My Manga Wish List for 2010

Looking over Deb Aoki’s handy preview of 2010′s most anticipated titles, it’s obvious that this year will be a boffo one for manga. Now that publishers have discovered two previously neglected audiences — pre-teens and post-teens, a.k.a. adults — publishers are making a concerted effort to court them with titles such as Chi’s Sweet Home (Vertical, Inc.), Black Blizzard (Drawn & Quarterly) 51 Ways to Save Her (CMX), and The Strange Tale of Panorama Island (Last Gasp). Publishers are also wooing female fans with an assortment of great shojo and josei; if anything, 2010 looks to be the Year of the Female Comic Creator, with a tidal wave of CLAMP material crashing over American shores, a new Fumi Yoshinaga one-shot set for January release, and two promising titles from newcomer Nastume Ono, not simple and Ristorante Paradiso.

So what more could a manga critic ask for? Well, for starters…

More vintage shojo.

I’ve heard from reputable sources that licensing The Rose of Versailles is expensive — too expensive, given classic shojo’s poor sales in the US — but that knowledge hasn’t stopped me from wishing that someone — Kodansha, perhaps? — would pony up the cash and publish a glorious, annotated English language edition with oversized trim, hard covers, and a translation by Frederick Schodt or Matt Thorn. I’d gladly settle for a consolation prize, however: an English edition of Moto Hagio’s The Poe Family or Waki Yamato’s Haikara-san ga Toru would be lovely, as would a reprint of Keiko Nishi’s Love Song, one of the best shojo anthologies available in English.

New omnibus editions of old favorites.

Isn’t it time for publishers to dip into their back catalogs and re-release out-of-print gems in a snazzier, wallet-friendly format? I would love to replace my dog-eared copies of Rumiko Takahashi’s Rumic World and Rumic Theater with a shiny VIZBIG edition collecting all of her short stories. Ditto for Urusei Yatsura — may we get the full run please! — Banana Fish, Basara, and Please Save My Earth, four amazing titles that have been rapidly vanishing from bookstore shelves. Dark Horse would be doing manga fans a solid by reissuing What’s Michael in omnibus format; too many of the early volumes are nigh-impossible to find. And some enterprising soul would earn my undying loyalty by rescuing Apocalypse Meow from licensing purgatory and offering it in an oversized, one-volume edition with an attractive cover.

More eManga.

One of the most exciting developments of 2009 was the launch of the SigIKKI and Shonen Sunday websites. Both often a satisfying array of free comics; both are updated regularly; and both provide readers opportunity to give VIZ feedback about which books they’d like to see make the transition from web to print. While I haven’t liked all of the titles at either site (was Bob & His Funky Crew really the best VIZ could do?), the ones that I did like inspired multiple visits and hours of trawling Amazon for evidence of future print editions. Given the positive buzz over titles like Rin-ne and Children of the Sea, it seems like other companies might take a cue from VIZ and expand their online offerings as well.

VIZ isn’t alone in exploring the possibilities of online manga, of course; NETCOMICS has been doing it for over three years now, branching out from manhwa to include yaoi and older manga titles that might otherwise remain untranslated. Of all the companies selling manga online, NETCOMICS offers the simplest, least expensive method for enjoying a long series such as Let Dai — no rentals or downloads, just a 48-hour window to read the material you’ve paid for. The other great advantage to NETCOMICS’ no-frills approach: they can adjust their print runs to meet demand, releasing popular series in book form and giving under-performers an online home. It’s a model I’d love to see more publishers adopt, especially when print sales don’t justify the cost of finishing a series.

More kid-friendly manga.

2009 showed a marked improvement in the quality and variety of manga for kids, with all of the major publishers making an effort to reach out to grade- and middle-school readers by licensing titles such as Dinosaur Hour, The Lapis Lazuli Crown, and Ninja Baseball Kyuma. As I’ve noted in my Good Manga for Kids column, however, publishers are still coming up short in this department; too many “all ages” books come saddled with merchandising tie-ins (yes, Legend of Zelda, I’ve got you dead to rights) or scripts written at a level too sophisticated for the intended audience — not to mention age ratings that provide little to no useful information about the content.

P.S. I’ve already used my bully pulpit at Good Comics for Kids to plead for an English edition of Doraemon, but I think my request bears repeating: robot cat with nifty gadgets + slacker kid = comedy gold.

Rescue old favorites from licensing purgatory.

A few weeks ago, David “Precocious Curmudgeon” Welsh invited readers to make a case for saving favorite unfinished series. Answers ran the gamut from City Hunter to Shadow Star, with David singing the praises of Club 9, Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga, and No. 5. (Hear, hear!) Among the series topping my in-need-of-heroic-measures list:

Duck Prince (Ai Morinaga, CPM): Morinaga’s battle-of-the-sexes comedy starts from a familiar premise: a homely gal gets a makeover that enables her to win the guy of her dreams. Morinaga turns the premise on its head, however, substituting a sweet, helmet-haired nerd for the customary plain Jane, and adding a few novel twists. (Reiichi appears to most girls as a smokin’ hottie, but in the presence of his beloved Yumiko, he frequently reverts to his original form.) As always, Morinaga uses humor to make deeper points about gender roles and physical beauty, though Duck Prince is too rude and risque to be mistaken for an Afterschool Special.

Qwan (Aki Shimizu, Tokyopop): Aki Shimizu’s criminally under-appreciated shonen series draws heavily on Chinese mythology for its inspiration, as is suggested by the characters (many are demons from Chinese folklore) and by the classically influenced artwork. The story is complex and engaging, with a memorable cast of supporting players including Daki, a princess with power over insects, and Teikou, a four-winged, six-legged demon who’s surprisingly cute. Tokyopop released the first four volumes, catching up to the Japanese edition; by the time the fifth volume was released in Japan, however, Qwan had disappeared from Tokyopop’s release calendar — a pity, as it’s one of the best shonen series Tokyopop ever published.

Satsuma Gishiden (Hiroshi Hirata, Dark Horse): Can you imagine a manga that both Robert Moses and Sam Peckinpah might have appreciated? That’s how I would describe this dark, hyper-violent historical drama about a samurai rebellion touched off by a failed public works project. Hirata’s energetic, rough artwork captures the eighteenth century in all its squalor, tossing us headlong into the chaos of battle. It’s to Hirata’s credit that the court intrigue is as captivating as the imaginatively realized sword fights, providing newcomers with a crash course on Edo-era politics. Lest the tone become too pedantic, Hirata liberally sprinkles the story with passages of bawdy humor and baroque violence. In one gruesomely funny scene, for example, a dying character uses his own broken rib to puncture an opponent’s skull. Surely Sam Peckinpah would approve. (See my full review at PopCultureShock.)

And my final wish for 2010…

More Taiyo Matsumoto.

The English-speaking manga world is now ready for Ping Pong. ‘Nuff said.