The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg, published by DC/Minx

Being pretty far removed from the target audience for this book, both by age and gender, I wonder if that makes me a better or a worse judge of its quality. It reads a bit like some of the better shojo manga out there, with a dramatic, if not melodramatic, emotive approach to story, placing its emphasis on relationships between characters instead of plot. But a little more plot wouldn’t have hurt, as new girl Jane, eager to reinvent herself in a new town after her parents fled the city in the wake of a terrorist incident, forms a new clique with three other girls named Jane. By the rules of high school cliquedom, that these four girls would so easily become good enough friends quickly enough to form an underground art collective that peppers the city with conceptual and installation pieces…well, it seems unlikely, and a bit too conveniently handled in order to hurry the plot along. But those quibbles of pacing and convenience aside, the story does have a nice emotional resonance that I suspect will mean more to someone not quite as old and jaded as I.
Although, if I can inject a small complaint over one of my pet peeves: the gay best friend character? Who adds nothing to the story other than to be the “gay best friend” type of character? Yeah, I don’t need to see that character in anything anymore.
Jim Rugg’s art is nicely matured here from his earlier work. He strikes a nice balance between a realistic and a cartoony style, which allows him to very clearly show emotion and action, but still caricature and exaggerate characters for whatever effect or mood the scene calls for. If there is a fault, it’s the sometimes odd choices of “camera angle” which just call attention to themselves for their peculiarity. Just because Gil Kane could pull off an up-nostril shot, that doesn’t mean they’re always a good idea.

Countdown #51, by Paul Dini, Jesus Saiz and Jimmy Palmiotti, published by DC

Judging by online critical reaction, I seem to be in the minority in enjoying this comic. For what it’s worth, it’s not that I necessarily disagree with any of the more intelligent and perceptive critics who have been disappointed by this book. It’s just that: what they call a slow story, I call deliberate pacing. I also can’t get too bothered by the the somewhat insular appeal of this book. Let’s be perfectly honest: this isn’t going to be anyone’s introduction to the DC universe. And while overtures to new and returning readers who aren’t caught up with all the intricacies of contemporary continuity are always appreciated, I don’t think a book that’s designed specifically to appeal to the regular super-hero reading audience has to necessarily go out of it’s way to pretend that “every comic is somebody’s first.” Even the much maligned scene from Justice League of America which reappeared in issue #50 works within that context, as it establishes a benchmark by which events in other DC books can be placed on a time line. Given that the title of the series is “Countdown” that seems like an acceptable use of a few pages every couple weeks.
All that being said, I actually do enjoy this book. Dini has a good ear for dialogue and the voices of the various characters, his plotting is very deliberate, and the co-writers and artists lined up for this series have all done good work which I’ve enjoyed in the past. No, it’s not the super-star line-up of 52, but it’s competent craftsmen who know how to tell enjoyable super-hero stories in service of the corporate properties.

Manga Catch Up: Some manga titles I’ve been reading, that I don’t believe I’ve talked about before.

Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs, by Yukiya Sakuragi, published by Viz
A very, if not deliberately, cute comedy about a dog-crazy girl and the misunderstandings and adventures she gets into because of her infuriating naivete and love of dogs. It has good, if somewhat unremarkable art, with the exception of highly realistic and exquisitely rendered dogs. And in a really nice change of pace for a story about a naive girl in the big city, there’s so far not a hint of any romantic subplots.

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service by Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki, published by Dark Horse
A comedic horror/mystery series with engaging art in an original style, with a wacky cast of characters who, in any other title, would be really messed up, but just fit in perfectly and work here? What is not to love?

Mushishi by Yuki Urushibara, published by Del Rey
I was actually a bit underwhelmed. Oh, the art is lovely, to be certain, but the stories are so…vague and ephemeral. Yes, I understand that what we’re going for here is more tone and “bigger picture” effects than any emphasis on plot or character would allow. But the end result is something that feels a bit hollow.

Reiko the Zombie Shop by Rei Mikamoto, published by Dark Horse
I can’t even begin to adequately describe how much I’ve come to love this comic. I’m not sure if it’s the super-cute artwork, or the utterly depraved over the top gore, the absurdist black comedy, or the intersection of those three elements, but it all comes together in a glorious totality of cute girls and horrific violence that puts the most ambitious torture-porn producing shlock producer to shame. And, to its benefit, unlike the torture-porn films, the women actually legitimately kick-ass and take no grief.

Welcome to the NHK by Tatsuhiko Takimoto and Kendi Oiwa, published by Tokyopop
Unlike the various iterations of Train Man that have come out in the last year, this is not the story of a nerd who comes out of his shell and discovers the wide world outside of fandom. No, this is the dark mirror of that story, about a shut-in who only falls further and further into more and more depraved and soul-numbing depths of misanthropic nerddom. There’s a bit of “there but for the grace of” feel to the enterprise, especially as this is no gentle mockery of the foibles of nerds, but rather a vicious evisceration of all their negative personality traits.

I hate the kind of scuttlebut that says “if you don’t support Book X it will be cancelled” because the suggestion that a book is on the cancellation bubble is usually enough to get it pushed over, but since there seems to be concern over the survival of Aquaman, I thought I’d take a moment and say that Tad Williams has been doing a bang-up job with the title since he’s taken over, adding a nice, lightly humorous touch to a super-hero adventure title that retains the best elements of Busiek’s revamp while bringing the title more in line with a traditional Aquaman book. It’s good stuff, in other words, and you should give it a shot if you haven’t yet.

Speaking of which…I’ve been enjoying Will Pfeiffer’s run on Catwoman a great deal since the start…but if there are any dead babies in upcoming issues, I’m done with the book. I put up with Nazis buzzsawing children because I trusted that Johns was going somewhere with it, and y’know, Nazis are bad. But killing a baby we’ve known for over a year, who actually brought something new and interesting into the title character’s life…no, that’s my limit.
Consider yourself on notice, Pfeiffer.

I love comic book fans. “Oh noes, a not very good picture has been released to the internet! Clearly the movie is going to suck! I’m going to go on every message board I can find and make a Brokeback Gotham joke to express my displeasure!”

Apart from Doctor Who, the only television I’ve been watching much of lately is the new BBC Robin Hood series. It’s overall good, but the “family appropriate” heart it wears on its sleeve is very telling and overpowers the stories a good deal of the time. If anything, the series is a bit too bloodless. When even the villain of the piece is making metatextual comments about how the hero is stupid for not just killing him already, you’ve perhaps pushed your “the hero doesn’t kill” rule too far.
But, apart from that, I enjoy it, and I’m continually fascinated that even the BBC was willing to put a children’s show on the air that’s basically a thinly veiled condemnation of the “war on terror” and Britain’s and America’s domestic policies in response to it.

Something wonderous comes out this week.

Okay, two wondrous things, counting a new issue of All Star Superman.

The second volume of Reborn is released in English. Reborn, of course, being the fantastic manga title about a toddler assassin.

Here’s the opening and closing songs from the anime series, for no particular reason.

If I correctly interpret the Japanese home-page for the title, they’re currently up to volume 12. That means many, many more volumes of mayhem to look forward to.

Here’s another clip, whose context won’t mean much unless you saw the episode. Unless of course you like looking at handsome men kissing, in which case, there you go…

On the whole, despite a shaky start, I think Torchwood turned out pretty good…even if the “big bad” was stretching credibility for the concept of the show a little. And hey, for those who were put off by it, and didn’t consider it sufficiently Who-vian, there’s also The Sarah Jane Adventures, which was nice as well, but definitely a call-back to the kid-vid days of Doctor Who.

I think I’ve found the manga to fulfill that “cute art, strange comedy, peculiar situations” niche that I’ve been missing from my manga reading now that Tuxedo Gin is over. It’s Reborn, by Akira Amano, and it’s just so…strange yet endearing I think I’ve fallen in love with it.

Reborn is the story of Tsuna Sawada, a middle school student who’s bad at sports, bad at studying, and incapable of doing anything to impress the girl he likes. He’s such a complete and total loser, it’s pretty much the only reputation he has whatsoever among his peers. Then along comes Reborn, a toddler hitman working for an Italian crime family.

Let that soak in a minute…toddler hitman. Not “midget hitman” or “strange creature who happens to look like a toddler, but is also a hitman.” But an actual toddler, with a binkie and diapers, who is a hitman. And everyone just accepts this. Oh, sure Tsuna can’t help but comment on how unlikely it is…but everyone else just lets it be.

Anyway, disguised as Tsuna’s live in tutor, Reborn reveals that he is actually here to groom Tsuna into becoming the next head of the mafia family he works for, Tsuna, by an obscure quirk of genetics, happening to be the last living male relative of the current Godfather. In addition to his vast personal experience and hands-on knowledge of running a crime family, Reborn also has access to magic bullets. Yes, that’s right, magic bullets. Just…accept it. The effect of the bullets depends on where you’re shot with them, and Reborn is particularly fond of using the “Deathperation Shot” which gives someone the courage to accomplish anything they have regrets over not doing. Over the course of this first volume, Tsuna gains two soldiers in his growing crime family and Reborn gains a nemesis in the form of Lambo, another toddler assassin working for a rival crime family, who dresses in a cow suit.

So, to sum up: cute art, slapstick comedy, and a premise that is entirely insane. See, this is why I love manga.

Edited to note: And, oh yeah, it’s published by Viz in the Shonen Jump Advanced line.

No, I’m not talking about the recent yaoi unpleasantness. I’m talking about Tokyopop’s recent announcement that some titles will move to online sales only.

Even though I (thankfully) no longer work in comic retail 24/7, I still keep my hand in and assist my former employer with the manga orders. I really try my best to maintain as diverse and full a stock of new titles as possible, and research new titles as they’re solicited as much as I can. But I don’t have an unlimited budget and manga is not the focus of the business, so cuts and exceptions have to be made. Occasionally I screw up. I never ordered any of the Project X books, for example, because I couldn’t imagine anyone possibly wanting to read a comic about the history of Cup Noodles. And then it became a hit with the discerning manga blogerati.

I’ve got a pretty good grasp, otherwise, about what does and does not sell to our customers. Manga novels don’t sell. Sports manga don’t sell. So-called “global manga” titles don’t sell. A few Korean titles will sell every once in awhile, but the “original English language” stuff is almost always dead on arrival. So I keep in mind the types of material customers won’t buy at the store when I set the order numbers.

But a great way to keep orders down on certain titles, or entire lines, is to pull stupid, un-friendly to comics retailer moves. I’ve been very impressed with Go Comi’s line of books, particularly their production values. But I won’t order any of their titles that have been Borders exclusives. Why should I? Anyone who wants them has already had four or five months to buy them at Borders. We haven’t carried anything from Net Comics either, because, as I said earlier, Korean comics tend to be a tough sell with our customers and they solicited something like twelve first volumes their first month in existence. That was simply too much at once on unknown properties from a new publisher. I may start ordering some of their material, now that I’ve had a chance to see it for myself elsewhere, but I have no regrets for not letting them flood our shelves early on.

And now I have to decide what to do, if anything, about Tokyopop. I’m extraordinarily upset about this latest move of theirs. They’ve always been a bit of a nuisance to deal with, from an ordering and budgeting angle. They put out too much at once, their section in Previews is a mess, and now doesn’t even include descriptions for anything more than one or two volumes old, and their production values are somewhat lacking in comparison to almost all their still in business competitors.

My first impulse, honestly, is to simply stop ordering any Tokyopop titles outside of what we need to fill pull-lists. Why should I take a chance on ordering a new series from Tokyopop if, two or three volumes later, they might decide that it isn’t selling what they think it should be and make it an online exclusive item? Why should I attempt to build an audience for a title in the store if Tokyopop could decide that they’d rather cut out the middle-man and sell the title direct themselves? And what do I tell customers already buying a title when Tokyopop decides to take it exclusive?

I’ll probably have to talk with the rest of the people who work at and operate the store before I come to a final conclusion, but I have a hard time imagining that anyone is going to have an opinion about what to do that’s far different from my first impulse. Tokyopop really did a lot to usher in the current manga marketplace in the U.S., but their actions since then have been frustrating and baffling and have burnt out a lot of people’s goodwill towards the company.

The first ten minutes of the live-action Death Note film that all the cool kids are talking about:

Internet jerks spoiled the ending of volume seven for me. The jerks. But in the process I discovered that there was some controversy over the ending of the series. An ending which was broadly telegraphed as early as the first volume of the series. But I guess an unwillingness to engage in careful reading or recognize foreshadowing isn’t limited to American comics fans.

Aw, go listen to some Fall Out Boy, you big cry-baby!

It’s been a while since I talked about manga in any way. To be honest, I’ve mostly gotten out of the “regular reviews” habit (three moves in two years can do that to you…so much stuff gets boxed up, taken out, and reboxed, that you easily lose track of what you may or may not have written up), and besides, much better sites provide dedicated manga coverage. But, I still feel the occasional need to spill my guts over which titles I’m still paying attention to.

Absolute Boyfriend by Yuu Watase: I’m an avid follower of Watase’s work, and this story, about a girl with a gorgeous male robot who is hopelessly devoted to her is a nice tweak of one of the more obnoxious cliches of manga.

Anne Freaks by Yua Kotegawa: This is an action mystery about disturbed teens fighting a cult. Or being manipulated by a psychopathic girl into doing her bidding. But there’s a good mystery/conspiracy element with a varied cast of ambiguous characters.

Angel Sanctuary by Kaori Yuki: Angels, demons, extreme violence and tragic incestuous romances! Everything you could ever want in a shojo comic.

Antique Bakery by Fumi Yoshinaga: A charming series that nicely balances comedy with a little drama, about four handsome men working in a pastry shop. It’s one of those idiosyncratic titles that you just don’t seem to find too often in American comics.

Boogiepop Doesn’t Laugh by Kouji Ogata and Kouhei Kadono: I probably would have gotten more out of this if I was familiar with the multi-media phenomena that is Boogiepop Phantom. This is good, and the idea of a horror series told from multiple perspectives, in which the bulk of the terror is off screen has merit, but it probably reads better if you already know the story or can read the complete series in one go.

Cafe Kichijouji De by Kyoko Negishi and Yuki Miyamoto: Short comedy vignettes about five mis-matched men who work in a cafe. Mayhem tends to ensue. There’s a certain assumption that you’re already familiar with the characters from the audio dramas the series is based on, which hurts the book slightly, but the sheer strangeness of the stories manages to communicate the humor all the same.

Chikyu Misaki by Iwahara Yuji: This ended a little while ago, but I just wanted to mention again how much I enjoyed it.

Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata: Ah, moral ambiguity and a sociopathic lead…I love this series.

Descendants of Darkness by Yoko Matsushita: Grotesque horror and pretty boys. It’s a time-tested and winning combination.

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya: Eh, I can’t explain the appeal of this series. It’s funny and heartfelt.

Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden by Yuu Watase: This is a prequel to the soon to end Fushigi Yugi series. It’s more mature in tone than that earlier series, but it still has the same mix of romance and fantasy adventure that made it so compelling.

Her Majesty’s Dog by Mick Takeuchi: Another horror-tinged comedy/romance, about a girl with mystical abilities and her pet demon-dog, who must occasionally kiss her to stay alive. Naturally, this leads everyone at school to mistakenly believe they’re a couple, though it’s really more of a pet/owner type relationship. It’s not exactly ground-breaking material, but it has an appealing cast and a good natured element to it that makes it enjoyable.

Man’s Best Friend by Kazusa Takashima: A yaoi anthology, with the bulk of the stories focused on pets turning into humans to have sex with their owners (animal transformations seem to be a recurring theme in my manga purchases). The art is nice, and the traditional seme/uke roles are (mostly) more fluid than what you usually see in yaoi.

Monster by Naoki Urasawa: The critically lauded mystery series, and with good reason. The setup (Doctor saves child, child grows up to be serial killer, doctor has victim’s blood on his hands as a result) is extraordinarily strong, and the series is thoroughly readable and compelling.

Musashi #9 by Miyuki Takahashi: It’s a bit repetitive at times, but I do find myself enjoying this action series about a teenage girl who happens to be the world’s deadliest secret agent.

Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi: I can offer no excuses or justifications for my purchase of this series. It’s utterly stupid, goofy, silly, fun comics.

School Zone by Kanako Inuki: Old school J-Horror about little kids trying to survive in a haunted school. If you can get past the extremely dated art-work, there’s a creepy core to this title that works remarkably well.
(Additional: I should probably clarify, since several people have brought it up, that I don’t have any objections to older manga. But this particular style, even if the book is only about ten years old, looks much older. It looks like the horror manga I’ve seen from the sixties and seventies, with it’s weird mix of cute and scary, and I do tend to find the “cuteness” of it, and many of the other horror titles Dark Horse has released in a similar style, a bit off-putting. In other words, it’s not the manga, it’s me.)

Tsubasa by CLAMP: And people complain about all-encompassing super-hero cross-overs. This title ties the vast majority of all of CLAMP’s varied series together into a dimension-hopping quest story.

Wallflower by Tomoko Hayakawa: There’s something subversive about this series I quite like. The goth girl who steadily resists all the attempts by the pretty boys to turn her into a traditional shojo heroine just makes a nice antidote to the doormats and love-struck girls you see in so many shojo titles.

xxxHolic by CLAMP: Beautifully drawn and creepy horror stories of ironic punishment and Japanese myth in the best Twilight Zone tradition. The book just oozes an aura of art-deco decadence that makes it hard to resist.

I also recently picked up Redrum 327 and Cantarella, but haven’t had a chance to read them yet. The only upcoming titles that I know I’m looking forward to are Junji Ito’s Museum of Terror and Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. And I’m wondering whatever happened to Legal Drug and Yotsuba.

Yaoi: Gay porn for kids?

“This is a subgenra of manga (comics from Japan) called yaoi: which depicts “boy love” or men or sometimes teenagers boys in sexual situations. This is a fad that has become increasingly popular with young girls 12-13 and there are even yaoi conventions now. I am concerned since this is now freely available at your local bookstore right alongside some rather innocent manga titles out in the open instead of the adult section where they belong. I was just wondering if any parents had heard of this and what your reaction was. do a wikepedia search or look on anime forums.”

I particularly like the phrase “feely available.” Because, you know, it’s not like bookstores are there to sell customers items they wish to purchase without making judgments about those items or restricting access to them.

” Gross. That’s just disgusting. What on earth would a girl find appealing about that? Not that anyone would find it appealing, but why young girls?”

Well, I know what I find appealing about “gay porn,” and while I’ve heard various theories cited as to why young girls enjoy gay porn and/or yaoi manga, I’m not certain there is a singular, easy to articulate answer to that question.

“There is a lot of perversion to to be found in Japanese culture, they simply do not have the same values we (pretend to) have in the US. This does not mean that all anime/manga contains objectionable content, but there is still a lot to be found (and I wish that Yaoi were the worst of it, but it’s not).”

Yah! Let’s hear it for cultural supremacism! It’s not that Japanese culture is simply different from our own, no, it’s “perverted.”

“Here in the US, many of our superhero comics are not suitable for young teens anymore, either. A recent news item was about how Batwoman is going to come back to the comics, as a lesbian.”

Ah, yes. It all comes back to that somehow, doesn’t it?

(link via MangaBlog)

I’m feeling a bit worn down, and only one thing can cheer me up:

Kero-chan playing video games! In German!

(Look, not every post can be brilliant, all right. Just be glad I don’t own a cat.)

Panels like this make me regret not being able to read Japanese. I’m kind of hoping that this is a case of either a too literal translation, or an overly Anglicized translation stripping the intended meaning from the scene.
In either case, Miyuki looks far too interested.

As I still do for the comic shop I used to work at, as no one currently employed there knows about manga, it suddenly struck me: “I used to think there weren’t enough gay comics coming out. Now it’s almost as if the manga shelves are drowning in yaoi…

“Still outnumbered by panty-flashing fan service books, though.”