Entries from February 2008 ↓

Re-Gifters
Written by Mike Carey
Art by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel
DC Comics (Minx), 2007
ISBN-13: 978-1-4012-0371-9

Review

Widely hailed as the best offering in the first round of Minx comics, Re-Gifters is the story of Los Angeles teen Dik Seong Jen—“Dixie” to her friends—a hapkido student with a serious crush on her classmate Adam. In an effort to win Adam’s heart, she uses the money that her parents have given her to enter a national hapkido tournament to buy him a costly birthday present. As you can probably guess from the title of the book, Adam’s reaction to her love offering isn’t all that she hopes for.

Mike Carey does an excellent job of telling a stand-alone story in a format that often better lends itself to series. Many of the plot twists will not be particularly surprising to anyone who’s read their share of teen novels, but Carey manages to make those familiar elements appealing. Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel’s stylish art also goes a long way toward making this true. The characters’ faces are very expressive, and the hapkido fights convey a nice sense of movement and kinetic energy. The perspective used in the panels is also interestingly varied.

I wish this was where I could end this review, but alas, I have a lot more to say.

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• Over at Asia Pacific Arts, Gene Yang talks about the growth of Asian American comics and his current projects in The Second Life of Gene Yang. Am I a geek for being excited by the prospect of a comic about the Boxer Rebellion?
• David Welsh’s Flipped column has found a new home at The Comics Reporter.
• Eli Neiburger expounds on the joys of Adult Swim over at Pop Goes the Library. As Eli notes, Adult Swim has been a major force in popularizing anime, especially with teens, and it’s aired a lot of my favorite series including Cowboy Bebop and Fullmetal Alchemist.

Emma, Vol. 2
Story and Art by Kaoru Mori
Rated Teen Plus
CMX, 2007
ISBN: 1-4012-4433-X

Review

In Victorian England, a quiet young woman named Emma works as a maid for Mrs. Stownar, a retired governess. William Jones is the eldest son of a wealthy merchant family and one of Mrs. Stownar’s former charges. When William meets Emma while visiting, he’s instantly smitten. But class distinctions and some unexpected developments will conspire to keep the couple apart.

In this volume, Emma and William’s relationship moves forward, but new obstacles to their relationship also appear. William’s family urges him to make a more socially acceptable match with his sister’s friend Eleanor, while Emma’s own situation becomes uncertain due to the failing health of her employer and protector. We also learn more about Emma’s past and the circumstances that brought her to London in the first place.

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Looking for more manga news and reviews? Don’t miss the relaunch of Manga Life. This week there are reviews of Sand Chronicles 1, Nana 8, and Hell Girl 1, as well as a new column by translators extraordinaire Athena and Alethea Nibley. I’ll be moonlighting as one of their writers as well and will post a link here when my first review goes live.

Claymore, Vol. 1
Story and Art by Norihiro Yagi
Rated T+ for Older Teen
Viz, 2006
ISBN-13: 978-1-4215-0618-0

Review

Yoma are monsters who feed upon humans and can move among them in disguise. Only the Claymores, women warriors who are half human and half yoma, can detect yoma and match them in strength and speed. When a series of attacks makes it clear that a yoma has come to Raki’s village, the chief appeals to the Claymores for aid. But the Claymore Clare’s arrival in the village has unexpected consequences for some of its residents.

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I’ve happily added a new comics blog to my feed reader this week: Asian American Comics [Link via Angry Asian Man]. It promises “the latest scoop on Asian American comics and Asian American comic book creators,” and from what I’ve seen so far, it’s delivering.

Here are just a few of the great links that I’ve come across thanks to this blog:

• Asian American Sequential Artists Resource Guide: “A guide to Asian American cartoonists, Asian American comic strips, and Asian American comic books.”
• Comics and 21st Century Learning: Written by Gene Yang, creator of American Born Chinese.
• The Outsiders: Asian/Asian-American Characters in Comics: The “ultimate listing of Asian/Asian American characters in mainstream comics,” compiled by Jenn at Reappropriate.

Visit the site on your own for more great content!

ICv2 has released its latest top manga and anime properties list. You’ll have to get the actual guide to see the full lists, but here are the top ten titles:

ICv2’s Top Ten Manga Properties for 2007:
1. Naruto
2. Fruits Basket
3. Death Note
4. Bleach
5. Kingdom Hearts
6. Pokemon
7. Vampire Knight
8. Fullmetal Alchemist
9. Absolute Boyfriend
10. Loveless

ICv2 Top Ten Anime Properties for 2007:
1. Dragon Ball Z
2. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
3. Pokemon
4. Naruto
5. Afro Samurai
6. Howl’s Moving Castle
7. Bleach
8. Robotech Shadow Chronicles
9. My Neighbor Totoro
10. Karas the Revelation

On library listservs I see a lot of librarians who are new to manga and anime asking, “So what are core titles?” I won’t say that these lists are mini core collection lists; older series are not well represented on them, and all titles are not appropriate for all collections. But if you’re trying to keep up with manga and anime for some professional reason, everything on here should be pretty recognizable to you: these properties are popular, and people are likely to be asking about them.

Bryan Lee O’Malley of Scott Pilgrim fame shares the cover he drew for the March 2008 issue of Shojo Beat. Along the way, he plugs two Shojo Beat titles, Nana and Beauty Pop. I’m a big fan of the former but unfamiliar with the latter; I’ll have to add it to my to-read list. [Via Precocious Curmudgeon]

David Welsh reviews A.I. Revolution at Precocious Curmudgeon.

The jury for the Andre Norton Award has announced their additions to the final ballot:

• Adam Rex, The True Meaning of Smekday
• Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, The Shadow Speaker
• Elizabeth Wein, The Lion Hunter

(For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Andre Norton Award is awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and honors “outstanding science fiction and fantasy novels written for the young adult market.”)

Vampire Knight, Vol. 1
Story and Art by Matsuri Hino
Rated T+ for Older Teen
Viz, 2007
ISBN-13: 978-1-4215-0822-1

Review

Yuki has no memory of her life before the day she was saved from a vicious vampire attack. Now, ten years later, she’s the teenage ward of the headmaster of Cross Academy, an unusual school attended by two groups of students. The Day Class is like any other group of teenagers, but the Night Class is full of vampires. As one of the Guardians of the school, Yuki works to protect the Day Class from its own dangerous interest in the Night Class and to keep her adoptive father’s dreams of peaceful coexistence between vampires and humans alive.
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This blog will review and comment upon current pop culture, especially manga, anime, and youth and teen literature.

I am a librarian-in-training, an avid reader, and a fan, and I hope to incorporate all three of these perspectives into my writing.

Feedback via comments and e-mail is very much encouraged, and I welcome suggestions for future post topics.