I feel like I’ve let the prose get ahead of me for a manga review about a quintet of schoolgirls, all members of their school’s Light Music Club, doing silly things and being cute. Even so, I can’t deny the unsettling parallels between drug usage and reveling in the moé lifestyle. It can’t be ignored that there are some deeper machinations at work to have propelled this humble 4-koma gag manga into a merchandising empire that will keep a few creators and publishers financially sound for a time. It’s easy to forget there ever was a manga while the anime has commanded such a blinding presence in the last couple of years (primarily in Japan, different story in the West), and I would argue the franchise wouldn’t be half as successful had Kyoto Animation (KyoAni) not been handed the reigns. K-ON! is one of those cases where the adaptation overshadows the source material.

I would like to stop talking about what KyoAni has done for K-ON! and focus on the manga in question, but it must be said that Kakifly provided an excellent framework rather than a fully realized work. If your first taste of K-ON! came from the television show, the manga may come across as a downgrade. Most of the essential elements are there, but there’s something missing. We might as well get it out of the way now and admit that the missing piece is that deft, loving KyoAni touch that elevates erog and light novels to heights unimaginable by their original creators. While Kakifly competently illustrates the experiences of a group of high school friends, KyoAni breaths life into the world and quite literally makes the characters come alive and sing.

As unremarkable as I make it sound, Kakifly’s K-ON! is still one of the better slice-of-life manga out there. Like any good slice-of-life 4-koma, it’s easy to pick up and effortlessly flip through a whole volume in an hour. There are no ponderous subjects to tackle, hardly any moments of distress, and most conflicts are resolved through spirited enthusiasm and encouragement. Kakifly plays up the sexuality plenty of times, either for a joke or a splash page, but don’t get the wrong idea that K-ON! is some sort of subversive perversion of schoolgirl idolatry (the author isn’t nearly brilliant enough to make that work). Between the anime and the manga, Kakifly takes the crown for having the sexiest content of the two, but even he manages to show some restraint. There are no two-page full color spreads of bathhouse scenes with the Light Music Club, although I’m sure you’d be able to find a poster like that by browsing through K-ON! merchandise.

I don’t want to make any excuses for K-ON! to explain why I like it so much, which is why I need to admit that several criticisms about it are on the mark. K-ON! is about nothing, aside from an account of a high school music club across three years, and occasionally there are too many bare thighs and maid outfits for the typical manga cynic to stomach. K-ON!’s greatest strength that prevents it from collapsing into a sugary goo are its characters. Granted, this won’t work for everyone, but endearment towards the characters goes a long way in one’s enjoyment of K-ON!. While several characters are pulled from stock anime personalities (Ritsu is the energetic girl! Mugi is the kind-hearted rich girl! Nodoka is class rep among class reps!), the execution is such that everyone mixes together well. The anime might do it better, but the manga does a fine enough job convincing me that these people can be friends for reasons other than "we're in the same club". Each character possesses distinct minor traits and are allowed equal time to shine, avoiding favoritism in what is supposed to be an ensemble cast. The clean and attractive character designs avoid the usual anime embellishment, opting instead for a subdued and unified design across all characters. They are “real” enough while allowing Kakifly space to capture the characters' expressiveness.

For a manga that is wholly character-centric, Kakifly makes it look good by keeping it simple. The situations and jokes are such fluff, readers are likely to either grin like a creepy idiot or frown with measured disappointment. Don’t expect too much in-depth musical territory to be covered in the manga, as the girls spend most of their time lounging around in the club room or hanging out in town and each other’s houses. The leisurely pace of Kakifly’s high school utopia covers the usual circuit of Japanese adolescence, from school festivals to club trips. It’s hard not to get even a little invested in the world and characters when it’s made to be so appealing.

The Yen Press release of K-ON! is put together quite nicely. The pages are larger than the typical manga volume, so you won’t need to keep the book so close to your face to absorb the details. Each volume has an abundance of color pages and a few extras tacked on at the end, which I appreciate. The covers and spine are done up in each featured character’s image color and look appealing when lined up. I have minor grumblings about the localization, a welcome change to how I normally feel about having things I like put in a language I can understand by people paid to do so. I commend Yen Press for not writing out Mugi’s yuri-vision scenes after KyoAni killed that noise early in the anime adaptation. However, they dropped the ball by swapping out the onomatopoeia in Azusa’s nickname for the American equivalent, despite how damn near everyone who would pick up K-ON! knows what “nyaa~” is. Yen Press even goes to the length of including a glossary in each volume to explain details that might be lost on American audiences, yet they couldn’t keep “Azu-nya”. Not to mention how poorly “Azu-meow” tumbles out of my dumb American mouth.

I suppose the purpose of a review is to sell someone on a product, but I can’t put it out of my mind the weight one must carry to enjoy something like K-ON!. To the uninitiated, approaching K-ON! requires a blind leap. You either come out of it feeling gross or you discover a new dimension to that Japanese stuff you enjoy so much. If you’re like me, you won’t find out about the dark side of seinen manga target demographics until after you’re in too deep. You’ll most definitely be judged for being into “That Little Girl Crap”, but they can never hope to understand you or your moé. Like with any drug, remember to never take it too hard and always mind your budget.

While vibrant and detailed, the art is completely ruined by rampant overcrowding. Characters, and their humongous heads, fight for precious little space against speech bubbles as well as all background elements or props in panel. The end result is a very hard-to-read mess that leaves you exasperated and grasping for clarity instead of laughing. In a more whimsical moment I imagined the art bursting out of its tight square confines and using the full page instead of the 4-panel model, something I believe would have benefited the series. In the infrequent moments when this does happen, the overall flow of the manga is a lot more enjoyable.

But perhaps I have it wrong. Maybe the series is not supposed to be amusing, but instead endearing — "moé", perhaps? After all, the manga is serialized in a seinen (young adult male) anthology in Japan. The all-female cast of cute, strangely-proportioned girls are all instantly forgettable despite multiple attempts to differentiate them from one another and establish them in the mind of the reader. There are two splash pages in the first volume alone dedicated to introducing the cast and their individual traits in the most straightforward manner possible, but even these failed to make an impression on me. I can say that, without hyperbole, I would put the manga down for five minutes to make some tea and in that short time I would forget the names of the entire cast. Part of the problem is that they are all so archetypal and bland that it is hard to take them seriously or bother taking notice of them. There is the tomboy, the nervous one, the childish one, the mysterious one, and the other one so nondescript that I can't even remember what her archetype is — let alone her name. All this made it exceedingly difficult to bring myself to become invested in the characters’ antics on the page or care about the lackluster jokes they made.

Finally, there is the possibility that the series is instructional, using the characters and attempts at humor to help you learn real-life artistic techniques. Sadly this falls victim to the ham-handed art and some downright confusing dialogue, which leaves you unsure as to whether the advice is sincere or not. This is not helped by multiple author notes imploring the reader not to take the artistic advice seriously.

All these problems quickly left me baffled, uninterested in the manga, and unable to determine the actual point and audience of the series.

It is hard to find more to say about GA, despite having read both volumes multiple times to ensure I was not missing anything. The whole series feels horribly confused, unsure of what it wants to do and unable to provide any enjoyment as a result. Had I been in my right mind I probably would not have bought these volumes, but then again hindsight is always 20/20. I really can't recommend it to anyone, and it should serve as a warning to people to keep a calm head on your shoulders when you are in a convention Dealers' Room lest you too end up buying a clunker of a manga.

[Terrible]

Seeing as I am an adult male, I am clearly not the target audience for a jōsei series, but With the Light is actually surprisingly entertaining for people who might not otherwise read manga written for women. The pace is admittedly a little slow, but the moments of emotion are tender glipses of familial togetherness, far from the flowery love scenes of shōjo (though there are quite a few flower effects). Tobe does wonders with these scenes in the context of autism. A simple moment of Hikaru first saying "Mommy" as Sachiko stands in an open, sunlit window is moving not because of the simple action that most all children go through, but because as an autistic child, reaching this point is a tremendous feat for Hikaru.

However, With the Light is Tobe's first manga, and it shows in her unpolished, wispy-looking artwork. With so many lines all over the place, finding my way around the page was harder than it should be for a seasoned manga fan like myself. Clearly this is the kind of manga that can appeal to first-time manga readers, but its confusing visual style makes jumping into it a little too difficult. As the story wears on, Tobe's cluttered pages and attractive character designs remain, but the art is a little cleaner, darker, and more refined.

As an exhibit of manga's wide variety, With the Light is a must-have on any diverse reader's bookshelf. As a manga to be judged solely on its own merits, it is certainly not a groundbreaking series in either art or storytelling. Nevertheless, what Tobe lacks in skill she makes up for tenfold in heart. With the Light's value comes not in reading a totally professional manga series, but in experiencing a heartwarming story that rings with truth, told by a first-time manga-ka with a deep love for all those afflicted with autism.

good.

Yen Press
Yen Press President Kurt Hassler and the other folks from the manga publisher showed up at their panel room today to provide us with some sweet, sweet new licensing announcements and (as most of the packed room was hoping for) some sweet, sweet giveaways. The new licenses are listed below.

• Time and Again (by Jiun Yun) - Yen will be giving a graphic novel release to this title, already running in Yen+
• Spice and Wolf manga (story by Isuna Hasekura, art by Keito Koume) - A release date is "soon to be disclosed"
• Raiders (by JinJun Park) - Described by the folks from Yen as "early Obata, sort of," referring of course to the distinctive art style of Death Note manga artist.
• Laon (story by Hyum You, art by YoungBin Kim)
• The Crescent Moon Story (by Hyouta Fujiyama) - Releasing in September 2009
• Yotsuba&! Volume 6 (by Kiyohiko Azuma)!!!

Naturally, the talk of the room was the licensing of Yotsuba&!, which was originally owned by ADV Manga until their company went under, effectively ceasing the publication of the manga. In an epic Powerpoint mistake, the folks from Yen accidentally revealed the license of Yotsuba&! a few slides early, resulting is such a deafening roar from the crowd that Kurt's microphone shorted out. (At least I like to think that that's the reason.)

When asked about the translator selected to work on the new release of the manga, Yen told us that they selected a translator who had done some work on the ADV release, so they had some familiarity with the title. Additionally, the manga will not be published in Yen+, but Yen Press is currently looking at republishing ADV's first five volumes of the title

Finally, Kurt pulled out boxes upon boxes of Higurashi and Soul Eater manga and merchandise, which he was giving away... for free. Described by many as a "feeding frenzy" or quite simply "Animal House," the panel room was filled to bursting with gleeful fangirls (and fanboys) entering, exiting, and re-entering the line to pick up more and more manga, while the manga press corps watched in awe.

CMX Manga
DC Comics were firing on all cylinders at the new York Comic Con, with not only representation for their Western comics and DC Universe Online video game, but also a panel run by their manga division, CMX.

The panel was unfortunately nothing more than a simple list of the latest titles coming out from CMX, all of which I've listed below:

• The Name of the Flower (by Ken Saito • Jan 09
• Fire Investigator Nanase (story by Izo Hashimoto, art by Tomoshige Ichikawa • Jan 09
• Jihai (by Toshimi Ningoshi • Feb 09)
• March on Earth (by Mikase Hayashi • Mar 09
• Venus Capriccio (by Mai Nishikata • Apr 09)
• Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea (art by Nakaba Higurashi, original story by Seiichi Morimura • Apr 09) - FLEX
• The King of Debris (by Yusuke Aso • May 09)
• The Lapis Lazuli Crown (by Natsuna Kawase, who worked on Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne • May 09)
• Ballad of a Shinigami (story by S-she Hasegawa, art by Asuka Izumi • June 09)
• Broken Blade (by Yunosuke Yoshinaga • Jul 09)

Regarding the CMX Mobile service's possible expansion to American cell phones, the division is "discussing a variety of options for a variety of devices." Of particular note is that they are looking at devices other than cell phones as well. (DS makes sense, since there are a lot of Japanese companies trying to pull that off.) And that's a wrap for the manga panels of NYCC09 day two!