An Otaku Confesses

Part 16: Manga Mania

By Hurricane Heeran

(October 22, 2005) The lion’s share of attention is given to the anime side of this hobby, leaving the manga side overlooked. We’re going to do out part and try to even the score.

Let’s Review:

Sonic X: Considering that Sonic the Hedgehog is the best selling comic book in the Archie Comics line-up, I was wondering when they were going to tap into the current anime series that’s running on 4Kids.TV.

[Sidebar: In terms of the traditional comic book format, Sonic the Hedgehog is the best selling comic book published by Archie Comics. In fact, its sales are better than a few Marvel Comics titles such as Spider-Girl. However the digest publications done by Archie Comics, outsell Sonic the Hedgehog, with the Double Digest line selling above the 100,000 unit mark, and beating the sales of most titles done by DC and Marvel Comics.]

I should point out that this isn't a manga series from Japan that’s been translated into English, but an original comic book series based on the anime series that's been dubbed into English and running on American TV. As is the case sometimes with comic books based upon a series that's ongoing in another medium, the story runs the risk of being behind the times. In the case of Sonic X, the comic book has debuted just as the third TV season has started. On TV, the action is taking place in Sonic’s Universe. In this series, the action happens on Earth (must likely during the second TV).

That shouldn’t be seen as a dig at the story that does appear, I’m just stating a fact about its relationship to the main source. In fact the tale in the first issue (issue #2 just came out) that was written by Joe Edkin is pretty clever as Dr. Eggman attempts to gain financial resources (i.e. money). The artwork by Tim Smith III and Rich Koslowski isn’t as smooth as the TV series, but it isn’t bad either. [C+]

Shojo Beat #4: This is the newly begun manga anthology from Viz Media, that hopes to find the type of success with Shojo manga that Shonen manga has been enjoying with Shonen Jump.

[Sidebar: Generally speaking, Shonen manga has a readership of young males, aka boys, while Shojo manga has a readership of young females, aka girls. Shojo is sometimes spelled as “shoujo”, but we’re going along with the “u”-less spelling.]

Of the six series running in Shojo Beat, Absolute Boyfriend is the one that I’m enjoying the most. The series storyline involves a high school girl living on her own who wants a boyfriend. She comes in contact with a futuristic organization and they provide her with a customized boyfriend. However she keeps him beyond the three day trial period and now owes a million dollars to the corporation. The series has its tender moments and silly situations, and each issue it grows closer to Must Read status with me.

Nana is the one feature that is being promoted as the leading series. The chapters are now running under a hundred pages, as the two leading characters, both of whom are named Nana, have moved to Tokyo and have become roommates. It’s been a good read, and I’m curious as to where it’s going.

Baby & Me is another series, and I'm familiar with it because I caught a few episodes of the anime series a few years ago. (No, the series hasn't been licensed for North America, so for the time being the manga series is all that we have.) It's a heart-tugger of a series, as a ten-year old boy has to watch and take care of his baby brother, because their mother is dead and their father works long hours.

That leaves us with three series, and of them Godchild is the interesting one, as it is set in Victorian England and filled with macabre mysteries that have a solution that is rational and logical enough (as opposed to being based in magic). Crimson Hero is the sports series, and centers around a teenage girl wanting to be a volleyball player while in school instead of being prepared to take over the family business of running a fancy resort. If find it to be an okay read.

Since Kaze Hikaru is set in the Japan of the early 1860s, and I'm very curious about that period of time in which the Japan of the Shogunate and Samurai was coming to an end as influences from the West kept entering the country. I was hoping that the series would be more interesting, but so far it's been little more than a fair read to me.

There are articles on subjects relating to the manga series, plus lessons on drawing your own manga characters, and news on J-Pop. While this hasn’t become the Must Read that Shonen Jump is, I still enjoy reading it. [B-]

Super Manga Blast!: This is a publication that's in the middle of a transformation. With issue #54, it started to join the right-to-left movement by running Seraphic Feather and Shadow Star without flipping the artwork to run from left-to-right. However the series of Club 9, Cannon God Exaxxion, and What’s Michael? are still running in the left-to-right mode.

Making this moving interesting is the fact that Club 9 has officially ended its run with issue #55, with a new text article series called Sugoi Japan starting. Issue #56 just came out and no new manga series has replaced Club 9. Also, it should be noted that the publication now has two covers, one for the left-to-right side and the other (sporting some Japanese text) for the right-to-left side.

Of the manga series, I love Cannon God Exaxxion and What’s Michael? Shadow Star I sometimes enjoy. As for Seraphic Feather, it produces good splash pages, but as for the story, it's gotten to the point where I wish all of the characters would just die.

Moving to the text articles, Sugoi Japan is interesting to read as we learn more of the author’s adjusting to everyday life in Japan. As for the convention coverage done in A Fan's View, I sometimes feel that the writer is suffering from a minor case of convention burnout. The other quibble I have with the feature is that the photographs of people in costume are in black & white.

The other nits I have to pick are two long-standing ones. The first is that the page count is 128 pages (Shojo Beat and Shonen Jump are over the 200 page limit). The other is that this isn't a monthly title, and that it seems to be on a nine times a year schedule. I like this magazine, but I keep feeling that it could be done better. [C+]

MangaZine: With issue #68, this publication also began a transformation, although at first it would appear to be a simple one. Namely the page count in the squareback magazine decreased so that instead of containing five comic book issues, the publication now contains four.

This publication is similar to the one shot giant comics that Fox Features did during 1949 and 1950, and the Annuals that EC Comics did a few years later, in that takes printed pages that could have been used in a basic comic book and assembles them into one thick publication. Only in this case the covers of those comics also run inside and the MangaZine publication itself is squarebound. A spine scene is done too, so that you get to see a special scene when ten or twelve consecutive issues are assembled.

The two series that have bookended this publication since it began are Gold Digger and Ninja High School. Gold Digger is by Fred Perry, and centers around the Diggers Family, with Gina Diggers as the supposed star but I think her adopted sister Brittany has edged her out. The series is a mixture of martial arts, magic, and super-science, with a dash of humor usually added to the adventure, but the current saga to find Brittany and her kidnapped baby is being done quite seriously. One more thing to note is that this series is done in color.

Ninja High School was created by company co-founded Ben Dunn, and he has returned to the title this time in the mode as artist. With issue #130 (reprinted in MangaZine #58) the series has rebooted so that Ricky Feeoke is now the star and part of the new concept is that we’re going to see more of the teachers and administrators (and the ones we’ve met are on par with mad scientists).

One of the series that has been running in the second slot is I Hunt Monsters by Craig Babiar and Wes Hartman. The series is about a young man who learns that his family trade is monster hunting and thanks to a mishap, he has to recapture the previously caught monsters as well as any new ones that pop up. Helping him are three young females, one of whom is a vampire. A young female shaman and secret agent are the occupations of the other two gals. It’s a fun series, with a few good twists to it.

Hiroshima runs in MangaZine #69 as the third title. Ted Noruma, who has been with Antarctic Press for years, is the writer/artist of the feature. Noruma tries a bit too hard to tell an historic account that’s accurate and fair to both sides. I suspect that he dug up too much information to use, because this isn’t a comic book as much as it is an illustrated text book with a few comic panels and pages running.

The cover price for MangaZine is $9.99, which currently gets you four comic books that have a cover price of $4.05, so MangaZine is a better buy in terms of price comparison. If there’s a nit to pick (and there is) it’s that this isn’t a monthly publication so sometimes it takes a month off. And apart from Gold Digger and Ninja High School, you can’t be certain as to what will be found inside. [B-]

I Luv Halloween: I Love the Halloween Season. While I don’t go to Knott’s Scary Farm as I used to, I still derive some small pleasure by simply knowing it exists. And I like catching a Nightmare Before Christmas at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.

I also like seeing Tokyopop expanding its line of material to go beyond manga and manwha, and using some American talents. Likewise I like seeing old pros getting new work.

You may have noticed that so far I've avoided talking about the book. So here comes the review.

I grew to hate this book for wasting my time and the resources of those involved. The story is ugly as a group of kids go around in costume to get treats and if they don’t like the offering, they do a malicious act (like give a police officer an apple with razor blades in it and claim it came from an old lady). We also have a little girl dressed as the tooth fairy who clobbers a slightly older boy with a rock and pulls teeth out of people

Mischievous behavior is one thing, but this is malicious behavior. The kids can be called amoral at best, and we're far from the best.

The series is written by Keith Giffen, who has written fun series in the past. There's no fun here and trying to read the first chapter was like trying to chew hay. The artist is Benjamin Roman, whose art style is rough to say the least.

The pages of this book have an all-black border (which must have been fun to do at the printing plant, as the press needed more ink). And we have two chapters numbered as being "Four".

I didn't care for this series in the least. [F]

For The Record: In my review of Gunslinger Gun in Column #14, I misused the Italian word of frattello. The word (which means “brother”) isn’t the name of the team, it’s the word used the adult male of the team.

Next Column: Celebrating CLAMP

Herein we discuss ... all the things you watch read and play