G.C's Japanese-language Manga Page 3G
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Manga Page 3G

On this page I will review more Japanese manga.
Note that the quality of the images, reproduced here for bona fide review purposes, has been affected by the scanning and compression processes, so if you want to see how the originals look, you'll have to buy the books!

Reviewed:
REVIEW

BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL- Blood of a Thousand by Hiroaki SAMURA (Dark Horse Comics), 192pp, $12.95, 15x21cm. ISBN 1-56971-239-5
This manga, translated into English by Dana Lewis and Toren Smith, is a real find, with artwork to die for, a good story full of drama and human interest, and a set of characters a bit different from those in the usual samurai drama. The translation preserves the mixture of linguistic styles used in the original. Some characters speak in the mannered style of old Japan, while others speak more like modern street punks.
In the previous volume, the master of a sword school is murdered by a gang of road-punk samurai. It turns out that the reason is a feud of an earlier generation, started when an acolyte of humble origin was expelled from a sword school for omitting to use the proper form when defending his master from a gang of attackers. In the second story, the murdered man's daughter takes up the feud.
I have updated these details to indicate the graphic novel edition (pages not numbered); see also the excellent Blade website.

Blade of the Immortal, Genius #1,p.1 Dialogue (starts on pages 4,5)
(nearest dialogue is several pages further on)
(a man is using a Japanese sword to flick paint around the room.)
Tatsu: Father, you've got a visitor.
Sori: Damm... not this color, either.
Tatsu: I've said it before, but.. can't you just sit and paint like everyone else, Father? I mean, you've mastered this 'swordpainting' stuff by now.

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REVIEW

COMICS UNDERGROUND JAPAN (Blast Books), various artists, 223 pp, $14.99, 18x25cm)
This a collection of short underground manga, translated into English. By 'underground' we mean subversive, small-press alternative material, from magazines that sell in tiny quantities by Japanese standards; thousands rather than millions. Absent are the romances, school stories, fantasy and science fiction that form the staples of mainstream manga. Instead we get biting satire directed against Japanese society. It's not hard to understand that such material is not widely popular in Japan's conformist society.
Be warned that this book, in its savage attack on Japanese society, contains explicit violence and sexual material to the levels notoriously found in other "adults only" Japanese manga, and may well shock less broadminded readers. If you don't want to read 'Mary's Asshole', or the gory and sadistic 'Planet of the Jap' then don't seek out this book.
That said, this book offers manga, and a view of Japanese society, that you won't get anywhere else. It's a blast to see Hanako Yamada's savagely misanthropic office girl, or the crazed militarists of 'Future Sperm Brazil' or the sociopathic salarymen of 'It's All Right if You Don't Understand'. Some of these stories were first published in the pioneering cult magazine GARO.
For a British equivalent, see MENG & ECKER (Savoy Books) by David Britton with art by Chris Guido; an awesomely nasty, obscene and offensive comic book that has a great deal to say about British society, and sets about lancing the boils with energy and irony. FOR MATURE ADULTS ONLY. More info

Meng & Ecker.(This scan doesn't do it justice - probably just as well...)

Comics Underground Japan,p.109 Notes:
A page from Suehiro Maruo's PLANET OF THE JAP.
The box says: "In the allied country of Germany, Hirohito's Youth are marching into Berlin."

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REVIEW

COUNTDOWN: SEX BOMBS by Hiroyuki Utatane (Eros Comics/Studio Proteus,32pp, $2.95, 17x24 cm)
0 An erotic comic in which two persons of questionable gender do naughty adult things in the toilets of a disco. The artwork is very stylish, without anything crassly explicit, and the story, as the sample below shows, has some wit. The second half has wordless drawings in a style clearly imitative of silk screen paintings, and which on closer inspection prove to be slightly erotic. Very fine. The only thing that mars this little volume is the ads for other Eros comics and dodgy phone lines.
Buy this if you can evade your local thought police.

Countdown: Sex Bombs #4,p.10 Notes
The last frame of the story.
The balloons at the bottom say:"B-but..No,wait! I.. Hold on..! I,uh..Um..I can explain!

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REVIEW

MIX NOISE Animate Collection 13 (Movic, 140pp, Y850, 15x21cm
This is an anthology of unrelated manga items, which I found by chance. The illustration is taken from the only section in colour, which has twelve four-frame gag manga, all in SD style and about an idol singer, Saiko Yuki. I can't tell you a lot else, save that I believe there is a real singer of this name! It was worth buying the volume second-hand just to get the set shown below.

Komatta Yuki-Chan, p.9 Dialogue (from top left)
-Harrassed Yuki-Chan;
Yuki-chan getting fat-
Note that she has tiny horns, just like Lum. The "ki" syllable of her name is written with the character for "oni" or devil.
1: Yuki's Summer
2: Yuki's poster gets stolen.
3: But strange obsession??
4: "Anyway I'm getting fat!" Swimsuit is changed for dress. Yuki never wore a swimsuit again.
Tr. by GC &YH

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REVIEW

YAWARA! by Naoki Urasawa (Big Comic Spirits, 218pp, Y500, 13x18 cm)
. This is a very well-known sports manga that has also been animated. To quote the title page, "Lovely and cute Miss Yawara Inokuma is a fashionable judo girl!" Yawara is the grand-daughter of Jigoro, a former judo champion. Jigoro has trained Yawara in judo, hoping to make her a champion. She clearly has talent, but doesn't like judo and wants to be a normal high school girl and do the normal girlish things.
In the first volume, she attracts the attention of Matsuda, a reporter, by throwing a bag-snatcher in the street. Yawara likes Nishikimori, a school student, but he gets scared after Yawara beats up some dropouts who threaten him. Then she and Jigoro encounter Sayaka, a rich but bored and eccentric sports enthusiast.
Jigoro fixes for Yawara to take part in a school judo tournament.She throws several of her huge opponents and the team wins, though she'd rather have gone shopping.
The drawing below is from one of the title pages; one of many drawings that remind the reader that Yawara is a girl.
Even if you have no interest in judo, the facial expressions are amusing and the story is fairly easy to follow from a synopsis.

Yawara #1,p.107 Dialogue (from top left, p.106)
(eye-catch drawing for chapter 6)

(Some dialogue from previous page)
A: What's become of Kawano?
B: If your team doesn't have all its members, the match is off.)

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{G.Cowie}