Sunday, October 2, 2011
my manga collection, let me show you it
My collection currently stands (counting a bunch of stuff I’m waiting for in the mail) at about 540 volumes. I’ve been collecting for about ten years…I know it was before unflipped manga became the norm. My earliest titles were things like Ranma, Inuyasha, Nausicaa, and Utena. I remember getting a freebie Tokyopop sampler in 2002 and being soooo excited for stuff that was more clearly intended for girls my age. The earliest Tokyopop series I remember getting are Paradise Kiss (which I loooved), Mars (which I didn’t but might try again), and, a few months later, Kare Kano (which I liked for about five volumes).
My first job was at the Penneys in the local mall, and I would take my lunch and coffee breaks at Waldenbooks. This was when my collection really started to explode. When I went to school in Erie, I went to the mall every Saturday, where there was a Borders and a Waldenbooks. There was also a Barnes & Noble, but they didn’t carry any manga. These days, only the Barnes & Noble is still open. The Waldenbooks here is now a used book store, but their manga selection is small and rather expensive. Anyway, between 2004 and 2006 I was buying upwards of a volume of manga a week, and often took advantage of the frequent buy-one-get-one sales. I purged a large portion of my English collection a couple of years later, selling some volumes on ebay and giving a few others to friends.
Anyway, here are my shelves.
This is my only really tall shelf. It houses all of my English stuff and my oddly-sized Japanese stuff.
Closeups!
The top shelf hold Japanese magazines L-R: A single issue of Bouquet (6/86), an issue of Seventeen from 1970, ten issues of Ribon from 1986-2005, and two issues of Cookie from 2005. I have more issues of Ribon on the way, yay!
Second shelf is mostly odds and ends…artbooks, English-language magazines, oversized/oddly-sized manga volumes.
Three shelves of English-translated stuff. You can sorta tell which are the ones I’ve acquired since getting back into manga this year…they’re the ones with the old library stickers all over them, haha. I know some collectors frown upon these, but there are some cases where the ex-lib prices are too good to pass up (I paid less than $2 each for those red-stickered volumes of Please Save My Earth), or they’re the only copies I could find that didn’t cost a fortune (like some of those volumes of Swan). I’ve tried removing the stickers on some, but some have been laminated right onto the books. Meh.
And now, the rest of my Japanese manga. These are nice because they take up less space than their English counterparts.
My Ribon Mascot Comics. Ribon is my favorite magazine, in case it wasn’t obvious.
And more Japanese stuff. Tankoubon on top and bottom, bunko in the middle.
And, yes, I do own “real” books and Western comics. They’re currently scattered across another small shelf like the one the Ribon books are on, a big shelf above my bed, and a few large cardboard boxes. Need moar shelving space.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Hideko Tachikake appreciation entry
I go through phases when I read manga where I get stuck on a certain title or author for a while until I burn myself out temporarily. As of late I’ve been revisiting manga by the wonderful Hideko Tachikake. Her only long series, Hana Buranko Yurete, is one of my favorites, but all of her work is worth checking out.
Tachikake was born Feb 13, 1956 and made her manga debut in 1973, at age 17. Her last work was published in 1986, after which she retired from manga to raise her children. Due to her husband’s work she has since left Japan and apparently now lives in Connecticut. She worked for a very short time, but her works were very popular and influential. I first started to read her works because Megumi Mizusawa listed her series Nacchan no Hatsukoi as one of her favorites.
When I think of the phrase “shoujo manga,” Tachikake’s work is what comes to mind. Big, expressive eyes, charming characters and scenarios, fluffy, ornate (but not over the top) artwork, and, best of all, bucketloads of melodrama. The one thing I really do like about her work is that it is melodramatic, rather than flat-out angsty.
And while she did do a fair number of standard girl-likes-boy teenage romances, she also did some interesting stories that involve family dynamics, the bond between pets and owners, and stories about college-aged protagonists, which is rare for Ribon. Hana Buranko Yurete is about the trials and tribulations of a half-Japanese, half-French girl, her abandonment by her mother, and all of the problems that stem from that situation. Her works have a strong European influence, with lots of western-style architecture, blond-haired characters and dreamy locales reminicent of fairy tales. It was the seventies, after all.
Because no one else is going to do it, here is a list of her works, including summaries of the stuff I’ve read. There’s still quite a bit I haven’t gotten my hands on, and that’s due mainly to the fact that much of it is out of print. Even the bunko editions published in the late 90s are falling out of print. The bunko edition of Aki e no Komichi (published in 2005) is the only volume that seems to be readily available, which is such a shame.
Short Stories:
Yuki no Asa (1973): Tachikake’s debut. A boy and girl encounter a mysterious girl, whom it turns out is the human embodiment of the winter’s first snow.
Lilac no Hana no Koro (1974): Cute, but with a weird ending. A little girl named Lila moves to town from France after her mother dies. Her new neighbor, a little boy named Andy becomes her friend, and as they grow up, they fall in love, though their lives are not without tragedy.
Riiko no Niisan (1974): Riko is a genki girl with a huge brother complex. Not only does she become insanely jealous when it appears that Niisan has a girlfriend, but then she learns out that she and her niisan are not related by blood.
Maya to Soutarou-kun (1974): Mayu likes her friend Soutarou. But so does another girl, who is prettier and older than Mayu.
Mugiwara no Boushi ni… (1974): A boy named Iri encounters a strange girl named Lucy at his vacation home. At first he resents her, but once they get to know each other, his friend Mona comes to stay and jealousy brews between the two girls.
PM 3:15 Love Poem (1975): The main character runs into a guy at the bus stop, and he gives her a book of his poetry (i think :P) and he eventually gets her to contribute her own works to this book. She eventually falls in love with him, but so does her best friend. And what’s this about a mysterious guy who also rides the 3:15 bus?
Chamu to Taisetsu no Tomodachi (1982): This is the story of a girl named Chiyami (Chamu for short) and her beloved dog Tim (pronounced like “Chimu” in Japanese, so their names sound alike). The two of them go through all sorts of ordeals together, but Chamu will eventually have to say goodbye to her dear friend. Oddly sweet yet heartbreaking.
Hitotsu no Hana mo Kimi ni (1984): A guy’s live-in girlfriend eventually leaves him when he devotes more time to pursuing a career in film than he does to her.
Rokugatsu no Xylophone (1984): A cute rugby player at Michiru’s college likes her, but she can’t forget her boyfriend who passed away.
Series:
Nacchan no Hatsukoi (1976, 1 volume): Tachikake’s first series. Natsumi (Nacchan for short) is a sweet, happy-go-lucky girl who comes from a fairly normal family. She and her brother Shigemi were born eleven months apart, so they are in the same grade. Before long, we learn that Nacchan has a crush on her sempai, Akishino. But it looks as though another, older, girl likes Akishino too. Does Nacchan even stand a chance?
Meanwhile, Nacchan’s friend Shika-chan has a crush on Shigemi. Shika-chan eventually gathers enough courage to tell him how she feels, but is floored to discover that Shigemi is in love with Nacchan! This is a rather dramatic, short series with a few surprising little twists at the end.
Milky Way (1976, 1 volume): Nao is going on a journey all by herself, retracing the footsteps of her stepbrother Maki. She meets all sorts of new people along the way but also has flashbacks to the circumstances that sent her on this trip. One of Tachikake’s best.
Hana Burako Yurete (1978-1980, 4 volumes)
Tachikake’s longest series, and probably her best. Ruri is half-French and half-Japanese, and not only her stepmother but most everyone else seems to resent her for one reason or another. Even her beloved brother moves away from home. Things get even worse for Ruri when her sister’s tutor seems to take an interest in her. Will Ruri ever find happiness?
Stuff I haven’t read yet:
Miia no Hitomi (1975)
Tatta Hitotsu no Kisetsu (1976)
Ame no Furu Hi ni Soba ni Ite (1977, 1 volume)
Gakuen Toori no Flying House (1977)
Marino Kimi no Koe ga (1980, 2 volumes)
Koneko-chan Maigo (1981)
Aoi Ocarina (1981, 1 volume)
Kaze ga Hakoubudarou (1981-82, 1 volume)
Yoshizumi-kun no Koto (1982)
Baby Patty (1982)
Futatsu no Uta Tokei (1983)
Popo-sensei, Ganbaru!! (1983, 2 volumes)
Kurinezumi Monogatari (1984)
Urara Koi Youhou (1985)
Stuff I read years ago but don’t remember well enough to summarize:
Horohoro Hana no Chiru Naka de (1976)
Aki e no Komichi (1984, 1 volume)
September Valentine (1985)
Hoshiseiya (1986)
Her later works and particularly her short stories from the 80s are probably her best work…lots of emotion and heart packed into 50 pages or less. Her artwork really hits its peak, too. Just fantastic stuff all around. Hoshiseiya, her final work, is considered by many fans to be her masterpiece, and while I don’t remember it well enough to give you a decent summary, I can tell you that it is disgustingly fantastic.
I am about to try to track down as much of what I don’t already own of hers as I can. Wish me luck. :P In the meantime, I have kicked around the idea of trying to scanlate some of her short stories. Whether or not anything will ever come of this remains to be seen. At any rate, it won’t be until I can procure a working scanner. :P
For tons of information (all in Japanese) about Tachikake and her works, here’s a comprehensive fansite:
http://yotsuba.saiin.net/~eiko/hideko/
Monday, September 5, 2011
some thoughts on HYD and manga in general
Sooo, let’s talk about Hana Yori Dango.
Before we do, though, the blog program I use keeps inserting \s into my text in places where I try to use HTML and I have no idea why. I apologize if I’ve missed deleting any. :P
I first started reading this series as it was being published in English, back in late 2003. Publication finally wrapped up with the 37th volume, which was released in October of 2009. I have to wonder how many people stuck with the series all the way through. I dropped out after volume 4, then started over again a few months ago.
I have to commend Viz for publishing all 37 books. One has to wonder if the same could have been said for the series had publication had started even a year or two later. I can’t imagine that the series was a huge bestseller, outside of people who were already familiar with it through the dramas, etc. I know it was wildly popular as it was being published among scanlation readers, but how many people double-dipped on the series? How many people flipped through the “ugly” art of the first few volumes and quickly lost interest?
I initially lost interest after volume 4 because I already knew where the story was headed. I gave it another shot because I’ve since realized that that’s how shoujo manga works. The predictability is to be expected; most of the fun is in working up to that satisfying, mushy ending.
As I think I’ve mentioned, I am just getting back into reading manga for the first time in a few years. The last time I picked up an English-language volume of manga was early 2006 when I picked up the last volume of Here is Greenwood. A lot of different factors led to this: I was pissed over the needless editing of certain titles, I was disappointed at the lack of new licenses that interested me, I had cancelled my Shoujo Beat subscription because the series included were mostly too kiddy for me and the articles were just plain stupid), and I could read and understand Japanese enough to start importing the manga that I actually wanted to read, the dollar was much stronger so it was actually cheaper to import stuff than to buy at Waldenbooks…the list goes on. I eventually quit reading manga altogether because my Japanese skillz kind of hit a wall and I got sick of reading stories about twelve-year-olds.
Anyway, HYD. The weeaboo in me refuses to call it “Boys over Flowers.” :P
I remember liking the first couple of volumes because the heroine, Tsukushi, actually has a backbone. Her deranged, super-poor parents send her to a prestigious school for rich kids in the hopes that she will snag herself a millionaire’s son and deliver her family from poverty. Before long, though she brings herself to the attention of the so-called F4, the four richest, coolest guys in school. Their leader, Domyouji, declares war on her and before long the entire student body is trying to ruin Tsukushi’s life and force her to drop out of school. Of course, Tsukushi isn’t quite so easy to get rid of.
So, who are the F4 (aka the “Flowery Four”)?
* Domyouji is their leader, a stupid virgin with rage issues and ridiculous curly hair. The only son of the wealthiest corporation in all of Japan.
* Rui, the quiet, pretty one who may or may not have a girlfriend.
* Soujiro, the serial playboy.
* Akira, who dates older married women.
Initally Tsukushi is attracted to Rui, but as luck would have it, Domyouji is attracted to her because, other than his older sister, she’s the only girl who doesn’t tolerate his bullshit. So, of course, once this is established (and thanks to reader character-popularity polls), the author’s intentions begin to sway and Tsukushi finds herself oddly attracted to Domyouji, her one-time tormentor, the guy who stole her first kiss, the guy who may or may not have tried to rape her. Makes sense to me!
If you are able to overlook that little tidbit above (and you almost have to be if you read much shoujo manga, don’t you?), then I recommend the series. I still think the Domyouji character is a moron, but by the end of the series, he grows into a much more mature, less violent moron, all thanks to Tsukushi’s influence. I thought the ending was freakishly realistic, at least compared to some of the other stuff that happens over the course of the series. I have yet to buckle down and read the side stories, though. :P
What really sold me on the series are the character interactions. Everyone plays off of one another quite well, and for a long series with a large cast of characters that continues to grow, that’s important. There is a fair amount of violence including boys hitting girls, so if that bothers you, stay away. Most of the violence comes in the form of bitch-slapping, and even that is often played for laughs. It’s not intended to be taken seriously, but then again, with some of the extravagant lifestyles of the rich characters and the silly lengths the characters go to in order to reach their goals, it’s hard to take much of anything seriously here.
So it takes Tsukushi twenty-some odd volumes for her to realize her feelings for Domyouji, a few more for her to admit her feelings, and the rest of the series for them to overcome the myriad of obstacles facing them. For example:
* Would-be love interests, both male and female, that steal away one of the lead character’s attentions for a short while, but never last long. The new character then becomes either a member of their circle of friends or another ally in their quest for ~true love~.
It should be noted that some of these characters are great fun, such as Shigeru, Domyouji’s would-be forced-marriage fiancee, while others such as Umi, who pops up after Domyouji lands in the hospital when some crazy guy stabs him and awakes from his coma with a bad case of selective amnesia (that is, he remembers everything about his life EXCEPT Tsukushi) or Amon, who looks JUST LIKE DOMYOUJI but with better hair, are just exhaustingly boring.
* Repeated instances of either Tsukushi or Domyouji misinterpreting the other’s feelings for another character. This happens most often when Domyouji becomes jealous of Tsukushi’s closeness to Rui. Domyouji will swear Tsukushi off while going on another of his patented rage benders, while if Tsukushi catches Domyouji not treating another girl like crap, she’ll run away crying, mope around for a few weeks, and threaten to drop out of school.
* Repeated attempts, usually on the part of Soujiro and Akira, to give our happy couple enough alone-time for their buddy to finally nail his girlfriend; these attempts are always ridiculous and always backfire. Of course, something steamy does occasionally sneak its way into these scenarios (ie, Domyouji seeing Tsukushi stark naked when he accidentally walks in on her while she’s showering) to string the reader along.
* Constant switching of the locale; the characters are filthy rich, so trips to New York, Canada, nameless tropical islands, and so on happen pretty frequently. Then there’s also the ever-worsening of Tsukushi’s family’s financial state, which sends her scrambling from crappy apartment to crappy apartment and crappy job to crappy job. There’s even a point in the story where she finds herself living in the Domyouji mansion, earning her keep as the young master’s personal servant. OOooOOOooh!
* Mrs. Domyouji’s constant attempts to break the young couple up. She’s much more interested in her family’s social standing than in her son’s happiness. These attempts are many and varied, but Tsukushi manages to put her in her place.
*One last Very Big Obstacle, that may spell the end for the happiness of our main characters forever! Or at least for the next four years!
Of course, if you want an entire blow-by-blow summary of the whole manga, this looks to be a pretty good one.
Another aspect of the series that I thought was really well-done was the portrayal of Tsukushi’s friend Yuki, who starts out as your typical shy, quiet wallflower type, but grows into a strong character who pursues her feelings and gets what she wants, which is namely a one-night stand with the gorgeous Soujiro. Not the best message ever, but, hey, it’s realistic.
One more point of note is the art. It starts off as being very clunky and awkward. I hesitate to call it “ugly,” but it’s definitely not anything to write home about. Kamio’s art improves drastically, however, as the series progresses and she continues to hone her artistic skills (and presumable hires a small army of assistants to do her dirty work).
So do I recommend the series? Sure! So long as you’re not one to read too deeply into some of the series’ social implications, it’s good, stupid, highly unrealistic fun that isn’t meant to be taken seriously. However! The vast majority of the volumes are out of print, and many of the middle volumes are quite tricky to find. Volume 10 is the rarest, along with 9, 16, 17, 19, and 22. The last chunk of the series is still readily available from places like Amazon, but the print runs of these later books are probably so tiny that they likely won’t be around much longer. So if you’re interested in purchasing the English adaptation, start snapping up volumes ASAP, as they’re only going to get rarer.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
well, gosh
This post is mostly about my new(ish) Copic markers!!! Copic markers are used by manga artists in Japan and marketed towards weeaboos in this country. I never gave in to the hype and stuck with the Prismacolor markers that I’ve used for years, but I’ve never been crazy about them for a number of reasons that I will probably mention below.
Then a couple of months ago they started stocking a small number of them at Michael’s. I played around with them a bit and was really impressed, but couldn’t bring myself to pay $7 a marker for them. Sooo I went home and bought a big set of them at a big discount online. :P The markers I bought are Copic ~Ciao~ markers, which are smaller and cheaper.
Okay, now I’m going to post some pictures. These are photos of drawings, not scans, and I’m not really able to shoop out my mistakes and correct the angles of the photos so they look kinda sloppy and distorted, but feh.
Recent Prismacolor stuff:
A scene from the Alex-becomes-insanely-jealous-of-Deanna-and-starts-hanging-out-with-Ma-chan-and-Jeni-chan-because-he-has-no-other-friends arc.
I think this picture illustrates my issue with the Prismacolors fairly well…the colors are all really saturated and while it’s easy to darken things up, you really can’t lighten them without blending the crap out of them. Plus you can only blend so much until you saturate the paper and the area takes on a grayish cast. But, yeah, that shade of pink is just so pukey. I tried to kill the orangeyness with the lightest gray I have, but it didn’t cut it.
My other main gripe with these is that it’s so hard to shop for new colors here in the middle of nowhere beyond the two dozen or so that the craft stores carry. Before a year or so ago I didn’t even realize there were more colors in the line before I looked online, and do you have any idea how hard it is to pick out colors just by judging them on a computer screen? It’s really hard. :P Copic has a letter-number system of differentiating the colors that works pretty well.
Another issue I had with them was that the colors on the labels and the actual markers are often wildly different. Oh, and I had always thought that their marker shades were supposed to match up with the pencil colors of the same name. Long story short, the Deco Peach marker is really, really pink. When I color with my pencils, I use the Deco Peach (which was apparently discontinued ages ago…I have one left and am afraid to use it) for the pink-skinned characters (Deanna, Alex) and Light Peach for everyone else. For the Prisma markers, I use Light Peach and Brick Beige, respectively. The label for Brick Beige is piss yellow. It’s just weird.
And with the Copics:
The camera did weird things to the background gradient. Hmph. Why are they always in their winter coats? It’s always winter in the comic, too. I *think* this is a carryover from five years of living in Edinboro, where it’s winter from October to May. :P
Anyway, I like the Copics because there’s lots of tones and values, and they all play so nicely together. I think they’re easier to blend.
Here, Internet! Have a picture I couldn’t be bothered to finish! Actually, I went nuts trying to get trying to get the color right on the dress, and the color started bleeding everywhere. It also started turning the paper to mush. Heh.
My favorite flavor of aggression is passive. :P
My favorite Copics might be the cool grays. Behold!
And there’s this…
…as inspired by this rug I bought at TJ Maxx a few weeks ago and now desperately need to vacuum:
While we’re at it, here’s my new bedspread from Target:
They were out of the shams, so I bought the comforter thinking I’d just order the shams online. Buuut they’re out of stock. That’s okay, though, because the matching shams aren’t that cute. My mission for my next day off is to get four matching pillowcases in pretty colors.
On my little shopping excursion today I totally forgot to go to Michael’s and buy some bristol while it’s 50% off. Ugh.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
WELL HELLO
I like how this blog exists solely for me to make a post once every couple of months to say OH HEY INTERNET I’M STILL AROUND SOMEWHAT.
What’s new?
Uh…
Oh, I quit my job at the park. My hours at my real job have changed, so I really couldn’t stay on at the park as a manager, so I agreed to come in on weekends as a regular worker. After this change occurred, however, it became clear that now that I was no longer manager, the kids decided that they no longer had to treat me with any kind of respect whatsoever. On top of that, I was no longer allowed to have any kind of responsibility whatsoever–for example, when the manager on duty went to lunch, she was not allowed to give me the keys and let me supervise. She had to give the keys to one of the other kids instead. Tried to say something to my supervisor and her reply basically translated to, “well, that’s what you get for finding outside employment! how dare you!” so I walked out. Best decision I’ve ever made.
Working on applying for a job in another department in the hospital. It would mean better hours and no cheesy uniform, but I dunno. My only friend in my current department just left me to work in the ER so I feel no need to stay where I am now. My goal at this point is to stick around the hospital long enough to qualify for tuition reimbursement, get a degree in something useful (leaning towards radiology at this point), and then get the fuck out of Altoona. WE SHALL SEE.
I just cooked myself a real meal for the first time in ages…I’m used to eating either cafeteria food or leftovers from my parents’ dinner (since I’m always working in the evenings). I cooked up some mushrooms that were starting to turn gooey in the fridge, then added in some chicken, onions, and garlic. So good.
Now that I’m not working at the park, I can paint my nails again! Halleujah! I’m at the weird point where I have 300 bottles of polish but am tired of all of them, yet when I go browsing around for new stuff, nothing interests me much. Feh.
On the manga front, I am currently 20 volumes (of 37) in to Hana Yori Dango. It’s entertaining, but I find most of the main characters reprehensible in one way or another. I’m mostly curious to see how the author is going to manage stretching this story out into another 17 books. It’s obvious that the story has long outlived its original intended length and Kamio is now just sorta making shit up as she goes. Marmalade Boy got this way towards the end, too…story arc after story arc of new throwaway characters and quickly-resolved hardships that string the reader along through one more volume.
My favorite series being published in Engish at the moment (well, probably my favorite translated into English, period), Itazura na Kiss’s sixth volume was delayed by the publisher until January. Of course, this happened the day after I preordered the book on Amazon, so I can’t help but feel responsible. My apologies to the other dozen or so folks also following this series.
To bide the time, I just bought fifteen of the sixteen Engish volumes of Please Save My Earth I needed to complete my set. Got them all except for vol 13, which is the scarcest one and sells for ridiculous prices second-hand. Will try to find it cheaper but I get the feeling I’m going to end up sucking it up and paying $30 for the damned thing. I read the whole series about seven years ago in scanlations…read the whole thing in less than a week. It’s that fantastic. I hate sci-fi, but I love this series. Looking forward to reading it on actual paper, translated by professionals.
Ooooh, and I bought some new markers, but that warrants a whole other post. :)