Tag: manga

Recommendation: Mushishi

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Edit: Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs…

I’m heading off to New York Comic-Con this weekend, mostly for touristy reasons (since I’ve never been to NYCC before). As of now I haven’t packed much yet, so I’m panicking while trying to get things done at the last minute. At NYCC, I plan to just mostly hang around the BentoComics table, as well as try and cram some sight-seeing into the 10 days I’ll be in America.

After the last recommendation of Mononoke, it’s inevitable that I will continue my journey into the weird-Japanese-supernatural genre. So this week, I recommend the manga and anime series Mushishi.

 

Mushishi CoverMushishi (Yuki Urushibara)
10 volumes, plus a 26-episode TV series

Mushishi is available in English from Del Rey, where I first heard of the series. I admit that I didn’t know what it was about when I first read it, and it took me two tries before I was able to get into it. Part of it is because it’s a series that has a pseudo-scientific fantasy universe, that is quite unlike anything I’ve encountered before. This series is strange and complex in a way that is difficult to describe.

 

Plot
In the world of Mushishi, there are creatures known as mushi that are ubiquitous, but just another life form like humans, animals and plants. These mushi can have supernatural powers, and when they become “off-balance” they can infect humans or geographical areas, and cause a lot of problems. Mushi are described as being closer to the essence of life, and more basic and pure than other living life forms. Most people are oblivious to their existence, while a select few can see and interact with them.

 

 

The story follows Gingko, who is one such person. He is known as a Mushi-shi – people who travel from place to place, dealing with problems that mushi can cause. Because mushi are just another life form who sometimes have symbiotic relationships with humans, they’re not evil, and aren’t trying to be. The series is episodic, with no over-arching plot, and follows Gingko from place to place as he encounters different kinds of mushi, and subscribes different methods of dealing with them.

 


 

Why I Recommend this Story
When people talk about unusual takes on the Japanese supernatural, they may mention the psychedelic anime series Mononoke (which I recommended 2 weeks ago). In the next breath, they would then say that Mononoke is like Mushishi. Ask them to explain that further, and they will be at a loss for words. Heck, I can’t explain how Mushishi is in any way like Mononoke. Both stories are unique and original in the way they imagine their universes, and perhaps the best way to describe them is that in the Forest of Genres, they’re relatives in a obscure, distant branch of the “Japanese Supernatural” Family Tree.

At least Mononoke is about an exorcist who exorcises monsters. I’m not sure what to call Gingko in Mushishi – he’s definitely not an exorcist, though some parts of his job may qualify as exorcism. There are no monsters in the traditional sense in Mushishi, though there are these creatures called mushi that are the cause of a lot of strange problems. Gingko goes from place to place, helping people who may be having problems with the mushi (sometimes they’re not), and then perhaps solving their problems (though sometimes he doesn’t). Since “mushi” is the Japanese word for “insects”, perhaps I can call him a cross between a pest-control agent and a biologist with a special streak of curiosity for the insect kingdom.

 

 

As a Mushi-shi, Gingko certainly seems more curious than most towards the mushi. While this is never addressed directly, other Mushi-shi seems to treat their jobs just as pest-exterminators, and that’s it. Gingko at least seems to take a scientific interest in the mushi, though considering the way he sometimes wanders into situations that didn’t ask him to become involved, he may just be a person who takes an interest in everything he encounters. I’m not sure. This series don’t make things clear-cut in the way some people expect their stories to be clear-cut. Situations are given, things happen, decisions both good and bad are made by the people in the story, and readers are left to ponder the results. Also, because humans need to co-exist with mushi irregardless, those looking for bombastic action scenes aren’t going to find any. There’s no good and evil in this story. There are just people, and mushi that act up for a variety of reasons.

No over-arching plot, and no special objectives to for Gingko to achieve either. And very few recurring characters except for Gingko and one or two of his friends. The art, while lush and beautiful in depicting nature, backgrounds and “the weird”, seems to be pretty forgettable when it comes to people. Urushibara doesn’t seem to be good at character designs – a lot of the characters have faces so similar it can be hard to tell who is who sometimes. So does this make the series boring? Some people complain that it’s boring after a while. Those expecting a pay-off, or a climatic boss-fight scene won’t get anything close to that. So why read this series?

 

 

One word: Originality. You won’t find anything else like Mushishi out there. This is a fully-formed universe, with its own eco-system, its own classifications of different mushi, and its own unusual methods of “curing” the “illnesses”. Heck, in one story, a character’s problem is solved just by moving to a coastal area – the mushi affecting her are dissolved by sea air, so all she has to do is to live by the sea. The stories often play out in the way a medical or scientific thriller would, except there’s no actual science involved. There is instead a humanistic approach to the characters and their issues in the stories, and it often deals with universal themes such as love, loss, the capacity people have to fool themselves, and the value of life. Perhaps a better comparison is not Mononoke, but Osamu Tezuka’s manga Black Jack; about a maverick surgeon who doesn’t so much heal patients, as helping patients heal themselves.

I’m not sure I did a good job in selling Mushishi, but then this story isn’t for the average person. Its strongest appeal is in its lack of predictability, and its sense of discovery – what mushi will we encounter next? What strange symptoms does it cause in people? What unusual methods will be used to get rid of them? To some people, it’s the most interesting thing in the world. To other people, they don’t see the point of it. If you want to have a crack at Mushishi, have a think about which camp you fall into. It will certainly affect your enjoyment of the series.

* I should mention that a lot of the stories in Mushishi are alternate re-tellings of Japanese myths and monsters. If you have prior knowledge of this, it will be more interesting and enjoyable than if you don’t.

Recommendation: Hikaru no Go

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Well, I am back from Brisbane, and back at the working table, ready to work on my next book. I can’t say much about it yet, except that it’s a prequel to a series of best-selling fantasy novels, by Kylie Chan. It’s a Chinese-fantasy story, so I’m going to be in my element. So excited to be able to draw Chinese fantasy! I need to sort out the schedule with the publisher first, so you’ll hear more about it when that’s done and I start work.

As promised, this week I recommend an oldie but a goodie – Hikaru no Go. A manga about… the ancient Asian board game of Go. Drawn by one of my favourite artists (Takeshi Obata) this sits right in the middle of his work to date, so if you’ve been following Obata over his long career, this manga shows his biggest evolution in style. Obata has done other, better-known works since then (such as Death Note and Bakuman), but I assure you, Hikaru no Go is heads and shoulders above his other works.

 

hikarunogo-coverHikaru no Go (Takeshi Obata)
23 volumes

It’s impossible to mention Hikaru no Go without talking about its artist. Takeshi Obata is a manga artist I’ve followed since the beginning of his career, since I was 12. At the time, I picked up some random manga magazine, and read some goofy gag story about a meddling robotic grandfather (yeah, you read that right). This is unusual. Normally, I dislike gag stories, but this artist was… different. Special. He had good comic timing, a pleasant style of story-telling, and I really liked the characters. The art style resembled the artist who does Magical Taruruto-kun (a wacky gag manga with a style I dislike), but this artist’s style was inexplicably acceptable to me. I made a mental note of this guy, to see what else he has done. And then I totally forgot about it.

Unknown to me, that work was the debut work of Takeshi Obata, and was called Cyborg Jii-chan G. He had just started working for hit manga magazine Shounen Jump, and so talented was he that even some random 12 year-old knew he was the real deal. The editors at Shounen Jump clearly did too, and he was soon plucked from the ghetto of gag, and paired up with a number of writers in the hope that he can deliver a hit. It took him 9 years before he found it (with writer Yumi Hotta) – and that super-selling hit was Hikaru no Go.

 


 

Plot
Shindou Hikaru is an ordinary 6th grader scrabbling in his grandfather’s attic one day, when he comes across an old Go board. Hikaru doesn’t know (or care) about Go, but he noticed that this board had a blood-stain that no one else but him can see. The reason for that soon becomes clear – the Go board is haunted by a ghost named Sai, a highly-skilled Go player who committed suicide 1000 years ago. No one else can see Sai but Hikaru, and Sai has no desires other than to play Go, and now that he’s haunting Hikaru, badgers him non-stop to play Go on his behalf. With little choice in the matter, Hikaru gives in and agrees, and begins to frequent Go clubs so he can play on Sai’s behalf.

On his first trip, he meets a young Go prodigy named Touya Akira, who he develops a rivalry/friendship with. Eventually, Hikaru grows tired of being only Sai’s proxy, especially when he’s the only one in the room who can’t understand what’s happening on the Go board right infront of him. Immersed in a world full of people passionate about Go, Hikaru starts to take an interest in the game, and begins to play for himself. He’s terrible at first, but under Sai’s tutelage, comes to realise his own innate talent for the game, to the point where he decides to become a professional Go player. And so the story follows him, through his trials and tribulations, as he struggles to become a great Go player.

 

 
 

Why I Recommend this Story
Hikaru no Go means “Hikaru’s Go”, but is really the story of two people – Hikaru, and his arch-rival Touya Akira. Akira is a boy Hikaru’s age, a Go prodigy who appears in the first volume as Hikaru’s opponent. Sai plays him through Hikaru and soundly defeats him, something that has never happened to Akira before. Naturally, Akira thinks that Hikaru was the one who had so easily beaten him, and tries to initiate a re-match. This sets into motion something resembling a game of tag, fraught with obsession, strong character drama and suspense. For those who think Hikaru no Go is about the relationship between Hikaru and Sai, you probably missed the true heart of the story. While the relationship between Hikaru and Sai is characterised well, it pales in comparison to the passion Hikaru and Akira create in each other – for the game of Go.

Alright, you can read all kinds of homoerotic subtext in the above paragraph, but Go, like chess, is about a meeting of like-minds. You either ‘get’ the game or you don’t – and if you have a mind built for Go, you’re in a separate structural universe, speaking a different language. The people in this story converse with each other over a Go board, in ways that words can’t express. A Go game needs two people to play after all (preferably both living), and Hikaru and Akira’s “relationship” exists entirely within the world of Go. They have little in common outside their game, the same as most of the people who live in their world, so it’s a testament to the importance of Go in their lives, that these people form a community with a playing board at its centre. Go is the glue which binds them all together, and what this story excels at is showing what it’s like to live, work and breath in the narrow world of competitive Go-playing.

All this passion and single-minded devotion. Does this mean that it’s one of those dreaded… sports manga? People who read my recommendations section will probably know that I can’t stand sports manga – that special genre replete with cliches, grandiose speeches, and people silhouetted against the setting sun. Go is a game that is won by calculating the number of stones you take from your opponent, so the “matches” have a sporting quality to them, but like that great basketball manga Slamdunk, Hikaru no Go manages to gracefully sidestep all the pitfalls, and be about its characters. Yes, there is enough technical information in the manga about Go for you to grasp all the basic strategies and important rules. No, there’s not so much that you won’t understand it if you don’t care about Go. Like the very best sports manga, it’s a manga about people who happen to be into Go, as opposed to a manga about Go with people filling in as actors.

And it’s a story that is told in a subtle, realistic way, rather than bombastic and fantastical. Only Takeshi Obata can make people laying down Go stones seem like action-suspense, but Sai is the only supernatural element in the story. Like Genshiken, the characters may not seem realistic, but they have the feel of the real. They’re devoted to Go, but they also have to fill out tax applications, go to boring charity events, and deal with lost-in-translation issues with Go players from other countries. Top Go players sometimes go on a losing streak, have their confidence shaken, is plagued by bad luck, is hit by health issues, is followed around by journalists… all the sort of things you would expect with being a professional in an insular industry with its fans, hangers-on, schools, clubs, championships, governing bodies and celebrities. All of it drawn in great detail, probably based on real photographs.

 

All this activity is anchored by the game of “tag” between Hikaru and Akira, an undercurrent that runs through the entire series, and comes to a calm and satisfying conclusion that isn’t really a conclusion. But you wouldn’t expect there to be a conclusion in the traditional sense, would you? At the beginning of the story, both Hikaru and Akira are 12, and Akira mistakes Sai for Hikaru. A re-match ends up seeing Akira play Hikaru (without Sai’s help), and Akira is horrified and insulted at seeing how badly Hikaru played. Hikaru spends the rest of the series trying to raise his level up to Akira. The end of the series sees both Hikaru and Akira as 15 year-olds, with an equal level of skill, acknowledging each other as proper rivals, a dynamic that will probably last for the rest of their lives.

It’s just as well that the story ends here, at volume 23. It was popular, and could have easily continued, but it ended at the right place (a miracle, in manga terms). Everything that needs to be said about Hikaru and Akira, and the people that revolve around them, has been said, and said very well. Rarely has a story that is so encompassing about a world and its inhabitants been ended so perfectly.

Recommendation: Genshiken

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I’m now back from Melbourne, and staying put for the rest of the year, finishing off my book. I’m about halfway through the “House of Odd” inks, and it’s a good feeling to be close to the finishing line! I’m looking forward to finishing the inks at the end of this month.

While I’m at it, I’m making another manga recommendation, this time for something a bit different to what I usually read. If I must describe it in a sentence, I will call it a “character-centered dramedy about Japanese Otaku culture” – aka Genshiken. Otherwise known as “the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture”.

 
 

Genshiken (Kio Shimoku)
(9 Volumes, though it’s continuing in a 2nd series)

NB. “Otaku” is the Japanese word for “fan”, denoting anyone who is an obsessive fan of anything. In this instance, nearly all the characters in Genshiken are Otakus of manga, anime and video games. In English, the word “Otaku” mostly refers to manga/anime obsessives, though in Japan it’s used in all instances that involve crazy fandom.

Genshiken was published by Del Rey in English, and boy, am I glad they translated it, because this would otherwise have completely flown under my radar. For some reason, while I’ve seen much more obscure fare in Chinese translations, I’ve not once seen this manga in Chinese stores. Which is… strange. Perhaps it’s too culturally-specific for Chinese audiences to care, whereas English readers will consider this study of Japanese Otaku-ism as a very “hip” reading experience. Mind you, if you’re looking for a window into the lives of Japanese Otaku, this is a very accessible and very well-written series.

 


 

Plot
The main character of Genshiken is freshman Kanji Sasahara, who finally fulfills his long-held dream of joining an Otaku club. The club he joins is called “Genshiken”, short for “the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture”, filled with a variety of interesting characters who all share a common obsession – Manga, Anime and Video-gaming. For Kanji, it’s his first time openly hanging out with like-minded people, and he forms a bond with them, eventually learning to accept the parts of himself he was always ashamed of. Especially when he sees the antics of other members who join after him – including fanboy Kousaka, who despite being a hardcore Otaku, is very, very good-looking (and very, very strange).

 

 

Kousaka attracts a “normal” to the club, a strong, opinionated young woman called Saki Kasukabe, who has had a crush on Kousaka ever since they grew up in the same neighbourhood. Running into Kousaka again in her freshman year surprised Saki, but she was appalled when she discovered what he was now into. Undeterred by the weirdness of the Genshiken folks, Saki pursues Kousaka relentlessly, trying to “normalise” him, to little success. Saki’s trials and tribulations with Kousaka becomes the story’s second thread, as she is lead on a crash-course through cosplay, conventions, video-gaming, figurine-collecting and other staples of the Otaku lifestyle.

 
 

Why I Recommend this Story
Genshiken’s genius lies in its accessibility, which sets it apart from other manga about Otaku culture. People reading this blog will know what an “Otaku” is because I explained it above, but generally when you talk to other people about “Otakus”, you get 3 possible reactions: (a) incomprehension, (b) interest if they are American and into manga/anime culture, and (c) a vaguely-disgusted look if they’re Japanese and not interested in manga/anime. You see, Otaku-culture may be Japanese in origin, but these people are considered social outcasts in Japan.

 

 

I actually sorta agree with Madarame here (skinny guy with glasses).

 

 

Unlike other countries where Japanese pop culture has taken root, Japanese Otaku are like Trekkies or Furries – they are looked down on by the general populance as unbearably geeky and socially-challenged. Genshiken is well-aware of this, and instead of telling the story from the perspective of a down-trodden fan, it tells the story of a “normal” who has stumbled into this gathering of freaks and geeks, and due to reasons outside her control, is forced to (grudgingly) hang-out with them, and even try to understand them. Saki Kasukabe and her clashes with her Otaku “friends” is what gives Genshiken a lot of its human comedy, and to Kio Shimoku’s credit, he never softens Saki, and never makes her into a would-be fan who is just waiting to be converted by the “right” anime. At the end of the series, Saki is still resistant to Otaku culture, but she is now willing to overlook and accept what was once so irritating to her. Likewise, all the other characters grow and change throughout the series, and it’s rewarding (and a little sad) to watch them survive their university days and enter the workforce.

Genshiken has a great sense of its characters, who are a varied bunch. Many of them feel like “types” you would encounter at a fan convention, and their interactions has a feel of the “real” about it. Certainly the creator has spent a great deal of time hanging out with Otaku, and if you’ve done the same, you would probably smile in recognition at some of the scenes. The environments also have a wonderful sense of the clutter that such people would collect in their obsessive hunt for the right “doujinshi”, and the meeting room for the Genshiken folks is rendered in loving detail – possibly from a photo of such a meeting room in real life. The dorm rooms of its members, the shops in Otaku central Akihabara, the mass gathering-place of Otakus on their yearly pilgrimage – these are all drawn with a level of care that underscores how much of this series is grounded in the real (if not exactly reality).

 

 

Like all good things, Genshiken does come to an end, a satisfying conclusion at a short 9 volumes. I wonder why the series isn’t longer, because I certainly would have liked to see what the characters did when they became fully-functioning adults (as full-functioning as these kinds of people can be). Perhaps that’s why there’s a second series, separate to this first one, that follows these characters while making room for new, younger members. Personally, I haven’t read it, but I would be looking out for it if it were available in English.

 

Recommendation: One Piece

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This week, I’m recommending a pirate story that involves little-to-no actual “pirating”. A story that is quirkily-drawn, richly-characterised, tightly-plotted and original in every atom of its being. Yes, I’m recommending One Piece. What else fits that description?

 

One Piece (Eichiro Oda)
(62+ Volumes)

One Piece is a publishing phenomenon. It’s the best-selling manga series of all-time. It has beaten Japanese first print-run records multiple times, the latest record being 3.8 million copies for volume 61. It has been nominated for, and won, multiple awards. It has sold over 230 million books (and we’re only halfway through the story).

So, if you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t yet heard of One Piece, you will eventually hear about it. Might as well be from me.

 

Plot
One Piece is about a 17 year-old “pirate” known as Monkey D. Luffy, a gluttonous and eternally-cheerful kid who possesses the power to stretch his body. When Luffy was young, he consumed something called a “Devil Fruit”, which endows the person with a unique power, but which also makes them unable to swim. A bit of a problem when the world you live in consists mostly of islands, and your dream is to become the King of all pirates.

Luffy quickly gathers some crew members and sails off to the “Grand Line”, a thin stretch of ocean full of danger and adventure. At the very end of the Grand Line is the island Raftel, where the previous Pirate King Gold Roger is said to have buried his greatest treasure – the “One Piece”. Whoever finds the One Piece will become the next Pirate King, and as you can imagine, many other dangerous people are also seeking the One Piece for themselves. Luffy gathers more crew members as he traverses the Grand Line, and encounters lots of strange enemies, many who also have “Devil Fruit” powers.

 


 

Why I Recommend this Story
I love One Piece, but I didn’t always love it. I admit that when I first encountered this story in a late-90s issue of Shounen Jump, I was put off by the weird and stylised drawings. The characters were elongated, the designs were bizarre to the point of silliness, and the humour in it was goofy. If I had bothered to read it properly, I would have realised that the story-telling was solid and that the plot dense and engrossing, but I wasn’t interested. It wasn’t even until much later that I realised that as wacky as One Piece‘s art style was, it was also unique, expressive, and more technically accomplished than most manga artists.

 

 

Years went by, and after hearing multiple people rave about it, I eventually went back to One Piece. And this time, instead of reading one or two issues, I picked up the first 10 volumes and read it all in one sitting. Looking back, I’m glad I did, because One Piece is, no joke, one of the best adventure stories ever created, in any medium. It has possibly the most creative, well-rounded fantasy universes ever wished into being, and if you’re looking to create epic fantasy yourself, One Piece is necessary study. You actually can’t do better than this, in terms of action-adventure.

Ofcourse, with this being a Shounen Jump title, there’s still plenty of room for Pirate-King wannabe Luffy and his crew to Ad-ven-ture~, while extolling the virtues of Dreams! Courage! and Friendship!! All Shounen Jump titles are required to have these values by default, including a healthy dose of battle/action scenes, a formula created by Dragon Ball and responsible for selling hundreds of millions of manga volumes. I’ve read plenty of manga who followed in Dragon Ball’s long shadow, and One Piece is the first, and possibly the last, shounen-fighting manga series to ever completely transcend the box it started in. It surpasses the best parts of Dragon Ball in every possible way – in the inventiveness of the fighting, the richness of the world, the continuity and complexity of the plot, the interplay between the characters… I’d go on, but I’ll just mention that One Piece is the only serial manga I know of that still manages to be fresh, innovative and engrossing at volume 62. Most manga series die around volume 30-40, and anything that comes after is overkill, but Oda definitely planned his story out from the very start – and it shows. When you invest emotionally in this series, you’re rewarded, instead of being jerked around because the creator didn’t properly plan out the story.

There’s also one final element of One Piece I find unique – the juxtaposition of goofy humour with heart-wrenching character moments. As I said earlier, the humour in this story put me off initially, mostly because I thought a story with such a childish sense of humour couldn’t possibly handle serious character drama… but how wrong I was. It’s a testament to Oda’s strength as a story-teller that he can muster both humour and sadness at the same time, and One Piece is one of the few manga that I can call genuinely moving. It’s actually changed my impression of the role of comedy in my own stories – from something to be avoided to something to be embraced.

 

 

Since One Piece is a daunting 62 volumes and counting, I can imagine how picking it up can be a scary experience. People don’t want to waste time on things they may not enjoy, but I also feel that reading just a few volumes isn’t sufficient to judge this story. So I will suggest reading from volume 1~12 first, and if you still don’t enjoy it, don’t bother continuing. As great as One Piece is, it’s one of those stories you either love or hate. If it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing – what can I say?

 
 

I end this with one of my favourite moments from early One Piece: