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TNS's manga thread: Finding the occassional diamond in the rough
Since I read a lot of manga, some of which is rather obscure, I occasionally happen to stumble across some hidden gems that not a lot of people talk about, so I thought it would be fun to do a thread where I do short reviews for the obscure (and occasionally not so obscure) manga I find, as well as Manhwa (Korean series and webcomics) and Manhua (Chinese comics). Plus, this thread doubles as an excuse to show my friends some of the cool stuff I find. So I don't end up just talking to myself a bunch I highly encourage people to comment on the series if they've read it, recommend a series they want me read and review for them or post whatever they feel like they have to add to the thread. Though I will ask you to keep the thread on topic and not shitpost.
Normally, I'll review one series per post, but since it's the first post I'll do three of my favorite series as an introduction.
Fuan no Tane/Fuan no Tane +: Both of these series are collections of short horror stories by Nakayama Masaaki, who I hadn't heard of until recently. And when I say short, I'm not kidding. Chapters on average run about 3-10 pages. All of the stories presented are completely unrelated to each other and there's no attempt to tell a story, so you end up with little snapshots in time, which I really really like about this series, as it adds a lot to the horror. In some ways the stories feel very Lovecraftian, in that you get the feeling that humanity is rather inconsequential in the scenarios presented and that all these horrifying occurrences would continue on even there weren't any human to observe it. However, unlike a lot of Lovecraft's works, there is a very story element of mundanity to all of these stories, as opposed to the fantastic, mind-shattering revelations Lovecraft's protagonists experience, which I really think works in their favor. Between Fuan no Tane/Fuan no Tane +, there's over 60 chapters and the whole thing can be read in an hour or two, so the barrage of short unrelated occurrences gives the impression that all of these horrifying occurrences are just business as usual in the world, which is a lot more horrifying to me. In these stories, sometimes there are bad things implied to happen to the person we're currently viewing at the time, but most on the time, nothing happens to the person and they'll have to go on with their lives after their supernatural encounter. It's a way to tell horror stories that I wish more people would explore, to be honest. I highly recommend this series for anyone who's a fan of Horror literature.
Master Keaton/Master Keaton Remaster: This is probably one of my favorite series that I've read and a lot more people need to know about this series. The story follows Taichi Hiraga-Keaton (nicknamed Master Keaton from his time in the SAS, where he had the rank of Master Sargent) throughout his travels around the world as an insurance investigator for the Lloyd's of London insurance company (real company, by the way). Since Keaton studied archeology at Oxford, some of the cases Keaton focuses on is dealing with the preservation of historical artifacts and landmarks. Most of the chapters are individual stories focusing on the case that Keaton is working on at the moment, though there are a few subplots which focus Keaton's relationship with his family, especially his daughter and his estranged wife, and his dream to research a possible ancient civilization in the Danube river basin. Master Keaton Remaster is a sequel set 20 years later. Also of note, although he wasn't the main writer for Master Keaton, Naoki Urasawa did the art for the series, which is always a plus.
Little Forest: This is a Slice of Life story about a girl named Ichiko, with each chapter focusing on the preparation and cooking of a dish or meal scavenged or harvested from Ichiko's surroundings in rural Komori. This is a very relaxed, slow paced manga. There's no fantastical elements, just exploring life in a rural Japanese community through food. It explores an element of Japanese culture that is passed over or taken for granted a lot of the time, so it's kind of refreshing how different it is from a lot of manga in that sense. There's no direct story that's being told in the manga, but you pick up a good bit of details about Ichiko's life and her personality from the way she prepares each dish and her thoughts while preparing those dishes. Only the first volume, out of two, has been scanlated unfortunately and there's no word on the next volume being translated, so that's a bummer, but what has been translated is a very fun relaxing read.
Normally, I'll review one series per post, but since it's the first post I'll do three of my favorite series as an introduction.
Fuan no Tane/Fuan no Tane +: Both of these series are collections of short horror stories by Nakayama Masaaki, who I hadn't heard of until recently. And when I say short, I'm not kidding. Chapters on average run about 3-10 pages. All of the stories presented are completely unrelated to each other and there's no attempt to tell a story, so you end up with little snapshots in time, which I really really like about this series, as it adds a lot to the horror. In some ways the stories feel very Lovecraftian, in that you get the feeling that humanity is rather inconsequential in the scenarios presented and that all these horrifying occurrences would continue on even there weren't any human to observe it. However, unlike a lot of Lovecraft's works, there is a very story element of mundanity to all of these stories, as opposed to the fantastic, mind-shattering revelations Lovecraft's protagonists experience, which I really think works in their favor. Between Fuan no Tane/Fuan no Tane +, there's over 60 chapters and the whole thing can be read in an hour or two, so the barrage of short unrelated occurrences gives the impression that all of these horrifying occurrences are just business as usual in the world, which is a lot more horrifying to me. In these stories, sometimes there are bad things implied to happen to the person we're currently viewing at the time, but most on the time, nothing happens to the person and they'll have to go on with their lives after their supernatural encounter. It's a way to tell horror stories that I wish more people would explore, to be honest. I highly recommend this series for anyone who's a fan of Horror literature.
Master Keaton/Master Keaton Remaster: This is probably one of my favorite series that I've read and a lot more people need to know about this series. The story follows Taichi Hiraga-Keaton (nicknamed Master Keaton from his time in the SAS, where he had the rank of Master Sargent) throughout his travels around the world as an insurance investigator for the Lloyd's of London insurance company (real company, by the way). Since Keaton studied archeology at Oxford, some of the cases Keaton focuses on is dealing with the preservation of historical artifacts and landmarks. Most of the chapters are individual stories focusing on the case that Keaton is working on at the moment, though there are a few subplots which focus Keaton's relationship with his family, especially his daughter and his estranged wife, and his dream to research a possible ancient civilization in the Danube river basin. Master Keaton Remaster is a sequel set 20 years later. Also of note, although he wasn't the main writer for Master Keaton, Naoki Urasawa did the art for the series, which is always a plus.
Little Forest: This is a Slice of Life story about a girl named Ichiko, with each chapter focusing on the preparation and cooking of a dish or meal scavenged or harvested from Ichiko's surroundings in rural Komori. This is a very relaxed, slow paced manga. There's no fantastical elements, just exploring life in a rural Japanese community through food. It explores an element of Japanese culture that is passed over or taken for granted a lot of the time, so it's kind of refreshing how different it is from a lot of manga in that sense. There's no direct story that's being told in the manga, but you pick up a good bit of details about Ichiko's life and her personality from the way she prepares each dish and her thoughts while preparing those dishes. Only the first volume, out of two, has been scanlated unfortunately and there's no word on the next volume being translated, so that's a bummer, but what has been translated is a very fun relaxing read.
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Honestly, the fact that there is no big fear sploosh makes me find it even more frightening that a big fear sploosh would be, because it just makes it seem like these horrifying events are incredibly common place and they could easily happen to you or me. It really helps make the horror feel personal, which I haven't experience a lot in horror literature, so it's rather refreshing.
@Mrym: Since it's a short series, I'll go ahead and review it even though I have a backlog of manga to do.
Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe: My feelings are kind of mixed about this series to be honest. I got really into the 1st and 3rd chapters, had to force myself read the second chapter all the way through and the 4th chapter was decent, but it didn't fit with the tone of the other chapters to me. I really enjoyed Rohan Kishibe's character, which as a good mix of flippant and serious as the situation calls for it and I'm kind of sad there aren't more chapters of this. I was kind of surprised to see Stand powers come into play. Not sure why I was surprised, but I was. Overall, a fun series, but it didn't always live up to it's potential, which I suppose is kind of hard to judge when there are only four chapters.
Kouishou Rajio: Another manga by the same author as Fuan no Tane. There's only 14 chapters and they're very short so it's another quick read. This one actually seems to have a plot, dealing with something called the God of Hair. It loses some of the mundane/ever-present/normalized horror of Fuan no Tane, but it manages to be just as creepy, if not creepier, which is a serious accomplishment. Honestly, if having trouble saying much about it that I haven't already said about Fuan no Tane, mostly because of how short it is, but it's still really good and I highly recommend it if you're a fan of horror, and you can finish in 10 minutes, so it's really easy to knock out.
Onepunch-Man: This is probably one of the most self explanatory titles ever. It's about a Super Hero whose specialty is defeating his enemies in one punch and if that sounds like a golden opportunity to light-heartedly take the piss out of some standard Shonen actions series conventions, you are absolutely correct. Saitama, the main character, is so ridiculously overpowered that he's left with an existential crisis since all fights end in one punch and as such Saitama spends more time worrying about what he's gong to have for dinner, defeating monsters in time for make it back to the supermarket for a special sale or damages to his apartment caused by said monsters than the monsters themselves. As a hero, Saitama doesn't quite fit the ideal of a hero, being kind of selfish and lazy at times, but he still has his moments of genuine selflessness and righteousness. Despite the series starting out as kind of a gag manga, the author managed to create a world that's both very interesting and compelling and as the story goes on, there is actually some tension in the story and fights even though you know the inevitable result with the main character being invincible. Also, the art is very well done and incredibly detailed at points. Definitely a fun series and I definitely recommend it.
Karate Shoukoushi Kohinata Minoru: I noticed that so far I've only been reviewing the series I enjoyed or thought were good in my backlog of stuff to talk about, so let's talk about something that is neither. Honestly, I was going to talk about the arc that made me drop this the first time I tried reading it, but after going back and reading it again to familiarize myself with this manga for the review, I'm surprised I made it as far as I did. I mean, when the first chapter involves an attempted sexual assault just to reinforce that the bullies are assholes, you know your in for a classy read (note: Extreme sarcasm there). The manga starts with the titular Kohinata Minoru, a college student at a college that focuses more on their sports program that academics as part of the gymnastics club, where when we start the manga, he is getting bullied by the upper classmen. When his childhood friend Nana has the gall (again, sarcasm) to stand up for Minoru, the upper classmen try to sexually assault her (again, classy). Then, passing Karate-ka Mutou Ryuuji comes an beats the shit out of the bullies, then knocks Minoru unconscious, kidnaps him and when Minoru wakes up, he's in a dojo in Karate Gi and thus begins the start of Minoru's adventures in Karate. So, it's kind of like the Karate Kid if Mr. Miyagi was a violent asshole who kidnapped the main character and whose introductory scene was deliberately picking a fight with an Olympic bound Judo-ka and breaking his ribs.
As far as I read, which admittedly is only about one 1/7th the total story, but the villains that were introduced so far have been so obviously bad people that the conflict and tension feels kind of meaningless from an outside point of view. Like, of course I'm going to root for the main character and his group of friends, because otherwise, it means rooting for the guy who beat his brother so bad his brother had to be hospitalized, just because he didn't want his little brother doing karate, because he promised their dead mother that he'd make his little brother into the the best kendo practitioner in the country. Or the guy whose role in one arc was him stealing panties and trying to sexually assault one of the main female characters so he could videotape it and sell it for money. They're so terrible that I just can't feel anything compelling about them, not even as a villain. And as bad as they were, they're still not as bad as one character from the arc that made me drop it the first time, which is Pedro. Pedro is a Brazilian immigrant and a practitioner of Brazillian Jujutsu and his role is comedic relief, where his entire shtick and his entire introduction arc is about him being gay and a rapist. No really, all the jokes about him are "Look at him, he's gay and he's trying to rape the main character, isn't he so funny"? It's just so sketchy on so many levels. At the end of the arc with him, he gets assigned to live with the main character and his roommate and the series apparently brings up a point later in the story where the main character so he got good at grappling techniques and Judo holds to essentially not be raped by Pedro and it's again treated like it's all a big laugh. Also, apparently later in the story (according to someone I talked to who read further than me) a transgender character gets introduced and so far their character has essentially been "haha, see this really attractive Russian lady, she has a penis, isn't it hilarious"? So yeah, the author is pretty sketchy on that front too.
As much as I hate to admit it, the actual martial arts and fighting parts of this series are actually pretty good, but everything else that I read was so sketchy that I can't in good conscience continue reading this series or recommend it to anyone. So yeah, there are better martial arts manga out there, so only approach this series if you want desperately martial arts action and can stand just all sorts of sketchiness. Now I'm gonna try and forget I ever read this now that I'm done with this review.
One Outs: I absolutely adore this manga so much. For me it's in the category of "Are you doing something important, like schoolwork, work for your job or just stuff to advance further in life? If not, drop everything and start reading/watching this series". The way I like to describe this manga is that it's a manga about baseball, but it's about baseball in the the same way that Indiana Jones was a movie about Archeology, in that Baseball is the frame of the story is built on, but when it comes down to it, the series is as much about the psychological mind games that Tokuchi uses to demoralize opponents and motivate his team as it is about the sport itself, if not more. The story starts with Kojima Hiromichi, the ace batter for Lycaons, in the training camp preparing for the next season. The Lycaons are an incredibly weak team who are ranked at the bottom of the league and have never won a championship. While searching for a replacement pitcher for an injured player, two members of the Lycaons stumble across a group of American soldiers playing a gambling game called One Outs. During the gambling match, they come across a pitcher and gambler named Tokuchi Toua, who's never lost match in One Outs. Through shenanigans, Kojima recruits Tokuchi to the Lycaons, to give them a shot at winning the championship. Once in the Lycaons, Tokuchi makes an agreement with the owner to have a performance based contract instead of a salary. The agreement states that Tokuchi will gain 5 million yen for batter he strikes out, but will lose 50 million yen for each run he gives up, plus some various other clauses (which I would talk about, but some of them are kind of spoilery). So, for the first 2/3rds of the series, it becomes kind of a battle between Tokuchi and the owner, with the owner trying various underhanded methods to stack the deck in his favor and put Tokuchi debt to him and Tokuchi using his skill as a pitcher to lead the team to victory and earn a massive sum all the while.
Even though I said this is one of my favorite series, and it is, no series is perfect and this has some flaws that I want to talk about. The first problem is ironically also one of the series greatest strength, it's characters. While a lot of the characters are great, fun, interesting characters, the overall strength of characters are not consistent across the board. It feels like on every team, there are 4 or 5 memorable characters (there are more memorable characters for the Lycaons, but that's mostly because they get more screen time) and the rest are rather forgettable. There are characters that I can distinctly remember their faces, but ask me their name or personality and a couldn't tell you. Part of it is screen time and the limitations of making sure you don't drag out an arc too much with too many characters, but some of them feel too forgettable all the same. And then there's John Muruwaka, whose design, well to be frank, seems kind of racist at times (some pictures of him are worse than others). Granted there are several other black characters in this series who are drawn normally, so it's not like he's the only representation of Black people in this series, but it's still kind of annoying.
Normally, I don't talk about the anime adaption if a series has one, but in this case it's kind of necessary to talk about it, since the series wasn't fully scanlated and there's no official translation, at least not for the US. The anime adaptation is pretty good overall, especially when it comes to the voice cast and the character designs match the manga better than a lot of other adaptations do, but I feel like the series loses something in it's adapted form, because it's in color. One of Kaitani Shinobu's greatest strengths as an artist is his use of shading and contrast of black and white when it comes to helping convey emotion in a scene. When it's in color instead of black and white, it just doesn't have the same effect. Now this isn't necessarily the fault of Madhouse, as I think almost any other animation studio would have a had the same problem, but it still doesn't have quite the same impact for certain scenes. However, since as I said, the manga was never fully scanlated, you have to watch the anime to get the full story. You can either read the manga until chapter 33, which is around episode 6 or 7 in the anime and watch the rest of the episodes and pick the manga back up at chapter 82 or you can just watch the anime all the way through and start at chapter 82. I prefer to read the manga through 33 and then watch the anime, but I know some people like to stick to one medium when watching/reading something.
So yeah, definitely a great series which I highly recommend.
For the most part, this is an adventure of the week series, with each chapter being isolated from the others for the most part. It's somewhat formulaic, where Cat's Eye will announce they will steal a painting, the cops devise a way to try and stop Cat's Eye, Cat's Eye will get around their defense measures and abscond with the painting, or Mitsuko Asatani, one of the police who works with Toshio (and incidentally has a crush on him) and is the only who suspects that Hitomi is Cat's Eye, will try to find a new way to prove Hitomi is Cat's Eye and the sisters will try to find new way to throw her off their track. Even though it's formulaic, it's still pretty fun for the most part. It's definitely not the kind of story where you look for deep and innovative writing, but rather a light read you pick up on occasion and enjoy the various capers and Hijinks. The characters are enjoyable for the most part, with the notable exceptions of two characters who get introduced somewhat later in the story and since I can't remember their names, I'll refer to them as "Dirty Harry wannabee" and "Totally-not-a-creeper", though one of them gets somewhat more tolerable later on. Dirty Harry wannabee is basically the cowboy cop archetype played for a joke. He's brash, impulsive, has a really, really itchy trigger finger, carries around a massive revolver (hence the nickname) and can't hit anything he shoots at. He's actually somewhat effective at stopping normal criminals, but that's mostly the fact that he'll shoot everywhere around the criminal, scaring them into surrendering and he makes as many problems for others as he solves. He's the one who gets slightly better later, becoming less impulsive and a better shot. Totally-not-a-creeper on the other hand is definitely the most annoying character in this story, with his main personality characteristic is basically being attracted to Ai, who I should mention is still a High School student, and claiming to not be attracted to her and is just trying to protect her purity or something. Plus, there's the whole thing where most of the characters in story call him out for his creepiness and call him a pedophile, but for the outside the story perspective, his character still gets used in kind of an "Oh you!" almost sitcom-y way that kind of undermines the other characters calling him out for being a massive creep and it's really annoying. But outside of Totally-not-a-creeper, this a pretty fun series if you're in the mood for a light read.
Dante's Divine Comedy: Go Nagai's adaptation of Dante Alighieri's epic, it follows Dante's journey through the afterlife beginning with his banishment from Firenze, lost in a forest and hounded by a lion, a leopard and a wolf when he is saved by the Roman poet Virgil, who offers an escape from these perils if Dante will journey through Hell. This journey covers Dante's experiences in Hell, where Dante observes and encounters various sinners (many famous through history and literature and some obscure) suffering their eternal punishment for the various kinds of sins they committed. Either through direct communication with several sinners or through his interactions with Vergil, Dante learns of the nature of each sin and how each sin is punished accordingly. After traveling through every circle in the depths of hell, Dante makes it to the mountain of Purgatory, where souls climb each of the 7 terraces of Purgatory and upon completing their time upon each terrace, their soul is purified of one of the 7 deadly sin and they climb up to the next terrace and so on and so forth until they climb the mountain of Purgatory and enter the garden of Eden and ascend to Paradise. In heaven, Dante explores the 9 celestial spheres, but other than that I don't know much since the Paradise section of the Divine Comedy hasn't been scanlated yet, so I can't really talk about it.
As far as adaptations go, this is a very very abbreviated Adaptation of the Divine Comedy, covering the minimum amount of the work while still trying to get the point of each section across. The whole work is only contained in two (albeit very long) volumes and some chapters are short enough to be under 10 pages. While I haven't read the Divine Comedy and as such don't have it as a comparison point, but from what I knew about the Divine Comedy through cultural osmosis I feel like it was overall a good adaptation, even if Nagai did change or add a few things in his adaptation. The art is very good, though I not a fan of the way Go Nagai draws some character's faces. In particular, some of Dante and Vergil's faces strike me as ugly or unappealing. One of the really cool things about the art is that for certain panels or pages, Nagai takes Gustave Doré's wood engravings of scenes from the Divine Comedy and faithfully redraws them in fine detail. The art in general, especially the later half, has some classical influences that work well in story. It's really nice touch that helps add to the overall feel of the story. Speaking of cool things, the group who translate Dante's Divine Comedy are familiar with the original Divine Comedy, so what they do is translate the work, compare it to the H.F. Cary English translation and then rewrite their translation into a decasyllabic meter to match the English translations poetry style.
Unfortunately, the group who was translating this put it on indefinite hiatus about several years ago and have since put their other projects on hiatus as well, so as it stands right now, getting the full thing translated and scanned seems to be very far off, but what is available is enjoyable and I definitely recommend it.