Twilight + Yokai = Black Bird

In the year 2005 a new pop cultural phenomena was launched and spread throughout the world. It released a giant of a question onto the world at large: Are you team Edward? or team Jacob?

I am, of course, referring to the giant franchise that spans 4 books, 5 movies, was on the NYT Best Sellers list and propelled Kristen Stewart into almost every home. That phenomena would be Twilight.

Now, I am not really going to go on about my opinion of the books one way or the other. I have actually read 2 of the 4 books while I was in college. My suite mates and I were passing around romance novels my senior year of college and I remember reading Twilight, the first installment of the series, in a matter of hours. For a YA novel, it wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, but it had heart, the situation was entertaining, and the writing was so easily read that my brain didn't have to engage at all. It was like reading a really good fanfiction that was bound in paperback.

In 2008 Twilight, the first book in the series, was translated and sold thousands of copies in Japan. My Japanese teacher, an older and very smart women, actually read them because her friends were talking about it. The series and the books were a huge success in Japan, which is not very surprising because when you read Twilight and you've read some old shojo manga, you recognize that the plots and characters are made very similar.

Which is why it shouldn't surprise you that I am going to be looking at how Twilight and Black Bird, are very similar in a lot of ways.

Created families and Kiss Yori Hayaku

The joy of having such diversity in manga content is that there is always a manga to read that matches your mood.

Recently, I've been really uninterested in manga that make me think a little too much. It's probably all the reading I've had to do for school, but my mind just is not ready for Gantz at the moment. With this is mind, I headed to a manga that I could just read and enjoy without too much mind capacity needed.

So, I read Faster Than a Kiss, or Kiss Yori Hayaku, by Tanaka Meca. I have to admit, any of the manga that comes out of LaLa is usually a fun read. They tend not to be too serious, but have enough "cute tension" that you can flip pages quite easily and at a rather steady pace.

Within this manga, the biggest theme I saw was the created family.

Slice of Life, Arakawa and Silver Spoon

What does a story about alchemy and understanding of balance have to do with an agriculture student living in Hokkaido?

The answer: Arakawa Hiromu.

In my opinion, which is admittedly not a very heavy of lofty opinion, there is nothing better than having a mangaka that is able to create a real body of work. Not just having a manga that was so popular that is has crystalized a mangaka for all time, think Kubo Tite, Kishimoto, Higuchi Asa, Hatori Bisco, and Watsuki Nobuhiro when I talk about a crystalizing of an artist. Their careers have been defined by one long running epic storyline. While on one hand, this is amazing. They have entrenched themselves in the minds of readers and their respective magazines, but I have yet to see any of them write another manga.

As the great manga and anime Bakuman taught all fans, the manga world is an unforgiving place. If you can't get the editors behind a project and then reach the fans than you are cancelled and your place taken by another artist. You can have a hit and then be immortalized in the manga cannon for all time, as all of the mangaka I mentioned above are.

Yet, I can't help thinking that fact is kinda disappointing and a little sad. To only have 1 hit and 1 manga to define your career must be frustrating. When I read a book, for example, like it and connect with the world and characters that an author creates I go out and automatically try the rest of the books the author wrote. I do the same thing with manga. I've done a whole series of Adachi Mitsuru's manga and I've looked at both Tamura Yumi's epic post-apocalyptic series for that same reason. I love reading and comparing a writers/mangakas body of different series and seeing the progression of an artist because, lets be honest, that is the best part of art. Dissecting and discussing the changes and the continued fluidity of any art is some of the best arguments we can ever have.

All of us manga readers already know that Arakawa Hiromu was going to go down in manga history as the creator of one of the best shōnen manga of all time, Fullmetal Alchemist. The only anime that I am aware of that got reanimated within years of each other. No matter which anime season you watched, for the record I read the manga and then watched Brotherhood and couldn't have been more satisfied with every aspect of that anime, you knew that Ed and Al were going to become the next big thing in the manga/anime world of cosplaying. And I'm sure that everybody now knows about her next amazing manga called Silver Spoon, or Gin no Saji, that has been serialized in Shogakugan's Shōnen Sunday. 

Lovely Complex

About a month ago I asked, via tumblr, what people thought was the best shojō manga they had ever read to get some ideas for good older shojō to read for the shojō marathon I find myself currently going through. I, sadly, only received one response; which tells you how popular I am on tumblr. Anyway, the response I got was Lovely Complex, or Love Con, by Nakahara Aya. After I finished reading Kōkō Debut, which was also wonderful, I started reading Love Con, watched the anime, and then I reread it. I can't get enough of this story!

I've heard and read other readers say that both manga titles are what they would title "classics" in the shojō genre, so I decided that I would read both and see if I agreed or disagreed.

Well, here's what I thought. This won't be a long post, but I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in with the rest of the community.

Ouran High School and the Ideal Foreigner in Japan

The reverse harem has become almost ubiquitous in shojo manga in the last 10 years. After the whole manga and anime world was glutted with shonen harem plot lines, it was a refreshing change to see the guys act like school girls all trying to get the same girl. All that embarrassment and obliviousness by the heroine was just a joy to watch. I can't remember how much I giggled as a high schooler over those plots.

Do you guys remember this anime? I think it exploded in the US and I remember dozens of anime conventions that honored Ouran cosplayers. After the anime ended, I tried to stay up with the manga, as it wasn't finished when the anime was produced, but I lost interest (and forgot) in checking up with it every month. So I kinda knew how the ending was suppose to go, but I really didn't at the same time. Now that I've gone back and reread the series, there was one main thing that I noticed; Tamaki as the ideal foreigner experience in Japan.

Shojō Titles, Takano Ichigo and Orange

As most of you know, I don't usually write about manga that has not finished serialization. But I just cannot help up write about Takano Ichigo's newest manga Orange. Some of you may have seen her other successful shojō title, Yume Miru Taiyou (though it has yet to be finished scanlated), but it is Orange that I predict will be called her masterpiece. I can quite honestly say, I think it is the best shojō manga I have ever read. And it's not even 10 chapters in!

I've previously posted about other shojō titles such as, Strobe Edge, Kare Kano, Bokura Ga Ita, and 7 Seeds among others, but I am much more of an adamant fan of shōnen titles. As you can see from the other articles I've written, the shōnen titles overpower the shojō titles by a solid 2/3 to 1/3. Part of this might be because of that mini Jump marathon I did, but I would mostly blame it on my personal tastes. So, I am going to focus on some shojō titles to give this blog, and my brain, a little balance.

While I will be the first to tell you that I don't and haven't read many "classic" shojō titles, I can tell you that I have heard of them and usually know the general plot lines and tropes that they carry. I haven't read Nana and I've actually never read Hana Yori Dango, but I know almost everything about them because they are so popular and I just cannot stop hearing about them. Not even those, I can probably go into detail on the different tropes that shojō manga relies on. For example, Kimi ni Todoke, Suki itte Ii na Yo, and Hiyokoi all have the same trope of the popular guy in class, who is usually very "refreshing" and nice to everyone, getting together with the shy outsider. Of course, the trope is used differently between all three of them based on the intended readership. Kimi ni Todoke, which captured national attention with not only a 2 season anime, but also a live action adaptation, is easily one of Betsuma's most popular manga and the one aimed at the widest audience. Whereas Suki is aimed at mature audiences, as it is a josei title and Hiyokoi, published in Ribon, is for the middle school crowd.

So, without further ado, I shall get started on what my thoughts and feelings are on Takano Ichigo's manga Orange.

Ookiku Furikabutte and Why it Might be the Best Baseball Manga

For those of you who don't know, baseball might actually be the all Japanese sport.

Let me explain that statement a little bit. If you have ever lived or traveled in Japan, you would be very aware of how popular baseball is in this country. Every major city has a major league team and with those teams come HUGE cheering sections who have songs for each player on the team. Indeed, in the last several years Japanese baseball players have been infiltrating the American Baseball League ranks and receiving MVP trophies; which was huge in Japan. Ask a young kid in Japan who their favorite baseball player is and they are very likely to tell you Matsui or Yuu Darvish, who both endorse everything from baseball equipment to socks. Those who make it into the MBL are huge stars in Japan and they are the players who legitimize Japanese success in the sport.

Now you might be asking yourself, 'Why is baseball so popular in Japan?' and the answer to that question would fall to the strategy, team yet individual play, and manga. Yeah, you read that right. I said manga is probably a major reason why boys want to play baseball and girls want to be managers. You only have to look so far as to Adachi Mitsuru and his baseball manga to understand this statement. Touch was a phenomena in Japan, and it still plays a part in Japanese high schools. The opening theme song for the Touch anime is still played at koshien (the baseball stadium that holds the high school baseball tournament) every year and all brass bands can play that song. There were even news segments that were titled, 'Looking for the Real Minami' because her character became the scale for the female ideal in this country. There is not a single person over the age of 30 who did not read the manga or watch the anime. Now that Adachi has serialized a semi-sequel to Touch, the manga is being republished with original covers and is undergoing a revival of sorts.

Contrary to what you might be thinking, this post is not about Adachi Mitsuru and how he can be claimed by some to be the best baseball mangaka. In fact, it is about and completely different type of baseball manga and my argument that it is the best baseball manga that has been produced in the last 20 years.

Ookiku Furikabutte.