“Level E”, by Yoshihiro Togashi

You probably all know Yoshihiro Togashi from his hit series “Yu Yu Hakusho” or ” Hunter X Hunter”. I still haven’t read the former, but boy, the things I could tell you of my hot’n heavy love affair with “Hunter X Hunter”! (Still ongoing affair, but man, HxH is a terrible lover. Never calls, never writes, just randomly shows up occasionally for an intense weekend of… okay, I’ll shut up.) Anyway, between these two series, Togashi came up with something very strange and weird that seems to defy pretty much all Weekly Jump rules. Because Togashi can get away with it.

“Level E ” ran in Weekly Shonen Jump for 16 chapters from 1995 to 1997. “Wait”, you say, “there’s only 16 chapters even though it ran for over a year in a weekly magazine?” The explanation? Togashi! If it’s Togashi, all bets are off, you can kiss your genre conventions good-bye along with your magazine guidelines and the laws of physics. Rules do not apply to Togashi.

And while breaking your rules, Togashi will also mock them.

You’ve been asking for it.

At the moment, I am writing my Master thesis. This means I have lots to read, lots to think about and this perpetual guilty conscience when I am being lazy and spending time reading somethng that is not thesis-related. I have some books lined up that I will read when I have time…next year. Same goes for manga. But over the past months, I’ve received a handful of angry comments to my reviews of Bakuman, Beck and Kyoukai no Rinne, and athough I stand by my reviews and am not going to change my mind just because I’m being called a “bigot” for not liking Bakuman… or I’m not going to explain why I didn’t take ch. 50 into account when writing a review a year before the release of ch. 50… I’ll address this other point that keeps coming up: You hate everything! You can’t enjoy anything! Now, this is silly. I’m pretty sure my reviews of World Embryo, Embalming, Luck Stealer and Double Arts have been positive. I called Kyoukai no Rinne “fun”, while regretting that it wasn’t terribly orginal… you know, because I do regret it. Rumiko Takahashi is an experienced mangaka, I should be allowed to expect more of her than “same old”. I know, the manga I admitted to disliking were all popular manga, you just don’t dislike them, right? So you should probably know once and for all that I have always been like this. What I like, I like on my terms, and no amount of people calling me “bitch” will make me change my mind. I’ve disliked Neon Genesis Evangelion, I’ve been slightly disappointed by Monster, and don’t get me started on Death Note.

This blog is for my own opinions and impressions and thoughts. If you don’t want to hear them, then don’t read my reviews. Simple! I’m trying to keep the reviews fun to read, and informative. I know these are my opinions and people will see things differently, that’s why I have always been trying to explain why I like something, or why I dislike something, or which aspects bother me, and so on.

I don’t engage in mindless praise. I just don’t. If you expect to find this here, go away. If you think insulting me will make me write positive Bakuman reviews like a good girl, go away, go away. Just go.

But due to popular demand, my next review will be of a manga I adore desperately, and I will not say a single bad word about it. Sounds good? I consider it, like, the boldest and most fantastic manga ever published in Weekly Shonen Jump. If this manga started its own cult, I’d join. Great, huh? Yeah, stay tuned.

‘Kagijin’ ch. 1, by Yasuki Tanaka

So we meet again, Mr. Tanaka. I have not been kind on you in the past. I did not have a lot of nice things to say about ‘Jamais Vu’. The biggest problem seems to be that you tend towards the ordinary, the clichés, the been-there-done-that. ‘Jamais Vu’ started out with a bizarre and intriguing science-fiction idea, only to revert to “good humans VS. evil aliens” after just a few pages. It was the kind of story that Baka Ouji-sama would not stand for. (One of these days, I should review ‘Level E’…) And you gave the aliens a weak spot that only M. Night Shyamalan would consider a good idea.

Anyway! ‘Kagijin’ is based on a oneshot by the same name, and is Yasuki Tanaka’s second series in Weekly Jump after the shortlived ‘Hitomi no Catoblepas’.

‘Genkaku Picasso’ ch. 1-2, by Usamaru Furuya

No, no excuses or promises. I’ve been both busy and lazy, and have not read much new manga. Phases like that happen. It’s really a sad state of affairs, because two days ago I walked into the comic section of a store and spent a lot of time staring at the manga shelves, trying to locate something that interests me. Oh, nothing. Is it me, or is it Germany’s saccharine manga market?

OK, what have I read? ‘Genkaku Picasso’, a manga running in Jump SQ. This one’s quite interesting and based on a very neat concept. Sadly, I find the execution a bit lacking, and considering that Usamaru Furuya has quite a bunch of manga onhis resumé (different genres and styles; can’t say he isn’t versatile and creative) there’s no reason to go easy on him.

Let’s just call it Freedom Manga!

Regarding Tokyopop’s Manga Pilot contract:

I’m not an artist, so sadly I can’t say “That’s it, I’ll never work for Tokyopop”, but I’m a potential customer, and I can say: “I’ll never buy their manga again”.

What really gets to me is the gratuitous French-bashing in the contract. A lame attempt to be cool and edgy? It kind of seems like they assume this is the general opinion -  everybody hates the French, every potential signer is racist.
But insulting France like that seems to be a typically American thing, and one I expect to find on teenager parties, in bad movies and on internet message boards – not in legal documents.

A legal document containing xenophobic speech, while the program is meant to appeal to non-US citizens as well – give me a break!

The language of the contract is obviously geared towards American kids, and not the intelligent, open-minded kind, but the lowest common denominator. And if this is the kind of artist Tokyopop wants, this is the kind of content they want to produce, and this means I’m not wanted as a customer either. Good riddance then.

Next month’s Jump SQ oneshots!

The month of April is going to give us some potentially interesting manga oneshots, in Jump SQ and in its spin-off special, Jump SQ II (which will go on sale in mid April, sporting a collaboration between Hiroyuki Takei of Shaman King fame, and Stan Lee. The Stan Lee!).

But first the Jump SQ oneshots.

‘Sachie-chan Guu!!’ by Akira Toriyama (story) and Masakazu Katsura (artwork).

Aaand…

There’s nothing here yet.

Hello! This is only the first post, and it isn’t very interesting at all.