Last week’s highlight for me, other than receiving some great mangas from a friend (and my Touch OST! ;w;) is looking at the line up of Jump Square. To be honest, as much as I owe a lot of my fandom to Shounen Jump, recently, the titles in the magazine has gone quite stale. Maybe I just grew up. Young Jump is fine, but can be a little brutal on my end. Could Jump Square be just the right amount of adventure, humor, and maturity that I’m looking for?
The manga has quite a lot of things to look forward to. First would be 3nen Zgumi Ginpachi-sensei! After giving my heart and spleen to Gintama (and I think half my brain), this crazy spinoff of the series is definitely something to look forward to! 3nen Zgumi Ginpachi-sensei takes the characters of Gintama and puts them in a classroom setting. Gintoki is now Ginpachi-sensei and he usually leads the class in insane homeroom activities. It has been published as a novel, but I’m not so sure if this means that the novel will extend into a manga series now in jump square or it probably means that it will have some stories written like short novelettes for the series. I’m betting on the latter one since Sorachi is a lazy monkey. XDD So yeah, this is one reason to read Jump Square.
Next would be Gag Manga Biyori. Another genius of a manga short is making a comeback. The humor and crazy puns in this series is gold. Again, it’s old man’s humor and may involve some cultural studies, but its a great way in looking to what a gag manga is like in Japan. <3
The other mangas are still rather questionable as I really haven’t read them before (but they do look nice). Nobuhiro Watsuki will have his story, Another Tale of Frankenstein, continued here. I wonder if it will rise to Rurouni Kenshin. Takeshi Obata will be drawing again, but this time with Masanori Morita. I don’t know if this will be good or what but if a mangaka works with another mangaka (and without corporate intervention!) maybe… just maybe… Obata will definitely bring to life his New Hope award from the Tezukas. A new popular anime, Claymore, will also be in this magazine and might be the magazine’s carrying story. Yoko Kamio of Hana Yori Dango fame will be writing for the magazine as well. There is a ‘Tales of’ story released in the magazine too… so… it could be fun. Could be.
In short, Jump Square is trying to show that Shueisha’s line of shounen mangas is more than just Shounen Jump. The inclusion of Yoko Kamio might be there to even appeal to some mature female readers out there, perhaps in the same way that Yoshinaga Fumi writes for Morning. Could this be Shueisha’s answer to the popular Morning or Afternoon? Well, we’ll see on November 2 if they match up.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Oh dear. Just when everyone of my friends is home from Japan, they show something quite important like this. -_-;; I have to thank Comipress for this. Apparently, FujiTV is releasing a drama special of Barefoot Gen on the telly from August 10 to 11 to commemorate Hiroshima bombing. I wish someone in the drama community rips this and uploads it… If not, then I suggest everyone should have a chance to actually read the manga and reflect on it. And kids should not complain that they can’t read it! My university has a copy of Barefoot Gen, both in English and Tagalog for everyone to read! I’m pretty sure other universities with libraries would have this manga as well. Maybe. Nonetheless, to those people who have access to it, either by their libraries (because I’m sure it’s no longer for sale here! It’s quite vintage!) or if you’re rich enough, via buying it online, then do so. It is a must read for any manga fan not because it is an old classic manga, but because it is a manga that will open your eyes to what history really is.
In war, history is often told by the victor. This is the easiest way to teach history to students. The side of the loser never has the chance to really get themselves heard except for their own country. The reason why I think Barefoot Gen is so important is it presents to us an alternate perspective of the Pacific World War. It makes history not just HIS story, but OUR story.
World War II is such a painful memory for the Filipinos. I have met and read old folks who have nothing but anger for the Japanese due to the war. But we really can’t blame them. The war experience was truly painful and you can’t take that away from them. However, the beauty of having access to works such as Barefoot Gen is that it allows you to understand that even on the side of the Japanese, the war was just as painful. It wasn’t just the bombing that hurt them. Even before the bombing, life was hard for them. Women working hours to buy grub for families. Fathers and sons sent away to suicide missions. War casualties is never on the side of the victim alone, but also on the aggravator as well. Barefoot Gen gives us this glimpse that is understandable for anybody because it is in the form of a comic. In our case, it is both in English and Tagalog hence anybody can read it. Too bad that the tagalog version is quite vintage already and is not easily available. Bookstores too don’t have a copy of the English version. DRAT.
On my end, this is a manga that moved me more than Grave of the Fireflies ever did. In that film, it only shows the hardship of two children. Anybody can pity children. Pity is not the key to understanding. Barefoot Gen gives greater depth to this by introducing to us a whole town moved by a propaganda and a family trying their best to live. It shows you their world and the machinations behind the war. The pity bit happens only during the bombing. But after that, it was all about the will to live. I cried reading this manga. Four years as a History Major, reading this tale moved me in different dimensions altogether. I can go at length on its historical weight, but I think what’s important here is that through this tale, I found out that my country’s pain was not mine alone.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Lovely Complex by Aya Nakahara
Margaret Comics
Shueisha
A tall girl. A short boy. Both have a knack for words and together they make the manzai comedy pair of their school. However, our giantess, Risa Koizumi, finds herself caught in quite a pinch. After getting to know her unforeseen comedy partner, Atsushi Ootani, she eventually falls in love with him. How would she get by? How would she able to show this midget that she's more than a funny girl? Aya Nakahara shows us a how a comedy combination turns into a love combi in Lovely Complex.
Edit : It seems that Viz / Shoujo Beat picked up Lovely Complex. So some things written down there might not be applicable.
Koukou Debut by Kawahara Kazune
Published by Shueisha
Serialized in Bessatsu Comic Margaret
High school's not easy. For a girl who spent her life in junior high school as a certified jock, the mission to snag a boyfriend in high school is quite a tall task. But Haruna Nagashima is not the girl who gives up. She'll do anything and everything to make her High School debut! Even if it meant getting a snobby yet handsome high school senior as her coach.
This is a completely hilarious romance about a boy and a girl who's just starting to figure out what love is all about. Having studied all the formulas in shoujo romance, how can Haruna Nagashima's go wrong? Well, Kazune Kawahara tells you that a romantic life ain't no shoujo manga. But Kawahara also depicts a romance quite true to most girls out there. Koukou Debut serves a fresh tale on what it's like to fall in love the first time.
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