The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Manga can be a little intimidating for the newcomer. For one thing, the Japanese have a culture that had almost no contact with the West until the late 19th century, and developed along its own unique lines in ways that can look very odd to outsiders. For another, most manga’s printed right-to-left, which is an extra thing for a Western reader to get used to. But perhaps most importantly, there’s just so damned much of it, in so many different styles and genres, that figuring out how to orient yourself in mangaland can be a confusing and difficult task.

Enter Jason Thompson. For years an editor at Viz (the world’s biggest publisher of English-translated manga), in 2006 Thompson took on the massive task of creating a guide to all the manga available in English. The resulting work is 556 closely-printed pages long, with short summaries and reviews of each title, publication information, a star rating (from zero stars for I-can’t-believe-this-got-licensed to four stars for everyone-should-read-this), an index of artists, an introductory essay explaining the history and culture of manga, and a series of essays scattered through the book, like cherries in a cake, about the many and varied genres of manga. Not only will newbies to the field find themselves well-prepared to strike out without fear of getting lost, but even seasoned manga fans will be sure to find pointers to titles they’ve missed – and if you’re some sort of nuclear-powered manga-reading machine and there is genuinely not a single title in The Complete Guide that’s new to you, the book is still worth reading because it’s so damn well-written. Here’s The Complete Guide on Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha:

“…it’s hard to imagine a Christian comic about the life of Jesus featuring bloody fight scenes, anachronistic sight gags, and the occasional fart joke alongside transcendent depictions of religious enlightenment...”

…on GTO:

“The rule of the manga is that every time Onizuka does something cool and heart-warming (such as helping latchkey kids connect with their parents, or beating up child pornographers) he must immediately do something unbelievably retarded (such as teaching his class wearing an elephant suit with the trunk coming out of his crotch.”

..on Lady Snowblood:

“Kazuo Koike knows that the best way to make a history lesson is to make it incredibly filthy.”

…and on Yakitate!! Japan:

“Proving that you can make a melodramatic manga about anything, Yakitate!! Japan is the story of a teenage baker and his quest to make Japan’s national bread… When the manga begins he doesn’t even know what a croissant is, but that’s okay because he’s already invented almost all possible kinds of bread in his homemade baking experiments!”

(I should stop quoting the book now; if I don’t I’ll be here all day…) Manga: The Complete Guide is a model of how to create a definitive reference work. It’s user-friendly, highly readable, concise, and crammed full of information – but don’t take my word for it. I dropped Jason a line and asked him some questions, so here’s the skinny on the Complete Guide, straight from the horse’s mouth:

Katherine: “The Complete Guide” is a very audacious title. Exactly how comprehensive is this book?

Jason: It’s as comprehensive as I could make it. It lists over 1000 titles, all the titles that were published in English, or announced for future English publication, at the time of my deadline.

The real genesis of the project was back when I was working for Viz’s PULP magazine; I had a column called “The Manga Browser” where I reviewed and wrote about every translated manga that came out every month. I later helped start out Animerica’s manga review column. When I started working full-time on “Manga: The Complete Guide” in 2006 it was sort of a more extreme version of what I had done for PULP…

I spent months and months doing nothing but reading manga, catching up on titles that I had missed the first time around, buying un-translated tankobon to get an idea of newly licensed series, and so on. I basically envisioned it as a sort of gigantic Roger Ebert/Leonard Maltin review guide, only devoted to manga instead of movies. The old “Slings and Arrows Comics Guide” was also an influence. Then, lastly, I wrote the articles on topics like shonen, shojo, science fiction, horror, etc., in an effort to fit this mountain of manga into categories and genres so it was more comprehensible, so that people wouldn’t necessarily just open the book and find themselves lost in the manga-pile.

It was an incredible project. A lot of people helped me out. I’m working on the update to the book right now, actually! I also do manga reviews for “Otaku USA” magazine.

Katherine: What is it that drew you to manga? What do you think makes manga so appealing?

Jason: I first got into manga and anime when I was in college (this was the early 1990s), and at the time, it was really new to me to see comics and animation deal with such serious, heavy, graphic material – particularly with a relatively light, cartoony art style, not the ponderous realism that dominated superhero comics. But of course serious, heavy material is just one small aspect of manga and anime. I was a really big science fiction and horror fan at the time, but I also found myself becoming a huge fan of manga romantic comedies, such as “Here is Greenwood”, “Video Girl Ai” and Rumiko Takahashi’s work.

Apart from the actual quality of the stories and artists – some of whom have really amazing storytelling and drawing ability perfected by those insane work schedules – I think there are two main features that have made manga appealing to Americans:

(1) American comics had totally neglected the market for female readers and young readers for so long, that manga offers an alternative, and more importantly, does it really well, without a trace of the “now we will try to write comics for women and kids to Expand the Comics Market” well-meaning condescension which hung like a cloud over American efforts in the same direction.

(2) Manga has a certain unpredictability and edginess to American readers, because it’s *not* written for Americans, it’s written for Japanese audiences. American animation and comics for younger readers tend to be very obviously focus-grouped and test-marketed and whitewashed. While that sort of thing exists in Japan as well, and obviously there are some very clichéd and cheesy manga, there is still enough strange and surprising material in manga which gives it a distinct flavour, and makes it, on the whole, not quite as dumbed-down as American children’s entertainment.

Katherine: “Strange and surprising” is right – I think the quotes above prove that manga can sometimes be downright demented, and all the better for it! Are there any titles you’d recommend to someone new to manga who’s ignorant but curious?

Jason: Hmm… well, first I’d try to eye them up and find out what kind of comics (or stories) they like already, since there is so much diversity among manga, and so many different target age groups, I’d hesitate to recommend “Hellsing” to the same person for whom I’d recommend “Sugar Sugar Rune.” But here’s some all-around good titles – “One Piece,” “Shaman King,” “Ranma 1/2″, “Cardcaptor Sakura,” “Antique Bakery,” “Lone Wolf and Cub,” “Maison Ikkoku,” “Paradise Kiss,” “Death Note,” “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind,” “Berserk”, “Phoenix,” “Sand Chronicles,” “Eyeshield 21,” “Cromartie High School.”

Katherine: I can second those recommendations – Nausicaa, in particular, is pretty damned mindblowing, and Death Note is hugely popular for a reason. You’re a comics creator yourself – can you tell us about some of your own projects.

Jason: I’ve been drawing comics on and off since 1997; my first big project was a comic adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s fantasy novel “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.” My biggest project since then is “The Stiff,” a graphic novel serialized at girlamatic.com. It’s a romance/psychological/underground horror story set in high school. It’s up to 250 pages out of a projected 1000 pages, but I had to put “The Stiff” on hold for a long time while I was working on “Manga: The Complete Guide”. However, I hope to get back to regular updates this summer. I’m also working on a couple of other comics which are written by me and drawn by other artists – I want to use my drawing energies on “The Stiff” and other really personal projects, so since I can’t draw everything at once, I’m teaming up with some good people.

Katherine: What manga are you most looking forward to seeing translated in 2008?

Jason: I’m probably most looking forward to Hideo Azuma’s “Disappearance Diary“, the autobiographical story of a former big-shot manga artist who drifts into alcoholism and homelessness. In the spirit of shameless violence, though, I’m also looking forward to Rei Hiroe’s “Black Lagoon” and Hiroya Oku’s “Gantz“. In terms of classic manga from the olden days, I’m looking forward to Vertical’s re-release of Osamu Tezuka’s “Black Jack,” and I guess I’ll see whether Seisaku Kano and Kazuo Koike’s “Color of Rage” is any good. Those, plus more cooking manga.

Katherine: There’s no such thing as too much cooking manga. So, to a slightly controversial issue: The Complete Guide only includes works by Japanese creators. What do you think of the phenomenon of original English language manga or “global manga”?

Jason: I’m all in favour of it, although as someone who reads a lot of indy-comics, underground comics, and (British-written) superhero comics, I don’t think people should feel the need to use the term “manga” when describing their work. It’s all comics to me, some are just more Japanese-influenced than others, and I’m a little sceptical of non-Japanese people coming out with books with titles like “Manga Claus” or “The Manga Bible” because the word “manga” is currently cooler than the word “comics.”

It’s awesome that there’s more young people who read comics (or manga, or whatever you call it), and more paying opportunities for them to draw comics, but I think the best comics (or manga) are those which don’t slavishly imitate any particular style or fit into any particular category… artists with hybrid styles like Bryan Lee O’Malley and Felipe Smith, for instance, although I also like Svetlana Chmakova, and her work has a pretty pure-manga look.

For “Manga: The Complete Guide” I had to use the strictest definition of manga as “comics by Japanese creators, usually for a Japanese audience” because otherwise the book would have been just too big. I also didn’t want to have to apply some cruel and arbitrary definition, saying “Svetlana Chmakova, you are manga, and Ben Dunn, you are not,” or whatever. Basically, I chose to discuss Japanese comics within the context of Japanese culture. Of course, manga culture has expanded far beyond Japan, and is probably the dominant form of global comics culture… but that’s a whole different book, and right now, I’m just keeping tabs on the Japanese side while also watching all the weird and exciting mutations that are coming out in other parts of the globe.

Katherine: Jason Thompson, ladies and gentlemen: manga expert, comics creator, and all-round class act.

Katherine Farmar writes regularly on comics and culture, you can read more on her comics blog Whereof One Can Speak