One Year Later: Anime and Manga Bloggers 4 Japan Closing

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Today is the one year anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and the tsunami that followed it, destroying many lives.

I was still awake and online the night of the earthquake and tsunami. True to form, Twitter was quickly inundated with news and video of the disaster unfolding before us. It was quite something to behold and I had a lot of trouble going to sleep that night after watching the black water rush through the Japanese coast.

Perhaps because I also live in an earthquake zone and only a half hour’s drive from the beach at any given time, I felt a special kind of sympathy and pain with the victims. A natural disaster can happen to anyone and everyone, after all.

Thus, I was compelled last year, with the help of Mike Huang of Anime Diet, to start Anime and Manga Bloggers For Japan. Along with Mike Olivarez, Linda Yau and hundreds of other bloggers, we raised a total of $4,846.03 for Shelter Box and Doctors Without Borders, all through small donations from fans, bloggers and other people who felt the need to give responsibly to Japan.

The site hasn’t been updating nor has anyone donated money since April 2011, but my goodness, what we managed to do in a month. It was a truly inspiring experience.

After talking to Mike Huang about the situation, however, we’ve decided to close the Anime and Manga Bloggers for Japan website when its domain expires soon. While we could keep the effort going, we failed to do so before and I would be afraid of failing to do so again. Sometimes, it’s just best to leave things to the more professional and organized fundraising efforts.

Despite this, it is my fervent hope that everyone is still supporting Japan in its efforts to rebuild. Whether through donations, tourism or continuing to buy Japanese imports.

While all of these are fine ways to help, I would recommend planning a trip to Japan as one of the best ways to help rebuild the country. While many of Japan’s most popular attractions are far from the hardest-hit areas of the country, visiting the disaster areas as a tourist gives the region a long-term goal to accommodate tourists and monetary incentive to rebuild faster.

I’ve been around the travel industry all my life and avoiding a country where disaster has struck (both natural and man-made) only delays the country’s progress. Bali was able to rebuild after two terrorist bombings, but years of tourists avoiding the island meant that many people struggled to make a living until the tourists felt it safe to come back. The same thing has happened in Haiti after their devastating 2010 earthquake. There, in the years since the earthquake, little has been done. The money coming into the country is inadequate and not targeted to their needs. Meanwhile, the country’s industries cannot bring enough money into the country to help.

Japan can count itself lucky that it is not a third-world country without enough infrastructure to rebuild, but their struggle is not over. It is our duty as world citizens to not ignore Japan, or any other country marred by disaster, but to actively support the country and its industries.

Thanks again, one last time, to everyone who donated and helped out. Continue to be the kind souls that you are and never forget that even the smallest of efforts can be of great help to those in need.

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No More Single-Issue Comics For Me. Ever.

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Ever since the New 52 came around, I’ve been collecting floppies for the first time since I was little. Just a few titles, Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Batwoman. Before that, I was just collecting trade paperbacks when it came to mainstream comics. Now I remember why.

While I understand that single-issue comics are very important to the American comic industry in that they gauge interest (via sales) before a comic is published as a trade paperback, but floppies are the most annoying way of reading comics.

First of all, the advertising is such that it’s incredibly distracting. I could almost understand having all those pages of ads in such a short amount of pages, the money has to come from somewhere, but I hate the way the ads interrupt the story. As I was reading an issue of Batwoman last night, the sequence of pages went as such: 14 pages, ad, ad, page, double-page spread ad,  page, ad, ad, page, ad, 5 pages, end of comic material. Batgirl was laid out similarly: 4 pages, ad, 3 pages, ad, page, ad, ad, 3 pages, ad, ad, 2 pages, ad, 3 pages, ad, 3 pages, ad, page, end of comic material.

It made me really mad that the story I was reading kept being interrupted. Being familiar with the publishing world, I know I must put up with advertising to keep such publications afloat, but I would rather quit buying floppies entirely than have to deal with this. Putting all the ads at either the beginning or the end of the comic seems like an acceptable option to me, but clearly DC thinks otherwise.

Then there’s the amount of pages you get for each single-issue comic you buy. Argh. 20-22 pages an issue is far too little to truly enjoy for me. It’s all the fault of my long-term manga collecting habit, I know.

See, advertising in manga isn’t as invasive. Even in the original magazine you don’t get full-page ads in the middle of a chapter. Ads wait til the end, or are off to the side, only taking up part of the page. These small in-page ads do interrupt the story a bit, but are far easier to either ignore or skim without breaking up the reader’s concentration too hard.

But also, for the price of three floppies, I can get 10 times the pages for my money with manga. I know this is because mainstream comics rely on color and shiny paper. I know this, and yet I can’t feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth. And I’m fairly certain that manga publishers need my dollars more than Marvel and DC do.

I’m just going to give up and give in to my illogical hatred of single-issue comics.

Man, am I glad manga isn’t published like that anymore.

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MMF: Do Manga Editors Dream of Tezuka Sheep?

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

It’s very common on manga blogs to talk about the series you dream of seeing printed in English. Nearly every manga blogger does it. It’s an easy feature to write up and readers seem to love getting exposed to unfamiliar titles.

It’s part of a manga editor’s job to keep up with and suggest new titles to publish too. Unfortunately, as a freelancer, I don’t get to do this much. So instead of having dream titles that I’d love to see published, I have dream titles that I’d love to publish myself.

One of those titles is Osamu Tezuka’s Nanairo Inko or Rainbow Parakeet.

This dream came about one day when I was doing research on the extent of Tezuka’s manga oeuvre and consulted my senpai (for lack of a better word), Annaliese Christman.

Annaliese, if you haven’t heard of her, is a freelance letterer and touch-up artist for Viz Media. She’s worked on the new editions of X, Solanin and more shounen titles than I can remember. We also went to university together and served as officers in the school’s anime club at the same time. We were the biggest manga fangirls in the club and she’s the one who let me borrow the first Tezuka manga I ever read.

So, when I asked her what Tezuka manga she’d most like to see published, she started fangirling over Rainbow Parakeet. I’d never heard about it before, so I looked the series up.

Just from looking at the covers alone, it was easy to get hooked on Rainbow Parakeet.  Annaliese and I both have a thing for manga about phantom thieves, so it was love at first sight.

So then we decided that one day we were going to team up and publish it.

Really, it’s a great little Tezuka manga. It’s seven volumes long, which means it won’t be too much of a risk to publish. In fact, France’s Asuka has already jumped on it. It seems like Tezuka Pro has begun to license Tezuka’s manga to US companies other than Vertical now, so there’s a chance that we could buy the license some day.

Most of all, it’s a FUN Tezuka manga. We don’t get too many of those in the U.S. since readers here are mainly interested in his dramatic stories. But we all know that Tezuka’s lighter manga can be a real joy, especially after reading Princess Knight.

And let’s face it, Tezuka does his best work when his manga revolves around strong, somewhat eccentric characters like this titular thief. Just look at Black Jack, Buddha, MW, Ode to Kirihito, Princess Knight…

Some day… Some day! We will publish Rainbow Parakeet!

Right after we tackle Rose of Versailles and make a lot of money, allowing us to publish more great, older manga. (It may seem like a pipe dream, but hey! If you asked me two years ago whether I expected to work on certain big-name manga, I would have laughed at the idea! Anything is possible!)

For more about Osamu Tezuka’s manga, you can check out the Manga Moveable Feast on Kate Dacey’s blog, the Manga Critic. For more posts from other manga bloggers, you can also take a look at the Tezuka MMF archive.

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Discussion: Should I Switch To Digital Mid-Series?

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

I am preparing for a trip to Panama and Nicaragua later this week and, to prep, I decided to stock up on some digital manga.

…Which leads me to a small conundrum. All the manga apps on my iPad have become somewhat stagnant. To begin with, there aren’t too many titles I want to buy. I’ve already bought all the volumes of series I’m collecting digitally and there don’t seem to be too many new additions to any of the apps. There are, however, a lot of manga that I’m already collecting.

These fall into two categories: manga where I’ve bought volume 1, but haven’t bought more if because I’ve been saving my money for other titles; and manga I’ve been collecting for quite a number of volumes.

It seems to me that if I’m having trouble keeping up with these titles, perhaps getting them digitally would help. That way I could get two for the price of one print volume, not to mention, not have to worry so much about space in my apartment. This seems particularly plausible for series like Story of Saiunkoku, Saturn Apartments and Cross Game, where I just keep forgetting to pick up volume 2. But what about series like Otomen, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Oishinbo and Grand Guignol Orchestra? (Yeah, so far this only applies to Viz series.) Am I just supposed to have half of a completed series on my shelves? Do I really care that much about having every print volume of a series I’ve already started in print?

BAH! SO CONFUSING!

Which leads me to ask: What would you do in this situation?

I think I might go ahead and start digital collections of manga where I only have one volume, it’s less of a issue there. But I’m still hung up over series where I’ve bought more than one print volume.

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Discussion: Which Tezuka Manga is Your Favorite?

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Yesterday was the 23rd anniversary of Osamu Tezuka’s death. To commemorate the man who had (and still has!) such an impact on manga publishing, I thought it would be good to talk about his manga and our favorites.

Personally, I love Ode to Kirihito the best. It was the very first Tezuka manga I remember reading and I still find it to be one of his most solid works.

That being said, I really enjoyed Princess Knight! And I really want to read Rainbow Parakeet in English! (I swear I will never stop talking it up until it gets published in the U.S.!)

So what’s your favorite Tezuka manga? What are you dying to see published in English? Have you read any of his work recently? (I just finished Black Jack Volume 10 myself.)

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My Personal Top Ten Manga

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

This post actually got started on the Ladies in Comic Book Stores tumblr, where a reader asked me for my top ten manga.  I wrote out this huge post, complete with links to the Amazon listings, other suggestions, reasons why I like that series, and then tumblr ate the whole damn post.

But I think it’s a good list and that it’s worthy of it’s own spot on All About Manga, so I’m going to re-do the whole damn post. Right here. Right now.

Most of these aren’t in any order, except the first two. Beware that a lot of these are out of print. The reason I suggest them is because they are WORTH hunting down and perhaps paying a little extra for a certain volume. Mind you, I’ve only had to do this for one of these series so far.

1. From Far Away

From Far Away is my favorite love story and I will never get tired of pimping it out to people. I think it’s the best example of a fantasy world being full of different kinds of people I’ve ever seen in a manga. In fantasy, I see a lot of authors have problems developing characters beyond what side of the story’s main issue they’re on. With Hikawa’s characters, you could spend hours describing all their little quirks. Do be warned, the series takes a little bit to warm up and volume 1 doesn’t feature the most amazing writing. Keep reading!

I collected From Far Away when it was still being released, so I have no idea how out of print it is aside from friends who are looking to collect it.

2. Monster

Naoki Urasawa is one of my favorite manga-ka of all time and Monster is one of his best series. They call him the Master of Suspense because of Monster, I’m sure of it! It follows a Japanese surgeon in Germany who gets caught in a strange, very scary conspiracy because he saved the life of a young boy ten years before. This is probably the series that got me collecting something other than shoujo manga.

This one, unfortunately, seems to be very out of print, from what I hear. Is it worth it, you ask? Well, when this manga was still coming out, my anime club passed this manga around like it was a pipe filled with the best hashish ever. There was a waiting list at least a half a dozen long for a number of volumes. (So glad that I started buying it after I borrowed the series…)

If Monster eludes you, check out Pluto and 20th Century Boys, also by Urasawa. Both are excellent.

3. Basara

Basara! My love! This epic shoujo manga reads a lot more like a shounen manga, but with a heavier dose of romance than normal.  It follows the struggle of a young revolutionary, who must hide her gender as she strives to exact revenge upon a tyrannical ruling class in post-apocalyptic Japan.

This manga is incredibly out of print. In fact, it’s the only manga where I’ve dared to spend much more than MSRP for a single volume. (Volume 19, which is heavily out of print. I got a slightly damaged library copy for $60. But I had incredible luck with the rest of the volumes and bought most of them at below MSRP, so it all evens out.)

4. Banana Fish

I just finished Banana Fish and it was one of those series where I was reading the volumes with such intensity, it was a little scary. Banana Fish wouldn’t be called a shoujo manga if it weren’t for the intense relationship between its two main characters, Ash and Eiji, who are so close it’s almost sexual. The rest of the time, it’s guns, drugs, violence, mafia-types and anything else typical of 1980s-era gangs in New York City.

Even though it’s been a long time since Banana Fish was published, I had no trouble collecting the series. People tell me it’s out of print, so I may have been very lucky, but check your local comic book store anyway. They might have extra copies laying around. (Buy those if you see them and really want this series. I always recommend buying stuff out of order if it’s OOP.)

5. Please Save My Earth

I’m actually still in the middle of reading Please Save My Earth. That’s how much I like it. I don’t even know how it ends yet and here I am recommending it to you. But I always get so SAD whenever I finish a chunk of volumes…

Please Save My Earth is about a bunch of teens (and one kid) who find out that they have memories of a past life on an alien moon base. As they get to know each other better, they find themselves entangled in the same relationships and drama that dominated their former selves.

Anyway. I’m not having any trouble getting volumes, even though I thought I would have more trouble. A quick scan of Amazon tells me you can get all the volumes for at or below MSRP though.

6. To Terra…

There’s a reason why Keiko Takemiya is considered one of the pioneers of shoujo and yaoi manga and To Terra… profiles everything that makes her great. Beautiful art with more experimental paneling than you’ll see in most modern-day stuff; amaaaaaaazing scifi writing; and more subtle boys’ love than you can shake a stick at!

Luckily, these volumes are almost always available due to their publisher (Vertical Inc.) being awesome and always keeping all their titles perpetually in print.

7. Ode to Kirihito

Tezuka is a great manga-ka and there are plenty of his works on the English language market right now, but Ode to Kirihito is one of my favorites. It’s a heavily emotional journey and easy to sympathize with the main characters, more so than some of his other manga. I think this is the very first Tezuka manga I read, but it’s just good and a lot easier to get into than some of his other dark stuff.

If you want something lighter, I do recommend Princess Knight, which will give you crazy feelings of Disney nostalgia. Dororo is a good middle ground, in case you’re not into fluff. All three titles are available from Vertical Inc. If you have trouble finding Dororo, it’s probably because they’re putting out a new omnibus edition.

8. Genkaku Picasso

I don’t know if Genkaku Picasso will always been on my top ten list, but it blew me away when I finished it last week. It was such a great example of using a standard manga formula (battle/problem of the week), that the manga was able to mock itself for using it. Personally, I could relate to the main character and I even cried a bit at the ending. I seriously wish that more shounen manga were like Genkaku Picasso.

It should still be available from Viz Media, seeing how it’s a fairly recent release.

9. MARS

MARS was an important title to me in high school. In a fit of obvious stupidity, I sold off all my copies before college and now I have to recollect them all.  I’ve gotten through about half the series so far and it still holds up beautifully. A somewhat dark, but sometimes uplifting look at the struggles the more creative types can face in high school.

I’ve looked at Amazon for the volumes before and most of them seem to be well below MSRP. Take advantage of this because you’re much less likely to see it in stores.

10. Ooku

I’m not entirely sure whether or not to feature Ooku or Antique Bakery, which are both by Fumi Yoshinaga. But I know this for sure, I will always love Fumi Yoshinaga manga. She is a master of emotional faces and simple paneling. She draws food manga, yaoi, historical manga and slice of life, and somehow manages to make each story nearly perfect.

Ooku is currently running and in print. Antique Bakery is out of print, but SO WORTH IT. But do be warned that both manga contain fairly explicit sex scenes, in case that bothers you.

Honorable Mentions-

A Drunken Dream & Other Stories

Moto Hagio is kind of my manga hero after hearing her speak about how she creates at Comic-Con 2010. (Where this book of her short stories debuted.) It’s still in print and ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS. All shiny and golden. *_*

Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad

If you’re even slightly into indie rock, you’ll probably have a good time with Beck. It’s like a good teenage anthem song. Unfortunately it has been long out of print and was never actually finished in English. It’s still a good read!

Planetes

Personally, I like the anime better, but it’s such a good story! If you really can’t find the manga (it’s really out of print), go take a look at the anime and you won’t miss much. The manga is gorgeously drawn, though, so my only real argument for the anime is having seen it first.

Bunny Drop

This series is currently being released by Yen Press, so you’ll be able to find it easily. About an adorable kid and her not-so-adorable, older nephew who winds up adopting her. (Her father is his grandfather, who dies at the beginning.) SO CUTE.

A Bride’s Story

I LOVE A Bride’s Story! I never expected it to get licensed because of a slightly squicky May/December relationship, despite the fact that it has some of the most gorgeous artwork ever. It’s a historical manga, set in the Middle East in 19th Century and   is currently being released by Yen Press. If you want more of Kaoru Mori, Emma has also been released in English, but it’s getting hard to find.

Twin Spica

Oh, Twin Spica. Could there be a cuter slice of life, kind-of scifi series out there? I’m not sure. Everyone thinks Yotsuba&! is cute, but I think Twin Spica is better. Vertical just released the last volume has almost finished releasing the entire series, so it’s definitely still in print.

Barefoot Gen

I began reading Barefoot Gen for one of the Manga Moveable Feasts. It’s not happy, it’s about a family struggling before, during and after the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, but it’s important and mostly true. (The author is a survivor of Hiroshima.) It’s still in print, as far as I know.

Nodame Cantabile

There are more than a few manga about serious music students out there and Nodame Cantabile has got to be the most entertaining, especially when it comes to the titular character. Sadly out of print, but wroth the read!

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MMF: Usamaru Furuya’s Genkaku Picasso & Why It’s Currently the Only Shounen Manga on My Shelves

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Forgive me for talking about probably the most reviewed, most popular and most accessible Usamaru Furuya manga in the English. I’m sure the other participants in this month’s manga moveable feast have chatted your ear off about Genkaku Picasso, so I can only hope to give a fresh perspective as a non-shounen reader.


You see, Genkaku Picasso is the only shounen manga I’ve bothered to collect. Ever. The title of this blog is a little bit of a lie, I actually have a volume of One Piece, a volume of Ranma 1/2 and a volume of Bakuman sitting in my to-read pile, a number of Japanese Gin Tama tankobon that I inherited from someone and Cross Game, which I totally forgot I owned until I began putting the finishing touches of this post. I think I used to own some Inuyasha volumes back in the day when those cost $15 a pop, but sold them off years ago. Ranma 1/2, Bakuman and Gin Tama I got for free, but I have absolutely zero plans to read Bakuman or Gin Tama, let alone continue collecting them. Cross Game is an unfortunate victim of having other titles I’m a little bit more interested in and I haven’t bought more volumes even though I want to, eventually. One Piece and Ranma 1/2 will probably be the next shounen manga that I attempt to get into, but I’ve had those volumes for a number of months now and little desire to actually read them. If I do get into One Piece, I’ll probably buy the rest of it digitally because of its length. I’d do the same if  Ranma 1/2 was available online.  Thus, Genkaku Picasso is the only shounen manga I’ve bothered to a) read and b) buy the rest of the series. Too bad it’s so short.

I don’t know if I could tell you exactly why I dislike shounen manga. I’ve read a number of volumes through friends who are kind enough to let me borrow. I read a few through scanlations, once upon a time. (I don’t think any of those titles have been licensed though.) I’ve watched a number of shounen anime too, although I can’t say that too many have struck any sort of chord with me. I know the “problem/fight of the week” formula is one reason I dislike shounen manga, but Genkaku Picasso and many other manga I own use the same formula. So that’s not it.

Perhaps it’s the easy camaraderie coupled with fighting, I’ve never understood why people can be best friends so easily after being on the opposite sides of an issue. It seems a little fake to me as I’ve never found making friends to be that easy.

At least in Genkaku Picasso, the friendships Hikari (Picasso) suddenly gets are a result of him having to fix their emotional problems without them knowing. The characters he helps then feel more interested in Picasso because of the emotional impact he’s had on them. (The premise of this story is that Hikari must dive into other peoples’ hearts to help them fix deeply-ingrained emotional wounds, or else he starts rotting and dies.) You know, like a good friend who gives you a shoulder to cry on and helps you work through your problems.

But it’s not really a mystery to me why I like Genkaku Picasso over other shounen manga I’ve read. In the back of volume three, Furuya begins to talk about how Genkaku Picasso came into existence, namely how an Jump SQ editor approached him about making a series for the magazine. For an alt-manga creator like Furuya, this seems a little odd, why would he place his next series in such a popular magazine? But the editor gave him free reign to create whatever he wanted without having to worry about selling books. (Within certain parameters, I’m sure, since Jump SQ is still a magazine for young, impressionable kids.) So Genkaku Picasso is a work of love, something that Furuya wanted to write. And I could feel that as I read the series.

It’s actually surprising how one forgets that a lot of manga are kept going by sales alone. One great example of this is Please Save My Earth, which I’m currently reading. It’s very engrossing and it doesn’t smack of “this series is only continuing to sell more books,” probably because Saki Hiwatari created a more complex story than she initially realized. She admits to having planned something much shorter initially in her author notes, but also reveals that she created the idea all on her own and that she got a lot of support from her editor to take the series in whatever direction it needed to go in. Not that the story isn’t weak in certain areas, but you can see where Hiwatari really shines and builds a concrete, believable world. I love reading Please Save My Earth and I feel a bit sad when I run out of volumes to read.

A very bad example of a series that has been extended too long is Fushigi Yugi, in which the main story ends in volume 13, but continues with an after-story for another five volumes. It feels very, very, very forced in comparison to the first 13 volumes and creator Yuu Watase even states that she was asked to continue the story because of its popularity. And, wow, you can really tell that Watase is pretty much done with these characters and their story. She clearly needed a break from the popularity of Fushigi Yugi. It’s really not surprising that Watase didn’t start Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden until a full nine years after she finished the first series. Even I don’t even want to read the rest of Fushigi Yugi that much. I’m just doing it to finally finish the series that got me started on manga and move on. Maybe nine years from now, I’ll want to take a peak at Genbu Kaiden…

So perhaps it’s really the desire to sell books and become the next big shounen manga that keeps me away from it. There’s too much use of a certain formula for success and not quite enough creativity to keep me from rolling my eyes whenever I read a standard shounen manga. Not that shoujo manga doesn’t do the same thing, but shoujo tends to get the ax much sooner if it’s no good. It’s why you see so many short stories in the back of shoujo manga.

Genkaku Picasso, on the other hand, has enough creativity to attack unconventional issues and goes so far as to mock the generic shounen formula it does take. Not to forget the manga’s shounen roots, the ending will probably make you cry a single, manly tear. I couldn’t think of a better shounen title to read right now. Grab it while it’s still widely available.

For more on Usamaru Furuya and his many works, you can check out the rest of the Manga Moveable Feast at Experiments in Manga.

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