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rainsometimesHere we go with H! Art school students, ghostly go players, and a samurai with a social phobia - great letter! Do you have any more recs beginning with an H?
At first I intended to include Yoshiharu Tsune's L'homme sans talents (French translation) here, but on second thought I'll abstain from that. I really like Tsune's quiet, poetic storytelling, and the art wroks well for me too. But it's all so unrelentingly bleak I don't think I can recommend it as a manga I enjoyed.
Hikaru no Go by Yumi Hotta (script) and Takeshi Obata (art)
The ghost of a ancient go master gets into the head of a modern Japanese boy, wanting nothing more than the opportunity to play more go, and in the process incites the boy's interest in the game and becomes a mentor and a friend to him. Soon the boy, no longer aimless, is all about learning go, getting to know other go players, and trying hard to catch up with the wunderkind player who's his Important Shonen Rival.
Now, I must confess that despite the author being quite thorough in her explanations of the game, I still don't understand much of how go itself works. (I'm also no good at chess.) But that's okay - there's always enough extra information to understand what's happening in the story. And for all the tension and drama, it feels above all like an almost ridiculously nice comic. Everyone is so sympathetic! Even Obata's art, which I felt was rather cold and polished in Death Note, has a different and warmer feel here as it presents the likable characters.
[Expectations spoiler, but without details]Many readers were less than pleased with something big that happens about two-thirds into the series, and I'm afraid I'm one of them. I think it was executed well, but I liked the dynamics of the series better before that event, and would have preferred for it to take place later.[/spoiler]
Honey and Clover by Chica Umino
A josei manga that I kept thinking for the longest time was seinen (and then after I learned better I kept thinking the mangaka was male, but she's not) centred on a small group of college students in an art school. The very cute and fluffy art style seems made for heartwarming moments, and those are certainly there - but also a lot of surprisingly grim stuff, especially when it comes to things like gried and unrequited love. It can get downright wrenching at times. But it's consistently thoughtful and generally hopeful.
I did have some major objections to the way one specific romantic plotline was resolved [vague spoiler]namely, who Hagu ended up with[/spoiler], which made me uncomfortable. Not enough so to spoil the whole series for me - particularly as I had no problem with the way the other characters' arcs were resolved - but still, I'd rec and re-read the manga more if that part of the story had ended in another way.
House of Five Leaves by Natsume Ono
I just adore this understated but quietly wonderful period manga, set in Edo-era Japan. A timid and unassuming ronin named Akitsu Masanosuke tries to make ends meet in the capital, where he meets the mysterious Yaichi. He soon falls in with a small gang of rather discreet criminals led by the latter, after Yaichi notices that Masa (the nickname he gets) is actually quite good with the blade, just cripplingly shy. Masa, for his part, is intrigued by Yaichi's air of complete self-confidence and wants to hang around him and the other "Leaves" in the gang to learn how to be a stronger person. But Yaichi is a man with a dark past, and eventually it starts to close in on him...
This is an 8-volume series, of which 7 are out as I write this. It's generally slow-paced, and sometimes Ono's art style (which I think is otherwise quite terrific in this work, but not everyone agrees) can make it a little hard to keep track of everyone in their period dresses and hairstyles. But there is a lot of character development alll the same, and a tension that builds slowly while we learn more about people's pasts until all the strands seem to come together in the present. I find it hard to second-guess the plot, and at this point I'm pretty much at tenterhooks. It remains to be seen how it will all turn out, but for now I very much recommend the series.
**********************************************
Creators
Moto Hagio
Yumi Hotta (Hikaru no Go)
Favourite characters
"Hachi" a.k.a Nana Komatsu (Nana)
Minamoto no Hiromasa (Onmyoji)
(Note I'm only putting characters from a manga here, not anime-only ones - otherwise the lady in my icon would most certainly be listed.)
**************************************
Anime corner
Haibane Renmei - This was actually the first series I bought and saw in its entirety after seeing lots of recs on the internet. I loved it, and in fact it's still my number one favourite of finished anime, if I can only pick one. The pace is slow at the start, as the protagonist wakes up, with no memories of her earlier existence, and bit by bit learns more about her new surroundings and her new friends. With episode six things start to get serious, and soon we're in dark psychological issues - but there is growth, and hope, and if the rules they live under can be harsh they are also friends who try hard to look after each other. Magnificent.
Howl's Moving Castle - Miyazaki veers wildly off the original book by Diana Wynne Jones in this adaptation, and I know many are unhappy with that. I think the book is clearly better - Miyazaki's anti-war message is pretty heavy-handed, though there is some beautiful imagery and touching scenes even so - but I still very much enjoyed the movie and didn't mind that it was so different from the book. It's visually gorgeous and full of inventiveness; I like Sophie a lot; the change to the Witch of the Waste's character is interesting; and Calcifer is brilliantly portrayed. Though it does get a bit melodramatic at time and there's a weird deus ex machina at the ending, all in all I found it an enchanting movie. Not among my absolute Ghibli favourites, but an average Ghibli movie is a pretty darn good animated movie for me.
At first I intended to include Yoshiharu Tsune's L'homme sans talents (French translation) here, but on second thought I'll abstain from that. I really like Tsune's quiet, poetic storytelling, and the art wroks well for me too. But it's all so unrelentingly bleak I don't think I can recommend it as a manga I enjoyed.
Hikaru no Go by Yumi Hotta (script) and Takeshi Obata (art)
The ghost of a ancient go master gets into the head of a modern Japanese boy, wanting nothing more than the opportunity to play more go, and in the process incites the boy's interest in the game and becomes a mentor and a friend to him. Soon the boy, no longer aimless, is all about learning go, getting to know other go players, and trying hard to catch up with the wunderkind player who's his Important Shonen Rival.
Now, I must confess that despite the author being quite thorough in her explanations of the game, I still don't understand much of how go itself works. (I'm also no good at chess.) But that's okay - there's always enough extra information to understand what's happening in the story. And for all the tension and drama, it feels above all like an almost ridiculously nice comic. Everyone is so sympathetic! Even Obata's art, which I felt was rather cold and polished in Death Note, has a different and warmer feel here as it presents the likable characters.
[Expectations spoiler, but without details]Many readers were less than pleased with something big that happens about two-thirds into the series, and I'm afraid I'm one of them. I think it was executed well, but I liked the dynamics of the series better before that event, and would have preferred for it to take place later.[/spoiler]
Honey and Clover by Chica Umino
A josei manga that I kept thinking for the longest time was seinen (and then after I learned better I kept thinking the mangaka was male, but she's not) centred on a small group of college students in an art school. The very cute and fluffy art style seems made for heartwarming moments, and those are certainly there - but also a lot of surprisingly grim stuff, especially when it comes to things like gried and unrequited love. It can get downright wrenching at times. But it's consistently thoughtful and generally hopeful.
I did have some major objections to the way one specific romantic plotline was resolved [vague spoiler]namely, who Hagu ended up with[/spoiler], which made me uncomfortable. Not enough so to spoil the whole series for me - particularly as I had no problem with the way the other characters' arcs were resolved - but still, I'd rec and re-read the manga more if that part of the story had ended in another way.
House of Five Leaves by Natsume Ono
I just adore this understated but quietly wonderful period manga, set in Edo-era Japan. A timid and unassuming ronin named Akitsu Masanosuke tries to make ends meet in the capital, where he meets the mysterious Yaichi. He soon falls in with a small gang of rather discreet criminals led by the latter, after Yaichi notices that Masa (the nickname he gets) is actually quite good with the blade, just cripplingly shy. Masa, for his part, is intrigued by Yaichi's air of complete self-confidence and wants to hang around him and the other "Leaves" in the gang to learn how to be a stronger person. But Yaichi is a man with a dark past, and eventually it starts to close in on him...
This is an 8-volume series, of which 7 are out as I write this. It's generally slow-paced, and sometimes Ono's art style (which I think is otherwise quite terrific in this work, but not everyone agrees) can make it a little hard to keep track of everyone in their period dresses and hairstyles. But there is a lot of character development alll the same, and a tension that builds slowly while we learn more about people's pasts until all the strands seem to come together in the present. I find it hard to second-guess the plot, and at this point I'm pretty much at tenterhooks. It remains to be seen how it will all turn out, but for now I very much recommend the series.
**********************************************
Creators
Moto Hagio
Yumi Hotta (Hikaru no Go)
Favourite characters
"Hachi" a.k.a Nana Komatsu (Nana)
Minamoto no Hiromasa (Onmyoji)
(Note I'm only putting characters from a manga here, not anime-only ones - otherwise the lady in my icon would most certainly be listed.)
**************************************
Anime corner
Haibane Renmei - This was actually the first series I bought and saw in its entirety after seeing lots of recs on the internet. I loved it, and in fact it's still my number one favourite of finished anime, if I can only pick one. The pace is slow at the start, as the protagonist wakes up, with no memories of her earlier existence, and bit by bit learns more about her new surroundings and her new friends. With episode six things start to get serious, and soon we're in dark psychological issues - but there is growth, and hope, and if the rules they live under can be harsh they are also friends who try hard to look after each other. Magnificent.
Howl's Moving Castle - Miyazaki veers wildly off the original book by Diana Wynne Jones in this adaptation, and I know many are unhappy with that. I think the book is clearly better - Miyazaki's anti-war message is pretty heavy-handed, though there is some beautiful imagery and touching scenes even so - but I still very much enjoyed the movie and didn't mind that it was so different from the book. It's visually gorgeous and full of inventiveness; I like Sophie a lot; the change to the Witch of the Waste's character is interesting; and Calcifer is brilliantly portrayed. Though it does get a bit melodramatic at time and there's a weird deus ex machina at the ending, all in all I found it an enchanting movie. Not among my absolute Ghibli favourites, but an average Ghibli movie is a pretty darn good animated movie for me.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-20 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-20 07:24 pm (UTC)