Massive Manga Update

Holy heart attacks, Batman!  Have I got some catching up to do!  The reason the reviews have stopped over the past few months have been largely due to computer woes.  It's still not resolved, but I believe that I can work around it.  There have been some great series that I really want to talk about it.  I've been absorbing so much manga that it is has been insane.  Where was I when I last posted?  I don't remember, and right now, I'm too lazy to go back and check.  I think I'll just stay on this screen and wing it.

First off, there was Boys Over Flowers, which has become one of my favorite shoujo ever.  Have I talked about this already?  If so, get ready to hear it again.  I loved the transformation of the characters in that series.  Sure, there are tons of manga out there about girls who meet assholes and end up falling for them, "changing" them in the process into Prince Charmings.  Bah, gimme a friggin' BREAK!  Boys Over Flowers (or Hana Yori Dango, for the Japanese title) takes its time transforming Tsukasa Domyouji from an arrogant, self-centered, violent jerk into...well, a man.  And not in the sense that Tsukushi (the heroine) set out to change him, because she doesn't try to do that at all.  Did you see the film As Good As It Gets, starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt?  In that film, Jack tells Helen, "You make me want to be a better man."  That, my friends, is how Tsukasa changes.  Tsukushi doesn't do a thing to him.  Because she's actually smart (a shoujo heroine?  Smart?  Ridiculous!!), she would never have ended up with Tsukasa if he had remained as he was.  No, his change was all because he wanted to do it.  He wanted to become someone that could stand by her through thick and thin.  In another refreshingly surprising twist, Kamio-sensei manages to execute this transformation without having him deviate from his original personality.  He doesn't become some sap.  He's still a smart-ass who enjoys a good bicker with Tsukushi, even in the end.  But Tsukasa the Man would never take it so far as to say something cruel to her or hurt her.  Le sigh... I've already started collecting this series.  I have 14 volumes so far!  Too many more to go...




Oh, Tsukasa... <3

 I've also started experimenting with various other manga.  I got my first taste of the great Osamu Tezuka-sama with Message to Adolf.  This five-volume series is being re-translated and released in two hardcover volumes by Vertical.  I have the first, and the second is due out in December.  I loved the first book.  Message to Adolf takes place in the years leading up to WWII (and I believe war breaks out in the second book).  It begins with a Japanese journalist at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.  His brother, who is attending a German university, is murdered, and his existence is erased entirely.  Now, the journalist (damn, why can't I remember his name right now?), sets out to find out what his brother was involved in and what lead to his murder.  Move forward to Japan a few years later.  The journalist is still trying to track down his brothers killers, and two new characters are introduced.  A young half-German, half-Japanese child named Adolf, whose father is a high-ranking Nazi, and Adolf's best friend, a German Jew whose family has been living in Japan to escape persecution, also named Adolf.  The lives of the two families and the journalist become intertwined as a secret is discovered that could tear apart the entire Nazi regime.  It's an incredible story.  I can't wait for the next book.  I did a pretty shitty job of summarizing it, so go check it out and read about it for yourself!

Surely, I could have looked up his damn name, when I looked up the pic...

I also picked up Red-Colored Elegy, an underground manga from 1972.  I read Jason Thompson's review of it in his House of 1000 Manga column over at Anime News Network, and I thought that I would give it a try.  It's so... something.  I like it, I really do.  It's something that I feel that I need to read a few times through to really appreciate everything.  It's very minimalist, in everything.  The art, the dialogue, the layouts.  It's about a couple barely eking out their lives and the trials they face together.  It sounds boring, but what makes it so interesting is its presentation.  I feel like if it were a film, it would directed by someone like Darren Arronofsky.  Not that RCE has his eerieness at all, but I think I feel like it would match his style of editing and scene-cutting. 

RCE, proving that less is more.

I've also taken my first taste of Fuyumi Soryo's ES (Eternal Sabbath).  It's a sci-fi seinen manga that explores the depths of the human psyche.  I've only picked up the first volume so far, but I'm super excited to dive into this one.  First off, I would like to say that I love Soryo's art.  I loved it in Mars, but here, she does away with the googly eyes, this being seinen and not shoujo.  I don't think I've ever fangirled over someone's art like this before.  There were some panels that I couldn't tear my eyes away from.  I just wanted to drink in every detail.  She's so good.  I can't wait for the next volume to make it here.

I love everything about her art.

Finally, I've also picked up Hot Gimmick.  Several months ago, I had this one on my reading list, but a friend of mine shot it down.  She advised me that I probably wouldn't want to read about a pathetic heroine who is bounces from one horrible relationship to the next.  I agreed.  I don't like that crap.  So I exed this one out.  Then I stumbled in to a Jason Thompson review, and he offered another perspective.  I began to get curious about HG again.  A quick look on Amazon told me that I could get the 12-volume series in 4 VizBig editions for a reasonable price, so I decided to take a chance and buy it without reading it.  I'm halfway through the series, and I love it.  Why?  Before I go into why I love HG, I think I need to visit a little series called Black Bird first.  I didn't like BB.  BB starred a weak, pathetic heroine who is portrayed as being strong.  Her love interest is a controlling and possessive man who is painted as some sort of fantasy ideal.  I really don't like that stuff.  I know people who like it, and to each his own, but it's just not for me.  I found it painful to read about those characters and see their story told as if their relationship is the kind girls should be fantasizing about.  Which brings me back to Hot Gimmick.  Hatsumi is weak and pathetic, but she's never meant to be anything else.  She can never say what she wants to in a confrontation and is incapable of standing up for herself.  She allows herself to be manipulated and loathes herself for it.  Ryoki is possessive and controlling of Hatsumi, and she hates him for it.  But she's also drawn to him because of those rare instances when he slips up and shows that he actually cares for her, even though she knows that he's no good for her.  This is a far more realistic depiction of relationships than what you usually see in shoujo.  Their relationship is fucked up and unhealthy, and that's exactly what it's supposed to look like.  It has been a really fun read so far.

Anyway, so that's a "quick" update.  Currently, I'm reading Ranma 1/2, and I've been reading this damn series for about two months.  It's good, sure.  It's been laugh-out-loud funny many, many times, but really, 38 volumes is too long for this one.  The formula gets old pretty fast.  This would have been a much better series if it were maybe 20 volumes.  I'm pushing myself forward though, slowly but surely.  I won't bail before I've finished it.