Another month, another pubwatch! This November, we’re bringing news of Anime NYC, a shiny new Io Sakisaka shojo manga, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure part 6. Let’s start with the news.
VIZ at Anime NYC
I skipped the show this year, but VIZ pulled out all the stops! As usual, they’re pushing Zom 100 really hard this season, with a panel including the original mangaka and the voice actress for a major character, and a screening of the premiere of episode 10 at the show. Kind of ironic how a show about how capitalism is a miserable grind working employees to the bone to the point that a zombie apocalypse feels like an escape suffered multiple major production delays, something which usually indicates severe mismanagement behind the scenes that almost certainly means employees are getting overworked. Anyway, the VIZ Booth also had exclusive merch from the Shonen Jump store and samples of new products!
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Naoki Ursawa’s Pluto now available digitally
For the first time ever, all volumes of the manga adaptation of Link’s story are now available to read digitally! Also, Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto! Pluto was more exciting to me, as an Urasawa fan aware of how resistant he is to digital editions of his work, especially since the anime adaptation is on Netflix now (which hopefully revived some interest in the manga). With the new(ish, relatively) VIZ app being extremely easy to use (especially compared to Kodansha’s K-manga app), reading digital manga is more convenient than ever, and now there’s more books to try in that format!
Limited Edition Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1 Part 2 Blu-Ray set
There may be only twelve episodes on this nearly hundred dollar limited edition Blu-Ray set, but to make up for that it comes with an additional original soundtrack CD, art cards, bonus booklets of the Juju Sanpo and Jujutsu Times segments, interviews with the voice actors, a chapter of the digital manga, and clean openings and endings for all your fandom needs. I am actually a little curious about those bonus items, if not curious enough to spend that much money on a Blu-Ray of a show I am not obsessed with. Fortunately, many people are obsessed with this show, and now you can receive little items and treats in addition to a physical copy of the show!
Enough news, it’s time for…
What I’m Reading
Sakura, Saku Vol. 1
Io Sakisaka
November 14, 2023
Sakisaka’s manga is the platonic ideal of the shojo romance manga. If you know nothing about shojo manga besides “shiny-eyed romance comics for teenage girls,” the image in your head lines up perfectly with Sakisaka’s entire body of work. But here’s the thing that makes her so successful: she’s good at it. I binged Blue Spring Ride and Love Me, Love Me Not recently, and the main thing I kept feeling while reading them is “if only I had these a decade ago. If only I was reading these teen girl comics as a teen girl and not as an adult, I’d enjoy them even more.” She captures the intensity of teen emotions so perfectly, it’s almost uncanny. When her protagonists have feelings, they’re believable. Anyway, Sakura, Saku is about a girl who is helped by a stranger on a train, and then wants to find him and thank him. Unfortunately, she ends up tracking down a different guy with the same name instead, and befriending his younger brother. Sakura, Saku is concerned with kindness, and helping people in need and doing good things for others. It’s not as funny as Blue Spring Ride was, but it’s not as swoony-sappy romantic as Love Me, Love Me Not either. This first volume is a gentle, mellow read in soft, airbrushed digital gray tones, and like all of Sakisaka’s work, a must-read for any shojo fan.
Takopi’s Original Sin
Taizan5
November 21, 2023
I thought I knew what to expect after reading Taizan5’s longer ongoing comic, The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins, but boy, this started dark and stayed dark up until the somewhat uplifting ending! Takopi is an alien from the planet Happy who crash lands on Earth armed with Happy gadgets he can use to make people happy! But the fourth graders he encounters, Shizuka, Marina, and Naoki, are all suffering from situations Takopi can’t possibly understand. Will his time-travel camera be enough to save them all from death and despair? Taizan5’s idiosyncratic and distinctive art style works really well on the child protagonists, and the Happy gadgets are well-designed. The contrast between the cutesy aesthetics and heavy subject matter is appealing. I can see how this was the most-read comic on Mangaplus in Japan when it was being published there. I had to take breaks while reading it, but fans of Flowers of Evil type manga and of course the Ichinose Family series would love this. I will definitely be thinking about it for a while.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Part 6— Stone Ocean, Vol. 1
Hirohiko Araki
November 28, 2023
I asked my girlfriend if I should read this or the Tekkonkinkreet anniversary rerelease and they said JoJo so here I am, reading JoJo for the first time! I have a lot of respect for Araki— I enjoyed Manga: Theory and Practice but I haven’t really read his fiction before. Everything I know about JoJo I’ve learned via cultural osmosis. The art is certainly dynamic and very loosely connected to reality in a way that I’m sure is appealing to some people, but I found the action sequences hard to follow with how confusing the Stand powers are. Jolyne’s sentenced to 15 years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit— and the prison’s full of Stand users! And then Jolyne’s father, Jotaro Kujo, shows up. Jolyne is fun, and the characters around her are also interesting, but I wish there was a little more buildup to the Bizarre Adventures and it didn’t just throw me in there. I don’t think JoJo is the series for me, but it might be the series for you!
That’s all I’ve got for you this month! Tune in next month for more VIZ news and reviews!
