Mountain Climbing and Kokou no Hito

As a manga reader, I find that the older I get, the more seinen manga that I read. Mostly I think it's just a maturity concept: There is only so many boob windows that I can take in shonen and so many pretty boys in shojo.

So it makes sense that my return to manga would be from a seinen title and also from a mountain climbing manga. Kokou no Hito is a seinen manga, based on a real Japanese mountain climber, written and drawn by Sakamoto Shinichi. This manga was a way for me to see if I am a fan of the mountain climbing sub-genre, and also a way to reapply myself to some serious and emotionally challenging topics.

Apologies for the Hiatus

To everybody who has been posting comments and asking about me, I humbly thank you for pushing me back into the blog.

Some of you might remember, that I was a graduate student working on a degree dealing with the depictions of hikkikomori characters in manga; I am happy to say that I have finished and graduated. (YAY). That being said, I was very much in need of a break from manga for a while and have just put my toe back into the waters to test the temperature again.

I'll have a post up in the next couple of days for the latest manga I finished, but I am looking for some new reading material!

If you have any great recommendations for a lapsed reader, I am open to all genres and mangaka! Please leave a comment in what you think I should be reading and I shall add it to my giant list.

Again, apologies for the hiatus, but I'm back now!

Bakuman - The Non-Mainstream, Mainstream Battle Manga

I was living in Japan during the height of the Death Note boom. My students would come in imitating L in their seats during class and would pull out their copies of the manga in the lobby as they were waiting for class to start. A bilingual student and I often talked about manga, anime, and light novels in class because I openly talked about how I liked them to get my students to talk to me. One of the best decisions I ever made because the students didn't feel embarrassed telling me their favorite series and characters. Since most of their favorites were mainstream hits like Naruto, One Piece, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Bleach it was easy for me to jump, pun unintended, into a conversation with them. So when I confessed to never having read Death Note I got gasps and numerous remarks about how I HAD to read it. Needless to say I did, and that was where I was introduced to the glory that is the Obata-Oba mangaka duo.

It is always the sophomore effort that gets the most scrutiny from fans and critics. People can pull out an amazing work and get lucky with the popularity, but it actually takes skill to pull out that same popularity with a different idea and setting without failing to the hype and the inevitable comparison. Bakuman is a one series wonderland. I'm not sure how else to describe how amazingly wonderful and enjoyable this manga is. Not only was it a genius move by the veteran manga duo of Obata and Oba, it celebrates everything that fans enjoy about manga. This manga is compelling, funny, relatable, and with a large cast of entertaining and wonderful characters. A plot filled with suspense, comedy, tension, intrigue, and romance brings all of those characters and that world to life in a way that I have yet to see in a Weekly Jump manga series.

The Guilty Pleasure that is Shōnen Jump and Which Can You Still Not Get Enough Of?

I have a confession to make, I have a very large soft spot for Shōnen Jump manga. Now I know that I've made more than one mention about how I find it frustrating that manga like Naruto and One Piece continue on this slow decaying cycle of power-ups and never ending plots. But, I for one will never tell you that they are not entertaining and a joy to read. Kinda like romance and military trillers for the American publishing world. These genres are guilty reads for some people and it keeps bringing them back decade after decade.


The sheer evolution gold that comes out of Shōnen Jump and Shueisha is mind boggling when put into scale. Shōnen Jump itself has been published since 1968, of course to compete against Shōnen Sunday which was very popular and successful. I mean Naruto has been running a weekly serialization for 15 years come this November. 15 years. One Piece has been serialized for 17. Of course, neither One Piece or Naturo hold a candle to Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo, which has been running in Shōnen Jump for over 30 years. Guess what my friends, thats longer than I have been walking and breathing on this Earth. 


These manga then evolve into anime. Recently the animation world has been flooded with Kuroko no Basket, Medaka Box, Nurarihyon no Mago, Gintama and the return of HunterXHunter. Walk into your local, or website, animate and characters goods abound for these shows. I can find coasters, coasters for god sakes for Ao no Exorcist and Gintama, shirts, clear files, CDs, writing boards, cups, bowls, pencils, boxes, and just about anything else for them there. Why is this?


Of course, part of this is that there are always new little boys to catch in their plot depths, though maybe not if you look at the Japanese birth rate. We as older readers are also always sucked into them too. We've all seen the guy who still wears a Naruto headband, walks around with a Pikachu hat on, and proudly declares himself an Otaku. 


The reason I bring this up is fairly simple, I have been reading Kenshin in honor of the up coming movie. My friends are so happy about this movie and are going wild just thinking about it. I imagine that the online fansubing community has been conducting strategy meetings to be the fastest group to put it together in the best quality fansub. Hell, they probably have a random friend set up to record at the movie theater for them. I'm not even half way through Kenshin yet, but that's my plan for the next couple weeks. I gotta finish it before the movie comes out. 


While I was reading Kenshin, I was struck by how, for lack of a better term, different it was from normal Shōnen Jump titles. I mentioned this after I read Shaman King as well, how Yoh was not the stereotypical Shōnen Jump hero. Instead of putting all his energy and personality into defeating Hao and "becoming the best Shaman King ever", Yoh has got to be one of the most relaxed Shōnen Jump characters I have ever read. Kenshin, instead of being a young idealistic boy who is out to prove himself to the world, or within his own community, has already done so. He is much older, 28, and already possesses skills that put him at the top of the social ranking. 


Then I got to thinking about the whole Jump Universe, yes it deserves to be capitalized. All the Jump spin off magazines need to be involved in this discussion: Jump SQ, Saikyo Jump, V Jump, Grand Jump, and only slightly JumpX. When I look at a lot of the manga that comes out of these magazines, I just can't help but get a little nostalgic for their plot lines. I mean really, they are so entertaining and you are able to suspend your disbelief so well with these titles. I mean really, a world of ninja and pirates that are able to turn themselves into skeletons and giant rubber bands? What's not to love on a sheer ridiculous scale?

So my question is this: What Shōnen Jump or Jump Universe is your guilty pleasure? Do you have a secret bible to Naruto? Have you read and watched every episode of Reborn? Do you yearn for the days of Slam Dunk over Kuroko no Basket? You have a crush on Rukia that hasn't vanished? Are you actually happy that Shaman King now as a sequal? Have you seen the Prince of Tennis musical yet? Or are you still all about Goku and Dragon Ball? Tell me and share it with all and sundry! 

CLAMP and the tied worlds of xxxHolic

One of the things that I always love about manga is how much intertextual references are made between them. When you have that knowledge, or cultural capital, it makes the reading experience more interesting and it takes the reader to a new level of understanding. It is very easy to convey a feeling or importance through what could be a subtle reference. 

The whole intertextuality between xxxHolic and Tsubasa was a little confusing at times and I still don't feel like it was completely explained in Holic, but it was very interesting to follow it through till the end. I haven't read another manga that relies that heavily on intertextuality to establish a plot before.