Category: Manga

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Speed Racer Classics


By Tatsuo Yoshida, translated by Nat Gertler (Now Comics)
ISBN: 0-70989-331-34 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

During the 1960s when Japanese anime was first starting to appear in the West, one of the most surprising small screen hits in America was a classy little cartoon series entitled Speed Racer. It first aired on Japan’s Fuji Television from April 1967 to March 1968;  52 high velocity episodes that steered into US homes mere months after. Back then nobody knew the show was based on and adapted from a wonderful action/science fiction/sports comic strip created in 1966 by manga pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida for Shueisha’s Shōnen Book periodical.

The comic series was itself a recycled version of Yoshida’s earlier racing hit Pilot Ace.

The original title Mach GoGoGo was a torturously multi-layered pun, playing on the fact that boy-racer Gō Mifune – more correctly Mifune Gō – drove the supercar “Mach 5”.

“Go” is the Japanese word for five and a suffix applied to ship names whilst the phrase Gogogo is the usual graphic sound effect for “rumble”. All in all, the title means “Mach-go, Gō Mifune, Go!” which was adapted for US screens as and its assumed simpleton viewers Go, Speed Racer, Go!, initially running from 1967 and for decades in syndicated reruns…

In 1985 Chicago-based Now Comics took advantage of the explosion in comics creativity to release a bevy of full-colour licensed titles based on popular nostalgic icons such as Astro Boy, Green Hornet, Fright Night and the TV cartoon version of Ghostbusters, but started the ball rolling with new adventures of Speed Racer. Gosh, I wonder who owns the rights to all those great comics and if we’ll ever see them revived in modern collections?

The series was a palpable hit and in 1990 the company released this stunning selection of Yoshida’s original stories in a smart monochrome edition graced with a glorious wraparound cover by Mitch O’Connell. It was probably one of the first manga books ever seen in US comic stores. Although the art was reformatted for standard comic book pages the stories are relatively untouched with the large cast (family, girlfriend, pet monkey and all) called by their American TV nomenclature/identities, but if you need to know the original Japanese designations and have the puns, in-jokes and references explained, there are many Speed Racer websites to consult and there have been many more translated collections in familiar tankōbon style editions…

Pops Racer is an independent entrepreneur and car-building genius estranged from his eldest son Rex, a professional sports-car driver. Second son Speed also has a driving ambition to be a pro driver (we can do puns too, just so’s you know) and the episodes here follow the family concern in its rise to success, peppered with high drama, political intrigue, criminal overtones and high octane excitement (whoops!: there I go again)…

The action begins with ‘The Return of the Malanga’ as – whilst competing in the incredible Mach 5 – Speed recognises an equally unique vehicle believed long destroyed when running this same gruelling road-race. The plucky lad becomes hopelessly embroiled in a sinister plot of remote-controlled murder and vengeance after learning that the driver of the resurrected supercar crashed and died under mysterious circumstances years ago. Now, the survivors of that tragic incident are perishing in a series of fantastic “accidents”; are these events the vengeance of a restless spirit or is an even more sinister force at work?

In ‘Deadly Desert Race’ the Mach 5 is competing in a trans-Saharan rally when Speed is drawn into a personal driving duel with spoiled Arab prince Kimbe of Wilm. When a bomb goes off, second son Racer is accused of attempting to assassinate his rival and must clear his name and catch the real killer by traversing the greatest natural hazard on the planet whilst navigating through an ongoing civil war: a spectacular competition climaxing in a blistering military engagement…

After qualifying for the prestigious Eastern Alps Competition, our youthful road ace meets enigmatic Racer X: a masked driver with countless victories, a shady past and a hidden connection to the Racer clan before ‘This is the Racer’s Soul!’ reveals the true story of Pops’ conflict with Rex Racer when criminal elements threaten to destroy everything the inventor stands for.

After the riveting race action and blockbusting outcome, this volume concludes with a compelling mystery yarn as – in ‘The Secret of the Classic Car’ – Speed foils the theft of a vintage vehicle by organised crime before being sucked into a nefarious scheme to obtain at any cost a lost secret of automotive manufacture hidden by Henry Ford. When the ruthless thugs kidnap Speed, Pops catapults into action just as the gang turns on itself with the saga culminating in a devastating and insanely destructive duel between rival super-vehicles…

These are delightfully magical episodes of grand, old-fashioned adventure, realised by a master craftsman, well worthy of any action fan’s eager attention, so even if this particular volume is hard to find, other editions and successive collections from WildStorm, DC and Digital Manga Publishing are still readily available.

Go, Fan-boy reader! Go! Go! Go!…
Speed Racer ™ & © 1988 Colour Systems Technology. All rights reserved. Original manga © Tatsuo Yoshida, reprinted by permission of Books Nippan, Inc.

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Last Gender: When We Are Nameless volume 1 (of 3)


By Rei Taki translated by Rose Padgett (Vertical/Kodansha)
ISBN: 978-1-6472191-4 (Vertical tank?bon PB) Digital edition 978-1-68491-721-1

A woman goes into a bar.

That’s usually shocking enough for Japanese fiction, but in Rei (Tada Ooki na Neko ni Naritai, Love-Kyo: Kateikyoushi ga xx Sugite Benkyou Dokoro ja Nai) Taki’s deft exploration of sexual diversity, it’s merely the start of a well-intentioned, honest appraisal of what infinite variety in human experience and being actually means. The tale is especially extraordinary as it comes from a country and culture currently involved in a (very polite and restrained) war of past and future and tradition vs. change, where gender and gender roles have always been cast in stone and a hot button topic…

After a short stand-alone try-out tale was reworked and developed (which is included at the end of this edition), Last Gender: Nani Mono demo nai Watashi-tachi debuted in 2022. Its brief interlocking vignettes eventually filled three volumes, employing a picaresque format – in many ways thematically similar to US sitcom Cheers – to peruse those people who generally inhabit the margins of society… either through choice or more often than not due to fear and shame.

In such a strictly formalised society those judgements are most likely to be self-inflicted and imagined, and painfully concrete and condemnatory, as we will see…

Chapter 1 opens with one person’s candid ruminations on what is gender before ‘Welcome to BAR California’ finds nasty, preachy gossip and media scandalmongering hanging in the air as assistant manager Yo prepares to open up for the evening. Checking bottles are full, glasses clean, rooms ready and restocked and all lube, fresh underwear and condom dispensers are full, they are soon distracted by a nervous and curious young woman. She has come in to the venue where “all are welcome” carrying her husband’s membership card and very much wanting to know what it exactly entitles her spouse to…

An explanation of facilities, by-laws, responsibilities, duties and potential rewards – further clarified by a new friend – results in Manami addressing her prior pre- and mis-conceptions, and signing up to discover lots more she didn’t know about herself…

With frequent subtle reminders, asides and dissertations on what staff and patrons consider constitutes gender, sexualities statuses, consent and suitable behaviour, the vignettes continue with ‘An Orchid Blooming in the Fog’. Transgender bisexual Ran shares with Yo early unhappy encounters (incidentally providing us with mindboggling factual detail on insurance cover and finance for gender affirmation surgery in Japan), and happy-go-lucky, persistently pally pansexual Mao adds his own unique perspective and past moments. Ultimately his benign attentions and upbeat manner manifest more revelations of his own unsettled life and its pressures…

The forces of expectation and tradition shaping Mao are more closely monitored in ‘Family of Mannequins’ even as stolid salaryman Sawada Masanori and college girl Amiru debut with their own individual flavours of difference. It’s a risky road to travel but bigender Sawada will only really be content once his wife and child can understand how and why he is also Marie and that will only happen if they can affirm their ‘True Love’, whilst the student still struggles to accept that any boundaries exist…

Amiru steps into the spotlight for closing episode ‘Aromantic Fairy Tale’ delving deeper into her innate belief that sex and love have nothing to do with each other and explaining how all the stories society train us with need to be re-examined if not revoked. Of course, nothing has worked yet to stop her yearning for “the one”, and some of the test candidates have been a bit extreme to say the least. Just look at Yukihiro, with his odd provisos and props… and just what is the secret he shares with only Yo?

To Be Continued…

Filling up this initial tome are ‘Translation Notes’, house ads, a featurette on sex bars and how the clientele adopts aliases in ‘BAR California’s Back Yard #1’ as well as an afterword from Rei Taki, prior to that aforementioned ‘Prototype Story: A Self For All Seasons’ showing how the initial explorations of spousal abuse and similar reasons for such sex bar venues was dialled down for a more subtle and forensic investigation of the people who need them…

There are – even by manga standards – fairly explicit and frequent sex scenes amidst all the character interplay, and the occasionally blunt yet potent evaluations, clarifications and reiterations of gender issues, minorities and status through the lens of Japanese frankness can be a bit breathtaking if we westerners aren’t braced. Nonetheless, Last Gender: When We Are Nameless is a compelling and intriguing foray into gender & sexual diversity, pansexuality, propensities, individuality and autonomy that needs to be seen by anyone still breathing and still dating. Over to you then…
© 2021 Rei Taki. English translation © 2022 Rei Taki. All rights reserved.

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Lone Wolf and Cub volume 6: Lanterns for the Dead


By Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima, translated by Dana Lewis (Dark Horse Manga)
ISBN: 978-1-56971-507-9 (TPB/digital edition)

Best known in the West as Lone Wolf and Cub, the vast Samurai saga created by Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima is without doubt a global classic of comics literature. An example of the popular Chanbara or “sword-fighting” genre of print and screen, Kozure Okami was first serialised in Weekly Manga Action from September 1970 until April 1976. It was an immense and overwhelming Seinen (“Men’s manga”) hit. The tales prompted thematic companion series Kubikiri Asa (Samurai Executioner – which ran from 1972-1976) but the major draw – at home and, increasingly, abroad – was always the nomadic wanderings of doomed feudal noble Ogami Ittō and his solemn, silent child Daigoro as they were framed by family rivals, dishonoured by the Shōgun and condemned to death by his peers. Breaching all etiquette the court executioner refused to suicide quietly and instead opted to vengefully walk the bloody road to Meifumadō: the hell of Buddhist legend…

Revered and influential, Kozure Okami was – after years of supplication by fans and editors – followed by sequel Shin Lone Wolf & Cub (illustrated by Hideki Mori) and even spawned – through Koike’s indirect participation – science fiction homage Lone Wolf 2100 (by Mike Kennedy & Francisco Ruiz Velasco) The original saga has been successfully adapted to most other media, spawning movies, plays, TV series (plural), games and merchandise. The property is infamously still in Hollywood pre-production…

The several thousand pages of enthralling, exotic, intoxicating narrative art produced by these legendary creators eventually filled 28 collected volumes, beguiling generations of readers in Japan and, inevitably, the world. More importantly, their philosophically nihilistic odyssey – with its timeless themes and iconic visuals – has influenced hordes of other creators. The many manga, comics and movies, TV and animated versions these stories have inspired around the globe are utterly impossible to count. Frank Miller, who illustrated the cover of this edition, referenced the series in Daredevil, his dystopian opus Ronin, The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City. Max Allan Collins’ Road to Perdition is a proudly unashamed tribute to the masterpiece of vengeance-fiction. Stan Sakai has superbly spoofed, pastiched and celebrated the wanderer’s path in his own epic Usagi Yojimbo, and even children’s cartoon shows such as Samurai Jack are direct descendants of this astounding achievement of graphic narrative. The material has become part of a shared global culture.

In the West, we first saw the translated tales in 1987, as 45 Prestige Format editions from First Comics. That innovative trailblazer foundered before getting even a third of the way through the vast canon, after which Dark Horse Comics acquired the rights, systematically reprinting and translating the entire epic into 28 tankōbon-style editions of around 300 pages each. Once the entire epic was translated – between September 2000 and December 2002 – it was all placed online through the Dark Horse Digital project.

Following cautionary warning on stylistic interpretation ‘A Note to Readers’, this moodily morbid monochrome collection truly gets underway, keeping in text many terms and concepts western readers may find unfamiliar. Thankfully on offer at the close is a Glossary providing detailed context on the term used in the stories. The endless journey resumes in Lanterns for the Dead with 29th exploit ‘Floating Spirits’ as the wanderer buys two bamboo boats as a votive offering, even as elsewhere extremely low-placed yakuza foot-soldiers Kinpachi and Kotomi make a life-changing mistake that costs both their dignity and one his life.

As the heartsick survivor seeks redress of deadly killer Kyōjō Isogitabi and vengeance upon his gang of brutal killers, the petty thug is inexorably drawn into the orbit of the Lone Wolf. The hell-bound wanderer is undertaking his latest commission and already pursues Kyōjō, with that inevitable clash granting Kinpachi and Kotomi deferred but suitably bloody vengeance of a kind…

When a gang of criminal fraudsters attempt their riskiest con after intercepting a client of the Lone Wolf and impersonating Ogami Ittō, the cost to the scurrilous ‘Deer Chaser’ gang is full and fatal. However, the delivery of their fate does not come from the mimicked hitman but from a trusted source turned traitor…

A rather shocking (Absolutely not for the squeamish!) tale – to western sensibilities at least – follows as famine blights the region. The lord of Kigaru Castle’s favourite sport is hunting and torturing dogs and when he does so at ultimate cost to his serfs in ‘Hunger Town’, Wolf and Cub exploit his obsession at great personal cost (especially little Daigoro, who has never had a pet before). With both assassin and deranged noble oblivious to a rural revolt, it all plays out exactly as Ogami expects…

Steeped in Buddhist lore and mythology, ‘The Soldier is the Castle’ sees the grim nomad tested by desperate men before agreeing to become an unlikely saviour. Uncovering a plot to destroy their homeland of Iwakidaira Han by subterfuge, they ask the Wolf to foil a sham gold robbery intended to disgrace and dismantle a region long-coveted by the Shōgun. The impossible task is not just to stop the robbery ever happening but also destroy with notice an army of warriors and the Court’s relentless Kurokuwa Ninjas. Proud to die for the treasured outmoded principle of “Kanjō” (literally The Soldier is the Castle), Ogami Ittō manufactures a miracle, but again only at terrible personal cost…

A potent change of pace concludes the adventure here at ‘One Stone Bridge’ as little Daigoro seeks to care for his grievously wounded father despite the predations of a gang of bullying older kids. His efforts charm and latterly astound a wealthy childless couple who consider adopting the waif.

When they find the child is caring for an adult they seek to help – but only until the assassin drags himself from what should be his deathbed to face Kurokuwa Ninjas who have – due to his actions against the Shōgun rescinded their previous neutrality and declared war on the killer bound for Hell. When Ogami again overcomes all, the couple are still keen to help, if only to get father and child away from them as soon as possible…

Closing with ‘Creator Profiles’ of author Koike Kazuo & illustrator Kojima Goseki plus a tonal ‘Art Gallery’ of powerfully moving images by the latter, this is another classic volume in a series of Japanese imports which utterly changed the nature of American comics and a saga no lover of historical fiction should be without.
Art and story © 1995, 2001 Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima. All other material © 2000 Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Cover art © 2001 Frank Miller. All rights reserved.

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Planetes Omnibus volume 1


By Makoto Yukimura, adapted by Anna Wenger & Brendan Wright, translated by Yuki Johnson (Dark Horse Manga)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-921-2 (Omnibus TPB)

The hard, gritty mystery and imagination of space travel, so much a component of immediate post-WWII industrial society, briefly re-captivated legions of level-headed imagineers at the end of the 20th century when relative newcomer and manga debutante Makoto Yukimura  rekindled interest in near-space exploration in all its harsh and grimy glory with this inspirational “nuts-&-bolts” manga series exploring the probable rather than the possible…

Yukimura (born in Yokohama in 1976, just as the once-ambitious US space program was languishing in cash-strapped doldrums and five long years before the first space shuttle launch) began his professional life as an assistant to veteran Mankaka (“comics creator”) Shin Morimura before launching his independent career with the Planetes. Working exclusively for Kodansha, his award-winning premier Seinen series ran in Weekly Morning magazine (from January 1999 – January 2004) before being collected in four tankōbon editions. The serial easily made the jump to an anime series and the books became a multi-award-winning global sensation. Yukimura – after producing evocative one-shot Sayōnara ga Chikai node (For Our Farewell is Near) for Evening magazine – in 2005 abandoned the future for the past, to concentrate his creative energies on monolithic historical epic Vinland Saga. Serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine and Afternoon, it has thus far filled 27 rousing volumes to date…

The premise of Planetes is diabolically simply and powerfully engaging. Humanity is a questing species but cannot escape its base origins. In 2074, space travel and exploitation is commonplace but as we’ve conquered the void between Earth and the asteroid belt and prepare to explore – and ruinously exploit – the outer planets, the once-pristine void around us has become clotted and clustered with our obsolete tech and all manner of casually discarded rubbish. Even the most minute speck of junk or debris falling through hard vacuum is a high-velocity, potentially deadly missile, so to keep risk to a minimum hardy teams of rugged individualists must literally sweep the heavens free of our discarded crap.

Prelude ‘Phase 1: A Stardust Sky’ begins with the death of a passenger on a commercial low-orbit spaceliner before jumping six years forward and introducing a trio of these celestial dustbin-men scooping up Mankind’s negligent castoffs and unconsidered detritus. Hachirota Hoshino is the newest, youngest member of the team, a kid who craves becoming a real astronaut and famed explorer like his dad. Dreaming of one day owing his own prestige spaceship, excitable “Hachimaki” is soon disenchanted with the dreary, dull and disgusting daily life of drudgery aboard DS-12: a sanitation/cargo ship fondly dubbed “Toybox” but little better than the discards he and his two comrades daily scoop up or destroy…

These days there’s something wrong with the sombre, stoic Russian, Yuri Mihairokov. The big man is increasingly distracted, blanking out, staring vacantly into the Wild Black Yonder as the cleaners orbit Earth at 8 kilometres per second. Events come to head when a shard of micro-debris holes their ramshackle vessel and an old timer reveals the Russian’s tragic secret.

Long ago Yuri and his wife were passengers on that shuttle and when it was holed she died. Heartbroken, her husband – one of the few survivors – returned to space to clear the deadly trash that took his wife. He never forgot her.

Years later, whilst drifting in the void the solitary heartsick astronaut sees a glitter, and her keepsake compass just floats into his hand, brought back to him by the winds of space and cruel fate. Beguiled, he falls into Earth’s gravity well and only Hachimaki’s most frantic efforts save his comrade from fiery death.

Safely back in free orbit, the Russian opens his gauntleted fist. On the compass are scratched his wife’s final thoughts as death took her – “please save Yuri”…

The poignant, bittersweet and deeply spiritual tale properly begins with ‘Phase 2: A Girl From Beyond the Earth’ wherein Hoshino slowly and impatiently recovers from a broken leg in the hospital of the moon colony Archimedes Crater City. These tales are laced with the most up-to-date space science available to author Yukimura, and the recent revelations that extended time spent in low/zero-gravity radically weakens bones and muscles was the lynchpin of this moving brush with another youngster bound irrevocably to the void.

When a doctor suggests returning to full-gravity Earth to recuperate the easy way, Hachi is in two minds and sorely tempted. His commander and fellow debris-destroyer Fee Carmichael and a grizzled 20-year both veteran pour scorn on the quitter’s option. All real astronauts know that once back on the home world few ever come back to space.

The kid is still tempted though… until he strikes up a friendship with a thin, wasted young woman. Nono has been on Luna for 12 years and dreams of blue skies and open seas, even though she will never see them. After aged Mr. Roland chooses to spend the rest of his life among the stars, Hachimaki discovers Nono’s sad, incredible secret and at last abandons all notion of forsaking the stars…

Focus stays on nicotine-fiend Fee Carmichael as she struggles to enjoy a well-deserved vice in ‘Phase 3: A Cigarette Under Starlight’ in Orientale Basin Underground City some months later. With breathing-oxygen at a premium, smokers must juggle their addiction with the dedication to life in space. Poor Fee has been Jonesing for a drag for far too long. Now though, whilst on shore-leave at a station big enough (and sufficiently civilised) to house a designated smoking area, the Toybox’s chief is still unable to indulge her vice…

Ideological terrorist group the Space Defense Fighters want to keep the void pristine and free of Mankind’s polluting influence and have been detonating bombs in outposts all over the moon. Their latest outrage targets the base’s vending machines and smoking rooms, so the authorities have sealed them all in the name of public safety. Driven near to madness, Fee snaps and lights up in public toilets, forgetting fire countermeasures and smoke detection devices are automatic, incredibly sensitive and painfully effective…

Humiliated, sodden but undeterred, she takes off for another city and a solitary snout (for any non-Brits, that’s a particularly demeaning and derogatory term for a smoke) and finds the only guy more in need of a drag than her. Of course, setting bombs is nervous work and a quick ciggy always calms his nerves…

The frustration is too much and Fee returns to her job, but the SDF’s explosive campaign has barely begun. Their next scheme is the creation of a deadly Kessler Syndrome wave (a blast or impact which changes the trajectories of free-floating orbital scrap and debris, creating even more debris/shrapnel and aiming it like a hard rain of lethal micro-missiles)…

With a commandeered satellite directed at a space station, the terrorists intend to detonate their captured vehicle and shred the habitat – which coincidentally carries the last cigarettes in space – shooting it out of the sky to create a lethal chain reaction to make high-orbit space forever unnavigable.

Unsure of her own motives, Fee uses the DS-12 to suicidally shove the stolen projectile away from the station and into Earth’s atmosphere…

Whilst she recuperates in Florida, ‘Phase 4: Scenery for a Rocket’, depicts Hachimaki bringing Yuri to visit the family home in Japan. However, the volatile lad immediately slips back into a violent sibling rivalry with younger brother Kyutaro: a rocketry prodigy even more resolved to conquer space than his surly and increasingly fanatical brother… or their absentee astronaut father Goro. Happily the steadfast Russian’s calming influence begins repairing fences between the warring Hoshino boys, although not before a series of explosive confrontations lead to Yuri finally passing on his beloved wife’s compass…

‘Phase 5: Ignition’ finds Fee, Yuri and Hachimaki reunited just in time for the junior junkman to suffer an (almost) career-ending psychological injury. Although physically uninjured by a rogue solar flare, the lad is completely isolated in the void for so long that he develops post-traumatic “Deep-Space Disorder”. If he can’t shake off the debilitating hallucinatory condition his life in space is over. Nothing experts at the supervising Astronaut Training Center do has any lasting effect, but fortunately Yuri knows just what prodding might awaken the wide-eyed, Wild Black Wonderment in his feisty little comrade…

‘Phase 6: Running Man’ has the Toybox’s weary crew visit Moon Orbital Space Port where the obsessively training Hachimaki is approached by an unctuous business type looking for his infamous dad. Werner Locksmith is head and chief designer of the Earth Development Community-sponsored manned mission to Jupiter and, unknown to the starry-eyed kid, had pegged Hachi’s father as the only man capable of piloting the innovative new vessel on the 5-year mission: one the lad would give anything to be on. Frustratingly, the elder explorer doesn’t want to go and has actually absconded from the Private/Public sector project and is currently a fugitive on the run through the vents and ducts of various moon bases…

The old rogue has had enough of space-faring: a fact he finds impossible to relate to his furious, outraged son when they accidentally meet. The old spacer intends to retire to Earth and make things right with the wife he’s abandoned so many times…

Meanwhile Locksmith has been called away. Something has gone disastrously wrong with the Jupiter ship “Von Braun”…

Above Luna as Hachi argues with his dad, another crisis crescendos as a devastating explosion rips through the station. As everybody evacuates, in the safe chill of the void, Hachi and the crew watch a phenomenal debris field emanate from the moon’s surface. The Von Braun’s experimental engines have failed and an entire lunar base has been evaporated…

Following the tragedy, ruthlessly cool Locksmith unswervingly starts to rebuild and the senior Hoshino breathes a huge sigh of relief. Hachi however is undeterred. He fanatically resumes his physical training, knowing that when the Von Braun is ready to fly, he will be ready to join it…

In ‘Phase 7: Tanabe’ stoic Yuri and harassed commander Fee acknowledge and address their comrade’s impossible dream, inducting a raw recruit to the Toybox crew and task Hachi with training her to be his (eventual) replacement. According to the ambitious spacer, however, mere girl Ai is a hopeless case, fruitlessly wasting valuable time he could be using to train and study for his application to the Jupiter Mission. Suffering mightily from having to babysit the useless girl, he only discovers her suppressed inner fire after a 50-year old space coffin is recovered from the dark expanse and provokes a bitter dispute about love, passion and man’s place in the cold, lonely universe…

Hachi’s dream comes a giant leap closer to reality in ‘Phase 8: A Black Flower Named Sakinohaka (Part 1)’ as he begins his official audition regimen for the Von Braun. He has become an emotional void with nothing but cold ambition driving him. He can’t even process the deadly constant threat posed by increased sabotage activity from the terrorist SDL: more determined than ever to keep space free of Man’s toxic presence.

Despite competing with more than 20,000 applicants, Hoshino is beginning to distinguish himself when a series of bomb blasts rock the project. Narrowly escaping death, Hachi is visited by his old friends who are horrified his obsessive and blasé attitude and apparent disregard for the pain and suffering of his rival candidates caught in the detonations. Is he truly so determined to get on the mission that all he sees are fewer competitors?

Only fellow applicant and new buddy Hakimu seems to understand that any sacrifice and personal misery are worth the prize…

Soon testing reaches its final stages and Locksmith lectures the remaining candidates from the bridge of the almost completed Von Braun. Only a handful of desperate spacers will make this final cut but the big day is again delayed after Hachi confronts the insidious saboteur… and fails to stop him.

The tale resumes six months later, and the last 23 candidates await final call as ‘Phase 9: A Black Flower named Sakinohaka (Part 2)’ sees Hachi’s still-fugitive father targeted by SDL assassins and heading back to the son who disowned him. His arrival coincides with Ai Tanabe’s visit as she delivers Hachi’s belongings from Toybox, and leads to an embarrassing confusion as to her amatory status, but before things can be clarified the terrorists attack again, seeking to kill the “only man who could pilot the Von Braun”…

Fleeing via the lowest levels of Oriental Basin Underground Tunnel City, the spacer trio are more dangerous to each other than their murderous pursuers. After another devastating blast Hachi again confronts the traitor who sabotaged his last attempt to join the Jupiter mission and almost commits an unpardonable act… until gentle Tanabe talks him off the emotionally-charged metaphorical ledge. ‘Phase 10: Lost Souls’ sees Hachi successful in final training for the mission that has become his life when a lunar accident strands him and new comrade Leonov on the unforgiving surface with only hours of oxygen and a 40-kilometre walk to the nearest relief station. It would have been impossible even if the copilot wasn’t wounded with a slowly-leaking suit. By the time rescue arrives Hachi has reached the stage where he fights his saviours, frantic to prove he needs no one’s help to achieve his goals.

‘Phase 11: – what on the page translates as “Spasibo”’ (either “thank you” or “God save you”) sees recuperating Hachi return to the family home in Japan, accompanied by his penitent father, and visited by Leonov’s grateful mother. Although he doesn’t understand a word she says, the old lady still makes far more sense than his constantly warring family and, after another drunken fight with dad, events come to tragic, galvanising crisis which at last crushes the walls enclosing his traumatised head and heart…

This first passionately philosophical, sentimentally suspenseful chronicle concludes here with a moment of eerie portent when ‘Phase 12: ‘A Cat in the Evening’ sees a simulation test with crewmate Sally turn into a creepy moment of premonition after Hachimaki finds himself stalked to the point of distraction by a dead and decaying alley cat that talks philosophy and tries to kill him…

To Be Concluded…

Each chapter opens with a full colour painted section before reverting to comfortingly appropriate monochrome line art, with superb developmental sketches, pin-ups, a selection of 4-panel sidebar humour strips (‘A Four Panel Comic’, ‘Namao-san (Presumably Male)’, ‘Eat? That Thing?’, ‘Drinking Hot Coffee through a Straw’) included throughout as breaks between story phases. Should you be lucky enough, the original turn-of-the-century English-language TokyoPop editions (which have bonus features not included in the omnibus edition) are still obtainable in many comics shops.

Suspenseful, funny, thrilling and utterly absorbing, these tales perfectly capture the allure of the Wild Black Yonder for newer generations, making this authentic, hard-edged, wittily evocative epic a treat no hard-headed dreamer with eyes set firmly above the clouds should miss…
© 2015 Makoto Yukimura. All rights reserved. Publication rights for this edition secured by Kodansha, Ltd, Tokyo.

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My Little Monster volume 1


By Robico, translated by Joshua Weeks (Kodansha Comics USA)
ISBN: 978-1-61262-597-3 (Tank?bon PB/Digital edition)

Solidly appealing to lovers of traditional Shoujo (“girls’ comics”) comes a grand and sassy tale of Right Girl, Right Time, Wrong Boy from enigmatic mangaka Robico, dealing with the thorny topic of wasteful distractions at school…

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun or ‘The Monster Sitting Beside Me’ debuted in Dessert Magazine in 2008 with the first of a dozen volumes released a year later. The serial ran until June 2013 and spawned a highly successful anime adaptation.

Shizuku Mizutani is a schoolgirl determined to succeed. Throughout her entire scholastic career only one person has ever gotten higher grades than her – and she’s still obsessively burned up about it – but otherwise she’s solidly, comfortably set her sights on exceptional achievement and a great job. Absolutely nothing’s going to force her off her well-planned, carefully projected course. Her teen travails begin in ‘My Classmate Yoshida-kun’ where she explains how she’s never seen the boy who sits next to her. He got into a fight on his first day and hasn’t come to school since. That was three years ago…

Now, for some incomprehensible reason, the ideal student is stuck delivering printouts to the epic absconder as a “favour” (you can say “bribe”) to teacher Saeko-Sensei. Shizuku finds him in a sleazy games arcade where he regularly hangs out. She wasn’t expecting much, but Haru Yoshida fails to live up to even her lowest expectations.

He’s a veritable wild boy: manic, ill-mannered, actively extremely rude and his associates are little better than thugs and gangsters. He even attacks her, accusing her of spying on him. All those school rumours must be true: how he hospitalised three upperclassmen and was suspended…

Ice satisfactorily broken, Saeko-sensei pushes her star pupil to lure the wayward boy back to school (the suspension being long-expired) but when the rebel starts regularly attending, tongues begin to wag. Haru then arbitrarily decides they’re friends and follows Shizuku everywhere…

She’s never been more angry or frustrated. He’s always there, distracting her, getting in the way of her ideal future. She can’t stop thinking about him…

Following a brace of humorous of mini-strips – ‘I was Running as Fast as I Could!’ and ‘Spot-Billed Duck’ – the School Daze resume with ‘I Don’t Hate You’ as the apparently imprinted malcontent continues appearing everywhere she goes and captivatingly showing his softer, fragile side. Sadly, he’s painfully gullible and falls for many embarrassing pranks from his classmates …which he responds to with devastating violence. Soon Haru has gained an enticing, irresistibly dangerous bad boy reputation…

He also starts noticing other girls, but why should Shizuku care about that? She’s far more upset to learn that he was the mystery student who beat her test scores and that even after three years of lapsed education, he’s (probably!) still smarter than her!! Now for some reason, she’s finding it impossible to bear down and study, the only thing she used to be good at… And then Haru kisses her… but decides they can still be friends anyway…

Micro strips ‘Because She’s a Lady’ and ‘It’s Hard Not to Say It’, precedes the main event which resumes with ‘Weird’, wherein the wild boy displays the attention span of a mayfly. Adopting and then palming off a chicken on his newfound friends or tutoring vacuous Asako Natsune so she can avoid going to Afterschool Classes instead of partying are bad enough, but most significantly Haru utterly ignores this major change in their own relationship, and even that they have one at all…

Two small interludes with ‘Natsume and Haru’ lead into the final chapter as Shizuku is forced to admit to herself how much Haru has changed her life. However, when she finally confesses just how much she likes the annoying, confusing oaf, all he can say in response is that she’s not a ‘Nuisance’…

To Be Continued…

Wrapping things up are two final cartoon vignettes ‘Just as Short’ and ‘That Guy’, plus a Comment from the author and a section of handy Translation notes.

Sweet, cruel and silly by turns, this delightful coming of age comedy brims with those crucial, critical moments that stay with you for decades after high school ends, smartly leavened with charming characters and situations superbly illustrated by a master of her genre. Not everyone’s cup of tea but sheer poetry for we who remember love can – and should – be fun.
© 2009 Robico. English translation © 2014 Robico. All rights reserved.

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The Usagi Yojimbo Saga Book 1


By Stan Sakai (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-671-6(HB) 978-1-61655-609-9(TPB) eISBN: 978-1-63008-081-5

Back in 1955, when Stan Sakai was two years old, the family moved from Kyoto, Japan to Hawaii. Growing up in a cross-cultural paradise, he graduated from the University of Hawaii with a BA in Fine Arts, before leaving to pursue further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design in California. His early forays into comics were as a letterer – most famously for Groo the Wanderer and the Spider-Man newspaper strip – before his nimble pens and brushes found a way to express his passion for Japanese history, legend and Akira Kurosawa films, inspirationally transforming a proposed story about a human historical hero into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

Usagi Yojimbo (“rabbit bodyguard”) first appeared in 1984’s Albedo Anthropomorphics #1: a background character in Stan Sakai’s The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy, and premiering amongst assorted furry ‘n’ fuzzy folk. He soon graduated to a nomadic solo act in Critters, Amazing Heroes, Furrlough and the Munden’s Bar back-up series in Grimjack. Although the expansive period epic stars sentient animals and details the life of a peripatetic Lord-less Samurai eking out as honourable a living as possible as a Yojimbo (bodyguard-for-hire), the milieu and scenarios scrupulously mirror Japan’s Feudal Edo Period (roughly 16th-17th century AD by Western reckoning) whilst simultaneously referencing other cultural icons from sources as varied as Zatoichi to Godzilla.

Miyamoto Usagi is brave, noble, industrious, honest, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic, long-suffering and conscientious: a rabbit devoted to the tenets of Bushido and utterly unable to turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice. As such, his destiny is to be perpetually drawn into an unending panorama of incredible situations.

Despite changing publishers a few times, the Roaming Rabbit has been in publication since 1987, with nearly 60 assorted collections of comics and at least 5 art books to date. He’s guest-starred in many other series (most notably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its TV incarnation) and even made it into his own small-screen Netflix show – albeit in a futuristic setting. There are high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, spin-off comics serials and lots of toys. Author Sakai and his creation have won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public… And it’s still more educational, informative and authentic than any dozen Samurai sagas you can name…

The title is as much a wanderer as its star, migrating from Fantagraphics to Mirage, Dark Horse, Radio Comix, IDW and Dark Horse again under Sakai’s own Dogu Publishing imprint. None of that matters: what you need to know is that this stuff is superb and no matter which version you see, you will be a better being for reading it…

This guest-star stuffed premiere monochrome masterpiece draws together yarns released by Mirage Publishing as Usagi Yojimbo volume 2 #1-16 and Usagi Yojimbo volume 3 #1-6

Following a fulsome Foreword from former editor Jamie S. Rich, pictorial rundown of dramatis personae in ‘Cast of Characters’ and rousing strip recap ‘Origin Tale’, an evocative Introduction from legendary illustrator and Dean of Dinosauria William Stout leads into the magnificent and ever-unfolding medieval mystery play…

It begins with 3-parter ‘Shades of Green’ wherein Usagi and crusty companion Gennosuke (an irascibly bombastic, money-mad bounty-hunter and conniving thief-taking Indian rhino with a heart of gold) are recruited by Kakera: a ratty shaman in dire need of protection from the dwindling remnants of the once-mighty Neko Ninja clan. The former imperial favourites have fallen upon hard times since they and the Ronin Rabbit crushed the Dragon Bellow plot of rebel Lord Takamuro. Now, bat assassins of the Komori Ninja clan are constantly harrying, harassing and actively seeking to supplant them in Lord Hikiji’s service…

Chunin (deputy leader) Gunji believes the rodent wizard would make a mighty useful slave, and is scheming to overthrow the new – female – clan chief Chizu whilst acquiring him…

With the Neko’s trap closing around them all, the sagacious sensei summons spirits of four fantastic fighters to aid Usagi and Gen. These phantoms promptly possess a quartet of little Kame (tortoises) and are reshaped into adolescent amphibian Ninja Turtles, identifying themselves as Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello. Crucially, Usagi has fought beside one of their number before…

Subsequent battles go badly and eventually Gunji’s forces make off with Kakera-sensei. As Usagi leads the remaining heroes in relentless pursuit, the conniving Chunin makes his move. Gunji’s attempt to assassinate Chizu is bloodily and efficiently ended by late-arriving Usagi who is astounded to be told by the lady he has saved that the Neko’s lethal interest in him is now at an end…

With Kakera rescued and Gunji dead, the adventure closes with the turtle spirits returning to their own place and time, leaving Gen and Usagi to follow their own (temporarily) separate roads before ‘Jizo’ offers a delightfully gripping interlude as a grieving mother dedicates a roadside shrine to her murdered child and ineffable Karma places the killers in the path of a certain justice-dispensing, long-eared wanderer…

Next comes a brace of stories offering elucidating glimpses of the rabbit’s boyhood. Once, Miyamoto Usagi was simply son to a small-town magistrate before being sent to spend his formative years learning the Way of Bushido from gruff and distant leonine hermit Katsuichi. The stern sensei taught not just superior technique and tactics, but also an ironclad creed of justice and restraint which would serve the Ronin well throughout his turbulent life.

In ‘Usagi’s Garden’ the callow pupil rebels against the arduous and undignified task of growing food until the lion delivers a subtle but lifechanging lesson, whilst in ‘Autumn’ a painful fall propels the lad into a nightmare confrontation with a monster who has trapped the changing of the seasons in a bamboo cage…

Two-part tale ‘Shi’ sees Usagi comes to the aid of a valley of poor farmers under constant attack by bullies and brigands seeking to force them from their impoverished homes. The thugs are secretly employed by a local magistrate and his ruthless brother who discovered gold under the peasants’ land and want to extract it without attracting the attention of the local Lord’s tax collectors. When the Ronin’s formidable skills stall the brothers’ scheme they hire a quartet of assassins whose collective name means “death”. However, the killers are far less trouble than the head farmer’s daughter Kimie, who has never seen someone as glamorous or attractive as the soft-spoken defrocked samurai…

Although there are battles aplenty for Usagi, the brothers’ remorseless greed ends them before the Yojimbo can…

Delightful silent comedy follows as ‘The Lizard’s Tale’ pantomimically depicts the ronin playing unwilling Pied Piper and guardian to a wandering flock of tokagé lizards (ubiquitous, omnivorous reptiles populating the anthropomorphic world, replacing scavenger species like rats, cats and dogs in the fictitious ecosystem). The rambunctious trouble-magnets repay the favour when the wanderer is ambushed in snow-drowned mountains by vengeful bandits…

‘Battlefield’ is a 3-chapter fable sharing a key moment and boyhood turning point in the trainee warrior’s life. It begins when a mind-broken, fleeing soldier shatters the boy’s childish dreams of warrior glory. The fugitive is a survivor of the losing side in a mighty battle and his sorry state forces Usagi to rethink his preconceptions of war. Eager to ram home the lesson, Katsuichi takes his pupil to the battlefield where peasants and scavengers busily snatch up whatever they can from the scattered corpses. Usagi is horrified. To take a samurai’s swords is to steal his soul, but even so, a little later he cannot stop himself picking up a fallen hero’s Wakizashi (short sword)…

After concealing the blade in a safe place, the apprentice is haunted by visions of the unquiet corpse and sneaks off to return the stolen steel soul. Caught by soldiers who think him a scavenging looter and about to lose his thieving hands, little Miyamoto is saved by the intervention of victorious Great Lord Mifune. The noble looks into the boy’s face and sees something honest, honourable and – perhaps one day – useful…

Following an Introduction on ‘Classic Storytelling’ from James Robinson, the ronin roaming resumes with ‘The Music of Heaven’ as Miyamoto and a wandering flock of tokagé lizards encounter a gentle, pious priest whose life is dedicated to peace, music and enlightenment. When their paths cross again later, the rabbit narrowly avoids being murdered by a ruthless assassin who has since killed and impersonated holy man Komuso in an attempt to catch Usagi off guard. Evocative and movingly spiritual, this classic of casual tragedy perfectly displays the vast range of storytelling Sakai can pack into the most innocuous of tales.

More menaces from the wanderer’s past reconnect in ‘The Gambler, The Widow and the Ronin’ as a professional conman who fleeces villagers with rigged samurai duels plies his shabby trade in just another little hamlet. Unfortunately, this one is home to his last stooge’s wife, and to make matters worse, whilst his latest hired killer Kedamono is attempting to take over the business, the long-eared nomad who so deftly dispatched his predecessor Shubo strolls into town looking for refreshments…

Again forced into a fight, Miyamoto makes short work of Kedamono, leaving the smug gambler to safely flee with the entire take. Slurping back celebratory servings of sake, the villain has no idea the inn where he relaxes employs a vengeful widow and mother who knows just who really caused her man’s death…

A note of portentous foreboding informs ‘The Nature of the Viper’, opening a year previously when a boisterous, good-hearted fisherman pulled a body out of the river and nursed his amazingly still breathing catch back to health. If he expected gratitude or mercy, the peasant was sadly mistaken, as the fondling explained whilst killing his benefactor as soon as he was able. The ingrate is Jei: a veritable devil in mortal form, who believes himself a “Blade of the Gods” and singled out by the Lords of Heaven to kill the wicked. The maniac makes a convincing case: when he stalked Usagi, the monster was struck by a fortuitous – or possibly divinely sent – lightning bolt but is still going strong and keenly continuing to hunt the Ronin.

‘Slavers’ begins a particularly dark journey for our hero as Usagi stumbles across a boy in chains escaping from a bandit horde. Little Hiro explains how the ragtag rogues of wily “General” Fujii have captured a whole town: making the inhabitants harvest their crops for the scum to steal…

Resolved to save them, the rabbit infiltrates the captive town as a mercenary seeking work, but is soon exposed and taken prisoner. ‘Slavers Part 2’ finds Miyamoto stoically enduring the General’s tortures until the boy he saved bravely returns the favour – after which the Yojimbo’s vengeance is awesome and terrible…

However, even as the villagers rebel and take back their homes and property, chief bandit Fujii escapes, taking Usagi’s daish? (matched long and short swords) with him. To take a samurai’s swords is to steal his soul, and the monster not only has them but continually dishonours them by slaughtering innocents as he flees the ronin’s relentless pursuit.

‘Daish? – Part One’ opens with a hallowed sword-maker undertaking the sacred process of crafting blades and the harder task of selecting the right person to buy them. Three hundred years later, Usagi is on the brink of madness as he follows Fujii’s bloody trail, pitilessly picking off the General’s remaining killers whilst attempting to redeem those soiled dispensers of death. The chase leads to another town pillaged by Fujii where Miyamoto almost refuses to aid a wounded man… until one woman accuses him of being no better than the beast he hunts…

Shocked back to his senses, the yojimbo saves the elder’s life and in gratitude the girl Hanako offers to lead him to where Fujii was heading. ‘Mongrels’ changes tack as erstwhile ally and hard-to-love friend Gennosuke re–enters the picture. The bombastic, money-mad bounty-hunter and conniving thief-taker is on the prowl for suitably profitable prospects when he meets The Stray Dog: his greatest rival in the unpopular profession of cop-for-hire.

After some posturing and double-dealing wherein each tries to edge out the other in the hunt for Fujii, they inevitably come to blows and are only stopped by the fortuitous intervention of the Rabbit Ronin…

‘Daish? – Part Two’ sees the irascible rugged individualists form a shaky truce in their overweening hunger to tackle the General. Mistrustful of each other, they nevertheless cut a swathe of destruction through Fujii’s regrouped band, but even after furious Usagi regains his honour swords there is one last betrayal in store…

Older, wiser and generally unharmed, Gen and Usagi part company again as ‘Runaways’ delves deeper into the wanderer’s past. Stopping in a town he hasn’t visited in decades, the rabbit hears a name called out and his mind retreats to a time when he was a fresh young warrior in the service of Great Lord Mifune.

Young princess Takani Kinuko had been promised as bride to trustworthy ally Lord Hirano and the rabbit was a last-minute replacement as leader of the “babysitting” escort column to her impending nuptials. When an overwhelming ambush eradicated the party, Usagi was forced to flee with the stuck-up brat: both of them masquerading as carefree, unencumbered peasants as he strove to bring her safely to her future husband past an army of ninjas killers.

The poignant reverie concludes in ‘Runaways – Part 2’ as valiant hero and spotless maiden fell in love whilst fleeing from pitiless, unrelenting marauders. Successful at last, their social positions naturally forced them apart once she was safely delivered.

Shaken from his memories, the ronin moves on, tragically unaware he was not the only one recalling those moments and pondering what might have been…

Originally collected as The Brink of Life and Death, an evocatively enticing third tranche of torrid tales opens with ‘Discoveries’ – a heartfelt and enthusiastic Introduction from comics author Kurt Busiek – before more epics of intrigue intermingle with vignettes of more plebeian dramas and even an occasional supernatural thriller, all tantalisingly tinged with astounding martial arts action and drenched in wit, irony, pathos and tragedy…

Far away from our nomadic star a portentous interlude occurs as a simple peasant and his granddaughter are attacked by bandits. The belligerent scum are about to compound extortion and murder with even more heinous crimes when a stranger with a ‘Black Soul’ stops them…

This is Jei and nothing good comes from even innocent association with the Blade of the Gods. Still pursuing his crusade, the monster deals most emphatically with the criminals before “permitting” orphaned granddaughter Keiko to join him…

‘Kaise’ then finds Miyamoto Usagi befriending a seaweed farmer who’s experiencing a spot of bother with his neighbours. At peace with himself amongst hard-toiling peasants, Usagi is soon embroiled in their escalating battle with a village of rival seaweed sellers – previously regarded as helpful and friendly – and quickly realises scurrilous merchant Yamanaka is fomenting discord and unrest between his suppliers to make extra profit…

In a roadside hostelry ‘A Meeting of Strangers’ introduces a formidable female warrior to the ever-expanding cast as the Lepine Legend graciously offers a fellow weary mendicant the price of a drink. A professional informer then sells Usagi out to still-smarting Yamanaka and lethally capable Inazuma has ample opportunity to repay her slight debt to the Rabbit Ronin when he’s ambushed by an army of hired brigands…

Despite – or because – it is usually one of the funniest comics on the market, occasionally Usagi Yojimbo will brilliantly twist readers’ expectations with tales that rip your heart apart. Such is the case with ‘Noodles’, as the ronin meets again street performer, shady entertainer and charismatic pickpocket Kitsune. She was plying all her antisocial trades in a new town just as eternally-wandering Usagi rolls up. The little metropolis is in uproar at a plague of daring robberies and when inept enforcers employed by Yoriki (Assistant Commander) Masuda try – and painfully fail – to arrest the long-eared stranger as a probable accomplice, the ferociously resistant rabbit earns the instant enmity of the pompous official.

Following the confrontation, a hulking, mute soba (buckwheat noodle) vendor begins to pester the still-annoyed ronin and eventually reveals he’s carrying elegant escapologist Kitsune in his baskets. Astounded, the yojimbo renews his acquaintance with her before the affable thieves go on their way, unaware that trouble and tragedy are just around the corner…

The town magistrate is leaning heavily on his Yoriki to end the crimewave but has no conception Masuda is actually in the pay of a vicious gang carrying out most of the thefts. What they all need is a convincing scapegoat to pin the blame on, and poor dumb peasant Noodles is ideal – after all, he can’t even deny his guilt…

With a little sacrificed loot planted, the gentle giant becomes a perfect patsy and before Usagi and Kitsune even know he’s been taken, the simple fool has been tried and horrifically executed. ‘Noodles Part 2’ opens as our aggrieved heroes frantically dash for the public trial and almost immediate crucifixion. Neither pickpocket nor bodyguard can save the innocent stooge: all they can do is swear to secure appropriate vengeance and a kind of justice…

In sober mien the rabbit roves on, stumbling into a house of horror and case of possession. ‘The Wrath of the Tangled Skein’ finds Usagi returning to a region plagued by demon-infested forests. Offered hospitality at a merchant’s house, he subsequently saves the daughter from doom at the claws of a demonic Nue (tiger/fox/pig/snake devil), but is almost too late and only alerted to a double dose of danger when a Bonze (Buddhist Priest) arrives to exorcise the poor child – just like the cleric already praying over the afflicted waif upstairs…

This duel with the forces of hell leads into ‘The Bonze’s Story’ as Usagi befriends the real priest and learns how misfortune and devotion to honour compelled elite samurai Sanshobo to put aside weapons and war in search of greater truths and inner peace…

Political intrigue and explosive espionage return to the fore in ‘Bats, the Cat, & the Rabbit’ as Neko ninja chief Chizu re-enters Usagi’s life, fleeing a flight of rival Komori (bat) ninjas. These winged horrors are determined to possess a scroll containing the secrets of making gunpowder and, after a tremendous, extended struggle, the exhausted she-cat cannot believe her rabbit companion is willing to simply hand it over. She soon shrugs it off, after all the Komori have fallen into her trap and quickly regret testing the purloined formula…

The peripatetic yojimbo then walks into a plot to murder Great Lord Miyagi involving infallible unseen assassin Kuroshi at ‘The Chrysanthemum Pass’. Although the valiant wanderer is simply aiding karma to a just outcome despite overwhelming odds and a most subtle opponent, this act will have appalling repercussions in days ahead…

Hunted woman and deadly adept Inazuma then proves ‘Lightning Strikes Twice’ when found – as always – at the heart of a storm of hired blades trying to kill her. However, during one peaceful moment, she makes time to share with a fellow swordsmaster the instructive tale of a dutiful daughter who married the wrong samurai. By exacting rightful vengeance upon his killer, she won the undying hatred of a powerful lord and set her own feet irredeemably upon the road of doom…

Rounding out in this epic collection are copious ‘Story Notes by Stan Sakai’, a full-colour ‘Gallery’ of the covers from both comic books and their attendant paperback compilations, annotated ‘Cover Sketches’ and designs, plus biographical data ‘About the Author’.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, informative and funny, the saga alternately bristles with tension and thrills and frequently crushes your heart with astounding tales of pride and tragedy, evil and duty. Bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is the perfect comics epic: a monolithically magical, irresistibly appealing tale to delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened haters of “funny animal” stories.
Text and illustrations © 1993-1998, 2014 Stan Sakai. All rights reserved. Foreword © 2014 Jamie S. Rich. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles © 2014 Viacom International, Inc. All rights reserved. All other material and registered characters are © and TM their respective owners. Usagi Yojimbo and all other prominently featured characters are registered trademarks of Stan Sakai.

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H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories


Adapted by Gou Tanabe, translated by Zack Davisson (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-50670-312-1 (Tankobon paperback/Digital edition)

If you’re one of those people who’s never read a manga tale, or who’s been tempted but discouraged by the terrifying number of volumes these tales can run to, here’s a delicious feast of fantasy fables complete in one book revealing all that’s best about comics from the East in one darkly digestible big gulp.

Most manga can be characterised by a fast, raucous, even occasionally choppy style and manner of delivery but this volume of emphatically eerie adaptations is atmospheric, suitably scary and marvellously moody: just as you’d hope when recreating classic tales by the undisputed master of supernatural terror…

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was frail, troubled and remarkably ill-starred. Born August 20th 1890, he was truly afflicted with a hunger to write, but only achieved any degree of success after his death in March 1937 – following a life of desperate penury – from complications of intestinal cancer. Once he was gone, his literary star ascended, with posthumous publications making him a household name who changed the face of fiction forever.

His stories have deeply affected generations all over the world. One person particularly moved is international literary specialist Gou Tanabe who has previously adapted the works of Maxim Gorky and Anton Chekov to manga form.

Perfectly capturing the relentlessly oppressive and inescapably sombre sense of approaching fatality permeating most of Lovecraft’s potent prose, ‘The Temple’ was written in 1920 and first published 5 years later in the September issue of Weird Tales. The adaptor’s mildly updated version (migrated from WWI to WWII) originated in esteemed anthology magazine COMIC BEAM in March and April 2009: detailing the depredations of U-Boat U-29 and the doomed fools who man her.

After a particularly rewarding campaign, German Navy Commander Karl Heinrich Graf von Altberg-Ehrenstein and his officers are taking the night air when they notice a dead British mariner gripping the sub’s handrail. Whilst trying to unlock the mariner’s death grip and eject the corpse, one of them salvages an ancient artefact – a small carved head – and pockets it.

From that moment, their voyage is damned…

Soon, madness and mishap grip the vessel. Death decimates the crew and inexorably the survivors drift ever deeper into depths both physical and metaphorical. When only one remains, he finds the U-boat drawn to a fantastic city and magnificent temple sunken beneath the waves. It is filled with statuary like the little head in his pocket…

Just as he raises his pistol to end the horror, the shattered sole survivor sees shining lights in the sunken edifice…

Lovecraft penned ‘The Hound’ in September 1922 and Weird Tales published it in 1924. Gou Tanabe’s chilling interpretation debuted in July 2014 in the online edition of Comic Walker. The tale is grim, grisly, exquisitely decadent and supremely shocking, detailing the extravagant excess of English gentleman grave-robbers and diabolist magical parvenus St. John and our unnamed narrator.

Bored and indolent, they renew their sordid, blasphemous hobby in a Dutch boneyard, exhuming an arcane trinket from a grave sealed for half a millennium and reap a ghastly bounty after liberating a vengeful howling horror…

After its first foray into the material world, the surviving dabbler attempts every stratagem to escape or expiate the beast, and finds some things have no use for apologies or reparations…

Concluding this first (hopefully of many) Lovecraft treasure trove is another export from Comic Walker (August 2014 this time).

‘The Nameless City’ was written in January 1921 and published 10 months later in The Wolverine. Tapping into the contemporary vogue for arcane exploratory adventure as also favoured by the likes of literary horrorist brethren Seabury Quinn, Clark Ashton Smith, and latterly August Derleth and Robert E. Howard, here Lovecraft shares the story of an itinerant western wanderer (think Indiana Jones without no sense of humour or chance in Hell) who survives Arabian deserts only to stumble upon a previously unsuspected deserted conurbation suddenly exposed by the roaring eternal winds.

Genned-up on local legends, the explorer cannot resist entering the vast metropolis. However, as he plunges deeper within, he finds thousands of boxes like a legion of coffins and realises the occupants are far from human. They may not even be dead…

Enthralling, understated and astoundingly effective, these classic tales have been reverently adapted and packaged in an inexpensive, digest-sized monochrome paperback that will delight avowed aficionados and beguile terror-loving newcomers alike.

© 2014 Gou Tanabe. All rights reserved. This English-language edition © 2017 Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

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Wandering Island


By Kenji Tsuruta, translated by Dana Lewis (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-50670-079-3 eISBN: 978-1-63008-771-5

Kenji Tsuruta was born in 1961 and studied optical science, intending to pursue a career in photography, but instead made the jump to narrative storytelling as manga artist, designer, book illustrator and anime creator. A lifelong fan of “hard science” science fiction authors like Robert A. Heinlein and the comic works of Tetsuya Chiba and Yukinobu Hoshino (Saber Tiger), after years producing self-published doujinshi whilst working as an assistant to established manga stars, 25-year-old Tsuruta began selling his own works in 1986. His short fantasy serial Hiroku te suteki na uch? ja nai ka (What a Big Wonderful Universe It Is) was published in Kodansha’s Weekly Morning magazine.

Soon after, he began Sprits of Wonder: a dazzling scientific romance of gently colliding worlds. It ran in both Weekly Morning and monthly magazine Afternoon between 1987 and 1996, before making a smooth transition to animated features and an award-winning TV series. Dark Horse Comics published the first translated episodes as a 5-issue monochrome miniseries in 1995-6.

After that the artist pretty much moved out of the manga business, to focus on science fiction illustration and character design; a field of endeavour where he won many awards.

Then on July 13th 2010 Wandering Island debuted in Kodansha’s anthological Manga Box AMASIA before being serialised in Afternoon. The first collection was released in October 2011 and Dark Horse began English language editions in July 2016.

The slow-moving, elegiac saga was Mr. Tsuruta’s first major narrative work since the century turned: a beguiling and enticing modern-day mystery set against a fascinating geological backdrop in a fascinating cultural backwater…

Like Great Britain, Japan is composed of numerous islands, many located in areas far beyond commercially viable air routes. To cater to those small communities, independent pilots act as postmen, delivery specialists and rapid freight-hauliers. Freewheeling Mikura Amelia flies an old Fairey Swordfish on her rounds, enjoying a pretty idyllic life as she hops from cetacean research station to trading post to fishing village delivering whatever needs moving for whatever fee she can get.

She used to work with her grandfather Brian Amelia in the family Air Service, but now it’s just her and the cat Endeavour. Her parents moved back to civilisation when the old man died but Mikura loves the freedom of the skies and can’t let go of her grandfather’s great obsession…

Amongst his effects was an undelivered package with her name on it for Is. Electriciteit – which she translated as Electric Island. There are some fables about the place, but most people think it’s a myth…

Mikura, armed with a keen mind, decades of detailed logs and a strange yearning, becomes as obsessed as her mentor with the mystery. Old Brian vanished trying to find the island, but his logs have entries written after he seemingly perished.

… And then one day Mikura actually sees the perpetually shifting, cloud-cloaked atoll – complete with small town – but cracks up trying to land there. She’s rescued by a passing freighter but the frustration of being so close is agonising and unbearable…

Slowly healing, she gets back to work and starts to doubt her own memories, but somehow cannot let go. Eventually she puzzles out its secret: Electric Island moves around the Pacific in a complex and convoluted three-year cycle. The answer only points to more puzzles, especially after she learns of a friend of Brian’s who shared his fixation: her old English teacher who was actually a brilliant geophysicist…

Another quick trip and one last revelatory interview and at long last Mikura is flying off to a long-awaited rendezvous with the unknown…

To be Continued…

Accompanied by text feature ‘Notes on Wandering Island’, detailing the specifics of floating islands, the antecedents of the series and Tsuruta’s history, Wandering Island is a superbly welcoming introduction into what promises to be a sublime treat for every lover of untrammelled wonder…
© 2011 Kenji Tsuruta/Kodansha Ltd. All rights reserved.

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No Need For Tenchi!


By Hitoshi Okuda, translated by Fred Burke (Viz Graphic Novel)
ISBN: 978-1-56931-180-6 (tank?bon PB)

The one real problem with manga is that translated past triumphs seldom stay in print. There are dozens of classic collections that demand rediscovery by a casual rather than otaku audience and many minor masterpieces languish lost when they could be appreciated and adored…

This bright and breezy adventure comedy from 1987 is a rare reversal of the usual state of affairs in that a TV anime came first and the manga serial was its spin-off. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki debuted as a 6-part TV show (termed an OVA or Original Video Animation in Japan) that proved so blisteringly popular that even before the original season concluded further specials and episodes were rushed into production. Over the next decade or so two more seasons appeared as well as spin-off shows and features (for a total of 98 episodes all told), plus games, toys, light novels and, of course, a comic book series.

The translation most commonly accepted for the pun-soaked title is No Need For Tenchi, but equally valid interpretations include Useless Tenchi, No Heaven and Earth and This Way Up.

The assorted hi-jinks of the show resulted in three overlapping but non-related continuities, with the Hitoshi Okuda manga serials stemming directly from the first season. Okuda eventually produced two comics sagas in this format: Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-oh-ki which began in 1994 and features here – and follow-up Shin Tenchi Muyo! which I’ll get to one fine day…

The strip debuted in the December 16th 1994 Sh?nen anthology (comics pitched at 10-18 year old males) Comic Dragon Jr. It ran until Jun 9th 2000, generating 12 volumes of classic laughs and thrills. The stories are generally regarded as non-canonical by fans of the various TV versions, but of course we don’t care about that since the printed black and white tales are so much fun and so well illustrated…

This first volume collects the first seven issues of the Viz tome Tales of Tenchi, which did so much to popularise Manga in the English-speaking world, and opens with a thorough and fascinating recap of that first TV season – from which all succeeding manic mirth and mayhem proceeds – before cracking on to bolder and better bewilderments starring the entire copious cast on all new adventures and exploits…

Tenchi Masaki is an ordinary lad living peacefully in the countryside with his father Nobuyuki and grandfather Katsuhito, until one day he breaks opens an ancient shrine and lets a demon out. Hell-fiend Ryoko tries to kill him but a magic “Lightning Eagle Sword” helps him escape. The demon follows though, demanding the sword and things get really crazy when a spaceship arrives, revealing Ryoko is in fact a disgraced alien pirate from the star-spanning Jurai Empire.

Starship Ryo-oh-ki is full of attractive, shameless, immensely powerful warrior-women including Princess Ayeka, her little sister Sasami and supreme scientist Washu. This gaggle of violently disruptive visitors moves in with Tenchi and family, causing nothing but trouble and embarrassment. Soon the boy and his sword are being dragged all over the cosmos in the sentient Ryo-oh-ki (who, when not on duty, prefers the form of a cute rabbit/cat hybrid critter).

Ayeka and Sasami both harbour feelings for hapless Tenchi but things get really complicated when grandfather Katsuhito is revealed to be Yosho, a noble Prince of the Jurai. It appears Tenchi and those darned space girls are all related…

Tales of Tenchi opened with ‘The Genius’ as the star, currently studying Jurai warrior training under his grandfather’s diligent tutelage, falls foul of the princesses’ growing boredom. Ryoko attacks again, precipitating a devastating battle that threatens to burn the entire landscape to ashes, but is the aggressor really the demon pirate?

In ‘Double Trouble’ the other Ryoko tries to take Tenchi’s sword – in actuality a puissant techno-artefact known as the Master Key – before being defeated by the original, but at the cost of shock-induced amnesia. As the refugees all decompress, ‘Under Observation’ depicts outrageous and inadvisable potential cures for the distressed Ryoko but when the defeated doppelganger’s master Yakage arrives, the entire extended family are endangered. The terrifying star-warrior challenges Tenchi to a duel…

Part 4 ‘Plunder’ is one colossal hi-energy clash as the boy valiantly demonstrates all he has learned to drive off the intruder, but only after the villain takes Ayeka hostage, demanding a rematch in 10 days’ time…

Intensifying his training in ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ Tenchi prepares for the upcoming clash whilst Ryoko pursues Yakage into space, unaware that super-scientist Washu has hidden herself aboard the pursing ship…

‘A Good Scolding’ reveals intriguing history regarding the assorted super-girls whilst Tenchi trains for the final confrontation before concluding chapter ‘Relationships’ brings things to a spectacular climax whilst still leaving a cliffhanger to pull you back in for the next addictive instalment…

Blending elements of Star Wars: A New Hope with classic Japanese genre themes (fantasy, action, fighting, embarrassment, loss of conformity and hot chicks inexplicably drawn to nerdy boys), this rousing romp also includes comedy vignettes starring ‘The Cast of No Need For Tenchi’, and fourth-wall-busting asides, to top off a delightfully undemanding fun-fest to satisfy not just manga maniacs but also any lover of fanciful frivolity and sci fi shenanigans.
© 1994 by Hitoshi Okuda/Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co Ltd., Tokyo. NO NEED FOR TENCHI! is a trademark of Viz Communications Inc.

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Last of the Mohicans: Ten-Cent Manga Series volume 1


Freely adapted from the novel by James Fenimore Cooper by Shigeru Sugiura, edited & translated by Ryan Holmberg (PictureBox)
ISBN: 978-0-985195-6-6 (HB)

Those of us in the know tend to believe that Japanese comics began with Osamu Tezuka in the years following the end of World War II – and indeed in most ways that assessment is reasonable.

However, as the superbly informative article bolstering this superb tome attests, a thriving manga business has operated in Japan since the 1930s, and one of its greatest proponents was artist and author Shigeru Sugiura.

This superb monochrome hardback volume (sadly no digital delight yet) re-presents one of his greatest triumphs as the initial volume in a proposed series of “Ten-Cent Manga” collections. Translated and edited by Ryan Holmberg, it highlights lost works displaying not simply indigenous Japanese virtuosity but also the influence of cross-cultural contact and pollination with other countries.

In erudite, lavishly illustrated essay and appreciation ‘Shigeru Sugiura and his Mohicans’ he describes in fascinating and forensic detail the origins of the project, state of play in Japan pre-and-post WWII. The absorbing life and career of an artist who began as a jobbing strip cartoonist only to elevate himself to the status of Psychedelic, Surrealist Pop Art icon is one that is utterly addictive to fans of American movies and comic books.

The treatise is fully supported by documentary excerpts from the 1950s magazines and strips. Sugiura scrupulously “homaged” and swiped from: Jesse Marsh’s Tarzan, Alex Toth’s Johnny Thunder, and particularly Fred Ray’s Tomahawk. These were most commonplace amongst a wealth of graphic treasures synthesised and transformed into something fresh, vibrant and, most crucially, relevant to the entertainment-starved kids of occupied Japan.

Also included is an article by the artist himself, written in 1988 describing his life-long passion for and debt of influence to American cinema – most especially ‘Silent Movies’…

However, although scholarly and revelatory, the text portions of this singular treat pale beside the sheer exuberant energy and B-movie bravura of James Fenimore Cooper’s text…

Shigeru Sugiura (1908-2000) studied painting before becoming an art assistant to comics pioneer Suihō Tagawa (AKA Nakatarō Takamizawa). By 1933, the student was creating his own strips for the gags and Boys’ Own Adventure style comics that proliferated prior to the war.

He returned to the industry when hostilities ended, producing more of the same, but now influenced far more by the ubiquitous comic books of the occupying G.I.s than the silent Westerns and baggy-pants comedies he had voraciously consumed in his youth.

Shigeru Sugiura blended comedy/action stories for children and achieved great success throughout the 1950s, based on well-known characters such as ninja Sasuke Sarutobi or adapted Chinese classics like Journey to the West, furthermore including modern themes like wrestling, science fiction and even movie sensation Gojira/Godzilla to his fun-filled weekly pages in a most prolific and influential career.

…And Westerns; he did lots of rootin’ tootin’ shoot ’em up cowboy stories…

Sugiura (very) loosely adapted Last of the Mohicans in 1953 (when it was already a very familiar tale to Japanese readers) for Omoshiro Manga Bunko – a line of books presenting world classics of literature in comics form – albeit not exactly any form recognisable to literary purists…

He retired in 1958 but returned in 1970, reworking old stories and creating new pieces from the fresh perspective of a fine artist, not a mere mangaka earning a precarious living.

In 1973 he was already refining and releasing his classic tales for paperback reprints when he was approached by publisher Shobunsha to update another. The 1953 Mohicans became their latest re-released tale, slyly reworked as a wry pastiche and kick-starting Sugiura’s second career as a darling of the newborn adult manga market…

One word of warning: This is not your teacher’s Last of the Mohicans, any more than The Shining resembles Stephen King’s actual novel or the way South Pacific could be logically derived from James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific – or how anything Alan Moore wrote could be found in films like From Hell or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen…

Sugiura’s updated 1973-74 iteration forms the majority of this chronicle: a fast-paced riot of non-stop adventure, greed, pride, tragedy and whacky humour wherein both heroic frontiersman Leatherstocking and noble savage Chingachgook are re-imagined as bold young lads in bad times, their desperate quest punctuated with weirdly clashing moments of slapstick, creative anachronism, cross-cultural in-jokes and plain outright peculiarity…

It all works impossibly well, beginning with the introduction of Hawkeye, ‘La Carabine Kid’: a young but doughty colonial scout and spy for the British.

The Empire is at war with the French for possession of the New World, with the Kid and his companions suffering many reverses at the brutal hands of the Mingos – a tribe allied to France. They were also responsible for reducing the mighty Mohicans to two survivors: Chief Chinga and his son Uncas.

The plot thickens when the Mingo Chief and his manic son Magua threaten to abduct Cora and Alice – daughters of British Colonel Munro – in an attempt to force the veteran soldier to surrender his command East Fort to the French. After a savage assault, Hawkeye, the Mohicans and dashing Major Duncan decide to escort the girls to the safety of Fort Henry, with the hostiles close behind…

En route they pick up itinerant preacher Father Gamut, before fighting their way on through wilderness and repeated Mingo attacks, always one step ahead of ‘Magua’s Pursuit’.

The struggle is not one-sided. The wily fugitives contrive to blow up a French fort and even link with a war party of Delas who subsequently reduce the ravening Mingos to scattered remnants – but not before the pursuers carry off ‘The Abducted Sisters’…

The scene is set for the heroes to rescue the girls and end Magua’s threat forever – but the showdown is costly with a high price to pay in ‘The Sad Ending’…

Sheer graphic escapism, spectacular storytelling and a truly different view of a time-honoured masterpiece make this an unmissable treat for all lovers of world comics.

This book is printed in ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.
© 2013 the Estate of Shigeru Sugiura. Translation and essay © 2013 Ryan Holmberg. All rights reserved.