Welcome back to WWACommendations! Did you miss us? I always miss us. Never fear — we’re here with hot, fresh recommendations, a hilarious number of which come indirectly from WWAC Manga Editor Masha Zhdanova. It’s probably no surprise that we frequently swap recommendations, but I love seeing evidence of that behind-the-scenes chit chat. It gives me warm, fuzzy friendship feelings.
We’re serving up a fun variety this month! Carrie and I both talk about some queer romance, Emily wants you to think about Artificial Intelligence, Masha’s got a rec that will help you get back to your mean girl roots, and more more more!
Alenka Figa: I just got volume three of Mone Sorai’s Our-Not-So-Lonely Planet Travel Guide, and I think this is the first time I’ve bought a new volume of a manga immediately upon release? This series is very emotional and sweet! Asahi and Mitsuki have made a promise to each other: they’re traveling around the world together, and if they’re still together at the end of the trip they’ll get married! This promise feels happy but is actually fraught with emotions; Asahi isn’t fully out yet, and there are a lot of barriers they have to face as a gay couple.
In volume three, they visit an old friend of Mitsuki’s in London. Kaoru doesn’t initially know that they’re together, but the visit becomes a super sweet coming out as well as an opportunity to bond with Kaoru’s roommate Paul, who is also gay. We also get some long-teased (well… two volumes worth of teasing) flashbacks to Asahi and Mitsuki’s first meeting in high school, and how they found each other again as adults. Then it’s off to Barcelona for food and beautiful architecture, and finally on to Morocco for CATS, camel rides and a secretly romantic moment under the desert stars.
This story is grappling with a lot, especially in volume three when Asahi and Mituski face the fact that same-sex relationships are illegal in Morocco. However, this series isn’t just emotions and true queer love – it’s also food, food, FOOD!! Both the artist and writer, Mone Sorai lovingly illustrates their meals, and readers get to drool over luxurious afternoon tea, chicken tagine, and so many mouth-watering tapas. There are some deliciously illustrated vistas too; in this volume I was completely blown away by Sorai’s detailed illustrations of Gaudi’s architecture. This series is a tasty visual treat.
Emily Lauer: This past month I was thrilled to pick up the Robo Sapiens: Tales of Tomorrow omnibus on the recommendation of Masha Zhdanova. Robo Sapiens: Tales of Tomorrow is a collection of robot stories from the far future that intersect in interesting and unexpected ways. The art reminded me of stylized pop art, each page fun to look at on its own. And while the stories go quickly, they have really thoughtful pacing and interlocking storylines that built to a whole greater than the sum of its parts. This book has influenced the way I think about the future of sentient life on earth.
Carrie McClain: In my latest haul from my library was Molly Ostertag’s graphic novel, The Girl From The Sea. This graphic novel proved to be very queer; a narrative of first loves, friendship, and secrets which gelled around the shape-shifting selkie piece of folklore. Morgan Kwon is a teenager with a big secret that she feels will make her an outsider. She’s also dealing with a family situation that has left her family feeling less whole. The narrative here leans towards being a teenager and feeling lost in the world but with a twist — Morgan is saved by a selkie who rescues her one stormy night, and her allows the selkie to transform and walk on land.
I loved Ostertag’s visual interpretation of the selkie skin used as clothing between the girls. I loved the complicated messiness of Morgan’s teenage angst along with Keltie the selkie’s adorable fascination with everything human. The Girl From The Sea is a beautiful story about a gay teen failing and trying to be her most authentic self while feeling like a shapeshifter against a backdrop of the ocean, magic, and the obligations we have to each other.
Morgan isn’t a perfect protagonist, a perfect friend, or daughter — yet I still was emotionally invested in seeing her be loved and supported and figuring out that not all secrets should be kept. I came for a cute graphic novel centering on girls and I stayed for the marvelous tale of self acceptance and how the connections we make in the world don’t always fit into the plans we make but turn out to be ones we cherish, always.
Paige Lyman: I recently got completely caught up on the Nightwing comic series that Tom Taylor is writing! I’m fairly new to DC Comics and I read Nightwing on the recommendation of a friend and I really enjoyed it. There’s a lot in the overarching stories that kept me interested throughout but I’m a sucker for great character interactions and the interactions between Dick, Barbara, and Tim were definitely my favorite parts of the series so far.
Masha Zhdanova: I am so obsessed with the Webtoon Pyramid Game right now it is unreal. I made a Youtube video about it. I drew fanart for it. It’s SO GOOD and NO ONE UNDERSTANDS.
Pyramid Game, by Dalgonyak, is a comic about gaslighting, gatekeeping, and girlbossing all at once. Suji is the new kid at an elite private school and it turns out her new class has a complicated hierarchical system of bullying, created by the richest and most powerful teenage girl in Korea specifically to get back at the nicest girl in the world who slighted her in some way the readers haven’t learned yet. It’s SO MUCH. It’s got some very messy homoerotic subtext (and text!) It’s got the most toxic friendships I’ve ever seen in a Webtoon. It’s got really appealing character designs and a fun and interesting protagonist who takes no bullshit from anyone ever and is going to beat the billionaire at her own game. Eventually. I believe in her!
I like Pyramid Game because I love this kind of mean girl drama; it’s got all the fun parts of a political intrigue story with none of the confusing world building to go with it. The bullying the girls take part in is creative, high-energy and visceral, but what really makes this comic so hard to put down is how keenly observed every character is, how real and complex and distinct they all feel, even the minor players in this game that act more like pawns for the leads to take turns pushing around. … Maybe I will write a full review about this comic someday.
Suji Seong could beat L in Death Note but Light Yagami could not survive a day in “The Happy Class” of Love High.
have you read the webtoon pyramid game yet? if you are a fan of gaslighting gatekeeping and girlbossing. consider reading pyramid game pic.twitter.com/3dSKQ91a5O
— Masha @ ??? (@mashazart) September 7, 2022
Paulina Przystupa: Thanks to Masha I got Shonen Jump + and, as I waved goodbye to my productivity, I proceeded to put a bunch of manga on my to-read list. From that, I started with the new ongoing series Akane-banashi, from writer Yuki Suenaga and artist Takamasa Moue. What drew me to it was that, like Descending Stories, the series explores rakugo, a comedic live storytelling format performed in Japan. In contrast though, Akane-banashi is contemporary, exploring modern rakugo. So far it’s a fun foil to Descending Stories, which I’m still reading, because the main character is a 17 year old girl who during the period of Descending Stories couldn’t perform. It’s also really cool to read these two alongside each other because the visual storytelling for each is very different. Akane-banashi layers the modern tellers under visuals of the stories they tell, while Descending Stories only focuses on the tellers. I’m intrigued to see where it goes, and for those with SJ+ subscriptions it’s definitely worth trying if competitive storytelling with an avenging subplot seems fun.
Kayleigh Hearn: As the October nights grow longer and colder, my taste in reading grows warmer and cozier. So, lately, I’ve been curled up with volumes of Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku, now available in deluxe editions through Viz Media. Maison Ikkoku is a domestic soap opera about the titular run-down boarding house and its residents, particularly the hapless college student Godai and the building’s young, widowed manager Kyoko.
The manga stands out among Takahashi’s works as a human-driven story that passes in real-time, without the influence of time travel, demons, mixed-martial arts, or bikini-clad aliens, which adds to the feeling that this is something truly special. I recently finished the penultimate ninth volume, where a series of comedic, escalating misunderstandings push Godai and Kyoko’s tentative romance to the breaking point. Two characters have never been as made for each other as Godai and Kyoko, but for Takahashi’s protagonists, the course of true love has never run smoothly. Maison Ikkoku may be her masterpiece.
Alenka: I’m back because I must talk about Time Zone J, Julie Doucet’s surprise return to comics. I was a bit hesitant to talk about this not because I didn’t like it, but because it’s a very unique reading experience that I find hard to describe. It feels like being dropped into Doucet’s mind as she experiences a loud, sometimes meandering, nostalgic thought spiral. Doucet draws starting at the bottom of the page and works her way to the top, so she requests that her reader follow the story this way. I thought this was a baller move. Yes, make me work for it, Julie Doucet! The artist herself appears as a talking head, surrounded by sketches of people and birds and all kinds of things. She often seems anxious, and despite the unique and wild style of the illustrations the overall effect gives the impression that we’re being told this story directly by Doucet, as if we’d met up in a loud, strange bar and she suddenly launched into her tale.
The story itself is about a whirlwind and kind of unhealthy romance she had with a soldier, which started via correspondence. (Or at least that’s what I thought it was about – other reviews describe it as having a more expansive focus, but I thought it was a narrower story, told within an expansive environment.) Doucet is much older than me but is describing a relationship from when she was younger, and I often felt nervous for this very bold young woman who was diving into something intense. That nervousness, however, was tempered by Doucet’s reflections on and reactions to her younger self, sometimes even laughing at her own behavior. Obviously things are OK now because here is the older Doucet, right on the page, pulling the reader roughly through the noise of her own thoughts. The way Time Zone J focuses on how Doucet herself is presenting the story reminded me a bit of The Secret to Superhuman Strength, in which Alison Bechdel places herself in the chapter breaks, drawing lines through and onto the end papers. It’s a fascinating read.