Manga's Bad, Mmmkay?

Walking into Kinokuniya is dangerous. The initial plan was to pick up Imagine FX June (a pretty good digital painting magazine by Future Publishing). Turns out, Imagine FX July is in. Pick up. Head to my favourite manga section to see if there are any interesting series out.

Oh no, there are.

The english translation of KamiKaze by Shiki Satoshi caught my eye. After ages of collecting the comic in chinese, I can finally understand the story, not just oogle the awesome pictures. The art of this manga is awesome. It's pretty gruesome, limbs flying everywhere sort of thing, yet it's all tastefully done. Being a Shounen manga, there are, of course, a fair number of panty shots, naked high school girls and explosions every which way. Still, the toning, line art, and character design is just delightful to behold. And what impresses me most is the dynamic presentation of the action in the panels and the way water is illustrated here. I used to go to this manga for water references. A good buy. I sigh and pick it up.

I look down. Yami No Matsuei. Oh my god! My favourite shoujo manga of all time! Muraki is such a sadistic sexy bitch, one of the best villians presented in a long time, not since Shisho of Rurouni Kenshin fame! The psyche of the characters are compellingly revealed, along with all their fears, vulnerabilities and anxieties. I hover over the book, wondering if I should buy it... The art isn't all that fantastic, typically Shoujo - thin uniform lines, tones used more for ambience and textures then shadows, pretty boys flying every which way. The characters though, are like old old friends. Oh what the hell, I'll be poor next week anyway. Pick it up.

Now I have to start collecting Vagabond again - a great rendition of Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi, with spectacular art. I sometimes curse this throw-away mentality Japanese manga seems to have. I have a whole series of the Flame of Recca in chinese (ah, the days before Kinokuniya graced us with Tokyo Pop, Viz and et cetera) and I've no idea what to do with them. Japanese manga isn't particularly collectible, however compelling or well-drawn it may be. The speed at which manga is produced has proliferated the artform to the point where most of the books have no real value except to the most hard-core of Otaku.

Unlike American comics, where each page takes one to two days to produce, mangakas and their assorted minions produce four pages a day. That's insane. Of course it's a group effort, but you have to admire the guys for conceptualizing, designing, directing and drawing page after page at such speed - only to have their books thrown away or sold for second hand at dirt cheap prices.

Be that as it may, my manga purchases set me back almost forty dollars. Cursed import price jack ups. Manga's bad, mmmkay? But it's perfectly mmmkay to indulge in it once in a while.