VIZ Pubwatch February 2023

Viz Pubwatch banner featuring Nana from Viz Media

It’s been a weird winter for a lot of people, I’m sure — weather’s been unusually warm where I live, Twitter is continuing to fall apart in new and interesting ways, headlines seem more and more dire by the day  — but VIZ media is here to make it all better with news and new releases that’ll put a smile on anyone’s face! This month we’re taking a look at mostly new series, including the much-anticipated Girl Who Can’t Get A Girlfriend and Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand. But first the news!

VIZ Youtube channel publishes hundreds of subtitled anime episodes for free

graphic saying VIZ on Youtube in white on red background.

Americans, rejoice! You can now watch hours of anime content on Youtube, for free. (I’m typing this from Canada where the playlists are not available to me, but it works if you’re in the US!) VIZ uploaded the full run of Death Note, Sailor Moon, Naruto, Inuyasha, and more, as well as classic anime movies. Brings back memories of late 2000s-early 2010s anime fandom, when I first watched Ouran High School Host Club at 480p in 3 parts on Youtube like God intended. Except now we’ve got high resolution and official licensor approval for this distribution method. How far we’ve come!

Zom 100 Voice Actors Announced

Tomori Kusunoki, who voiced Makima in the Chainsaw Man anime adaptation and Kanade Yoisaki in the mobile game Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE feat. Hatsune Miku (which is an incredible range), was announced as the voice of Shizuka in the highly anticipated Zom 100 anime. Shuichiro Umeda is voicing Akira. Congratulations to them both! The Zom 100 anime release was previously discussed on our January Pubwatch and will probably continue to be discussed as more information about the show is revealed. Speaking of anime…

Ray Chase draws Sukuna

splash image for Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1 Part 1 featuring Itadori and Sukuna standing back to back.

Ray Chase, English-language dub voice actor for Ryomen Sukuna in Jujutsu Kaisen, was “locked in a room” by VIZ until he tried to draw Sukuna. An attempt was made. Chase also voices Choso in Jujutsu Kaisen and many other roles in other anime series and video games. Jujutsu Kaisen season 1 part 1 is now available for digital purchase on many platforms. As far as I know Gojo is still stuck in that box.

 

I haven’t been keeping up with the Jujutsu Kaisen manga, so instead let’s take a look at…

 

What I’m Reading

Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand

Yoko Komori
February 21, 2023

Cover depicting Toriko underwater, hair floating up and bubbles around her in delicate watercolor rendering

This manga stands out from the crowd for its gorgeous, unusual art style. I’m reminded of commercial illustration and Western indie comics more than other manga. Spare lines and large spot blacks create a strong sense of atmosphere, critical in a story about a mysterious place. Toriko and her father move to a seaside town after her parents split, but while Toriko is trying to make friends with the group of kids who’d lived there their whole lives, she’s also remembering an incident from her childhood, when she was… saved by a mermaid? The mysteries of the town and its local legends seem supernatural when viewed through Toriko’s eyes. I like how every character in this story is genuinely trying to be kind and friendly, even when it doesn’t come naturally to them. It’s a sweet, ultimately hopeful story of dealing with a lot of different kinds of life changes at once.

The Girl Who Can’t Get A Girlfriend

Mieri Hiranishi
February 14, 2023

cover of Girl Who Can't Get a Girlfriend depicting Mieri and Ash

My primary thoughts and feelings while reading this one can be summarized as “Oh, mood.” The Girl Who Can’t Get A Girlfriend started life as a webcomic posted to Twitter and elsewhere before quickly attracting the attentions of publishers in America and Japan, as well as a sizable audience. I’d read most of it on Webtoon before the book was released. As a twenty-something lesbian struggling with The Apps as well as trying to balance Making it in Comics with Having a Career In Something, a lot of what’s described in this comic hit home for me! I feel like Hiranishi is a bit too self-deprecating at times, and the way she consistently draws herself as a crude, oversimplified cartoon clashes oddly with the more refined drawings of other characters. While it’s funny at first, it gets distracting as the comic keeps going. I don’t love reading autobio comics where the creator’s too hard on themself, it makes me worried. On the whole, though, The Girl Who Can’t Get A Girlfriend is funny and brutally honest about a specific part of a certain kind of life that isn’t represented in comics often.

Rainbow Days, Vol. 2

Minami Mizuno
February 7, 2023

Rainbow Days Volume 2 cover depicting Mattsun in school uniform.

What would otherwise be a blandly cute boy’s-friendship-focused slice-of-life shoujo with a slow burn romance is marred by the ridiculously offensive caricature that is Mari and her narrative-enforced relationship subplot. Mari is the protagonist’s love interest’s best friend and, in the first volume, admits to having romantic feelings for said friend (Anna), an admission repeated and reinforced throughout both volumes released so far. And yet, the protagonist’s playboy bestie Mattsun takes it upon himself to pursue her against her clearly stated wishes. Mari herself is an obsessive, angry example of the “yandere lesbian” trope (often played for laughs in school comedy stories like Yamai-san in Komi Can’t Communicate), a trope that should honestly have been retired decades ago and yet continues to appear in manga for some reason. Not only is Mari unpleasantly abrasive to everyone but Anna, her declarations that she does not like men aren’t taken seriously by anybody. At all. She’ll change her mind eventually, you see, and playboy Mattsun is the one who’ll convince her she was just confused all along. When Mari (correctly) calls him a sexual harrasser in this volume for kissing her without asking in volume 1, Mattsun says she’s being rude.

Besides all of that, Natsuki and Anna’s dynamic is pretty cute and the friend group is mildly amusing as a unit. Tsuyopon and his cosplayer girlfriend are hilarious together and individually. Keiichi’s BDSM thing is… weird but kind of funny as a gimmick? The art is standard shiny-eye shoujo, no particularly clever panel layouts or shot choices that got my attention but nothing hideous or awkward either. Every other part of this comic is basically fine but not compelling enough to make me want to suffer through Mari existing, unlike Bakuman, where the parts of the story that weren’t wildly chauvinistic were dramatic and interesting and funny in a way that made me want to keep reading even knowing how bad it could be.

Rainbow Days is not good enough otherwise to justify its own unpleasant implications.

Show-Ha Shoten! Vol. 1

Story by Akinari Asakura, Art by Takeshi Obata
February 7, 2023

cover of show-ha shoten volume 1 depicting azemichi and taiyo sitting together around a stage mic

Speaking of Bakuman, it is so refreshing to see Takeshi Obata’s wonderful art applied to a story that remembers women are people with interests and interior lives of their own. Show-Ha Shoten! is so good, after I reread the chapters in this volume collection I went back to the Jump app and reread the rest of the existing chapters because I wanted to remember what happened next. It’s hard to translate performance art to the page, but Obata’s expressive art makes Asakura’s clever jokes land incredibly well — I even laughed out loud at some of the skits! Azemichi and Taiyo’s dynamic together is really compelling, and the side characters are all memorable in their own ways too. I love both of the Sprechchor guys, and the manager girl. I just wish this comic updated weekly instead of monthly. I want to see more of these characters! I want to learn more about how comedy works and how these characters think about it! I really enjoy reading this. I think it could do well as an anime someday, if they get the right team to do it.

 

That’s all I’ve got for you this month! Tune in next month for more VIZ news and reviews!

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