out, well... both disappointed and entertained.

The premise is as follows: Shirakawa Rou (age 15) is a figure skater who carries the hopes of his divorced mother, an ex-olympic figure skater, to become an olympic medallist. But following his mother's death in a car-crash, he gives up on figure skating and moves to his grandfather's home in the city of Tomakomai, Hokkaido. There, he discovers another world on ice yet unknown to him called ice hockey.

Spinamarada is actually the first full-length serialization for the rookie mangaka Noda Satoru (unfortunately I couldn't find any pictures of him on the internet). As expected for a rookie (and to my slight disappointment), Noda plays his story safe, sticking with most of the standard conventions of shounen sports manga.

Tough-as-nails coach? Check.
INTENSE, special training? Check.
Hot-headed and cool-headed athlete archetypes? Check.
Token black guy who's in Japan for some reason? Check.
Yelling out the names for players' special moves? Thankfully, no. The story might have its cliches, but it's not that goofy.

So yeah, there's nothing too surprising from the story, but at the same time, the safe, conventional approach keeps the story at a moderately entertaining level. The bigger problem I have with Spinamarada is the art.

One, the character design. When it comes to anime/manga, the characters are what the audiences will usually take notice first so if you're an artist, you better make a lasting impression. I think it's obvious to anyone that most artists for anime/manga use distinctive hair style/colour, and visual markers like ahoge as a poor crutch for their lack of skill to draw actually distinct faces. The main problem with this crutch is that you're fucked when you try to apply it to ice hockey manga because guess what? Your precious hair is covered up by the helmet. Murata Yuusuke also had to tackle this problem in his manga Eyeshield 21 , in which I'd say he somewhat succeeded, though he had a considerably easier time since he could simply have his characters take off their helmets whenever the play stopped. Which he did. Constantly. Noda Satoru doesn't have the same option, however, since hockey players will only rarely take off their helmets during a game/practice. So unfortunately for him, his technical skills haven't yet developed enough to make each player distinctive from one another as the above picture shows. Sure, there are differences in the general eye and nose shapes, but they're still insignificant on the whole and he has a long ways to go. By the way, if you want to see an example of good character design in manga, go check out Katou Shinkichi's works. Now that's a mangaka who can draw either simplistically or detail-heavy to draw distinctive faces, both of which honestly acknowledge their medium and revel in its ability for expressiveness instead of dishonestly watering it down for the sake of "photographic realism."

Two, those goddamn white shadows. It absolutely drives me nuts when I see mangaka put white shadows around their characters to help them stand out better from the background. Why? It makes the characters look like they're shitty paper-cutouts that've been glued onto the background, which makes them look horribly flat and ruins the sense of perspective in the drawing. Am I alone in this or does this bother any of you guys as well? This is something I've never actually discussed with anybody else so I'm quite curious to see whether I have a legitimate point here or just sperging out.

Three, the depiction of the game. For a static medium like manga, you can imagine the challenges that would come with depicting a fast-paced team sport. The important thing is to show key scenes that establish the general flow of the game. Showing the breakaways, the big hits, and frantic saves are nice and all, but highlight-reel material alone is usually never an accurate portrayal of the game as a whole. So far in the first 4 volumes, there've been 3 games shown and I don't particularly feel that the mangaka has successfully managed to depict this flow or a general idea of each team's play styles. Then again, I might be being overly critical since one of the games was intentionally kept short, while the other two games serve as introductory games for the protagonist and Japanese reader still new to hockey. If that's the case, hopefully as the story proceeds, it'll introduce those elements gradually.

The last issue I want to mention is very, very, very minor, and not really a point of annoyance as it is a point of confusion. Noda Satoru seems to have an odd aversion to the Bauer brand by spelling it as Baner. Brand name changing is pretty standard stuff (ex. WcDonalds in anime) but it strikes me as bizarre when other brands like CCM, Easton, Sherwood, and Koho are unchanged in the manga. What's even stranger is that in some panels, you can see players with Bauer skates. So why change the logo for only the helmets? Maybe an inside joke between the mangaka and his friends? Who knows.

By now, you might be wondering why I even bothered to post about this manga for the Some Thoughts About Good Manga section with all these complaints I'm bringing up. Well... One, the story and characters might not be pushing any boundaries but they're still comfortable in a good way. Two, it's got some nice comedic moments here and there. Three, it's pretty much the best hockey manga there is as far as I know. That might not be saying much, but if you're a hockey fan, it's plenty enough reason to read it.

Oh, by the way, did I mention the MC's love interest has thighs that would make Araki's Pillar Men proud? That's gotta count for something.