Home > Flipped - David Welsh on Manga Flipped! Original Archives: Read These, Part Two posted December 31, 2007
By David P. Welsh
Here's part two of a round-up of manga lovers making pitches for books that deserve more spotlight (critical or commercial) than they're currently receiving.
We'll start with John (Sporadic Sequential) Jakala, one of the first bloggers to lead me down the path of manga:
"When I think of underrated manga, I think of manga that don't seem to get the attention they should, so naturally the first thing that comes to mind is Shaenon K. Garrity's incredibly useful Overlooked Manga Festival feature.
"Since then I've continued to be impressed with the character work on Kekkaishi -- not only the great visual depictions creator Yellow Tanabe comes up with (well, most of the time, at least) but also the nuanced motivations and interactions the characters display.
When I first read Kekkaishi, I pegged it for a slightly watered-down version of Bleach. Sure, the two series share some surface similarities (superpowered teens fight demon spirits in order to protect blissfully unaware mortals, while complex conspiracies simmer to a boil in the background), but they're very different in terms of tone and execution. In her review, Garrity remarked how she could tell that Kekkaishi was a Shonen Sunday manga rather than a Shonen Jump series because it was 'gentler, somehow.'
At the time, I didn't really understand what she was getting at, but having read the 11 available volumes of Kekkaishi, I think I do now. Whereas Bleach is all hyperkinetic energy and bombastic battles that rage on for dozens of volumes, Kekkaishi is quieter and more character-focused. The difference can be seen even in the way the good guys dispatch the demons: in Bleach, Soul Reapers wield zanpakuto, large swords with special powers; while in Kekkaishi our heroes use the more passive power of barrier containment. I love both series, but Kekkaishi would probably appeal to readers who prefer a little more character depth and development along with their action.
"The second manga that doesn't get the attention it deserves (at least here in the U.S.) is Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond (Viz). In Japan, Vagabond is properly recognized as the stunning work of genius that it is, having won several prestigious awards and regularly topping sales charts. In the U.S., though, Vagabond has never really seemed to find a sizable audience. Hopefully that's about to change, though, since Viz finally seems prepared to put together a proper P.R. blitz for the book in 2008.
Inoue was already honored by a widely-reported reception in New York, where it was announced that Viz will be putting out a number of works from Inoue, including several related to Vagabond: two art books and a thick omnibus collection of the first three volumes of the series. Viz will also be publishing other manga from Inoue, including the manga phenomenon known as Slam Dunk. Hopefully attention to Inoue's overall body of work will increase interest in Vagabond.
"OK, OK! Enough already! So what is the series about? Well, I'm horrible at succinctly summarizing a series so that it sounds interesting, so I'll simply direct you to Viz's site if you want to know how their marketing department attempted to sell the book to you. Basically, Vagabond is an epic seinen samurai series (27 volumes and counting in Japan), but it's unlike any samurai manga you've read before. For one thing, this is a samurai manga where people are actually afraid to die. How refreshing is that? Normally in a samurai story everyone would be stoic and happy to die a glorious death, but not here; in Vagabond people actually panic when they realize that they might die, including the main protagonist, Miyamoto Musashi, who we're told again and again is destined to become the legendary 'sword-saint.'
When I first read a scene where the main hero turned and ran away, I thought, 'That was weird.' But then I realized, 'Why wouldn't you run away if you were convinced you were going to die? How could you overcome that natural instinct to survive?'
"But even after the novelty of reading a samurai manga where manly-men chicken out and beg for their lives to be spared fades, Vagabond remains an incredibly engaging read. A huge part of it is due to Inoue's skill as a consummate storyteller. After finishing one volume, I realized that I had been breathlessly caught up in what amounted to one long fight scene between two swordsmen. 'Wow,' I thought, 'Inoue is an amazing storyteller if he can make a sword fight hold my interest for two hundred pages.' Little did I know that he was just warming up: in the very next volume, the entire book is devoted to two swordsmen not fighting. Honestly, the whole book is nothing more than two fighters sizing each other up and trying to figure out how to make the first move, and it was still one of the most riveting things I've ever read. I think Inoue deserves some kind of Nobel Peace Prize for coming up with that sequence and actually making it work across an entire book.
"I also think the idea of showing how a master swordsman rose from humble origins to become one of the most revered fighters in history grants the work a surprising appeal. I certainly didn't expect to find much in a seinen samurai epic that I could apply to my own life, but I think the concept of struggling to overcome one's fears in order to achieve great things is universal. It's a philosophy that anyone can apply to their own life: I want to be X, but I'm afraid of Y, which is a necessary component on the way to becoming X. What can I do? According to Vagabond, the answer is: confront your fears head on; learn from those wiser than you; and practice, practice, practice -- especially at those things that scare the hell out of you.
"Finally, as a manga created by Takehiko Inoue, the whole thing is just jaw-droppingly gorgeous to look at. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to include scans with my recommendations, so for now I'll just direct you to Google Image Search with the terms 'Vagabond + Inuoe' for your viewing pleasure."
I don't know which library is lucky enough to employ Robin Brenner, creator of the No Flying, No Tights family of web sites, but I imagine it's a comics lover's utopia. Brenner served as an Eisner Award judge last year and works on the American Library Association's Great Graphic Novels for Teens selection committee.
"The Demon Ororon by Mizuki Hakase (Tokyopop): This manga gets me right in the part of my heart that adores tortured romance, ominous fantasy, and art so good it makes me swoon. Hakase's art is not by any means your usual shojo sparkles and cutie-pies. Everyone and everything looks lethal, from the King of Hell to the half-human, half-angel heroine Chiaki, and the disproportionate figures and slicing lines suit this grim love story perfectly. It's not for everyone, and I'm sure any manga fan who thrives on silly comedy and relentless action will be bored to tears, but for everyone else, this one is an intriguing, unsettling tale. Originally released as four volumes by Tokyopop, it's now happily out in an omnibus edition, which I sincerely hope means more folks will take note.
"Loveholic by Toko Kawai (June): For all the yaoi titles that get tossed around in articles (Fake, Gravitation, etc.) explaining the genre, a lot of folks concentrate on the 'women like guy/guy porn!?' angle and zoom in on the smut/oddity factor. They forget that the bulk of these tales, explicit or not, are romances, and Loveholic has to be one of my all time faves. Yes, the men are beautiful (though not so much so that they look like 13 year old girls) and no, it's not outright porn by the end. But Toko Kawai manages to make her men less idealized fantasies and more like real people, and the mounting tension between the patient Matsukawa and the prickly Nishioka is sweetly portrayed in sidelong glances and restrained gestures. Not only that, they have actual lives that don't revolve around their romance, which is inordinately refreshing. Now if only volume 2 was coming out soon...
"Sidescrollers by Matthew Loux (Oni): I may not be the expected target audience for Sidescrollers. I am not a guy, and I'm not really either a gamer or a slacker (though I certainly claim a fair share among my friends.) I am, however, a geek and an outsider. Sidescrollers is hands down the funniest comic I've read it years. I laughed all the way through it, and still reread it to remember all the great lines. ("I'm teaching your cat to hate!") When my friends read it in my presence, and start laughing, I pester them to tell me where they are so I can relive the book. (They're very nice in putting up with this.) Lines from the book have become private in-jokes between my friends and I. Maybe it's the friendship of our trio of suburban heroes, maybe it's the stylish and kinetic art, and maybe it's the fact that there's a showdown between one devilish and one angelic cat. Or maybe it's just the whole package."
If you love Japanese comics and haven't bought a copy of Jason Thompson's Manga: The Complete Guide (Del Rey), well, what are you waiting for? In his spare time, he acts as manga editor for Otaku USA and creates the webcomic The Stiff. Here are his picks:
"Sugar Sugar Rune by Moyoco Anno (Del Rey): In a genre dominated by merchandising and cookie-cutter art styles, Moyoco Anno managed to do the impossible: to create a magical-girl manga that readers out of junior high can enjoy. On top of showcasing Anno's gorgeously idiosyncratic artwork (a junior Gothfest on the level of The Nightmare Before Christmas and Scary Godmother, but derivative of neither), this tale of young witches manages to combine supernatural hijinks with symbolism and romance.
"Cromartie High School by Eiji Nonaka (ADV): Though it has a cult following so it may not count as 'underrated,' this dialogue-driven absurdist comedy is one of the funniest manga in print. The intentionally stiff visuals are based on the 1970s high-school tough guys manga of Ryoichi Ikegami, giving the comic the same feel to Japanese readers that a clip-art comic made of old John Romita, Sr. superhero poses might have to American comic readers today."
Anti-climactic as it may be, here's my contribution to the cause:
Train + Train by Hideyuki Kurata and Tomomasa Takuma (Go! Comi): This series didn't get off to a very auspicious beginning, but it's improved steadily in subsequent volumes and has become one of my favorite coming-of-age manga. Basically, students travel to a teaching planet and go to school on massive trains, circling the globe and combining life experiences with class work. The Special Train takes things to a different level, adding peril and adventure to the mix. You might expect it to be generically wacky, but the curriculum covers a lot of challenging issues -- poverty, corruption, terrorism, isolation. Takuma's art never really goes farther than serviceability, and your eyes won't pop reading it, but the character development and plotting are very strong.
Mail by Housui Yamazaki (Dark Horse): Yamazaki collaborates on The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service with Eiji Otsuka, and that book deserves all of the love it gets, but Mail is a real gem in its own right.
Reiji Akiba is an unprepossessing private detective in the Columbo mode (with a little Richie Brockelman thrown in) who deals with angry ghosts instead of cunning murderers. In tight, well-crafted episodes, he dispatches creepy spirits with an exorcism-specific handgun, and the ghost designs are delightfully gruesome and varied. The series is only three volumes long, and it offers solid diversion for the reader who might be looking for a change of pace from long-form epics.
(Originally published Monday, Dec. 31, 2007 at Comic World News.)
My first pick for underrated manga is one that Shaenon first turned me on to, 
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