The spirit of giving hasn’t disappeared in Japan and now Nakamura Hikaru’s is putting up five St. Oniisan (Saint Young Men) postcards for auction.

She’s giving away postcards of Buddha, Jesus, Brahma, Lucifer, the Archangels, and the first disciples. I find this offer rather nice and the artwork are quite encouraging. I do wonder if Nakamura Hikaru will be placing the earthquake in her manga although I’m not exactly sure if it’s appropriate to mention it in manga.

What I do know is that her Buddha, Jesus, and the rest of the crew mean well. I wish I can purchase these auctions and help more but unfortunately I’m strapped for cash and I can only imagine how expensive these postcards can get. If you are interested in buying the postcards, head towards the auction page at 18:00 p.m., Japan time.

Edit: I just checked the auctions again and now the Buddha and Jesus postcards you see illustrated below has been raised to 93,000 yen individually(around $930)!  The Lucifer and Archangel illustrations are now up to 81,000 yen!  One wouldn’t think miracles could happen, but I suppose if it means helping those who were brought down by the quake, these postcards are worth every yen.

I believe I’ve been told by one of my advisers that I shouldn’t write something that I’m obsessed about. Bias, after all, is one of the greatest sins in historical writing. It’s like a painted picture where everything is all right or all wrong and it’s hard to tell whether it’s the truth or not because of all the biases people have on it. Is it pretty? Is it ugly? Does the picture really translate the heart of what it’s trying to represent? Or are we simply translating what the painter wishes to portray and nothing more?

It’s hard to get rid of biases but when images sway you to the point of obsession then maybe, just maybe, that picture has more truth that it should hold.

It is in this obsession that I cannot forget Nakamura Asumiko. She draws a gaze that convinces me more than ever that she deserves this spotlight.

An Everwatchful Eye

It’s a little over a year since I caught Nakamura’s gaze and yet here I am still mesmerized and in awe of her as if it was just yesterday.

I remember sitting still with my head tilted at the side, staring at the strange cover of Double Mints. I must admit that it’s not a genius title but it was still a curious sight: two men forming a circle, one man latching on the other’s leg. The lines were smooth and clean but the short cropped boy on the cover had an unforgettable glare, as if he’s wondering why I’m looking their way, as if he didn’t want me to mess with their story.

I felt criminal just by looking at that cover. The longer I stared at that boy, the more I wanted to know why those eyes didn’t want me to go past the cover. In the end, I got a copy, read the comic and was blown away. Double Mints turned out to be with one of the best BL stories I’ve read.

My first encounter with Nakamura Asumiko was strong, sexy, powerful, and deeply provocative. She tackled BDSM so beautifully in Double Mints that she didn’t have to illustrate it with tacky whips and leather thongs. What best illustrated the obsessive relationship with the protagonists were those lovely pair of eyes.

Nakamura draws her eyes with a sanpakugan, irises that are so big that it divides the white of the eye into three. While most mangaka could be happy with just a simple blotted circle to draw the iris, Nakamura draws her eyes (including the eyelashes) with the finest of lines that you could not resist but be drawn in to her characters. Sometimes, I find myself wondering whether I’m drawn at those eyes or those eyes are looking at me. Needless to say, they’re stunning to look at.

Embracing the Dark

After Double Mints, I found myself hungry, if not starving, for her works. I found myself reading her older works which contained the same level of brutality and grace as Double Mints. Her earlier works under Ohta Shuupan such as J no Subete and Barairo no Hoo no Koro were not shy of approaching topics such as sexual aggression and obsession.

A scene from Barairo no Hoo no Koro

A friend once said that upon seeing just the images of her works, you could see a little bit of Keiko Takemiya in her.  Like the Forty Niners, she was an artist who is not shy of tipping towards the taboo. She’s fully aware of the sensitive topics that she writes and she successfully manages to conceal it behind soft curls and lithe limbs. Looking at her earlier works do bring you back to the old school premises of the Forty Niners however unlike them, there’s sharpness in Nakamura’s works that her work is like a wolf against the Forty Niners’ flock of sheep. There’s something violent, almost masculine and carnal in her earlier stories that if you were to put them with Jules or Juli, the boys of the Forty Niners would crumble and submit to Nakamura’s boys. At times, her characters shock me as they deliberately choose destruction.

I always wondered why she had that side of her. It took another friend to tell me that it was perhaps the influence of the gothic lolita world unto her. My friend was an avid follower of gothic lolita trends hence when she found out about my fascination for Nakamura Asumiko, she told me that the woman has been consistently contributing stories to the Gothic Lolita Bible and that it actually surprised her that Nakamura had ventured outside of the genre and has moved towards BL. I managed to catch some of these gothic Lolita works which were quite… gothic (for lack of a better word) and almost philosophical in nature. If anything, my impression of Nakamura Asumiko is she’s one intelligent mangaka who has a taste for dark complicated stories. I honestly have no qualms with how she pushes her imagination with every story she’s written. One of the things I love about her is how she always pushed her stories to the edge but not too much that story dies with it. She knows when to stop her fantasies and the limits of her stories.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Taken from Anata no Tame nara doko Made mo

As I continued my journey (fangirling) towards Nakamura’s works, it seems that in recent years she has thrown her gothic laces and wore a red nose. Not that she has given up her dark side (Utsubora’s a fantastic reminder of that!) but it seems that she doesn’t mind lightening up her stories for some good cheeky fun.

Her recent fans are most familiar with her Doukyuusei series (the other title is Sotsugyousei which has 2 volumes), a light-hearted comedy about an unusual couple who sort of found love in the classroom. We’ve seen this all before and there’s really nothing new in this genre. What makes it fresh is her art (which takes you back to the springtime of your youth) and her own witty humor.

Her previous dabbles with humor were either poignant or sardonic but it’s quite surprising how she managed to pull off some classic comedy routines. I, for one, could not believe that this was the same girl who wrote those hot dark romances filled with tragedy and misery. Her comedy is tastefully done, nothing insane, just enough for a good laugh. If I can compare her comedy to something, it would be close to a Richard Curtis (writer for Four Weddings and a Funeral) romance comedy: it’s hilarious, raw, real, and unapologetic at the same time. One of her later works, Anata no Tame nara Doko made mo, is a sexy yet crazy cat and mouse chase between a detective and a swindler who manages to distract the good well-meaning detective with sweet little kisses (and some some).

One might think that because she has changed her stories, her style has changed as well. She didn’t compromise her art for these comedies, although she manages to switch those pretty sanpaku eyes for some cartoonish reactions. Her lines remain thin, clean, and wispy and she still manages to seduce us with those lithe frames and soft curls.

Can a mangaka write for lots of genres? Of course they can.

From Tetsudou Shoujo Manga

I believe it was in my Yoshinaga Fumi spotlight that I mentioned something about how it was a great ability for a mangaka to move outside their comfortable genre. Yoshinaga, as we know, is one of the first few who have done this.  Nakamura Asumiko has also done this in her career.

Her earliest series started in Manga Erotics F (currently, her series Utsubora is running in this magazine) but she has also started to write for other manga magazines such as Opera (where her Doukyuusei series started) and Morning (where her new series about sumo wrestling Yobidashi Hajime is running¹).

Beyond that, just early this year, her contributions for the shoujo anthology Rakuen Le Paradis by Hakusensha were compiled to a manga. Tetsudou Shoujo Manga is a lovely compilation of stories about various kinds of love found along the Odakyu railway lines. Beyond this, she has an upcoming work for web magazine named Poco Poco under Ohta Shuppan as well. Then we also have to consider the illustrations she does for books such as Moedanshigatari.

From Tetsudou Shoujo Manga

As you can see, Nakamura is not only good at BL but she also has the talent to cater to a lot of genres. She even did a bit of yuri in Tetsudou Shoujo Manga! According to her Japanese Wikipedia page, she’s got quite a lot on her hand that she’s taken a break to take care of her health. I’m quite sure that once she got some rest, her stories will be rolling, we’ll be seeing more and more of her.

Nakamura Asumiko’s an amazing talent that comes once in a blue moon. The critics have not yet sniffed her work for a Taisho or a Kodansha award but I’m quite sure that give it some time, she’ll be in the same ranks as her predecessor, Yoshinaga Fumi. The balance, humor, and versatility that she shows in her works as well as the care that she puts in every art makes her one of my favorite mangaka to date.

What I’m surprised though is that US publishers haven’t caught on to her work. Not even David Welsh has even requested for a license request of her works. If I may suggest,I’m hoping that Tetsudou Shoujo Manga would be picked up by Viz and the thriller Utsubora would be picked up by Vertical. The world needs to know more about Nakamura Asumiko. She’s a wonderful addition to the world of manga. I’m quite sure you won’t be able to resist her gaze once you’ve read her works.

The Reading List

The Dark Side (For those who would like to read Nakamura Asumiko’s Darker stories): Copernicus no Kokyuu, J no Subete, Barairo no Hoo no Koro, Her Gothic Lolita Bible Shorts, Utsubora, Double Mints

The Lighter Side (For those who would like to read her funny, light-hearted stories): Doukyuusei, Sotsugyousei, Tetsudoh Shoujo Manga, Anata no Tame nara Doko Made Mo, Yobidashi Hajime

1. Yes, I did just mention she’s currently writing a series about sumo wrestling. She seems to be passionate about that.

It’s my birthday today.

And I was hoping to write down an awesome post about the exciting new wave in BL only to find it inappropriate after last weekend’s disaster. While Japan is a good sea away from my country, the past few years have brought me closer and closer to Japan. What was once just a geographical existence, Japan eventually turned into a home for friends, colleagues, and inspirations. I was there last year and it felt like a surreal home hence my heart was crushed when I saw the waves flush out homes along the coast.

It had been difficult for the past few days but I’m quite surprised that the Japanese are resilient and are moving forward. Our Japan office is up and kicking and so are our favorite mangaka and other entertainment folks. Last night, and still to this morning, some of my favorite artists like Naoki Urasawa, Natsume Ono, and other artists in Morning started drawing images of hope.

We just called our Japanese office and it seems that the tremors have not stopped. They said that they have been given a three day warning for the next big earthquake which might be at 7.0 magnitude. Even as they told us this story, they still sounded like a cheery lot and is waiting for better days to come ahead. I’m really astounded and inspired by their courage hence, like the mangakas from morning, がんばって日本！

If you wish to donate for the calamity victims in Japan, feel free to donate at The Nippon Foundation’s CanPan Tsunami fund.

I write this spotlight today with a mildly sore leg as March started with a big bump… in more ways than one.

I wonder if living life past a quarter of a century meant seeing your life in still panels with soft lines and endearing faces. Surely, my face was far from endearing, nor was the experience of being hit by a car in any way graceful. But strangely, all worries, anxieties, and fears disappeared as soon as I shared a meal with the lady who hit me with her car. And I can visibly remember the joy of eating food with someone, even if she kind of messed up my legs a little.

At that time, I felt that moment reminded me of a Yoshinaga Fumi panel, two people eating, healing pains and worries with a quiet but hearty meal and smiles on their faces.

Hence, in commemoration of being thankful for life, I put a spotlight on Fumi Yoshinaga.

My journey in writing this spotlight was nothing but enlightening. My rule of thumb is to try to read the artist’s work in sequence and try to see their development as a mangaka, both in art, their themes, their interests, and their stories. Strangely though, I have read Yoshinaga-sensei in various points in my life that when I started to look back, I couldn’t exactly see pin-point where she started. When I started asking if she had grown as a writer, in the back of my head, I was thinking… she had always felt mature as a writer.

So I went back, taking cues from the Japanese Wiki and tried to read most of her works in order. What I had thought as a flawless consistent act turned to be quite a growth of an artist.

Fumi the fangirl

Yes. Tachibana should be uke.

As some would know, Yoshinaga’s beginnings started with doujin. She was a prolific doujin artist, known to participate even in Comic Market. Her doujin work is popular enough to sell for thousands in Mandarake. When I was in Osaka, her old MitKo Slam Dunk doujin was being sold for 5,000 yen. This said pairing was so popularized by her that it was even mentioned in Genshiken.

One thing clear is that Yoshinaga started as bubbly fangirl with homosexual fantasies. While this was obvious in her early doujins, this could also be seen in her debut work, Tsuki to Sandal (The Moon and the Sandals).

Her first published work was an interesting fantasy of lovers struggling to come to terms with their relationship, as asymmetric as it was. And while this debut was, the way I see it, virginal and pure, in more ways than one, Yoshinaga was one of the few mangaka who opened up issues of homosexuals in Japanese society in her BL works.

In those two volumes, she managed to explain the difficulty of homosexuals taking an apartment, being accepted in the workplace, and the possibility of marriage by means of adoption. To a degree (and I’m not saying a reality), she also opened up the difficulty of sexual orientation as Ida and Kobayashi experience their “first time”.  Unfortunately the stories were still hazy, still tapering between reality and fantasy. What was perhaps disappointing was how sudden and instant things were happening that it was like reading through a fangirl fulfilling her fantasies with every chapter. You’re shown bombs rather than montages and while I have always admired her art, her first work was very crude, messy, and cartoony that it wasn’t as graceful as her cover.

It was a rough start, and not exactly the Yoshinaga that we actually have grown to admire. In fact, her works that came after, Don’t say any more, Darling and Truly Kindly were closer to experiments on what kind of stories were best for her. By reading these one shots we could see how she played with themes and characters that by the end of Solfege, she had stories to tell.

And her stories were fantastic. I believe every girl who read yaoi or BL will not deny how memorable her French Revolution series were. We loved Claude. We loved Gerard and Jacques. It was hardly their cleft chins, sharp jaws and regal standing that got us but rather the intense passion that she captured in every panel that she drew. Finally, she had given her characters life. Gone were the faceless and unmemorable BL stereotypes and here were characters that stood out and stuck to our memory.

Sure, the lines she drew were chiefly soft but one could swiftly be caught in the romance and wished they witnessed this passion first-hand. Most of us met Yoshinaga this way and we began to starve for her works however she was taking a different turn as soon as she was wrapping up Ichigenme. Perhaps it came with age and taste but the dreamy fag hag fangirl was slowly noticing other stories brewing in her heart. The wild scribbles were traded in for soft refined and calculated lines. Fumi the fangirl was growing up.

Fumi and her cafe

Yoshinaga Fumi dreamt of other things as soon as she started writing outside of Biblos Eros. It was fascinating how her move to Wings, a shoujo magazine, was not a complete change but rather just a small shift in the way she built her stories. Hence Garden of Dreams, Kodomo no Taion and All my Darling Children were explorations on fragile human relations. The works were nostalgic and picturesque. At the same time, Yoshinaga manage to capture the emotions of her characters luring our sentiments and sympathies towards their stories.

The gay did not disappear (it honestly never disappeared!) but has now taken a different position in her stories. They’ve now become a part of an ensemble – not characters in the background, but part of a whole.

From the 5th Antique Bakery Doujin

In reading Antique Bakery, we read her first ensemble: Tachibana, Ono, Chikage, and Kanda. The story of Antique, while light-hearted, presented real questions on love and life. It was honestly a strange read at first as fangirls were hoping to get some action only to find simple and heart-warming servings that made people hope for a better day, one cake at a time. Suddenly, you wished you had an Antique nearby. Suddenly, you started craving for whatever pastry Ono just made. Suddenly, you wanted to dance and seduce someone under the rain. Suddenly, you wanted to forgive, forget, smile, live, and say “It’s going to be a beautiful day.” Japan, and eventually the world, was enchanted by this little pastry shop that as soon as the series ended, we were hungry for more. And we got more! We got a TV drama, an anime, and even a Korean version of the movie which was thrice better than the Japanese TV drama (the drama didn’t even make Ono gay!) Her success in Antique opened tons of opportunities for Yoshinaga however she stuck through familiar elements and honed her craft further under Wings.

Her stories in Wings showed a great ensemble of people who seem to teach us a little or two about life, one chapter at a time. The ensemble allowed Yoshinaga to move away from being just another BL writer to someone who had a grasp of people, and not just gays. Yoshinaga focused on the banality of everyday life and highlighted the small but wonderful memories that we often taken for granted. Flower of Life was such a story that it was clear that Yoshinaga was more concerned with reminding us about the important things her stories.

This sense of nostalgia and sentimentality became her trademark under Wings. It captured a lot of people’s hearts enough to give her prestigious prizes such as the Kodansha Manga Award and even an Eisner. I’m not exactly sure how much she is of a household name in Japan but in my experience, the mention of her titles more often than not bring smiles unto people’s faces.

Fumi today and beyond

I really began to fully appreciate Yoshinaga’s style and genius when she started to venture outside of Wings and wrote Kinou Nani Tabeta and Ooku.

Ooku is a brilliant work that takes manga to the levels of Taiga. It was something unexpected for many but for those who knew her love for history, knew that this was a story that was only meant for her and only her. I don’t think any other author can pull off something like this without compromising either the story or the sensuality that comes out in these volumes. Yoshinaga’s art manages to tell the delicate situation of this alternate time without making it feel too boring or too simple. It’s an elaborate world filled with complex social striations that she manages to capture so flawlessly. I love it even if it makes my head ache everytime I read it. She’s quite a poet in Ooku and I can’t help but feel like I’m reading some old Japanese story when I’m reading this manga. It’s such a shame that in English, her poetry was misappropriated as Shakespeare.

No one knew that she was capable of doing these things for we have only read her simpler trivial slice of life stories. However,  we believed that she was someone who was capable of telling complex situations because of we knew how she understood people. If there’s one thing she really understood well and managed to illustrate well, it was people. She has a way with faces and expressions and it became more refined as she grew older.

From Kinou Nani Tabeta

Thus as such her everyday life tale of two homosexuals living together was nothing but heartwarming, if not a filling read. Unlike her other stories, Kinou Nani Tabeta basks in everyday life and does not find any closure beyond that of the dinner table. It’s a lovely read that takes on the formula of Antique but with a far more sophisticated, if not mature altogether. To be honest about it, it feels domestic. More so, unlike Antique, Kinou Nani Tabeta puts as much focus on food as it does on its character. Then again this was expected of Fumi. She is a foodie after all.

Fumi’s not just about love but all about food

Kenji expresses his joy that Kakei chose to make their dinner sweet for his sake and this was an expression of his love.

One of the things I find amusing about reading all of Fumi’s works is that this food does not fail to mention food at any given point in her stories. In Tsuki to Sandals, there were doughnuts. There were tons of cakes and pastries in Antique. Even bento looked great in Flower of Life. Of course we can’t forget that she dedicated Kinou Nani Tabeta to the act of eating and cooking plus there was her restaurant hopping escapades in Not Love But Delicious Food.

This woman loves her food and I can feel her heart skip every time she has the opportunity to explain how a particular food is made and why it is awesome. I love her passion for food and while this is mostly seen in Kinou Nani Tabeta, I think anyone who has read Fumi would have also grown to appreciate food.

Fumi is the fangirl that I wish to be

If there was one thing that made this spotlight really delayed (beyond my accident) was how I had so many things to say about Yoshinaga Fumi.  On one end, I want to talk about her representation of homosexuals and how she has captured a movement in the least politicized manner that I have seen in comics. I can go on about the social relevance of her works and how she had a flair for kitsch and so on and so forth but I thought overthinking her work defies the heart of her work.

I believe that at its core, Yoshinaga works simply wished to portray the beauty of humanity, in all of its simplicity, banality, and its complexity. Her art is simple not because it’s her style but I think it captures how straightforward our emotions are that even the simplest of lines can portray our sadness or happiness.

Personally, as a fujoshi, I’d like to be in that same age of maturity as she is. I’d like to appreciate the porn without compromising the story and the emotions of the characters. I’d like to poke fun at my fangirl self and have a laugh at the couples I adore. I think to a degree I have turned into the fangirl that she is but at the same time, I am much like her who still manages to squee and dream about the possibilities of the love that’s never said. In her heart of hearts, Yoshinaga Fumi is a fangirl and that fangirl was never lost. She just matured in a very graceful and elegant manner.

It is this very gracefulness that made her one of the 20 important shoujo mangaka of this day and age. She was unlike the 49ers because she did not bask too deep in a fantasy. On the other hand, she was not too hardcore to over dramatize the reality. She was the perfect example of a contemporary author who was dealing with post-modern concerns of identity, banality, and meaning. However she did not have to write an existential piece for us to appreciate it. She merely wrote down fascinating personalities living their lives as they believed it.  I personally feel she paved the way of other BL mangaka who also managed to present great slice of life stories driven by great characters: Nakamura Asumiko, Basso, Est Em, and Yamashita Tomoko. And I think I’m more than grateful to her for giving me not only some of the best stories I’ve ever read in manga but also the best lessons in life.

I do have one heartbreak with her… she didn’t give me closure for Ono and Tachibana in her doujins.  :<

The Reading List

Fumi at her BL Best: Tsuki to Sandal (The Moon and Sandals), Lovers in the Night, Gerard and Jacques, Don’t say Any More Darling, Solfege, Ichigenme wa Yaruki no Minpou (First Class is Civil Law)

Fumi at her Foodie Best: Antique Bakery, Not love but Delicious Food, Kinou Nani Tabeta

Fumi at her Best: Flower of Life, Garden of Dreams, All my Darling Daughters, Ooku

About my favorite panel

I believe it was Melinda who asked me what was my favorite BL panel ever and I told her that it had come from a Yoshinaga Fumi manga. As I have lost my copy of the Japanese version, this panel does not capture the exact amazing of the Japanese hence I modified this English copy to mimic that scene in Japanese.

My favorite scene ever

This was taken from my favorite Yoshinaga BL story, Ichigenme wa Yaruki no Minpou volume 2, and as you guys can see Tamiya’s panting “haa… haa…” before screaming “hazukashii!!” which means “it’s so embarrassing!” It just sounds a lot better in Japanese because you’re not exactly sure if he was panting or he was soooo embarrassed that it was it was a mixture of both. It’s gold and I think it led to one of the hottest BL scenes I’ve read.

That said, I want to ask, what are your favorite Yoshinaga Fumi moments and why do you love her work?

Note: This spotlight was intended for February so this counts as the February Spotlight.

Having consumed manga for years, I’ve grown to like some authors a little more than the others. When this happens I go into a mad frenzy, reading as much as I could about the author and try to see  if he has grown as an author, if he has stagnated, or if my relationship with him as a fan would be tumultuous – loving, hating, agonizing, enjoying every single work he has released.

I thought I’d give myself a monthly special to put this habit of mine into good use, besides; it will at least give me the discipline of having to write something special every month. This will also allow me to do something I had wanted to do but never had the chance to – write about remarkable manga artists and writers. Perhaps this will encourage readers to explore more of that author’s work.

For my first spotlight, there’s no other author that comes to mind but the Tezuka of today: Naoki Urasawa.

THE MAKING OF A MONSTER

My life before Naoki Urasawa was packed with shounen and shoujo dreams. At that time, all I cared about was Naruto’s cloning technique and Sai’s search for the Hand of God. I was a voracious manga reader and it came to a point when I was looking for something different, something real and without the sparkle or the battles. An old friend of mine suggested that I check this title called Monster. He wasn’t exactly sure if it was my cup of tea but he knew for a fact that once I started reading, I won’t  stop reading.

And I didn’t. I ended up looking for more.

I’m quite sure that a lot of us started reading Urasawa-sensei through his work Monster. This award-winning title of a doctor trying to re-claim his innocence was shocking, captivating, and thrilling: the makings of an amazing suspense drama. I was turning pages in anticipation, each panel was filled with emotion that it was hard not to be engrossed. It was hard not think that Urasawa was amazing.

Despite the round and almost cartoony art style, this man managed to convince us that he was serious business. I remember feeling fear over a shadow of a boy, disgust at the sight of Eva, and hatred in Tenma’s eyes. His style does not compromises the story he wished to portray in fact his straightforward art only highlights the complexities of his stories.

It is in Monster that we see Urasawa’s brand of manga. It would make sense that while America clamored to get the license of 20^th Century Boys, Urasawa and his publishers insisted that America should read Monster first. They come hand in hand like gin and lime, two acidic flavors that mellow out after it ruffles your feathers. Monster was a tart start that’s followed by the burning finish that came with 20^th Century Boys. To understand the insane trip of 20^th Century Boys, one had to first know what Urasawa has to offer.

But is Monster what Urasawa can only offer? His career in manga would say otherwise.

THE BOY AND GIRL NEXT DOOR WITH BIG DREAMS

A page from Urasawa's debut title: Return

While we are only reaping the success of Urasawa’s works, he has been quite a name already in Japanese manga. He began in 1983, handing out a comic about a man whose life’s changed after an encounter with a robot, Return. While we know how well Urasawa captures human and robot relations in Pluto, his one shot Return was nowhere near his masterpiece. The story and the art were too plain even if it has one of those subtle poignant messages about life. But even with that, Return managed to capture the judges of Shogakukan’s Rookie of the Year award. Urasawa worked hard to get himself published and it was a little later that he managed to debut as a mangaka with his work Beta, a cute and hilarious story of man who woke up with something strange on his face.

His rounded style matched his early humor and his works that came after, The Dancing Policeman, NASA, Sayonara Mr. Hani, Mighty Boy, and a couple of his other short works were all light-hearted comedies filled with big dreams. I’m thinking that in a way, it captured his energy as a mangaka, taking stories from what was closest to him and giving us a delightful view of life.

This early comedic brand of Urasawa follows in his first masterpiece, Yawara! The young fashionable girl who has great Judo potential brought a big Yawara! and Judo boom in Japan which eventually culminated to the addition of the sport in the Olympics. Of course, Urasawa’s not entirely to blame for that but he was one of the major influences that made Japan look towards the sport and to other Yawara potentials.

And the comic had every reason to cause a frenzy among the Japanese people. It was fresh, vibrant, a little crazy (well, Jigoro was crazy), and cute. I’m not exactly familiar with its contemporaries in Big Comic Spirits, but as a reader looking back, I found it to be a lively read for a seinen comic. It was in many ways similar to the previous sports manga superstar, Touch by Adachi Mitsuru. It was similar in a way that it had Urasawa draw a very strong heroine and a funny and almost dorky supportive hero. One of the major differences was the hesitant hero was turned into a heroine. Another was the major focus on the sport with the side story of a romance. It was possibly strange for those who were used to the hardboiled atmosphere of Spirits but Urasawa managed to sell the young fashionable Yawara to readers. His popularity with Yawara eventually led him to have the leverage to write other stories he wanted to write.

BUILDING THE SUSPENSE AND DRAMA

A panel from Master Keaton

Urasawa had grown leaps and bounds after Yawara. The once cute crooked and round lines eventually became slicker. Uniformed faces became more distinct and his knack for detail was slowly but surely came out. By the time Pineapple Army came out, a strange army drama, Urasawa was out of his readers’ comfort zone. I’m not exactly sure how popular Pineapple Army was and while I haven’t read it, looking at Kate Dacey’s responses only made me think that it was probably written enough for it to finish. Master Keaton came after Yawara and personally I think this laid ground to Urasawa’s brand of suspense. The comic was episodic in nature, with no direct story line beyond an understanding of Keaton’s capability of being the Mcguyver of manga.  What these manga built though was Urasawa’s ability to draw and take us to places. In Keaton particularly, the dessert, the cobbled streets, the images of the Western world would come alive in his pages.

These stories were different to Yawara and I would imagine that a clamoring for the old glory made Urasawa bring back his strong lovely heroine in the tennis drama, Happy!

Happy! was nowhere near the cheerful vibrant pages of Yawara but in its own way, it’s the most vibrant out of all of Urasawa’s works. It was quite an unhappy beginning for a title that bears happiness. But compared to some of Urasawa’s titles, it has the liveliest and interesting characters I’ve met in manga. I’m also not sure of the popularity of this title however I think Urasawa managed to hone his ability to weave and intertwine the lives of his characters in this title. It still turned out to be a lovely piece and it was perhaps at this stage that Urasawa proved to people that he had the ability to write and draw something that the audience would love without compromising his story. Years of training are now gone and he now had the equipment to do what he wanted. Once Happy wrapped up, Urasawa shifted his gears and created a monster.

MONSTER IN THE 20^TH CENTURY

A page from Pluto

I’m quite sure that most of you have read his masterpiece Monster and was in awe of how he drew and wove his story together. Tenma’s dilemma was heartbreaking and horrifying that the word monster, while innate to the Japanese, has a very different bearing as soon as it came under Urasawa’s hand.

Monster was a different monster and as a story teller, Urasawa began to question what that word meant and how its meaning has changed in this day and age. In this comic we meet the human monster, the kind that we did not expect, and the kind that still terrified us because it was real. This psychological and sociological exploration became his most notable work, earning him awards left and right and finally gave him critical acclaim.

This exploration of semantics became the heart of Urasawa’s next line of works. In 20^th Century Boys he explored the meaning of “Friend.” In Pluto, it was “humanity.” In his latest work, Billy Bat, he looked at the visual semantic of a cartoon. Are cartoons innocent of meaning or are they just as political? The man didn’t fear to raise questions on the banality of words and people. He was, in many ways, similar to Tezuka. While he may not have written shoujo or shounen, Urasawa too moved from his cheerful and simple beginnings to the complex monster of a mangaka that he is today. There were fragments of his livelier days in his later work, but overall they were pensive and questioning.

THE GENIUS

From Yawara!

I love to use the word genius to describe Naoki Urasawa and his works. There were so many things that he had done that was quite unexpected from what we’d usually expect in manga and while he wasn’t exactly the first to do it, he was one of the few of who was courageous enough to brave the panels with his beautiful art and compelling stories.

He is one of the reminders of how powerful manga can get, that there’s no need to compromise in order to get the story told. While I’m a big fan of his works, lately I’ve been questioning my own affections because of some of the decisions he has made at the end of 20^th Century Boys as well as with his new work, Billy Bat. The problem with Urasawa now is he’s taken comfort with his formula. And while I love the great WTFs he’s been throwing our way, at least in his latest work, Billy Bat, I believe I’ve had enough. I will be honest in saying that I do miss the old happy-go-lucky Urasawa. I can only hope he brings back those lively characters again and still write a story that would hold his philosophy.

That said, it doesn’t mean I no longer have the admiration I have for the man. He is still, in many ways, the man who opened my eyes to seinen manga and I cannot rob him of that respect.

THE READING LIST

For those who want to get into Urasawa, here’s a couple of titles that would probably make you enjoy his works… at least in English: MONSTER, 20^th Century Boys, Pluto.

For those who can read Japanese and has access to some Japanese manga, here are some of the more accessible Urasawa titles: YAWARA!, Happy!, Master Keaton.

For those who can read Japanese and would like to go through the lengths of reading more of his works, here are some of his works: 初期のURASAWA (Shoki no Urasawa – Early works of Urasawa),  Pineapple Army, Billy Bat, Jigoro!