I have noticed since I was a teenager, the disparity between man and nature. Man, overcomes nature through force of willpower. Nature, seemingly, has no comeback most of the time. But when it’s a man or men against nature, then the story is different. It’s in these situations that humanity, in its little oases of “civilization”, finds out how little it knows and also how pitiable its attempts to fight back are. After reading The Walking Man, I was delighted to discover more of Taniguchi’s work, this time taking place in the realm of nature rather than an urban environment. While the main title is its lead story, the book contains more tales to enthrall.

With a timeline narrative that jump over 120 years and crosses oceans a number of times, there’s no connection between the characters, save a connection to nature. Also, if you’re looking for action then I can’t recommend this. While there are thrilling moments in the book, it’s not continuous therefore you know upfront. It’s more to do with the character’s connection to their environment. I think the same could be said for the overall arching theme of the book rather than my previous “Man Versus Nature!” statement. First and foremost, Taniguchi presents us with life in the Klondike region of Canada during the Great “Goldrush” and all the foolishness that inspired. Jack London, yes the Jack London of Call of the Wild and White Fang fame, is with three of his friends trying to strike it rich when, on a hunting trip for food, he and one of his comrades come across a native American who through his own trek in the wilderness, causes London to think about what is he really doing here panning for gold. Springboarding from that we jump to Alaska in the same time period, with two men’s perilous trek across the Yukon in a kind of survivalist “Cremation of Sam McGee”. Next we go to early Showa Period (1926–89) Japan for a man’s need to avenge his son’s death at the hands of a wily predator and then move to the middle of the Showa period for a young boy’s formative summer as an adolescent in a Japanese fishing village. Rounding it off are two tales, one set in 60’s era Japan with a young man’s cautionary quest to complete his manga while staying at a strange and quirky halfway house. and finally an amazing story of one oceanographer’s fable to witness his aquatic friends death.

With all these stories and timeframes, it would be easy to get lost but Taniguchi doesn’t confuse me with open-ended stories or having characters to personally connect with one another. Here, in its essence, is simply a collection where the people in it are either fought with, helped by or are saved by unseen forces they cannot understands not control. This goes back to my assertion that once outside of their comfort zone man can only go with nature or get beaten by it. The stories set in the mountains, The Ice Wanderer and Our Mountains are classic tales of men desperate to stand on their feet while the mountains or its inhabitants close in around them. I really do begin to see at around the same pace as Jack does how ill-equipped he and his friends are. In the other mentioned chapter, Master Gunpuchi tries to forget how the mountains cruelly punished him but he realises that what he face those years ago still waits for him in his dreams and his reality. The cost is high for him personally but I love the ending nevertheless. In White Wilderness, it’s a straight horror story with elements of supernaturalism to it. Why are the two men and the corpse they are transporting being hunted? Why them alone? Why are the creatures so unafraid of them with the flames, guns and shouts? Lovely, taunt piece with few real answers. Shokaro is a weird story with, and I’ll admit it, no real point to it. Is a ghost story, about a haunted apartment house? Or an observational, self-referencing piece about a budding mangaka observing his fellow boarders? Again, I cannot because it refuses to be one or the other. But damn, if it isn’t compelling to read. Finally, Kaiyose-Jima is a lovely piece about a young boy’s loss of the trappings of his childhood, his first steps into adolescence and the foundation of true love.

I really like all of the stories even if I don’t understand what some of them are doing in here. The stoic, totality of the wild on every continent shown is startling. The way Taniguchi conveys the wind whipping around people’s hair every time I read Ice Wanderer is a great feeling and the sheer silence that pervades White Wilderness is eerie. I read them, knowing I don’t have to experience the peril and danger. This reminds me of my childhood reading stories like Call of the Wild or Under the Hawthorne Bush where I was thrilled by the tension, adventure and the atmosphere. Taniguchi shows us glimpses of places in the world where we walk but don’t want to stay. The only two characters who want to stay where they are are the Native American who waits behind his tribe and the whale researcher in Return to the Sea. Everyone else is forced to return home or has a reason to go home. There is a small proviso against that last statement that arises in Kaiyose-Jima but I can’t state what that is without going into the plot. The cast all have their reasons for being where they are. It’s not so much about them finding their place so much as it is them knowing where their place is.

As always, Taniguchi’s lines are precise, delicate and detailed. There is a timelessness that I think generations will be able to appreciate for years to come. Whether it’s mountains, bears, boats, holy men or whales all these things are to be found. I have serious doubts that Taniguchi’s work will ever top the Amazon best sellers lists but as long as we keep reading, buying and cheering every time he wins an award in Japan or France and heaven forbid if he should ever win the Eisner Award, I think that high sales should not matter.

This is my second official entry for the Jiro Taniguchi Movable Manga Feast for the month of March 2012. More details and a list of all written pieces of the Taniguchi MMF can be found here.

Jiro Taniguchi is a wonder to behold. You could read one of his books, marvel at the artwork and not even have to read the dialogue. I’m not saying you will follow every window but you could get by without them. The man is a modern wonder. He hasn’t written a magnus opus (well, I think he has but I’m not everyone) but there’s a world in all of his books. I’ve written before about this effect in his books where you try and peer around buildings and people because you want to see more. I am happy to read and write about Taniguchi for as long as I can keep reading his stuff. With that, I commend to you, The Walking Man.

Well, what can I say about The Walking Man? Really, there’s not much to say about the plot. A thirty-something salary man spends time reading, buying essentials, spending time with his wife, meeting people going about their business. While walking. That’s about it, in essence. There really is nothing else to it. So, what is left to describe? Plenty, in my book. The first thing to say is the timelessness of the story in that it could happen at any time during the last forty years of Japan’s history. It’s take place in a prefecture in Tokyo but not in the actual city. There’s no large architecture, no identifiable buildings. The city has railways, trams and modern canal rivers. But this is where the measurable world stops. Other than that, no other modern conveniences come into the view. So the Man goes about his life and we stop worrying. Without a forward moving narrative, Taniguchi forces us into outward viewing habits. Streets are examined, landscapes are considered and the full luster of Taniguchi’s world is on display. Oddly, for such an outside view, my mood during this has been introverted. I find myself asking fundamental questions about myself. Am I really happy in my life? Do I take time to appreciate what wonders are around me?

There is a stillness to Taniguchi’s work here that is similar but not entirely the same as, say, Quest for The Missing Girl or The Ice Wanderer. In Quest, the events dictate the scenery and in Ice Wanderer the location dictate the events, hence the scenery. I know this sounds weird but every time I read this and it comes to the park scene, I swear I can hear birdsong. Plus, when it snows, I can feel the snow. When the Man goes to climb a tree, he stops and takes in the view, and it’s a great view, going on and on into the distance. When was the last time you read something like that in a manga?

Is it fair to try and describe the characters in a story that eschews normal narratives like plot construction and character arcs? The Man is a good solid character with a quiet disposition. He’s our guide but he is not the primary player. His wife seems to not mind his figaries, sometimes coming with him. The rest of the people are people who the Man encounters on his travels. Children, elderly ladies, fellow walkers are all passengers in this book. The Man is a conscientious citizen who helps his fellow man but he’s not above, ahem, breaking and entering a public pool to go for a swim. But no harm, no foul in this case. I like when he comes home from the local bar slightly tipsy and, rather than subject his wife to a chorus of “Honey, I’m home!”, he decides to walk it off. In doing so, he learns, as do we, of the wonder of the night. I can go on but I’m just spoiling the book.

Now, there is one thing that, well, I’m not so happy with about in Walking Man. The last chapter, titled 10 Years Later, is literally set ten years later. The Man is still the same as is his Wife and everything else. But for this final chapter we have narration. In the other chapters, there is dialogue but that’s about it. Having narration, I feel, adds an element to the story that’s not necessary. I do realise this story was written ten years in real life and yes, authors can and do change their minds about things. But if this is the case then go back and add narration to all of the chapters or remove all of it. It’s just not needed. But it’s just my whims, and it shouldn’t detract from this amazing work.

In the final analysis, this is unlike anything I’ve ever read. Once, I asked a schoolmate so very, very long ago now, what would a graphic novel or comic look like with no narrators boxes or dialogue. Aside from the final chapter and the odd bit of dialogue, I believer I’ve found it.

The Walking Man, as with a lot of Taniguchi’s work published jointly by Fanfare UK/Ponent Mon. They do wonderful jobs at packaging and presentation. Walking Man is present flipped to read from left to right but don’t let that put you off. I implore you to enjoy this for yourself. It’s really that good.

This review is presented as part of the Jiro Taniguchi Manga Movable Feast for the month of March 2012. More info can be found here.

I was once, in a former life, a video jockey at my local video rental place. Even before I started working there, I was a regular customer, I knew where each section was, knew which tapes were in good nick, knew all the staff and could recommend films to other customers. Every person had a story, a path or a purpose that brought them to my desk. More often than not, they knew what they wanted. But sometimes they were too stumped or too frazzled to pick something. So, I would chose something for them. Usually, it was a children’s film, a drama or a good action flick. The people who rented that last genre would be so drunk they wouldn’t even notice what I gave them. But they wanted an action film so I picked the one I thought they’d like. They would always come back to me. (Please note: not all my customers were drunk when they came in. The example given is a small cross section of my former customers). So when I began to read Kingyo, I found the manga equivalent of my video shop. So after I read each volume that’s been released so far, I would let out the same sigh I used to have when another satisfied customer would go out the door of the video shop. I felt good that a character had found contentment. It’s a wonderful feeling to have and it came from a book showing a world I knew nothing about.

Natsuki is technically in charge of Kingyo and when her grandfather announces he is going to go on a search for manga in Japan, she takes over the running of the shop. She is easily my favourite character simply because it isn’t that she’s a manga freak like Shiba is, it’s just that she gets a huge amount of joy from helping people. Shiba is a fantastic character. He reminds me of myself when I was in my teens. Always reading with my head in the clouds. I love the feisty, lively and, if exasperating at times, relationship he has with Natsuki. He clearly likes her but he’s too much of a dreamer to make the first move. I think Seitaro is a wonderful player on this stage. Sage-wise with a hint of self-deprecating humour about him. My discovery of the relationship that grows between Ayu and Tome, two Sedori (people who buy manga cheap and resell at higher prices to used books shops) who, on the surface, don’t have anything in common with each other is heartwarming. But Tome, while unsure of what to do or say around her, wants to get closer to her and gets pushed away in a nice way by Ayu. But he persists and we get to know them both them in a great way. Going back to Natsuki, her parents have a charm about them. They drive me crazy with their different personalities so I can only imagine how Natsuki has learned to live with them. With each volume, I learn more and more about the cast so it’s a win-win for me.

The background characters are equally impressive. They’ve all got their reasons for going to Kingyo. Sometimes they get an answer to whatever is bothering them at the shop. Sometimes it happens outside the shop. But always it is a surprise when we see the resolution of their arcs. In one story, a young lad stays with his friend rising the train late at night because the boy feels his friend can’t or won’t go home. The friend is inspired to stay on the on the train thanks to Leiji Matsumoto’s Galaxy Express 999. But in the end, the story is resolved with some thought and care, I’m happy to say. Reading a review of volume 3 by Manga Curmudgeon in relation to the Kazuo Umezu chapter and it being somewhat predictable, I agree with him about it being un-Umezu, however, I don’t think this detracts from the story. Far from it, the way the characters describe Umezu, his writing and art makes me want to read more of his work. The chapters that struck a chord with me the most were the chapters about Night on the Galactic Railroad and the one where Shiba drags an uppity kid all over town all because he wouldn’t simply pick up a manga to read, finally lets him take a look at Go Nagai’s Devilman. The Night on The Galactic Railroad story is a wonderful piece about a hostess girl who sort of adopts a small child whose mother abandoned her. The child wants her to read to her the Night on… book so the girl, despite not wanting to, finds herself reading night after night to the child. It’s sweet, sincere and utterly without any purpose. The Devilman chapter is superb because you see this child who is supposedly not fazed by anything get riled by Go Nagai’s titular characte.

You notice how I keep mentioning the “Devilman” chapter or the “Umezu” chapter? This is because Kingyo Used Books focuses on a different book, a real book, for some of it’s chapters. OK, nearly every chapter mentions different books but some actually focus on an author or book and the end of each volume of Kingyo, we get a real used book shop owner explaining the significance of each title. This is because while Japanese readers might be familiar with names like Hinako Sugiura, Kyoko Hikawa, Etsushi Haruki, Tochi Ueyama and Masako Watanabe, English speaking readers may not. This window into certain titles and authors allows us to glimpse into the cavernous world of manga and it made me realise how little I know about it. I find myself drawn to the notes about the titles from the 60’s and 70’s that we have no chance of reading. It grieves me that I’ll have to import them. Maybe, though, JManga might publish some of them. I can certainly hope so.

Another thing I like about the series is the idea of the impermanence of things, i.e. Mono no aware: the feeling of noticing things and being in the moment, for the moment is fleeting. The cast of Kingyo move in their arcs, all the while we are conscious that they too will one day be gone and the books they care for or read will one day be in the hands of someone else. Few things in anime or manga have taught me as valuable a lesson as this concept has. When I have read stories like this (or even any book/anime/film) I try and commit it to memory. It helps me to form a more complete map of my own internal workings. Because as the man said: “[time] goes with us on the journey, reminds to cherish every moment. Because they’ll never come again.” I applaud Ms. Yoshizaki for being to able to communicate this kind of concept and I wish I could read more of her works. It’s just another reason on my list to try and learn Japanese if only to expand my worldview.

Ultimately Kingyo Used Books is a story about used book sellers and readers enjoying their books while trying to make their way through life. There’s nothing else to it, no magic second or third act that the cast suddenly become intergalactic bounty hunters. Though, that would be interesting, I’m sure. If you have an inclination to read something that challenges you beyond the confines of typical manga. The series is ongoing in Japan but at this time VIZ under their SIGIkki line has put out the first four volumes so far at six month intervals. March this year will mark the end of the last six month cycle. Here’s hoping that people read this overview and give the series a try.

I encourage you to sample Kingyo Used Books on the SIGIkki website along with others in the line. If I could recommend some others, then please check out Saturn Apartments and I’ll Give It My All…Tomorrow. If you would further indulge me, check out my podcast with Ed Sizemore where we discuss Kingyo Used Books in further detail.

However, in Not Love…’s favour, if you want a great side story surrounding the act of food restaurant crawls then this is right up your alley. With “fictional” manga-ka F-mi Y-Naga, the author may or may not be presenting her real life to us. Much of Yoshinaga’s real life is in here, is anyone’s guess. But anyway, the point of the story is that Y-Naga when she’s not doing manga of some sort, goes with her friends and roommate, S-Hara to various restaurants and eateries to sample, enjoy and discuss the food on display.

I love the off kelter take the book has. When we are introduced to Y-Naga, it describes her as making a living “by drawing men engaging in anal sex” and then proceeds to make her both attractive and ugly while showing that really other than food she really doesn’t have it together. And the people around her are just as bad if not worse. Her roommate, S-Hara, is also one of her assistants and he’s just as scatterbrained as she is insofar as he not only tolerates her eccentricities but actually doesn’t care anymore. So their life revolves around work then food and Y-Naga eating like a slob. But the book doesn’t go out of its way to show you their lives all that much. Oh, no. The book does something far, far better.

It’s only goal in life is to sell you food. Mountains and mountains of it. Fumi Yoshinaga went around the eateries and restaurants in Tokyo and wrote down or took pictures of the food, drew the maps to show how to get there and also wrote the side notes of what to expect when you get there, what you should order and how much you’ll expect to pay. With this winning idea, Yoshinaga then begins to spin her web about the characters as they make their way through the menu in front of them and in life. The food on display really is delicious looking. From Korean barbecue, Italian starters, ice cream to New York Chocolate bread, it’s all mouth watering stuff. I want to eat everything they eat! Every meal is described in loving detail and Yoshinaga shows that she sampled every single thing because the way she draws the food and has the characters give their reactions couldn’t have been found in a book.

The characters themselves are as packed together as the food has ingredients. Y-Naga is probably, and I say probably with reserve, the author in real life. But she’s (Y-Naga) a little extreme to be the real girl. Also the way Yoshinaga depicts her is as crazy. Y-Naga goes from being frumpy to wanton to chic in 200 odd pages. She can’t do anything for herself that doesn’t revolve around food. She need help with her work, her life and her friends. She misses that one of her friends is gay. But still she cares for her friends and tries her best to understand them. And we love her for trying. Usually in the mornings, she’s drawn with a headband on, bedhead hair and Henry Kissinger glasses. S-Hara at times, just the same as Y-Naga, is depicted as being an attractive man and then being nondescript. The rest of the cast doesn’t get the same kind of on/off treatment so I can’t comment on the authors thoughts about the other characters.

I’m not going to lie to you. Not Love… is never going to be on many top ten lists in most manga fans books. But the fact that it’s published in English and that it exists is more than enough for me to like it. The fact that it’s quirky characters and amazing concept drew me in as well as it did, speaks to the strengths of the author. It’s a great introduction to Yoshinaga and I recommend it to people unfamiliar to her works.

Psst: (Shameless promotion) If you want to buy this from Amazon, click on the image of the book and I’ll get a cut ;-D

Visiting the dealers room at Otakon, I found myself looking for these titles as I would have to special order them back home. Picking them up, I decided to read them on the plane journey home. Was I glad to have read and now review them? Between the two of them, Not Love… is more easy going and out and out funny. But AMDD, to shorten the title, was a different rhythm and therefore had a different impact on me.

Yukiko, a thirty something woman, lives with her mother Mari. One day she comes home to find her mother has started dating and moved in a young man, Ken, who she met at a host club. Of course, Yukiko thinks that Ken is trying to con Mari out money or God knows what else. However a revelation Yukiko discovers about herself forces her to move out into the big world for the first time. From what I saw of Ken, he seems like a nice guy who can see through Yukiko’s anger and knows that there’s more going on than her just being angry at he and Mari. And so she moves out to stay with friends. Now any other kind of manga would have the story be about Mari and Ken’s relationship developing and Yukiko coming to terms with it. But Yoshinaga doesn’t dwell on it, instead focusing on Yukiko and the people she lives with and hangs out with and their lives. From Mr. Izumi, whose student wants to give, um, “gratification” but not be in a relationship with him to Wakabayashi who tries to find a husband despite not having it in her to be discriminatory.

The stories are varied and Yoshinaga does a good job making me care about people I have literally just met. There’s something about how the casts good and bad points are laid bare and there’s nowhere to go. In Izumi’s case, his relationship with his student starts off sleazy (I don’t know how to say that she started it without it seeming like she’s at fault) and he’s not comfortable with it at all but by the end of their relationship he feels that the girl is on a better path without him. I love the story of Saeki, one of Yukiko’s childhood friends. To put a long story short, when she, Yukiko and fellow friend Yuko were all in school, they all had dreams and hopes for the future. And, well, for some life turns out as they wanted and for others, not so much. Saeki’s story could be yours and mine and it made all the more poignant by the fact that she and Yukiko don’t interact with each other during the story except for one postcard. I found myself *blinking* a lot during her story. Finally the last story deals with Yukiko as we end our journey with her. There’s a fine sense of resolution with her and I am so impressed that Yoshinaga managed to end the story with a great sense of connection between Yukiko, Mari and Mari’s Yukiko’s Grandmother.

Artwise, Yoshinaga treads a fine line between very watercoloury pencil lines for her characters to more absurdist artwork that is more frequent in Not Love… The pace of the story means that I can appreciate her artwork more as I leaf back through the book. There’s a stillness to some of the pages that makes you feel every sigh, sob and laugh. The cover and cover inlays of the book are in colour and I would love to see more of Yoshinaga’s work in colour. There’s a kind of vintage vibrancy to her colour work that I feel like.

Ultimately, the book is less about the trials of Yukiko, Mari and the others than it is about the mirror being put against our own lives as we struggle to make it in the world. You will see something of your own life in these pages and it’s nice to let it out for air once in a while. Ms. Yoshinaga’s All My Darling Daughters helps you do just that.

Psst: (Shameless promotion) If you want to buy this from Amazon, click on the image of the book and I’ll get a cut ;-D

I’m not a big fan of Shonen manga. I read it in the course of my day to day but I kind of stay away from it. But I don’t shy away from it by any means. I heard about Cross Game from Ed Sizemore, I believe, and decided to just cover it for the MMF. I had heard Mitsuru Adachi from his work on Touch (which I still haven’t gotten through) so I thought “it’s another baseball manga from Adachi!?” The phrase One Trick Pony came up, I can tell you. But the good news news is that I don’t feel of what I’ve read of Adachi that he’s in danger of being stale.

I found myself liking what I was reading by something I thought of after getting through the first part of volume 1. It was this: there are people with degrees of potential. There are the people who seem to burn bright but are cut down, the people who take a while to burn bright and the ones who seem to burn bright but really are dull on second glance. It’s been said that I give too much away in my reviews so in an attempt to not completely spoil everything I will censor some of my review. You have been warned.

Ko Kitamura, in his third year of Junior High (seriously, I don’t get school ages in Japan/US), and works at his family’s sports equipment shop. He is friends with the Tsukishima family who run a local baseball batting centre, specifically Wakaba and to a lesser degree Aoba. He and Wakaba are the same age with Aoba being a year younger. Because of them being extremely close and friendly, people assume that Wakaba and Ko make a good couple. Ko and Aoba don’t get on but they are not hostile with each other. Life is good with Ko and the Tsukishima’s

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

. We then see as Ko and the Tsukishima’s grow up together and they enter high school. Ko is an excellent batter and Aoba is a great pitcher. Wakaba states that Ko could be really good. Aoba doesn’t believe her, per se.

Now I’m going to stop “plot-ising” here. The main thing that has me ordering the second volume of this series is the fact that Adachi completely gets the idea of the impermanence of life. People go about their life not knowing what could be around the corner. But they treat each day as best they can. I can’t tell you why but when the story is joyful, the author knows where to break and tell a joke, or give you something to feel light and good. But when things are bad, oh Lord, it’s absolutely heartbreaking.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

On page 187-189, I’ve been there. Not specifically that situation, but the feeling of being lost and not knowing what to “do”. But life goes on. Horribly, painfully, it goes on. Where Adachi gets it right is that people cope with loss as best they can. We know they are hurting. But they try their best to meet each day.

The artwork is amazing. When the boys and Aoba play baseball, there’s a fluidity to the proceedings that is really buzzing. I know when they throw things, that they (the baseballs) are travelling fast. Unfortunately when they talk about scores and runs, I still don’t understand baseball. Oh well. The tranquillity of the scenes of daily life is really amazing. I could really feel that summer heat belting down on me. I found myself looking at all the details in the backgrounds to see if I could peer around covers and over buildings!

The characters are lovely, with the main leads getting the most development but the background ones are good too. Daiki Nakanishi, who is friends with Ko, serves as baseman ( I do know what everyone in baseball does, I just don’t know about scoring in baseball). Senda, a shortstop on the high school team, is an eejit. There, I’ve said it. Other than the Tsukishima sisters there aren’t that many female characters but towards the end of the omnibus things do improve at that end. Ko especially, I feel for. He’s not trying to be a great baseball player but he can’t help it. And it’s the Tsukishima sisters that make him want to be better, if only on a sub-consisous level.

All in all, I love this series. I can’t recommend this enough to people. The back of the book states “[the] story will change your perception of what shonen manga can be.” Yeah, that sounds about right in my case.

When you discuss One Piece, people like to fact-drop that it has been running since 1997, is watched and beloved by millions of Japanese people, has sold bajillions of copies of the manga and of course, that, in the words of Bill Nighy, “abomination” that shall not be named…

Does any of this have anything to do with One Piece?

Nope, not really.

The story is pretty simple: Gold Roger, the King Of The Pirates, upon his execution decrees that anyone can find the loot he amassed, it’s all in One Piece. OK, skip forward a few years and the young rapscallion, Monkey D. Luffy, decides it’s the pirate life for him and joins up with “Red Haired” Shanks and his crew. After eating the Gum-Gum Devil Fruit, he gains the ability to stretch his body to fantastic lengths. The downside is that he cannot go near water as he will drown. Setting out on his own, he gathers his own pirate crew including Navigator Nami, legendary swordsman Zolo, wise-cracking cook Sanji and the cowardly inventor Usopp with the intention to becoming the next King of the Pirates. Together they set sail for the Grand Line, the vast ocean that makes up the bulk of the world of One Piece and seek their fortune.

I have, on occasion, stated my personal tastes in regards to Shonen fighting shows and manga. I am not a big fan of them. I like Hokuto no Ken (AKA Fist of The North Star) as I saw some of the old Manga UK dubs of it back in the day. But I can’t get into Dragonball and can’t into Bleach (trust me, three DVD’s of it are currently defeating me into not reviewing them) so when I learned of One Piece, I was of a mind to dismiss it as well. Add to that, the fact that my tastes, as I’ve gotten older, have started to veer into a more mature and analytical (at least, I hope they are) phase. Things like the Translucent Girl by Dark Horse or Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service take my fancy. Childish things like One Piece do not. Or, they didn’t until recently. For you see, One Piece has changed these ideas I had, somewhat.

Following a recommendation to read volumes 8-11, which comprise the teaser, main and wrap-up for the Arlong Park story-arc, I had to wait some time for these volumes to come in my local bookshop, as the local library didn’t stock much Shonen Jump titles, much less One Piece. But eventually, I did receive the volumes requested. I have to say that unlike most titles I dive into mid-way I didn’t feel left out all that much and for a shonen fighting manga, that’s a welcome thing.

First up, One Piece features some of the most frantic action set pieces I’ve ever read. People fly on wire-fu, stuff explodes and the action flows mercilessly against an open vista of the sea. Luffy is by far the reason to watch people fight in this story. The way Oda draws Luffy, it almost seems like he’s flying. Sanji and Zolo have their moments but at the heart of it their physicality is grounded in the real world so they don’t jump from four floors and hit the ground running. As per the rules of Shonen fighting stories, the villains are literally, huge. If Don Krieg was a real person, he’d be fourteen feet high. And be ten feet wide. You see my point? The real world never factors in for One Piece. There doesn’t seem to be a blood bank anywhere around so God only knows how they replace the amount of blood each of them loses in the fights they get into. They even make it a point with Zolo fighting the Fishmen of Arlong Park that his friends didn’t know if he could continue fighting with all the blood he’d lost recently! Oda is be commended that all this happens and never once do I feel that any of the characters, big or small, feel out of place. Having Nami stand next to Captain Arlong means you see how small she is next to him but we’re not talking ant-size.

Character is a big thing in One Piece. Luffy has this cheerful, devil-may-care attitude to life that I like. Never does he see the bad in people he considers his friends. Only the people who oppose him in his quest to be King of the Pirates feel his sharp tongue and even sharper fists and feet. He seems to be the eternal optimist in all of his dealings with the world. If his friend is having trouble, he is there right alongside. If a nefarious creature threatens to derail Luffy’s plans, then it’s time to bring out the big guns. It’s all or nothing with him. Sanji is a loner who cooks like a pro, fights like a sailor (no pun intended) and smokes like a trooper. In short, he is the scoundrel. Also he’s in love with Nami. Completely. Utterly. Moving on, Zolo I’m not so sure about. I’ve not read enough of him in the volumes covered other than he’s a Wolverine-I’m-the-best-at-what-I-can-do sort of bloke. Nami is excellent and I really like her character over everyone except Luffy. She has her reasons for joining Luffy in his insane plans. You find out some of them in this arc but not all of them. She really is a sweetie at heart but she knows how to keep the lads in line. If we were to apply a Star Wars veneer to the proceedings, then Luffy is Luke, Zolo and Sanji are Obi-Wan and Han and Nami is Princess Leia. Usopp is not Chewie. Because Chewie ain’t no coward.

The villains are the usual fare of insanely muscled behemoths with ideas about ruling the seas, world, blah, blah, blah. If I sound dismissive, please believe me, I’m not. It’s just this kind of character development is a stock rather than cliché of shonen fighting tales and frankly, I for one, would be put out if the villains weren’t set up like this. Don Krieg, as I’ve stated before, is a man mountain. That neck, it’s just friggin’ huge. Also the villains are villains in every sense of the word. Arlong is a fishman who honours the promises he gives but only to the letter of them not the spirit in which they were given. He, figuratively, screws Nami over and does it with a smile.

One aspect of the story is a vibe of people dying all the time but only for the right reasons for themselves. Pirates go to the gallows without a whimper, parents die to protect their children. Luffy standing his ground against foes who have blooded him. The main theme I pick up from, at least with these volumes, is stand your ground. Even when all around you have given up. You standing up will inspire people. It’s a nice theme. I’m glad that there are artists and writers who still have this kind of ability in them.

All in all, One Piece is a good, strong title. Worthy of being in your MAL manga lists. Strong writing, a wealth of material to sample and devour, great artwork. Another good series from VIZ. Word of warning for parents: contains some smoking, violence and blood.

Will I go on with the series? At present I’m unable to, given my country’s finances. So when things do pick, I will keep up as best I can. For now, I’m happy with my 4 volumes and if I need an immediate fix, there’s always the animated series from Funimation.

Want to help support us? Shop through Amazon? If you’re interested in picking up One Piece, try the volumes I read. Every order gives us a little slice of the pie.

By Keiko Takemiya

Written for the May editon of the Manga Movable Feast, hosted this month by www.mangacritic.com

Perception: In the future, humanity, having fled to the stars after wrecking the ecology of Terra (Earth), have created a new social order on other worlds. There, children are born via artificial insemination and placed with foster parents until the Awakening Day, where they will tested by the local colony’s master computer and allowed to rejoin their brothers and sisters on Terra and work for a better society.

Reality: The worlds on which these children live are nothing more than testing grounds to find cogs that will work within the framework of the Master Computer’s (Mother) plan. If, at any point during a child’s Awakening, children are found to have extra-sensory perceptions they are defined as the Mu, an offshoot of humanity whose bodies are deformed in some way but have amazing psychic abilities, and are eliminated by Mother. Those children who escape Mother’s machinations, go on the run with the rest of the Mu, led by Soldier Blue as they search for a way to return to Terra and escape the persecution of Mother and her re-imagined humanity. One such child is Jomy Marcus Shin. If you survive Mother’s tender mercies, you’re put on the track of all gifted children: to lead Terra according to Mother’s plans. One such child is Keith Anyan.

At times social commentary, part sci-fi adventure and all times gripping drama, To Terra… is a title that I had heard about but paid little attention to it. For whose who are not in the know, To Terra…was written by Takemiya in the 70’s at a time when women manga-ka were coming into their own as creators, creating stories both for girls AND boys. Takemiya was part of a group of manga creators called the Year 24 Flower group or sometimes, the Forty-Niners referencing the fact that all the people in the groups were all born in 1949 (despite the fact that Takemiya was born in 1950!). These creators and the stories they tackled broke new ground in terms of content and scope. For the first time, authors took on stories about homosexuality, homophobia and other subjects that were considered too hot to handle by most traditional publishers. Takemiya had already made a name for herself with the publication of In the Sunroom. While writing To Terra… she also overlapped it with Kaze to Ki no Uta (her other great work, originally conceived over nine years before and stalled from publication because the author refused to edit out the more sexual elements in it). This lady knows how her stories should be, make no mistake about it. I know on our site I said we review everything but for some reason I’ve never tried to tackle anything even coming close to To Terra…before. More’s the pity as this is a fantastic read.

The thrust of the story, for me, is about the nature of control. Jomy is a happy child who doesn’t understand that his perfect life will be destroyed by Mother when he goes through his Awakening (though in reality they’re called Maturity Checks). He has no control over this happening. When he is rescued by the Mu, he doesn’t feel in control anymore. The people on the Mu’s ship telepathically gossip behind his back. He feels disconnected from his peer group. If the world he lived in hadn’t been based on a lie, then he should be mixing with kids his own age and with the same abilities as he had. But put into a alien environment, Jomy struggles to understand his place in it. George Lucas explored this kind of dilemma in THX 1138, with Robert Duvall’s THX character has been a good, productive member of the underground society he lives in until he stops taking his medication and his eyes open to the world around him. In the film, once you learn that you’ve been deceived, it is impossible to unlearn it and once learned, would you really want to go back to ignorance? Unfortunately, as in THX’s case, Jomy’s discovery of the “real” world makes him an enemy of the state. The problem for him is that since Mother has done such a good job painting the Mu as terrorists, the humans who are at work within the system don’t give a second thought to trying to kill Jomy. They (at least in this volume) don’t know of the real story of the Mu and as such can only define their reality as being the height of their horizon. If there’s nothing visible above my horizon, then it doesn’t exist. Similar themes were explored in the classic Star Trek episode “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” where questioning the lie is punishable with pain and discovery of the lie is punishable with death. Keith is a good example of the flipside in control: the instrument of the system. If Mother has displayed herself in images around E-1077, the educational space station that Keith is studying on, I’d say we have ourselves a true cult of personality going here but here, rather than Orwell’s 1984 and its all powerful Big Brother, Mother is seen as benevolent and protecting of society from the Mu. Yet, Keith does, deep down, wonder why people born differently to him or that think differently to him have it so bad. He, in this volume, is beginning to suspect that the system is not what he grew up believing it to be but still fights for the system as, to him, it’s the only kind of system that works. The Mu, themselves are all about control. But in their case, it’s the lack of control that consumes them. All they want is to return to Terra and be left alone. But because Mother has declared them enemies of the state, they wander aimlessly searching for a place to call home. At the end of the first volume they set down on a world called Nazca and already they start talking about settling here rather than going on to Terra. They obviously have forgotten the lessons that Native Americans learned after encountering the Old World settlers: once you give an inch, they come back looking for more. Finally, we have Mother and the SD (Superior Domination) system. Herein, we see control in total action. The trick with micro-managing a population (as the Nazis and the Soviets discovered) is that while on the surface people are happy that a lot of life’s uncertainties have been taken off the hands (work, social disorder etc.), it usually comes at a cost to them and it is usually at the expense of another group of people.

I have to applaud Takemiya-sempai as she has created a story that can be viewed multiple ways. I’m sure if you pick this story up, you’ll see themes of racial tension, brotherhood, eugenics, war, state vs. individual and so on. Point is, I read it and came up with the above. I might be wrong about the nature of the story but the author has engaged me as a reader and has successfully made me question the structure and motives of the book in an attempt to understand what she’s trying to say with it. Now I want to know what happens next. And that can’t be a bad thing, surely?

Takemiya’s artwork is lovely and graceful without being austere. There are some moments of levity and they help break up the pace of the book so that we have enough time to come back up for air. Looking at the structure of the story I can understand why the Forty-Niners were such a system shock to Japanese readers in the 1970’s. And now that their work is, finally, starting to become available in the English-speaking market, we are in for one too.

For more information about Keiko Takemiya or the Year 24 group check the wikipedia article about them. For Takemiya’s other English published work Andromeda Stories, check out the Vertical (publisher of both titles) site And for an awesome inside look at the beginnings of the group, check out About.com manga guide, Deb Aoki’s interview with Keiko Takemiya and Matt Horne’s blog and his interview with fellow Forty-Niner, Moto Hagio.