Taken by itself, the image of Kanzaki Shizuku contemplating the color of the wine embodies the dramatic. It’s a simple and benign act made into an action shot. A huge splash of white showcases the glass of wine by erasing everything around it, save Shizuku's hand. The line formed by the accentuation of the glass and Shizuku’s hand continues through his arm and links the reader's eye to a strong white line a little further downward. Thus the reader's line of sight is redirected to the raised glass, implying swift motion. The reaction shot in the following image compounds on the effect of this action. The angle and position of Shizuku's bent arm points to the next panel of an astounded Watanuki Suzuka, who looks on in slack-jawed amazement (note the superfluous "!" surrounded by naught but white in a word bubble). All this implied action and disproportionate accentuation lends to the manga's sweet, humorous irony. Drinking wine, after all, is never that exciting to watch. However, Drops of God is illustrated as to infuse action where there is none, thereby creating a compelling read out of an everyday act as simple as observation. 

Paradise Kiss follows a teenage girl's interest in the world of fashion, while Limit focuses on high school bullying. The first volume of both titles will hit stores as paperbacks in September 2012. Paradise Kiss volume 1 will cost $16.95 and Limit's first book will cost $10.95.

I'm really happy to see Vertical branching out to more shoujo and josei manga, though neither of the new titles is anything I'm particularly excited for. Their classic and seinen catalog is one of the best in the industry, but they have always been very male-centric. It'll be really interesting to see their keen sense of quality and style turned toward a whole different demographic of fans. Hopefully they'll provide a good catalyst for me to finally get into more modern shoujo manga!

Click here for more coverage of Anime Boston 2012.

Frequently cited — somewhat inaccurately — as the series that sparked the entire shōjo (girls comic) style, Princess Knight is also particularly notable for being one of the many manga for girls but written by a man. At the time there were very few women in manga, so it was expected for men to write comics for girls. However, many of the female manga artists who came to prominence in the 1970s, known collectively as the Showa 24 Group, would later cite Princess Knight as one of the series that inspired them to make their own manga.

Sapphire, the protagonist of Princess Knight, is both hero and heroine, since the mischevious angel Tink accidentally gave her both a boy and a girl heart before she was born. Since she is the heir apparent to the kingdom of Silverland, Sapphire's gender is quite important; women can't inherit the throne! To prevent the nasty Duke Duralumin's idiot son from becoming prince, her family raises Sapphire as both boy and girl, and she spends part of the day fencing and fighting, and another part picking flowers and talking to woodland creatures. God sends Tink down to Earth to fix his mistake and get back Sapphire's boy heart.

Meanwhile, beneath the facade of her princely life, Sapphire longs to fully embrace her girl side, and even wears a blonde wig to a carnival, wherein she meets the dashing Prince Franz Charming. But things go awry when Charming and Sapphire engage in a tournament as princes, and the nasty Duke Duralumin poisons Charming's sword in an attempt to kill Sapphire. A few hijinks later and the king is dead, Charming is accused of murder, and Sapphire's identity is revealed. She loses not only the throne, but her freedom as well: she and her mother find themselves locked in jail by their own people. For the remainder of these two thick volumes, we follow Sapphire's journey to regain the throne, win the love of Prince Charming, and escape the wiles of not only Duke Duralumin, but also Madame Hell, an appropriately named devil woman who wants to steal Sapphire's girl heart and give it to her own daughter.

Some critics have celebrated Princess Knight for its subversion of traditional gender roles, but ironically this is precisely where the manga fails to connect. Perhaps by the most liberal definition of the term, Vertical could claim that this is Tezuka's "proto-feminist" masterpiece (as they do on the back cover), but it hardly applies to a story in which Sapphire's girl heart gives her the ability to pick flowers and her boy heart gives her the ability to swordfight. I fact, in many cases she loses one heart or the other, and Tezuka makes it very clear that without the boy heart, she loses all of her strength and will to fight. (Get ready for gripping lines like "Oh no, I feel weak all of a sudden. I feel like my boy heart's been sucked right out of me! Oh, I'm so scared!")

The second volume features a bit more criticism of traditional gender roles, portrayed with classic Tezuka bluntness via a group of women who lock themselves in a castle and fight off the men in order to protect Sapphire. The most striking moment of this scene is when Sapphire — equipped only with a sword and her girl heart — fights off a villain she could only defeat previously when she had both hearts. Here it seems that Tezuka is making a more direct correlation between her fighting ability and Sapphire herself (rather than her gender), but it's such a long time coming and it comes from so far out of left field that it seems almost accidental.

The gender commentary isn't the only place where the presentation and pacing leave their marks, though. The entire manga runs at a breakneck pace, and major developments occur at such a striking speed that it can be difficult to keep up. Futhermore, when introducing characters, Tezuka wastes no time in explaining straight to your face exactly how they feel about everything, without the slightest hint of subtlety. For instance, within the first few pages of Sapphire meeting the pirate captain Blood, not only has he professed his instantaneous love for her, but she has introduced herself with the brilliant line "I promise I'm not a shady person."

Despite a whirlwind of events surrounding her, watching the eponymous Princess Knight can be downright boring. She's certainly not a passive Dinsey princess, but generally things happen to Sapphire, and she rarely does anything herself, making her little more than an object for the plot to bounce off of. Indeed, at one point near the climax she is bedridden, waiting for other characters to bring her the help she needs. Madame Hell's daughter Hecate, a hip, rebellious young devil girl who opposes her mother's plan to marry her off to Prince Charming, is a much more interesting heroine, and suffice it to say that a character named "Prince Charming" hardly ranks among Tezuka's most layered protagonists.

The comedy is the one aspect of Tezuka's style that remains consistently on-point in Princess Knight. There are lots of one- or two-panel visual gags that punctuate the action just long enough to induce a chuckle before he gets back into the main story, and they have the same sort of non-sequiter, anachronistic charm that we've come to expect from the author. None of this is all that surprising, since in the early 1960s Tezuka was still largely writing for children, and was still known for his gag antics.

This, of course, extends equally to the art, which falls much closer to Astro Boy (1952) than later works like Ode to Kirihito (1966), which makes sense considering that Princess Knight's original run was concurrent with Astro Boy (Tezuka reworked the series for a 1963 rerelease, the version used for the Vertical edition). While its overall tone is reminiscent of Astro Boy, it achieves an appropriately fairy-tale aesthetic through the use of super-clean lines, simple, bubbly shapes, and generally lighter tones. Readers may also notice that, in addition to the overwhelming Disney influence on the designs of the characters and backgrounds, Tezuka also takes cues from early shojo adventure comics like Katsuji Matsumoto's The Mysterious Clover (1934).

Princess Knight is, quite frankly, a baffling read. It seems to fly by even faster than Astro Boy, but unlike the richly established world and characters of that series, this feels more like a clumsy pastiche of Disney fantasy-adventure films. What's more, the gender commentary is bluntly feminist at best and downright sexist at worst, and the entire work feels largely purposeless. It pains me to say this, but I can't recommend Princess Knight unless, like me, you feel the need to plumb the depths of Osamu Tezuka's English-language catalog. Perhaps in its time Princess Knight may have captivated its young audience, but today it serves as a reminder that even a god makes mistakes every once in a while.

While the plot is certainly centered around the struggle between Shizuku and Issei, the real struggle of the story is the exploration of self through which Shizuku has to go in order to be able to relate to his late father. Shizuku has had an in-depth education on the ways of wine but has never drank any, putting him at a severe disadvantage at a blind tasting. Issei has had a lifetime and celebrated career as a wine taster, but only one week as Yutaka’s son. As the plot progresses, Issei doesn’t try to be any more a son to the departed, but Shizuku (with help from apprentice sommelier Shinohara Miyabi) goes through various trials that bring him further and further down into the cellar of the subject that was his father’s passion.

The aforementioned trials are the bulk of this manga, and the wines they center around (all 100% authentic) are the respective heft of the chapters. This is made most obvious via the attention paid to the visual rendering of any panel featuring bottles or wine. Character designs and settings are distinguished but rather average in most instances, while any scene involving wine, wine bottles, or the various visual metaphors employed for the euphoric experience of tasting wine (a Queen concert, a maiden in a field, a merry-go-round, a scene from Strauss’s Salome) come across not as photorealistic but as lovingly crafted portraiture. Any serious wine drinker will love this manga for this aspect alone. To all readers, the alternation betwixt what I’ll call character and bottle style imbues this 424-page volume with a diversity of visuals that whets appetites for the next feast.

There is also a LOT of textual description within these pages: vinter lineages, wine taste, wine smell, how to drink wine, how to pour wine, when to pour wine, wine origin and similarity ... you get the gist.  Casual readers would probably find the material a bit too dry for their tastes were it not for the almost beguiling charm derived from the pacing of Shizuku and Miyabi's adventures as well as humor written a little too perfectly via extended metaphors exploiting similarities in terminology between manga and wine (such as the conversation pictured on the right). So that, combined with the almost laughably yet convincingly applied left-field taste analogies (did I mention the Queen concert?) and their culmination, actually makes the manga a proverbial page-turner. The same characteristics contribute to readability for those in the know. Being shoveled information on decanting, vintages, vineyards, etc. can be downright tedious, but it is the mix of storytelling techniques and art that will elicit interest and propel wine connoisseurs through the book. While outright descriptions attempt to fill readers in on the wines as well as the experience of drinking them, the authors and illustrator do a fantastic job defining Shizuku and Issei via glimpses into their preparations for the upcoming battles.

Shizuku, whose first musical wine metaphor involves Queen, describes the wine admiringly as “somehow like classical” but not quite, with “a melting sweetness and a sharp rush of sourness.” Altogether not the most poignant of descriptions, but it is a Romantic one. Later on, readers get a taste of Issei’s musical leanings: Richard Strauss’s opera, Salome, which Issei associates with a “blood scented sensuality born of decadence.” If one sets aside the obvious sweet vs. evil leanings of those descriptions, the context in which they are delivered is as subtle delivery mechanism as any for showing a major difference between the main characters.

The perpetual learner, Shizuku mostly listens to others. When he does speak, usually to elaborate upon the characteristics of a wine at hand or demonstrate a wine-related technique, his flowery meditations are written such that they are more Zen moments of sensory exploration that seem identifiable to those surrounding Shizuku. Even the way he gives advice to people shows him to be a genuine helping hand — a person who keeps in mind exactly who he is reaching out to as opposed to showing off transcendent talent of taste/technique. The latter is more applicable to Issei’s preachy tone. A lecturer at heart, Issei often talks as though no one else is in the room ... even when it’s part of a dialogue. I wager readers can take everyone else out of a scene involving Issei describing wine and that scene would have the same effect. By the end of the volume, the main characters’ choices of musical allusions reflect not only how personable they are but their sense of modernity as well. So far, Shizuku involves the recent present (as much as 70s Queen is recent) and Issei invokes a century-old opera. As wine is consistently referred to as a living thing (temperamental), how closely each critic can pull similarities from their own near history is an indication of who keeps wine closer and who put it upon a pedestal of distance.

Not everything in The Drops of God is great. The pacing can seem laborious depending on personal experience with and interest in wine, and there are a few minor instances where clichés border on offensive and overly convenient: why must the wine wisdom and saving grace in one arc come from a homeless person ... who then ends up knowing the main characters and acting as a judge?! But even if I found myself getting angry at situations like that, keep in mind that I was getting angry because it wasn't perfect. Why? Because this manga is just that good, and I wanted it to be perfect. This graphic novel has actually influenced countries' wine sales and purchases fer chris’ sake. If nothing else, to quote Evan Minto, “it’s almost frustrating how compelling it is!”

Lychee Light Club is a one-shot graphic novel from cult favorite Usamaru Furuya, based on the Tokyo Grand Guignol theatre troupe's tragic 1985 play of the same name. It follows the rapid degeneration of this tightly controlled boyhood hierarchy, perpetuated by the successful activation of their robot, "Lychee," and his successful capture of a beautiful girl named Kanon. Amidst growing paranoia in the club, Kanon forms a strange connection with her robot captor, who has been programmed to believe that he, too, is human.

Lychee's greatest strength is its brevity; the one-shot format allows Furuya to tell a complete story with a surprisingly satisfying arc, all while driving home some biting social commentary. My first impression was that Furuya is commenting on Japanese sexual seclusion, most clearly evidenced by the boys' idolatrous view of girls. One says "I kinda can't believe it: a girl, right in front of me," and the dictatorial leader of the group, Zera, declares that "you must never look at her as an object of lust!" Intentional or not, it calls to mind otaku culture's "sexualization of innocence," as evidenced by moé anime and teenage idol culture.

Grand Guignol-style theatre is known for its gruesome violence, and this manga adaptation pulls no punches. A female history teacher who chances upon the Light Club is stripped and then evicerated for her crime, and a fellow student who makes the same mistake has his eyes burned out after a morbidly funny scene in which the boys brainstorm ways to punish their unfortunate captive.

These moments of quirky, black comedy are rare, but they are deftly incorporated into the story, such as a sequence in which Lychee brings back a series of inanimate objects and ugly people in a failed attempt to pinpoint what "beautiful girl" means. There's a fascinating (and horrifying) cognitive dissonance in laughing during a scene involving human beings who have been needlessly kidnapped to fulfill the sexual urges of a cabal of disturbed teenagers.

The two rays of light in this story are Kanon and Lychee himself, who, in working as a tool for the Light Club members' dark desires, becomes more human than they could ever be. By the end of the story, the friendship (and perhaps romance?) between Kanon and Lychee becomes a strong driving force, and manages to leave the reader with a satisfying conclusion despite the horrific events throughout the book.

Furuya's art is a perfect match for the subject, mixing super-high contrast shadows and highlights with intentionally ugly, androgynous character designs. He seems to delight in drawing hair and cloth in particular, usually depicting them as all-black with white highlights.

There's a lot going on in Furuya's macabre epic, from subdued commentary on industrialization (told through background art but never explicitly mentioned) to homoerotic experimentation (the boys fulfill each others sexual desires in absence of a female presence). If you can accept that all of Furuya's absurd violence, including people being flattened from the head-down, burned alive, snapped in half, and raped, is there for the sake of commentary and (in some cases) catharsis, not titillation, you will find Lychee Light Club to be a wholly satisfying, even ... fruitful experience.

The Tenge family is reeling in the wake of the post-war American occupation. As they watch their lands in the Japanese countryside get sold off to tenant farmers, the once-rich clan sees the return of P.O.W. son Jiro, who is now working undercover for the American occupation forces. He comes home to find a family rife with sin and dark secrets. His brother Ichiro is letting his own father sleep with his wife in return for the family fortune, resulting in Jiro's new four-year-old sister/niece Ayako. After Jiro is implicated in a high-profile murder case, with Ayako’s testimony serving as the only evidence toward his indictment, the family decides to preserve their honor by locking her away in the storehouse cellar, to be kept there until she dies.

It is a testament to Tezuka's tight cast and vibrant characterization that he manages to keep the story interesting despite its frequent jumps in both time and place. The Tenges eventually spread out into different places and careers, but the connection to the original reasons for Ayako's imprisonment remain a burden upon all of their consciences, thus keeping everything centered around the title character. The small cast helps you create a deeper connection with them, as their relationships and feelings are all easily understood within the structure of their acutely dysfunctional family.

Ironically, though, Ayako herself is little more than a caricature. She emerges from her 23-year imprisonment as an emotionally stunted young woman, completely ignorant of many customs and ideas that come naturally to most people. This simplistic personality can get a little grating after a while, and it certainly makes her character hard to connect with, but Tezuka makes it clear that he intends her odd behavior as an expression of her tragic upbringing.

Speaking of tragedy, Ayako is horrifically sad beyond any other Tezuka manga I have ever read, and in fact beyond most other manga, period. With murder, rape, and incest throughout, this is not a book for the faint of heart. Sometimes it feels like Tezuka is just throwing in more tragedy for the sake of making you sadder, but it all ends up serving the author's ultimate message: a condemnation of secrecy and hidden sin. In the end, what destroys the characters is a compounding of everything they have ever done (and not done) to other people. As the vessel for the Tenge family's sins, Ayako gets the brunt of their love, hate, compassion, and anger, making its conclusion all the more impactful.

Throughout Ayako, Tezuka revels in the vastness of the Japanese countryside, providing beautiful full-page drawings of hills and fields alongside meticulously drawn cityscapes. Additionally, he tries his hand at recreations of photographic images, a technique that accentuates the historical relevance granted by his frequent references to real events during the Japanese reconstruction. It's also worth noting that only a single character from Tezuka's Star System (the detective Geta) shows up in Ayako, a very deliberate choice that serves to detach the characters and their predicaments from the sometimes whimsical worlds of Tezuka's other works.

Vertical's translation is great as always, but this time they've brought on Mari Morimoto, well-known translator of manga like Dragon Ball (1984) and Naruto (1997). The one notable facet of the translation, which may be credited to either Morimoto or the editors in charge of revising her translation, is the depiction of the characters' country accents. All of the Tenges speak in a Southern American accent, depicted phonetically in what I can best describe as the manga equivalent of a Mark Twain novel. I find that it adds a welcome sense of place to the work that manga often don't have, but some might find that they can only read "Naw!" so many times before it gets a little grating.

EDIT: Naturally, no review of Ayako can go without mentioning that it is flipped (i.e. reads left to right) and features beautiful art direction — from Peter Mendelsund — both inside and on its striking hard cover. Clearly Vertical did both of these things in order to promote it among literati types (as opposed to your average teenage manga fan in Barnes & Noble) as they did with Buddha (1972), and it does a great job. The flipping is an unfortunate consequence of this, but it should hopefully help the book find an audience outside of the manga crowd.

Ayako isn't quite perfect, mostly due to Tezuka's over-reliance on tragic twists and the title character's flat characterization, but as an examination of sin and long-term guilt, it is a powerful story, almost Shakespearean in its penchant for melodrama. Fans of Ode to Kirihito will find much to love here; in fact, its dedication to only a few locations and a centrally connected cast of characters makes it a little more accessible than the sprawling epic that is Kirihito. Be warned, however: Ayako is manga at its most tragic — in this seemingly endless bout of sin and suffering, no one is safe from the taint of evil, and no one is spared its consequences.

[Highly Recommended]

This review is based on a complimentary review copy, graciously provided by Vertical, Inc. (and given away to an Ani-Gamers reader after this review was written).

Reminder: Ani-Gamers is giving away copies of Ayako to two lucky readers. Check out the contest rules to enter!

The doctor who takes Shogo on as a patient is rather troubled by this and so decides that a suite of tests and treatments are in order, including a terrifying session of electroconvulsive therapy. It is during this therapy that Apollo's Song introduces it's key element that sets it far apart — the Goddess. Taking the form of a massive female statue she scolds Shogo for his hatred of love and forces him to confront the root of his problem. Then, as a punishment for his transgressions against the sanctity of love, Shogo is condemned to a never-ending series of trials — over and over he must come to know love, but every time it is within his grasp it will be snatched away from him. The more cynical among those reading probably just laughed and yelled “Oh, just like real life then!” out loud.

What follows this proclamation is a series of discrete tales that follow the template that the goddess outlines — each time, Shogo comes close to being cured but is ultimately thwarted, usually in a harrowing fashion. You would think this pattern would get dull, but there is another facet to the story; you are never fully sure what is “real”, or what is a dream, a hypnotic suggestion, or even if Shogo is actually dead or alive for the majority of the manga. The different trials Shogo experiences also have their own back-story and love stories within them, further muddying the waters about what is taking place in reality and what is confined to his imagination. Even the ending of the story is wonderfully ambiguous and ends on a rather depressing note for Shogo, but leaves it up to the reader to decide what the ending entails.

I am a massive fan of this sort of reality-bending fiction and so Apollo’s Song scores lots of points with me, enough to make me overlook some of its nagging flaws. The biggest among these is the repetition of the individual stories within the overall plot arc — as mentioned before, they all follow the exact pattern that the Goddess outlines. In addition, some of the stories are instantly forgettable, and even on my fifth reading I am confronted with entire chapters I had completely forgotten and am beginning to forget even as I write this review. Another, more egregious issue is that Shogo himself is an unpleasant dick who keeps undoing his own character development. While this can be seen as a normal human character flaw, especially for someone as seriously ill as he is, it can become exasperating after he fails to even attempt to reform himself for the umpteenth time in the face of great pressure to do so.

This frustration with Shogo is eased by getting know him through the art, with all emotions laid bare on the page for you to see and feel as you read. Simply put, the facial expressions and body language in the manga are among the best I have seen. At one key moment in the story an entire page is set aside at time for a single facial expression of sorrow — a powerful moment hammered home by a very simply presented image. The rest of the art (especially the layout) is equally superb, with many nice touches and unique pages added to keep you interested. The emotional highs and lows (mostly lows, in this case) are wonderfully captured on the page, with each moment given time to breathe over multiple pages and clear layouts to heighten the impact. The main triumph of the art is that each separate story told within the overarching plot looks and feels like its own separate series. You can tell from a glance what the setting feels like and how it differs from every other story presented in the manga.

While I pointed out some flaws earlier in this review that may sound like deal-breakers to some, I am still a fan of Apollo's Song due to how much it rewards revisiting. While not a short book by any stretch of the imagination, the story is just the right size to pick up and read for the hell of it without without the investment of time that MW or Ode to Kirihito demand. Due to its very powerful message and reality-bending storyline, each reading can give you something new to chew on.

I have read this story in a multitude of personal states and attitudes towards love — while happily in a relationship, in a failing relationship, and shortly after a break-up, and each time it has given me something new to think about and an uplifting feeling despite its grim storyline.

[Recommended]

This review is based on a retail copy purchased by the reviewer.

“No Longer Human” Announcement Premature

Thursday, October 14, 2010

At their Saturday October 9th panel at New York Comic-Con, Vertical, Inc. announced to great fanfare a number of license acquisitions scheduled for 2011 release. Regretfully, one property, No Longer Human by Usamaru Furuya, was prematurely disclosed to the public.

Due to a communication error between the company’s New York and Tokyo offices, the property was falsely presented as slated for publication. While the licensors for this series and Vertical are currently actively in contract negotiations, the North American rights have not been secured. Vertical, Inc. will continue to work with the rights holders for No Longer Human with hopes to properly acquire the license, and it apologizes to all parties involved in this unfortunate and unintentional error.

[via Japanator]

Once the children reach their 14th birthday they are taken unawares for a "Maturity Check", administered by a central computer. The Maturity Check functions as testing and preparation for the child's adult life, with some of the intricacies left unexplained to preserve the mystery of it. Sounds an awful lot like puberty, doesn't it? The main difference is that the Maturity Check doesn't cause hair to suddenly appear in new places, and if anything it makes the characters immaculately drawn hair even more lush. During this enforced coming-of-age the child is told that their childhood was a fabrication produced for the sole purpose of providing them with a healthy emotional background and that their early memories are to be wiped.

This forces an identify crisis onto the children, one which is intended to clear the way for training that will form them into pure subjects willing to work for and perpetuate the Superior Domination Order, with the aim of restoring the now-ravaged planet Earth under the guidance of the Mother Computer.

It is worth noting here that the phrase "Mother Computer" would, at the time that To Terra was written, have sounded utterly outlandish and more than a little disturbing. While computers these days are benign things you have on your desk, in 1977 the microprocessor had only recently been produced, ARPANET was new, and the CRAY-1 supercomputer was the machine to beat. This new technology would surely have had a vague air of magic and threat, and to hand over the most basic of human interactions — the creation and care of children — to such constructs would feel abhorrent.

Firstly, I want to focus on those characters in the story who I believe most closely mirror how "normal" people such as you or I would react in the SD system: Seki and Sam. Both undergo the typical SD upbringing and we meet them early on in the story as classmates of Keith Anyan on a educational station having recently undergone the Maturity Check.

Seki is an intelligent child, though he is earmarked for greatness and is prideful and arrogant as a result. He is emotionally sensitive and coupled with his outspoken distaste of the SD order he is considered a troublemaker and, even worse, a potential telepath. The source of his discontent is very basic and understandable; Seki resents the SD system for stripping him of his childhood, clinging onto the angelic memory of his mother despite knowing it was a fabrication. This grief accelerates Seki's frustration with his situation playing second fiddle to Keith and causes him to act in an increasingly impulsive manner to try and assert himself as an individual and to validate his upbringing. These actions spiral out of control, eventually leading to his death. For being intelligent and sensitive, the SD order drove Seki to self-destruction, wasting a potentially world-altering person due to its deception.

On the other end of the spectrum, Sam is dead average. He squeaks passes in his exams, neither dissents or swears by the regime that produced him, and doesn't sweat the small stuff. His main responsibility is to his friends, and sticks by Keith through thick and thin. An upstanding citizen, he graduates with average grades and takes a job as a space trucker, something that sounds even more boring than normal truck driving. Through this job he comes to meet the Mu and in particular the main protagonist Jomy, who he was childhood friends with. Faced with a filthy telepath, Sam acts upon the information that the computer education has drilled into him and freaks the hell out, attacking Jomy in a fit of primal fear. Jomy is horrified how his old friend has been warped and over-reacts, causing a massive explosion and injuring Sam.

We are later re-introduced to Sam and find out that this encounter has left him crippled at a mental age of 14. All the ingrained fear is gone, replaced by a much more carefree outlook. While this may be a bit of a stretch, I believe that this shows that the overbearing influence of the Maturity Check, illustrating that the computer education had left Sam without the mental tools to cope with adult life. The shock encounter caused him to revert to a simpler time without the choking influence that had warped him into a form so horrifying to Jomy.

Jomy, the main protagonist of the story, also goes through the normal SD upbringing experienced by Sam and Seki, and like them he is abducted at 14 to undergo the Maturity Check. For him, however, things change when he is rescued by the leader of the Mu and made their new leader. Faced with so much responsibility and hostility from both the SD order and from his own people, it would make sense for Jomy to seek a return to the halcyon days of his youth, even while knowing that it was a fabrication. For the majority of the story he tries to bring happiness to the Mu by creating a stable home for them, free from the overbearing computerized system that hunts them.

Following a major tragedy Jomy finally heeds his predecessors' imperative to bring the Mu to their homeland of Terra and to destroy the computer system that is warping humanity.

The first step on this journey is for Jomy to put his own past to rest by attacking his old childhood world and destroying the computer that oversees the Maturity Checks there. It it only with the destruction of that machine that Jomy matures both as a person and a leader, shouldering his burdens and doing what must be done to save. Not just his own people from the oppressive Mother Computer, but humanity as a whole as well.

One of those burdens is Tony, who is the product of the first natural birth among the Mu, and an exceptionally powerful telepath. Brought up with utmost love and care by his mother Carina, he is overcome with grief when she dies. The resulting shock causes him to overreact and accelerate his physical growth in order to be of greater use to Jomy, the young leader who encouraged his birth and whom he now regards as his family. This change makes him as an abrasive, irritable person who is still very much a child emotionally, traits exaggerated by being the cornerstone of the Mu military due to his immense psychic power. This combination of personality and ability causes Tony and the few others like him in the Mu population to be treated as outcasts. They eventually leave the Mu to begin a dreamlike existence among the stars, having grown up too fast without the grounding to cope with the harsh reality they live in.

Finally, there is Keith Anyan, who is perhaps the most interesting of all of the characters in To Terra. Keith is the result of a more advanced version of the SD program — he is engineered to have a theoretically perfect genome and grown in a tank until 16 under the direct care and attention of the educational computer. He cannot recall his childhood, something which sets him apart from his school friends, and when he discovers the truth there is an initial shock at the confirmation but no great change or revelation takes place. This is, in my mind, because there is no subterfuge involved. Instead of having an illusionary childhood life stripped from him, Keith is left to ponder his existence as someone created for the express purpose of leading the SD order. While he does follow orders of the computer, Keith develops throughout adulthood, free of any anxiety or doubts lingering in his mind about his origins. In the end, it could be argued that Keith has the fewest issues with his childhood, primarily because he did not have one in the strict sense, and he had no other alternative but to adjust to his circumstances. He spends a large amount of time reflecting on the people he has met throughout his life, allowing these events to affect him rather than being a prisoner to his childhood and the computer overlords that he starts to question as time carries on.

With all this out of the way, what was Keiko Takamiya trying to say? I submit that the message is that there should be no lies in childhood, as this only causes mal-adjustment and traps people in a cycle of trying to reconcile reality with what they experienced and viewed as fact, thus stunting their development. In this story the computers are one thing used to provide and enforce this lie, but they could be swapped out for any real-life examples that you care to produce, such as an overbearing Nationalistic agenda. Even now, many years after publication, this message feels very relevant and lacking in due consideration, making the series all the more important to read and reflect on.

It's actually rather surprising to see such simplicity in a manga serialized in a seinen (men's) magazine, Weekly Morning, but as with many cutesy seinen titles such as Yotsuba&!, the manga is actually much more attractive to American children than it is to American men. Pursuant to this, Vertical's translation keeps the dialogue brief and easily comprehensible, while the intentional lack of detail in the art breaks with seinen's American reputation as being (sometimes indecipherably) detail-heavy. What's more, the book has only full-color pages, painted in beautiful, subdued pastel colors, which are sure to entice young readers looking for something more flashy than the typical black-and-white manga aesthetic.

On that note, Chi's design is easily the most important piece of art in the entire book, and it certainly gets the job done — and then some. Her saucer plate eyes and giant triangular mouth express a childlike excitement over even the simplest of everyday delights, and it can be hard to not imagine her screaming at the top of her lungs and smiling every time she gets excited. (By the way, this is coming from someone who has never seen the anime and thus doesn't have a preconceived voice for Chi.) Believe me, I didn't think that I would enjoy it, but I really took to Chi and the rest of the family after a few chapters.

Still, I feel like the comedy — if you can even call it comedy per se — might wear a little thin if the later volumes don't introduce any major new developments. After all, I don't really think that a picture of a cute kitten getting excited can remain very interesting for very long.

The chapters range in length, though they are typically much shorter than the average manga chapter, and some even come in at around five or six pages. Given such brevity of storytelling, it would almost seem like the story is built for the 4-koma (four-panel) format, but Kanata manages to tell a short, charming story in every chapter while maintaining the flow of a full-page manga layout.

As I mentioned before, Chi's Sweet Home doesn't really feel like a men's title in an American context, but it's actually a genuinely fun little book for children or cat lovers of all ages. Of course, I wasn't satisfied with simply guessing at the right audience for the book, so I let my 12-year-old sister read it to get a feel for what she thought of it. Within an hour she had read the entire thing, and claimed that she would actually buy the second volume if she saw it in a store (even after I informed her of the slightly high $13.95 price point).

To be clear, Chi's Sweet Home is not for everyone, but when put in front of the right eyes, it's an absolute joy. Kanata has crafted a simple yet charming mix of visual comedy, cute animal shenanigans, and great art that can manage to evoke quite a few chuckles, even from this jaded manga reader.

[Recommended]

This review is based on a promotional copy of the graphic novel, kindly provided by the publisher, Vertical, Inc.

You may remember Ani-Gamers Podcast #016, in which we discussed Black Jack and talked quite a bit about how we disliked Pinoko, the other main character in the series who for some will be an absolute turn-off. To give you a brief introduction, Pinoko is a girl "born" of a Teratoid Cystoma who believes she is Black Jack's wife. She is generally very immature, speaks a lot of garbage with a comedic lisp and is very disruptive when involved with the story. While I am still not her greatest fan by any stretch of the imagination, I have warmed to the character with her repeated appearances, as she is a genuinely interesting character.

The art leaps seamlessly from clean character art and background to hyper-detailed shots of surgery — Tezuka's own medical training no doubt shining though. I am rather squeamish to be quite honest, and thankfully any internal body shots or injuries are shown very matter-of-factly.

One of the wonderful things about Black Jack, at least for me, is that almost every story is completely self-contained, even those that reference older events.

This length is a major strength of the series — each self-contained chapter is only around 20-25 pages all told. Should you find yourself disliking a story for whatever reason, in a few pages you can simply move on to the next. This also allows each tale to have it's own individual impact, with brevity bringing the best out of the storytelling. The individual tales waste no time in getting to the point and setting things out — sadly this can lead to very abrupt endings, but this pace is a nice way to present the story. Most importantly, it prevents the story from getting bogged down in details, hanging plot threads, or an overarching plot. There are distinct themes throughout the manga, which are usually tied to supporting characters, but these are used sparingly and are a treat when they appear. This short format also helps out with the dialogue — no one ever minces words and everything said is important to your enjoyment of the story.

Overall the stories have a great mix of tone; the subject is grave, life-or-death indeed, but it retains a playful air. The use of lighthearted elements is especially effective at helping to maintain suspension of disbelief for the more outlandish or flat-out crazy situations. (Like the time Black Jack operated on a supercomputer! Or the time he had to excise a talking facial deformity! Or when he had to hunt down and operate on a super-intelligent stag!)

Normally in reviews you would now expect the line of "Oh, one of those is fake, but I bet you can’t guess which one!" No, all of the above happen at some point in Black Jack.

Some of my personal favorite stories are, quite simply, ones where the ending is a downer. Sometimes a case is beyond even Black Jack, or external pressures interfere, and so for whatever reason things don't turn out for the best. It’s honestly great that not every chapter ends positively — it keeps you on your toes while reading. These conclusions are often quite arresting — more than once I found myself putting the volume down to process what had just happened because it had emotionally effected me.

Meanwhile, the main thrust of the manga's varied messages deal with the sanctity and importance of preserving life above all else as well as scorning the established medical community (one of the reasons Tezuka himself never applied his medical training directly) and other confounding variables that can get in the way of saving life.

One of the facets of this overarching philosophy is in regards to euthanasia, and is one of my personal issues with the series. Without getting too political or turning this review into a soapbox, I am a personal proponent of euthanasia and assisted suicide, whereas Tezuka (via Black Jack) is dead set against the idea in any form. One of my favorite characters, Dr. Kiriko, assists those who wish to die and has his own back-story and issues to grapple with as he does his grisly duty. Sadly all the stories that involve him end up becoming one-sided lectures with those who suggest euthanasia coming off as straw men whom Black Jack successfully discredits by the end. After a while this begins to feel rather immature as the larger issue is stunted by the short format of the series.

To be frank, the first volume is probably the most uneven out of the volumes released thus far. The selection varies wildly between some great stories, most of which are vital in filling in back-story or introducing the few principal cast members, and other lesser chapters that left me skimming the page waiting for the story to end. As the series has continued, and I have become more familiar with the cast, the overall quality of the stories (and perhaps my appreciation for them) has definitely increased. The last two volumes I purchased I read voraciously over the course of a single weekend.

Despite its (admittedly few) flaws, I would not hesitate to recommend Black Jack to almost anyone. Not just those who like manga, but anyone who wants to read a succinct, clear, medically themed drama and isn't afraid of having it displayed pictorially. In order to write this review I had to recall some volumes that I had lent to various friends I was trying to introduce to the series — a task more difficult than it sounds as some did not wish to return the books.

[Highly Recommended]

• Akita Publishing Co., Ltd.
• Chuokoron Shinsha
• Enterbrain
• Fujimi Shobo
• Fusosha
• Futabasha
• Gentosha
• Hakusensha
• Hayakawa Publishing
• Kadokawa Shoten
• Kobunsha
• Mag Garden
• MediaWorks
• Shinchosha
• Shinshokan
• Shodensha
• Shonen Gahosha
• Tokuma Shoten
• Wani Books

In Black Jack, Tezuka – known by most fans for his "childish" manga Astro Boy – does a seinen manga just right. These stories are definitely not for children or the faint of heart, as they contain detailed depictions of surgery and various references to violence and depravity. Still, they are so much more than just examples of gruesome situations and the crazy solutions to said situations. Black Jack is a complex character, and while his face may seem cold and immovable, he is far more expressive than the seinen posterboy Golgo 13.

Therein lies Tezuka's most resounding success in Black Jack. The title character wears all black and has a scarred face, but he is not a jaded man who has turned his back on the world. At times he will take jobs without payment, risk his life for the sake of a patient, or even fall in love. The dichotomy between Black Jack's image as a heartless mercenary and his true identity as a caring, thoughtful person forms the backbone of each of his stories.

And what stories they are! In one, a man is diagnosed with a face-sore with its own personality that seems to quell his own murderous addiction. In another a painter is caught in a nuclear blast, and calls on Black Jack to keep him alive so that he can finish his masterpiece. In one of the most important stories of all, Black Jack is tasked with removing a "teratoid cystoma" (a sort of internal Siamese twin) from an eighteen-year-old-woman. Despite the protests of his clients, the doctor saves the jumbled mass of organs and constructs a living girl out of them: his assistant Pinoko, who must live in the six-year-old's body that Black Jack has constructed for her.

The artwork is pure Tezuka – stark, simple, and very reminiscent of the Fleischer Brothers and Walt Disney. Sometimes (especially when showing natural backgrounds or medical scenes), the versatile artist will lapse into the beautiful, dense artwork that readers might recognize from his masterwork Buddha. Of course, Tezuka's simplistic character designs have always been the groundwork upon which all of manga is built, and the incredibly expressive characters of Black Jack are no exception.

Despite Vertical's ugly, difficult-to-read cover design for the first volume of this series, Black Jack is a fantastic read, perhaps the best one manga fans have gotten in 2008. Tezuka's classic should have been here a long, long time ago, but that takes nothing away from the magnificent yet subtle power of this enduring work.

excellent.