Now that I’ve had a chance to stockpile provisions, stretch my legs, and rest my eyeballs, I’m ready to finish what I started yesterday: a series-by-series exploration of the new IKKI website. If I seemed a little grouchy in my last post, it’s only because I’d gotten a super-sized dose of gore, grunge, gratuitous panty shots, and giant robots piloted by children — four things I generally avoid in my manga-reading. The second crop of titles — which includes I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow, Kingyo Used Bookstore, Saturn Apartments, and Tokyo Flow Chart — looks more promising, with fewer explosions and more character development.

UPDATE: Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader, I just discovered that VIZ added one more title to the IKKI site: I Am a Turtle. I finished reading the first chapter a few minutes ago and have posted my thoughts at the end of this entry.

The Plot: “This is the story of a forty–year–old salary man who quits his job to pursue his dream of becoming a manga artist—and the family that has to put up with him. While not terribly unhappy, Shizuo Oguro can’t fight the feeling that something in his life just isn’t right, so he walks away from his stable (yet boring) day job to embark on a journey of self–discovery. Unfortunately for his family, this journey also involves playing video games all day while his teenage daughter and elderly father support him. Will Shizuo succeed in creating a true manga masterpiece or will he be just another drop–out living a life of slack?”

The Low-Down: Shunjo Aono’s dark comedy seems like the perfect vehicle for Paul Giamatti or Steve Buscemi, as both actors could make its central character likable while acknowledging the folly of his ambitions. Aono isn’t quite as generous with his hero, portraying Shizuo as a loser with big dreams but terrible follow-through; like many daydreamers, Shizuo failed to realize that his fantasy job would be just as grueling as the one he quit, a revelation that sends him into a tailspin of binge drinking, prostitution, and video gaming. The story’s blunt, unsparing tone yields some squirm-inducing moments that are just a little too truthful to be funny, such as when Shizuo bumps into his eighteen-year-old daughter at a love hotel or parties with twenty-something colleagues. On the whole, however, I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow wins points for its unusual premise and unsentimental approach; Shizuo’s success is anything but a foregone conclusion.

Will I continue reading it? Yes; it’s rare to see a middle-aged protagonist (at least in translated manga), much less one who’s in the throes of a real life crisis. As someone who’s just a few years shy of forty, I feel duty-bound to support I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow.

The Plot: “A businessman discovers how his childhood memories can brighten his day. An art student finds inspiration. An archer hits a surprising bull’s eye. A housewife rediscovers romance. A teenager discovers his true self in the pages of a manga magazine. Welcome to Kingyo Used Books, a place where people find their dreams in manga…”

The Low-Down: Is there such thing as agit-manga? This sentimental series seems like the brainchild of a editor who’s desperately trying to convince adults that you never outgrow manga. In the first story, for example, a salaryman tries to unload his collection at Kingyo Used Books, telling the owner, “I’m not a kid anymore. Besides, it’s kind of pathetic to keep reading manga forever.” He gets a very gentle comeuppance at a class reunion, where his friends’ fond memories of Dr. Slump remind him what an important role manga played in their young lives. The story is pleasant and enjoyable, but suffers from a bad case of predictability; it’s monkey paw theater with a happy ending. That said, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the appeal of a series that validates my own experiences as an adult manga reader.

Will I continue reading it? Maybe. The series’ episodic structure and familiar rhythms cut both ways: Kingyo Used Books could be a fun exercise in formula, or a very boring customer-of-the-week drama.

The Plot: “Far in the future, humankind has evacuated the Earth in order to preserve it. Humans now reside in a gigantic structure that forms a ring around the Earth, thirty–five kilometers up in the sky. The society of the Ring is highly stratified: the higher the floor, the greater the status. Mitsu, the lowly son of a window washer, has just graduated junior high. When his father disappears and is assumed dead, Mitsu must take on his father’s occupation. As he struggles with the transition to working life, Mitsu’s job treats him to an outsider’s view into the various living–room dioramas of the Saturn Apartments.”

The Low-Down: If you adore Planetes as much as I do, you might just fall in love with Saturn Apartments, too. Like Planetes, Saturn Apartments is more character study than rollicking sci-fi adventure, a meditation on how humans struggle to feel at home in the greater universe. The story is atmospheric (no pun intended) but not aimless; the mystery of what happened to Mitsu’s father plays an important role in advancing the plot, even as Hisae Iwaoka pauses to show us what life is like at all levels of the Saturn Apartments. Iwaoka’s artwork seems perfectly suited to the material; it’s gently rounded and a little imperfect, creating an environmental that’s warmly inviting, rather than sterile and prefabricated. If the subsequent chapters of Saturn Apartments are as beautifully crafted as the first, I’ll be collecting it in print, too.

Will I continue reading it? In a word: yes.

The Plot Premise: “Have you ever wished that somebody else would just DO SOMETHING about the chaos in your life? Then this is the perfect manga for a slacker like you! Tokyo Flow Chart is (probably) the world’s first four-frame comic strip in flow chart format. It breaks down the complexities of life and aids in the mastery of brain skills such as flow-chart-manga comprehension or mental bullet-dodging. As Confusious say: ‘let your brain flow with the chart!’”

The Low-Down: I’ll be honest: 4-koma strips generally leave me cold. The rhythm, the delivery, and the punchlines often seem too culturally specific to be funny to a gaijin like me, even with copious notes explaining the references. So I didn’t hold out much hope for Tokyo Flow Chart, especially when the first strip alluded to a very famous Japanese seal. (As in pinniped.) Once I’d read a few pages, however, my attitude softened; the novelty of supplementing each strip with alternative endings turned out to be a brilliant stroke, as at least one of the variations tickled my funny bone. The editor has made a game effort to include footnotes wherever they’re warranted (see reference to famous seals above), though VIZ made the puzzling decision to situate some of them at a ninety degree angle to the picture plane — a strategy that might work in print, but one that falls short when the reader can’t rotate the image for easier reading.

Will I continue reading it? Yes; Tokyo Flow Chart reads like a surreal, slightly perverse Choose Your Own Adventure for adults. I hope VIZ has plans to publish this series in book form, however, as the teeny-tiny footnotes are a bitch to read, even in the Full Page viewing mode.

The Plot: “Follow this turtle down a Zen path through the wondrous natural world of Japan. Witness his simple life on a tea farm with his young master. Meet other animals such as his neighbor, the Sea Dog, an owl, a family of boars and, of course, more turtles! Come see how much better life can be when you’re a turtle.”

The Low-Down: The premise of this charming, low-key manga couldn’t be simpler: boy meets Turtle, boy saves Turtle, boy grows up and continues to care for Turtle. The story unfolds in 4-koma strips, but isn’t restrained by the format; if anything, the fourth panel on each page feels more like a punctuation mark than a rimshot. As Keith notes below, the fact that I Am A Turtle focuses on animals means that the humor crosses cultural lines more readily than Tokyo Flow Chart; I’m sure Japanese turtles aren’t alone in worrying that their masters might secretly prefer a cuter and cuddlier pet. The art is clean and straightforward; though the character designs are very realistic, Temari Tamura does a fine job of animating Turtle’s face without transforming him into Churchy LaFemme or Donatello.

Will I continue reading it? What’s not to love about a sarcastic turtle who lives on a tea farm?!