Postby Kaori » Sat Jun 12, 2010 11:39 pm
Tenkensai: Despite the fact that it won some sort of prestigious award at Japan’s annual Media Arts Festival, it seems that no one has published, licensed, or even scanslated this manga into English. Nevertheless, it is hands-down the best manga I personally own, and certainly among the best manga out of those I have read. It is a one-volume doujinshi, not a fan work but a manga that was created independently over the course of some ten years, and the artwork is done in a phenomenal realistic inked style. The story is basically a modern take on the Japanese legend of Orochi and Susanoo, and while it does not really raise any thought-provoking moral or philosophical questions, it is simply a very well-told story. Also, the main character is awesome: she is a construction worker who has great strength of character but also some very real problems. I like the way that she is flawed yet strong-willed; she is a realistic, round character. Highly recommended . . . for people who are confident in their Japanese ability, I guess.
Galaxy Express 999: Leiji Matsumoto’s manga about flying trains. It was first published in 1977, so the artwork takes some getting used to. I only read one volume so far (in a series of about twenty volumes), but despite having a tastelessly lurid scene at the beginning, this manga really grew on me.
Hiiro no Isu (The Scarlet Chair): Now, this manga actually has been scanslated, so it’s possible that someone else on here might have read it, as it is readily available online. This is a manga by Midorikawa Yuki, who is more famous for Natsume’s Book of Friends. It’s shoujo, but it focuses much more on action and intrigue than on romance. I enjoyed that it really made me think because it was often difficult to tell what the characters’ motives were, and it was refreshingly unpredictable in that sense. The artwork is in a loose style, which is refreshing because it doesn’t look identical to every other shoujo manga currently being published. Finally, one last detail that I appreciated about this manga was that the main character is a swordsperson but is not the best swordsperson in the novel; there are other characters who are better than she is, which I liked because it avoids a typical manga stereotype and is realistic (even if you are very good at something, there will almost always be someone else who is better). Recommended.
Barefoot Gen: This is another series of which I have only read one volume, and also another very old series (first volume published n 1973), but the artwork is vastly superior to Galaxy Express 999. Also, Unlike the first two manga I mentioned, it has been published in English. The author, Nakazawa Keiji, is a Hiroshima survivor; the series is valuable because it’s told from the Japanese perspective, but in addition to portraying the atrocities that the Japanese experienced in WWII, it also doesn’t shy away from portraying the atrocities that they committed—things that don’t get taught very often even in history classes, like the way that Koreans were taken to Japan for forced labor. There is a very vehement anti-war message throughout. Recommended for its historical value, but with qualifications (crude humor, graphic nudity, graphic violence). It seems there is at least one other CAA user who has read a little bit of this manga, so rather than a manga that I don’t think anyone on CAA has ever read, it is just one that has very rarely been mentioned.
Well, this post was probably 50% useless, since the first two manga I described are only available in Japanese, I think. If anyone proves me wrong and has actually read Tenkensai or Galaxy Express 999, that would be pretty cool.
Let others believe in the God who brings men to trial and judges them. I shall cling to the God who resurrects the dead.
-St. Nikolai Velimirovich
MAL