I’m stoked.

This entry would have been written a lot early if I didn’t have my tabletop game last night. Ed Chavez of Vertical really shook the American manga scene by storm by announcing Vertical’s acquisitions by bringing in manga classic Princess Knight (リボンの騎士), No Longer Human (人間失格), and the wine journey Drops of God (神の雫).

I believe the manga scene has been in want of the lovely gender-bender Tezuka title which pretty much changed and shaped manga today, for many critical reasons. For people to finally have access to this once elusive title is something to be joyous for. And what a great and lovely title to add to Vertical’s line of Tezuka titles. I think this just truly caps it off, but of course, there’s still quite a lot of Tezuka for us to enjoy.

No Longer Human is also quite a title in their roster. I’m not exactly sure what the story of this manga is, but I can trust in Ed’s choices that it’s a title that would blow us away. What I do know though is that Usamaru Furuya is the kind of author how knows how to exploit human emotions in his panels. I have read his work Suicide Club (自殺サークル) and that was a strong provocative title not only because of its theme but also because of Furuya’s own storytelling.

Perhaps what I am most excited about is Drops of God. France and even Indonesia is way ahead of US in terms of discovering the passion that comes with every page of this comic. Sure, it’s a manga about wine but the imagination that comes with every sip are not limited to a bouquet of rosemary or almonds. We’re talking about wine tastings that take you to the fields of Bourdeaux and eventually up the Mattenhorn. It’s bloody amazing and is actually one of my favorite mangas outside of BL and to see it out in English means that more of my friends will finally see why I have an obsession with Tomine and Shizuku.¹

These three titles all deserve the attention and it’s great that Vertical is bringing them out in english. Collectively though, I’m excited with one more thing: the covers. I’m quite sure you guys are familiar with my obsession for Vertical’s beautiful covers and I am excited on how they will spin and repackage these comics particularly Drops of God who particularly has lovely covers already.

Yesterday was a great day for manga and I heard that Ed still has more up his sleeves. Is he going to sweep my Morning titles and grab curious fan favorite St. Oniisan? Maybe something unknown but great like Himawari Legend? Will they shock Urasawa followers with Billy Bat? God knows really, but for sure, Vertical will not disappoint.

1. In the end, this fujoshi cannot help but ship this pair so bad

I have something to confess. I rarely buy English mangas. Don’t be hatin’. I have my reasons.

I rarely buy English mangas because they’re expensive in the Philippines. What would cost $8 in the U.S. might cost $15 in our bookstores. If I order Japanese mangas, it would cost me around $5 for shounen titles or $8 if they’re seinen, bl, or josei. Cost wise, I would sooner run to a Japanese online bookstore to get my stuff than go to Amazon where our customs will sniff the damn book and tax me heavily. The cost for getting my manga in English is a hassle. But there are exceptions. Vertical’s Tezuka line is always worth the hassle.

Love at First Sight of the Cover

I’ve always been in love with Vertical’s covers for their Osamu Tezuka titles. I remember being smitten by seeing a hardbound copy of Buddha when it first came out in our bookstores and the powerful image of an eclipse and green strip below. It was striking and almost made me shell out almost $40 just to buy the damn manga if only to realize that I haven’t even read volume one. Shame. It was really pretty. Too bad I can’t find it in our bookstores now.

Nonetheless, that book left an impression on me that every time I raid our bookstores, I check the manga section to see if they’ve updated Buddha. One time, to my luck, they almost had the entire set and I was caught by the really lovely art on the spine of the series:  the image of a young to an enlightened mature Buddha. I was completely mesmerized even if I’ve only seen the cover of a book. Seriously, I fell in love with the cover of Buddha. Don’t you guys also have ‘love at first sight’ moments with manga covers?

Before I knew it, I was already heading towards the cashier and buying the manga even if it wasn’t in my budget. Naturally, the manga didn’t disappoint. The cover was merely an extension of what was already brilliant. As I discovered later, Chip Kidd was in charge of designing this manga cover and I think his design genius just gave the series a new life. The same love affair continued with Ode to Kirihito, MW, and now Dororo and Black Jack (both designed by Peter Mendelsund).  Black Jack has yet to come to our shores but from what I’ve seen from people, the covers are still stunning, enough to capture your attention and give Osamu Tezuka a shot.

Repackaging Genius

I personally think that what Vertical did to the line of Osamu Tezuka manga is a repackaging and marketing genius. No matter how much people say that they wished manga publishers would keep the old covers etc. etc. I still believe that when it’s done right, no one’s going to complain whether the cover is close to the original or not.

And it shows in our bookshelves how well Vertical’s redesign of Tezuka’s works is because it is harder to procure an Osamu Tezuka Vertical release compared to other releases. Until now, one could still see Astroboy occupy the bookshelves. On the other hand, someone always beats me to the 1^st volume of Dororo. Both are brilliant manga I must say, but in the end it shows how the packaging of a comic makes a difference in making a sale and it is just as important as its content. No matter how amazing the manga is, when the cover doesn’t give the same impression, the manga won’t sell at all.

The new covers of the Tezuka titles really give life to his works. For those unfamiliar with manga, they might think it’s a new title because of its minimalist design. It’s only until they have read the manga that they realize that it’s written back in the 1960s or 70s.  What amazes me is how the new covers show the timelessness of manga. The designers manage to highlight Tezuka’s art and incorporate it in new design principles that the readers don’t feel that they’re reading old titles. We got to admit it; we’re always fascinated by the new shiny stuff.

The designers in Vertical have really pushed their imaginations in order to capture the beauty of Tezuka’s art while spinning it with their own twist. These are not your usual bright eyed Tezuka titles and to capture an audience unfamiliar to this aspect of his work with their design takes a whole lot of love and respect for the titles they’re designing for. And it shows in the designs of the covers. Vertical’s designers didn’t simply throw an image and stamped a title on top. They really made an effort to capture the essence of the book in their covers. You have simplicity in Buddha, duality in Ode to Kirihito, the interplay of light and shade in MW, the torn images in Dororo, and the careful incision in Black Jack. All these could have simply followed the Japanese covers but I just adore how the Vertical covers said more about the book than the flap.

I’m sure that had this been in lesser hands it would have been difficult titles to sell.

But must they really redesign?

Is it necessary to redesign the covers? Shoujo manga like those released by Hakusensha under Hana to Yume have the same cover styles. Artists are given that white box at the center to try to make a cover for their titles. They didn’t need Chip Kidd or Takashi Murakami to sell their manga so why should the American industry (at least the English speaking industry) invest on kick-ass designers?

We must understand that unlike the Japanese, the international audience doesn’t have a monthly or a weekly magazine to feature these titles. Many of these titles are already past their publishing time in Japan and have already been compiled in volumes. Word of mouth hardly makes a difference. Translation might make the book different from the Japanese and with scanlations popping out left and right, the quality of people’s understanding of the comic might be marred by mistranslations especially with those speed scanlations coming out. In the end, I believe, it’s the publisher’s responsibility of thinking how they should market and present their mangas. They’ve got to have the right covers that lure the attention of a reader. And this reader need not be a manga reader but any reader who’s looking for something to read for the weekend. Of course, some companies (like Viz) have launched websites like sig-ikki.com to promote their upcoming titles but in the end, the battle field is in the bookshelves.

With the right cover, I’m sure mangas will start selling, and I think this would work best for titles that are for adults. Perhaps the redesigned covers might serve as the bridge needed to tap the curious ‘totally not a comic reader’ market¹. These Vertical Tezuka titles are a great start. Viz’s Urasawa series uses the original covers but those cover itself are beautifully designed as well (although I’m not exactly sure if they kept the texture of Pluto’s cover. I always love those matte covers). Hopefully, other titles would follow after Vertical’s genius and soon we’ll have more pieces of artwork as covers for our manga.

P.S. If I may just complain a little, another reason why I don’t buy English manga is how big these books are. I love how the Japanese sizes fit idly in my hand and I can easily tuck it in my small bag. The same cannot be said for the English ones unless I have a larger bag. I do wonder why the size for English mangas are so big. Paperback novels are quite small so… why? Is it because of the images? Is it harder to read if it’s smaller? Won’t they be cheaper if they’re the same size as the Japanese?

1. for lack of a better term really, but you guys know what I mean

AND TAMAKI HIROSHI IS ACTING!!!

Yuecchi gave a twit of Tamaki Hiroshi in eyeglasses, but I was more surprised when it said that he is acting for MW! Wow. That’s cool. It’s probably one of his more serious roles. He probably can handle it, then again, I haven’t really seen him in a serious role.

Sorry, fangirl post. :3 I can’t help it! I love Osamu Tezuka and Tamaki Hiroshi. Of course the latter has more… fangirling bearing. He’s… Chiaki-sama after all.

Saint Young Men (聖☆おにいさん) by Nakamura Hikaru
Serialized in Morning Two
Published by Kodansha

Lent is the perfect time to reflect over our past sins and contemplate on how THE MAN sacrificed his life for our salvation. In the modern world, this religious ritual becomes a chore, often forgotten, maybe even neglected. In my country, Lent’s a holiday, a 5 day weekend where you can relax from the nitty gritty of work, ideally to reflect, but more often spent on frolicking in beaches and family picnics. But somehow, The Lord finds his way to sneak up on you, in ways you can’t even imagine. And in this case, he even partnered himself with Buddha to create a light-hearted comedy about two deities living a life in the modern world.

Whatever divine crack you sniffed Hikaru Nakamura, YOU ARE A GENIUS! JESUS AND BUDDHA FTW!

The Divine Comedy

Saint Young Men is about Buddha and Jesus coming back to our world and living life like we do. It really doesn’t have much of a plot, but it more of a slice of life tale between these two dieties. You have Jesus and Buddha going to an amusement park, enjoying summer festivals, swimming, and so on.

When I told my friend that I’d be reviewing this for Good Friday, she asked me if it was okay. Religion is a big thing here so she thought that his could probably be a bit sacrilegious. Imagine Jesus reading the internet, wanting to buy a Shinsengumi costume, and rediscovering the world. But when I read the book, that was not the case at all. Sure, it was too comfortable a depiction of deities, nonetheless, the author kept in mind the characters of these two guys and has somewhat kept their image. Somewhat.

Nakamura-sensei depicted pure and innocent holy men who are experiencing the world with infallible faith in humanity. My favorite moments were Buddha reading Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha, Jesus parting the swimming pool (a micro version of the red sea), Jesus reading mixi, and all of that sort. It’s a hilarious comedy between the two deities and it’s a total genius that she portrayed them without diluting the fact that they’re dieties. She starts her chapters reminding us of their holiness. And towards the end of the chapter, you see them in a new entire light.

There’s a scene that I really really love wherein Jesus and Buddha decides to go to an amusement park. Jesus notices that there’s a sign on the admission counter saying “People who are older than 80 years old can get a discount.” Jesus notices this and asks Buddha “So, should we avail of the discount?”

It’s a very humorous take on a “What If.” The more that I read, the more that I think that Jesus and Buddha is a manzai combi. They’re not here as idiots, but rather Gods who are experiencing the life that we live. They’re hilarious together and their learnings of the modern world is amusing. It’s very entertaining and between Lenten readings, the Da Vinci Code, and this, I’d rather enjoy the rest of Lent looking how Jesus is having a field day with Buddha. JESUS AND BUDDHA ROCKS!

Much love to Chika for lending your copy of this manga to me. <3

*fangirls* Okay. I have to breathe here for a second. In between waiting for Gundam 00 fansites to load, I was reading Frederick Schodt’s interview in Newsarama. There is this line in this interview that just totally blew me away (among others Tezuka related).

I think it is one of the best manga of recent years, and I can’t wait to see it made into a feature film.

O_O Did I read that right? Did Schodt say he’s looking forward to see it made into a feature film? Uhmm… does this mean a feature film for Pluto is in the works? *w* I maybe reading into it much, but knowing the realism of the story, the depth of the drama, the popularity of the manga, and Schodt’s insider knowledge with regards to anything Tezuka… THIS COULD BE POSSIBLE!! *_* Just imagine how visually stunning and gripping this movie would be!!

I really think I may be speculating much but I think he wouldn’t mention it if the idea has not been proposed, right? I mean… I wouldn’t talk about Otaku Champloo being published into a book if I knew that it was close to impossible from happening. But if I knew it was possible and is closer to being real… then I could slip up and say off the hat “I’m looking forward to seeing my book on the shelves soon” As if that could actually happen, but a Pluto movie could just be ‘possible’!

Gah! My fangirling Urasawa and Tezuka heart has just passed panic mode. I mean, if this ‘slip-up’ it’s true, then the next few years of Anime would be very interesting indeed. :3 Don’t you think?