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Manga Before Flowers -- Comfort Reading
Right now I'm reading primarily for comfort as frequent headaches are keeping me from picking up anything too complex visually or intricately-plotted right now (headaches are also my excuse for late column this week, sorry folks!). Today I discuss the titles that are just plain enjoyable to read and fulfill the first order of the comic book form ... entertainment!
The nice thing about comfort reading is that it doesn't have to be "great art" only great medicine ... and that is what the following titles became for me during the past two weeks.
Sugar Sugar Rune published by Del Rey ... oh dear, a title about 10 year old witches, named Chocolat and Vanilla, competing to be Queen of the magical world? A reasonable person might ask, why do I, a 28 year old woman, like this? Because mangaka Moyoco Anno is ten kinds of awesome that's why. The art looks like a candy-cane threw up all over the place (if, you know, a candy cane could do such a thing) but god, it is amazingly detailed and spectacularly appropriate for a title about magic, young girls, and the human heart.
As Chocolat and Vanilla compete to rule all of magic-dom by attempting to capture more human energy than the other (represented as "hearts of emotion" which they steal from human beings ... the stronger the (positive) emotion, like love, the stronger the girls become when they steal them), they also struggle to better understand human concepts of friendship and romantic love. My favorite part of this title is watching Chocolat struggle against falling for the snooty (and possibly evil) Prince Pierre ... after all, her job as a witch is to steal emotions, not to fall victim to them!
Fairy Tail published by Del Rey ... This title is the equivalent of a summer blockbuster ... dumb, "loud" (if a comic could be loud, this one certainly is) and fun. There is some bull about wizardry, but that seems to be an excuse for hijinks and lots of misbehaving and a surprising amount of vomit (wow, how many times can I discuss that particular bodily function in one column?). The title is the name of a wizard guild that our young ... but surprisingly voluptuous ... heroine, Lucy wants to join. The comic follows her and a young wizard named Natsu, who is the frequent ralphing offender in the narrative (I sympathize with his motion sickness since to borrow a phrase from Dr. Reed from Scrubs "any kind of repetitive motion makes me nauseous"). Natsu is one some kind of quest involving a dragon, but really, he seems to be around to a Naruto-esque pain in the ass and get sick on people. And oh, yeah, save Lucy's very pert butt once in a while (forgive me, but Lucy's very existence is fanservice central and the focus on her body can be a little distracting).
If there is a "real" underlying plot here I don't particularly care, nor would it have improved matters anyway. This title certainly isn't cerebral, but that is probably part of its charm. It's very easy to get carried away with the adventures of Lucy (and her *cough* assets), and her new wizard friend Natsu and watch them reenact every well-worn shonen plot imaginable. The whole thing hangs together well even when it shouldn't, to be honest, but hell, like I said, dumb, loud, fun. Sometimes that is just what the doctor ordered.
Skip Beat published by Viz ... I've already discussed Skip Beat here (it ranked number 4 on my "best shojo currently being published in the U.S" list) but Skip Beat is the currently the one manga title I'm reading that always makes me smile and brightens my day. Intense titles like NANA or After School Nightmare are great reading experiences but all that drama can be very exhausting. Kyoko, with her very, um, unique outlook on life and her ability to make a bad situation first worse and then better, is endlessly entertaining as a protagonist. Watching her navigate the puffed-up egos and various vagaries of show biz is like watching a maverick Sheriff dispensing sanity and justice to a lawless Western town (seriously, Kyoko is like the "morality" cop of Japan's entertainment industry, god love her). Also it doesn't hurt the title that she often wears a chicken suit to help her dispense advice to her more "mature" rival / love interest Ren (mwwhahahaha!!! Take that non-manga readers, you'll be wondering about this one all day!).
Kyoko is one of my shojo "dream girls." Simply put, characters like her make shojo beautiful, much more so than any "sparkly" art ever does.
Black Sun, Silver Moon published by Co! Comi ... I encountered a bit of a dilemma when Go! Comi kindly sent me review copies of later volumes of their manga. Having never read BS/SM would I really be able to pick it up or understand it (much less *enjoy* it) at volume 5? Well, rest assured having never read the first four volumes, I can say the fifth was a real treat. There is a supernatural element to the title ... folks are either humans, Nightlings or Resurrected (I'm not quite sure of the difference, but the last two appear to be different kinds of undead ... "bad" or "good"). The atmospheric art is quite fabulous and relationship between sweet Taki and the chilly priest / zombie-killer he tries to care for ... Shikimi ... is suprisingly moving and quite engaging. I'm sure I'm not quite clear on some of the larger plot themes, but the art and relationships between the characters were enough to carry me along, even if I'd never been formally "introduced" to the mangaka's surpernatural universe and all its laws and logics.
Reivew copy provided by Go! Comi.
So folks, when you are feeling a bit down, which manga do you crawl into bed with?
- Posted on May 7, 2008 @ 08:36 AM
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11 Comments
Ellie
May 7, 2008 at 10:36 am
Sex (/Love) Pistols, Emma, Love Mode, xxxHOLiC, and Sweet Blue Flowers are all titles I read whenever I need to start feeling better after a hard week. A couple of years ago I'd have put down Tokyo Babylon as well, but that was before I found out how suicidally doom-laden the final couple of volumes turned out to be. Thinking about it, a lot of the 'comfort' comes down to art style as well as the story-telling: the happy, frenetic energy of Sex Pistols, the wonderful heart behind the drawings of Emma. And there's Love Mode because it was, I think, the first manga I ever got into - long before I went into a shop to buy a licensed volume - and it still tugs at my heart strings. Catharsis for that one, I suppose.
Danielle Leigh
May 7, 2008 at 11:09 am
I'm very fond of all the titles you just mentioned, only I don't know "Sweet Blue Flowers", looks like I have a new title to look for! Love Mode in particular is very cheering, since the couples generally have happy ends and trauma is always soothed through the love and care of another. For some reason I find EMMA a little too melancholic for "comfort reading" although I agree the art is very soothing.
And Sex Pistols (i.e. Love Pistols in the states) is just a thing unto itself. Weirder than weird isn't exactly comfort to me but I agree about its crazy energy as a source of uplift.
Andrew Collins
May 7, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Is there any way someone could darken the typeface for the column? I find the dark gray-on-light gray coloring to be kind of hard to read.
Other than that, pretty good assessment of Fairy Tail. Fun, blockbuster sort of manga. Just like Mashima's previous series, Rave Master, which is all sorts of goodness itself.
Danielle Leigh
May 7, 2008 at 12:13 pm
hi Andrew, right now WordPress is being a complete and total prick to me so I can't seem to fix the gray font (Brian might take notice and have pity on me and fix it at some point). I can't even figure out how it got that way in the first place....Sorry to hurt your eyes!
Amy
May 7, 2008 at 1:50 pm
The Wallflower! It progresses along at a snail's pace so you can pick up almost any volume and certain things are always going to be there. The boys will want to glam up Sunako which might result in a temporary change but in the end she'll go back to her wonderfully creepy, non-glammed up self. Sunako's nose will bleed so much you'll wonder how she can possibly have any blood left. She might complain about those creatures of the light but she sure has a lot of repressesd desire going on for them...
Sunako & Kyohei will get into some sort of situation that will cause them to kick ass together. They are truly the best ass kicking couple in manga.
The boys will get mobbed by fangirls to a horrifying, locust-like degree.
It's truly comfort manga, very mashed potatoes-ish.
Oh, Skip Beat! I think I moved it up to my 2nd favorite shojo now. Everything about it makes me happy, it's ridiculous how smiley I get while reading it! The romance is able to be drawn out slowly in a way that's plausible and feels really well paced. There's some great female friendships in it. The art's able to transition between funny, sexy and poignant at all the right spots. I just think this series keeps gets better and better. It blends comedy and angst so extremely well that you're not bogged down with the emotional bits when they come. The side characters are so fun and Ren is just....maybe the best love interest in shojo right now? I love the backstory with how Kyoko & Ren met when they were little but she doesn't know it was him. Kyoko's whole love of fairy tale, princess type things while still having her out for revenge, take no prisoners attitude is the best. If I was rich I'd buy massive amounts of the 12 volumes that are out in the U.S. right now and skip around town, presenting them to lucky folks like Santa Clause.
I'd like it if the One Piece universe & the Fairy Tail universe met up and had some adventures together. I first dismissed Fairy Tail as a One Piece ripoff after a few pages but then I gave it another chance and found it had enough differences to keep me interested. But I still find One Piece to be the most comforting of all. Once I figure out how to make myself fictional I'm stowing away on that pirate ship. Sounds reasonable, right?
Andrew Collins
May 7, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Aaahhh, much better! Thanks!
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Irrisia
May 8, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Comfort manga?
Aria/Aqua, Crescent Moon, Ghost Hunt, Immortal Rain, Mugen Spiral, +Anima, and Hibiki's Magic.
Aria/Aqua (yeah, the one set on an over-terraformed Mars) and Hibiki's Magic (which is about a 10 year old kid, not very good with magic, who ends up working in a school because her teacher was so awesome no-one believes she's not that good at magic) are both the kind of manga where nothing much happens in some really weird ways. They're just very relaxing books that don't take much brain if you don't want to use it.
Crescent Moon and Mugen Spiral are both just fluffy supernatural romance stories, and Immortal Rain is a fantasy supernatural romance story. Y'know, immortal boy who has closed his heart off because watching people die/having people treat you like a monster really sucks after a while meets girl who teaches him how to love, whilst plot maybe kinda happens in the background. I'm a sucker for supernatural fluff - it takes no brain, everyone gets a mostly happy ending, no-one ever gives up (for long).
Ghost Hunt's just plain supernatural manga, although it's also got a touch of magic in it. Title's pretty descriptive. I mostly read it for the character interaction, which I love.
+Anima is that one about kids who turn into animal hybrids. It's cute and awesome and again, requires no brain power and nothing bad happens (for long).
Lianne Sentar
May 9, 2008 at 6:01 am
Skip Beat does, indeed, make life better. Has everyone gotten a copy of Vol 12 yet? It is UNBELIEVABLY hot.
But my ultimate comfort read is the unstoppable girliness that is Hana Kimi. It's certainly a flawed manga, but it's so intently focused on giving girls the girliest girliness that can fit on paper that it always makes me, as a girl, feel completely soothed.
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May 14, 2008 at 8:32 pm
[...] manga equivalent of comfort food? In this week’s Manga Before Flowers column, Danielle Leigh lists the manga she doesn’t mind reading even when she has a [...]