Blade of the Immortal by Hiroaki Samura

            As silly as it sounds, I originally became interested in Blade of the Immortal due to it being mentioned in passing during a video in my Japanese Prints class this semester; it was discussing the level of influence manga has on Japan’s pop culture, and used Blade of the Immortal as one of its examples (in this instance, they were using one of the characters – I believe Manji – in order to advertise hair care products, of all things).  Blade of the Immortal is, as far as I can tell, a seinen manga, aimed at an older male audience, unlike shonen, which is typically aimed at preteens/younger teen boys and makes up a good portion of the manga I grew up reading.  Although I’ve also read a number of seinen series in recent years, Blade of the Immortal still possesses a few surprising qualities I’ve not yet seen in the genre, nor in the rest of manga itself.

            One of the most striking things about this particular manga is its stylization.  There is a specific feel many manga series take on (i.e. large eyes, impossible hairstyles colors, etc.) that Blade has managed to avoid in its entirety, and does so through spectacular artwork.  Samura’s realistic rendering of the characters and environment make the series easy on the eyes, despite sometimes reading through pages and pages of gore and flying limbs.  Not quite as heavily inked as titles like Berserk or Hellsing, Samura’s line work is highly refined and deliberate, and definitely worth studying for those interested in good, rendered line work; then again, the manga-ka often eschews inking entirely, opting to draw panels out purely in pencil with often pleasing results (especially some of the mandala-esque splash pages).  My only complaints about the latter technique is that sometimes the values aren’t quite as pronounced as I’d like, which can make details tough to make out (or sometimes they may be sketchier looking than I usually prefer), or having one inked panel in the middle of a bunch of penciled panels can look odd - but they’re minor complaints.

            The characters, too, are a little unusual, not quite fitting into the typical roles I’ve grown used to reading samurai manga.  For instance, in Rurouni Kenshin, one of the primary female protagonists owns a dojo she took over from her father, and has trained in swordsmanship all her life (albeit “nonlethal” swordsmanship); however, as soon as the male protagonist, the eponymous Kenshin, arrives, what unseen abilities she may have had as a swordswoman become moot, instead delegating her to the role of damsel in distress, awestruck by the male protagonist’s abilities.  This isn’t quite the case with Blade of the Immortal’s female protagonist, Rin; while she loses her family, and consequently her father’s dojo, with only two years of training following their deaths, she manages to wound several of the antagonists, despite the odds (and one of them an immortal like Manji).  While she doesn’t defeat their enemeis outright, and will occasionally get kidnapped due to her own naivety (being 16), Rin still manages to avoid becoming just a device to show off how much more powerful characters like members of the Itto-ryu and Manji are than the “average joe.”

Manji, too, is a unique protagonist for several reasons: even with his ability to survive any wound, or his known ability as a swordsman, he still has difficulty in battle and would have died several times over if he didn’t have his healing abilities, which makes me question exactly how good Manji really is.  Or if it’s meant to show exactly how powerful his opponents are, I find it far subtler than the approach most manga take, which typically means forcing another character to make outside commentary about the combatants.

Blade of the Immortal is not quite the series I expected, wonderfully so; although I’ve only read a little past the first published volume by Dark Horse, I’d love to sit down and read it online some time.  The content, although gruesome, somehow doesn’t seem as unsettling as it should thanks to Samura’s artwork, and I’d love to see where he takes the story.

Now now, boys, symmetrical violence never solved anything.

Black Jack by Osamu Tezuka

            Despite the immense popularity of anime and manga as a creative medium in the U.S., it seems like a lot of the younger fans ignore some of the earlier classics: in this case, the works of Osamu Tezuka, the proclaimed “God of Manga.”  Having created over 150, 000 pages of work during the span of his life, Tezuka was essentially the driving force behind the aesthetic appeal most manga and anime have today.  Although he is best known for his artistic work, Tezuka actually held a medical doctorate, which he put to great use when writing the series, Black Jack.

            Black Jack caught my attention several years ago when I saw a commercial for one of its more recent anime adaptations, but I never actually had a look at the series until recently.  I had some difficulty starting the series, too used to most manga being more episodic in its story telling versus the short story format used in Black Jack; the titular doctor is, for the most part, the only recurring character in the series until Pinoko is introduced (a slightly psychic, parasitic twin extracted from a patient and then given a false body by Black Jack), with no other characters really making secondary appearances.  Aside from the short-story format of Black Jack, I was also slightly shocked at Tezuka’s habit of recycling character designs from story to story: you might see Astro Boy or Princess Sapphire from Princess Knight running around in Black Jack’s modern-day setting, acting as completely different characters with completely different names.   According to The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga by Helen McCarthy, Tezuka utilized what he called the “Star System,” treating his characters like a director would with film actors, casting them in different roles from story to story.  This is probably one of the most interesting things I found about Tezuka’s approach to story telling, as I’ve never seen it so intentionally employed in any other comic or manga; some comics may suffer from similar character designs due to the artist’s preferences (for instance, although I enjoy Rumiko Takahashi’s work, the most recurrent critique I’ve seen of her artwork is that a lot of the characters look the same).

            Aesthetically speaking, I found Tezuka’s style interesting due to the sheer

variety found in his work, specifically in regards to characters.  You’ll have almost realistically proportioned characters like Black Jack alongside more comically disproportioned, and even exaggerated characters interacting in the same story, which ensures it never gets visually uninteresting.  I enjoy the fact that he has no problem with exaggerating character proportions for emotional responses either, particularly when it comes to humor (seeing more serious characters like Black Jack given this treatment makes it all the funnier, such as below).

I'm never quite sure whether to think Pinoko calling herself Black Jack's wife is cute or disturbing.

Nikopol Trilogy by Enki Bilal

            Enki Bilal’s Nikopol Trilogy is a series you definitely have to be in the right mindset to enjoy; I’ve picked it up numerous times over the years, but never got very far for one reason or another until now (sometimes it was the content, others it was due to lack of sufficient time).  As the word “trilogy” would imply, the Nikopol Trilogy is divided into three parts, all eventually twining around the twists and turns in the life of Alcide Nikopol, a man out of time due to being cryogenically frozen for several decades as punishment for avoiding the draft.  Thanks to the power of some [ancient Egyptian] divine intervention, Nikopol eventually finds himself usurping the head of the Fascist government of Paris.  Things only get more complicated from there.

Bilal creates his dystopian world through gorgeous art and an interesting [albeit sometimes confusing] story, but meanwhile I found most of his characters relatively unlikeable, Jill in particular; her need to continuously run away from her problems - often of her own creation (namely the slew of murders of men she’s slept with) – made it hard to sympathize with her and the different problems that befall her in the two stories she’s involved in.  Even Nikopol, one of the more relatable characters, starts taking a darker turn as events unfold and the story starts winding down.  Characters like Horus, as well as the other Egyptian gods, might be excused if only because their thought process and code of conduct may be a little different from the humans they rule over (and even so, I feel that’s grasping at straws).  Bilal’s choice to leave some questions unanswered did nothing to resolve some of the issues the characters were dealing with, which was frustrating to me as a reader.

Something that may shock readers unfamiliar with European comics is the lack of censorship when it comes to nudity, which is refreshing in comparison to their American counterparts.  A body is a body.  “Does the story call for it being naked?  Fine, it’s naked.  No big deal.”  The fact that the writer/artist believes the reader mature enough to get over the fact a character is naked, as well as not feel the need to sexualize it, is something I wish would carry over into American comics more.

American Born Chinese by Gene Yang

            Avoiding stereotypes and offensive racial depictions has been a bumpy road for anyone in the visual arts, and looking at older work its even tougher to avoid as tolerance and acceptance levels changed over the ages.  American Born Chinese is an interesting examination of the “coolie” stereotype unfortunately spawned in the U.S. during the 19^th century, as well as the kinds of issues one might face being a minority (the focus in this instance is on ethnicity, but definitely applicable to any minority role).

            The format itself is interesting in that the graphic novel is told in three parts, each seemingly standing on their own with little relation to one another; however, as the work goes on, they suddenly begin intertwining more, until the climax when each individual story suddenly smashes into one another (quite brilliantly).  While at first I disliked the almost non-sequitur feel, jumping from one story to another, as the three stories started correlating more I actually started to enjoy the story-hopping.  Those who prefer a lengthier story format might find it a little jarring, but it’s fairly easy to get used to.

            Yang’s examination of the coolie stereotype, alongside a second-generation immigrant in a modern setting, makes for an interesting juxtaposition as the latter is forced to deal with the antics of the other.  Jin/Danny’s eventual acceptance of his heritage, and consequentially how he manages to change his personal views of his self-image, brought a bit of a tear to my eye due to the struggles I’ve seen friends deal with when it comes to self acceptance; instead of ethnicity, though, it’s been about sexuality, and attempting to reconcile their personal preferences with themselves as well as deal with potential backlash of being open with their preferences to their parents and family.

            On a minor note, around 2008 or 2009, when my mother and I were visiting with her best friend and her family, we accompanied them on a shopping trip for her son, who was entering high school.  Among the books required for one of his courses (I forget the specific course) was American Born Chinese.  I find it interesting that a few schools have the graphic novel a part of their reading curriculum, and am curious as to what sort of things they may have discussed after reading it.

Err, it's a little bit of a spoiler.  Any way, I would have liked to see the consequences Wei-Chen would have to face for his actions, since the ending felt a tad abrupt, but it was definitely a heart-warmer.