MORIKAWA, Kumi

Cover: Burubon no Fuin

Cover: Nankin Rodo

Morikawa earned her fame in 1980s with her tragical spy story “Nankin-Rodo ni Hana-fubuki (Blossom Showers in Nanjing Road)” which laid its setting in Shanghai in 1940s.  With her other works being set in Venice in the 15th century (“Barentino (Valentino)” series) and France in the 17th century ( “Burubon no Fuin (Seal of the Bourbon Dynasty)” )for example, Morikawa apparently prefers historical themes to contemporary, daily situational stories.  She is good at making exciting stories with a dash of humor in complex, exotic backgrounds.
Her stories are difficult to follow because of her artwork; some characters look similar, and some happenings are omitted from the art, forcing readers to read between lines a lot.  Yet, her art is beautiful even in action scenes, and the stories are almost always logical.  I think what I like about her works is her sense of fairness.  She seems to study things from more than one angle.
For example, Nankin-Rodo deals with arguments among various interests, such arguments as between warmongering Japanese military officers and more considerate ones, between Chinsese supporters of Communist Party and those of Kuomintang Party, and between Chinese mafias and Europian munitioneers.  Even from the number of parties involved in the story, you may see this work would be beyond a “good guys vs. bad guys” picture.  You may see also that, although the story is focused on the espionage of a “good” Japanese team who tries to prevent a war, the team’s boss is described as more realistic than pacifistic.  And the leading character Huang, who is Japanese-Chinese, betrays the team to help Communists after conflicts within himself. 
This heavy theme matches the historical backgrounds Morikawa chooses and is described well in her ethereal art.

KOSAKA, Tomoko

I started reading Kosaka’s works very recently.  Finished so far are “T.E. Rorensu (T.E. Lawrence)” and “Awo no Maharaja (Maharaja of the Blue Stone)”, as well as first volumes of “Hana-bana no Utagoye (Songs of Flowers)” and “Bengara Goshi no Iye (A House with Red Grilles)”, and all of them are real gems.
Although Kosaka established her fame in mid-80s with the success of her masterpiece T.E. Rorensu, she was never such a hot selling comic artist as whose name you keep on hearing.
In my opinion, that is because her works are fundamentally based on objective observation of people’s behaviors, wise or unwise.  Even when a work takes the theme on adventures and a-boy-meets-a-girl type of love, it involves such issues as politics, religion, race and poverty.  As a reader, you are not allowed to be carried away by the one-sided adventurous story nor heart-breaking/heart-warming love story, as many young girls wish to be.
For example, some people may want to enjoy T.E. Rorensu as an adventure of an English hero in Arab in WWI.  Some may wish it as a homosexual love story, a so-called Boy’s Love Shojo Manga.  But it is actually all about why and how Lawrence was distressed.  He sufferes craftiness of both Europians and Arabians, he sufferes his own ugliness.  None of the characters are clean, and you are forced to think at least a little bit about the middle-east politics.
It is also true even in a more adventurous fiction as Awo no Maharaja.  This story takes place in India just before and after WWII.  The main characters are a cute, kind and brave girl named Moila, daughter of the British ambassador to a Rajasthan state, and the rich, wise, tender and charming Maharaja Silva, who eventually marries to her.  But put in the middle of the real history of the independence of India, this fictious royal couple bustles about seeking for the best solutions for many political and social issues.
Yet, Kosaka’s stories are not depressing at all.  It equally deals with the happy and beautiful side of our lives.  For example, you can rediscover the charm of the Oriental cultures.  Besides, Lawrence’s life is described beautifully, as he suffered as a sincere man.  The Maharaja couple looks happy when they fight together against problems. 

So I may be able to conclude that Kosaka’s works are like a cup of coffee.  It tastes good, because it is bitter and sweet, not all sweet.

Aono_Maharaja

Moved in

This is my first post at WordPress.  I have imported my posts on Shojo Manga Revolution at Blogger.com, because I was not able to fix the error over there that I could not publish a new post.

Nante Sutekini Japanesuku (How Wonderfully Japanesque!)

Title:  Nante Sutekini Japanesuku (How Wonderfully Japanesque!)

Authors: HIMURO, Saeko (original novel).  YAMAMOTO, Naomi (comicalization).

Data: First Published in 198x by Hakusensha. Now available in Hakusensha Bunko series.

My Evaluation: A (Excellent)

The leading character of this romantic comedy with some detective story flavor is a princess in the Heian era (794-1191 AD), when the Japanese aristocratic culture was established.  But Lady Ruri is remotely graceful as other women of her class. Rather, she is just as perky and curious as modern girls, and this gap generates contemporary liveliness in the story.

Story:

Ruri is under constant pressure from her parents nowadays to get married quickly to prevent from being talked as an old maiden in the small high society, but she is not in the mood at all.
That is because of the custom among aristocrats.  In custom, a young nobleman who wants to marry a noblewoman is supposed to begin the approach from sending her a love poem. If she (and her family) allows him to exchange passionate love poems, he can go to the next step to visit her in the night.  If he visits her and stays with her till next morning for three continuous nights, that is the token of their marriage. As a noblewoman, Ruri understands that ritual.  But what she hates is the tacit agreement of the society that men are naturally allowed to have one or more lovers after the marriage, while the wives are eventually confined in the house, always supposed to wait for their husbands gracefully.
But one day, Ruri finds that her childhood playmate Taka-akira thinks of Ruri seriously and that he is determined never to have an extra lover other than her.  Being younger than Ruri by one year, Taka-akira has not been in the ballot for a prospective husband so far. But she is so moved by his love confession and decides to marry him.
One big problem is there, though. Taka-akira is the Crown Prince’s close guard, and the Prince is in the peril of being assassined in the present. That means that Taka-akira is often called on the vigil duty and that he cannot visit Ruri for three continuous nights until the conspiration is turned over.  Now Ruri starts to reveal the conspiration on her own way, for the sake of her wedding nights…

Tenshi no Serenade (The Angelic Serenade)

AUTHOR: Kimiko UEHARA

This story, created in 1972, takes place in the two antagonistic countries named East and West Rhine, which are of course adopted from East and West Germany. There is a wall between the two republics, just as it was in Berlin. Like other works of the author, this story is basically an unrealistic melodrama, but here, the outline that young students have the wall broken down is historically proven as not so unrealistic after all. This dynamic line makes the story unforgettable, in spite of the art on the rather clumsy side.
By the way, do not try nitpicking, like saying some names do not sound German. Remember the author is Japanese.

STORY:
Seven-year-old Lotte living in West Rhine meets with 9-year-old Journey on the other side of the boundary river. The river is so narrow and shallow that eventually the kids can play together. Journey suggests Lotte that they can study together in the future at Libre Music Institute in East Rhine, for this famous school exceptionally accepts Western students. So, one day, they walk to the Institute not far from the boundary. Looking at the magnificent academy, Lotte promises Journey that she will apply when she becomes eligible 14 years old. She adds that she will marry him at that time, kissing him as the engagement token.

That puppy love ends suddenly, when the authorities start filling the creek to build a wall and divide two Rhine’s more completely. Journey throws a ring to Lotte on the West bank, shouting that it is for their engagement.

Seven years later, Lotte prepares for application for Libre. Her parents make her promise to stop the plan if she fails to win at an upcoming local song contest. At the contest, she meets Karl, a special student at Libre and also a famous pianist, who happens to disturb her. He blames himself for Lotte’s failure at the contest and recommends her to Libre in expiation.

Now that Lotte enters Libre, she looks for Journey. Joe, the president of the Eastern students’ union, introduces her six Journeys in the school, including him, saying that Joe is only a nickname. In reality, Joe is the Journey she loved, but Lotte does not recognize him.

Meanwhile, Lotte learns that she was admitted irregularly only because the special student Karl has lied that she is his fiancee and urged the principal he needs her on his side to continue his hard piano training. Gradually, Karl and Lotte fall in actual love. Joe, also hearing Lotte being Karl’s fiancee and observing they are close enough, thinks his love is finished one sided. Indeed, Joe also has his own fiancee whom his foster parents decided. Later, Lotte recognizes Joe as her Journey, but she also learns about his fiancee at the same time.

Looking for Journey among Eastern students, Lotte has been struggling to make friends with them, which Karl and Joe support. But for that, the school principal has marked them down. One day, a Western girl and an Easter boy of Libre are killed in breaking through the barrier together. Lotte is more assured of the necessity of integrating the separated people. On the other hand, the principal seems to see the tragedy as less important than the problem of troublemakers. She tells Lotte to withdraw from school, for Lotte disturbs her favorite student Karl. She also calls Joe’s foster parents, who tell him to leave school, too, where he just wastes time and rather to help his business.

When Lotte and Joe are to depart, Karl shows up, telling them that he also quits the school and that they should travel together singing songs for peace and unity around the country. And so their journey begins…

Rori no Seishun ("Blooming Lori" OR "Lori’s Story")

AUTHOR: Kimiko UEHARA

This is a pretty old-fashioned, yet a very quintessential melodrama, which is in my opinion an origin of the shojo manga. There are many romantic stories in the shojo manga, but this author’s stories are made of chock-full of melodramatic episodes that most modern and modest authors may avoid as too much. You can say that the stories are often inconsistent and unrealistic, but therefore you can indulge the girlish, sentimental and passionate, rollercoater-like romances.

STORY:
Lori is a 15-year-old girl living with sick Mother and younger sister Kara in Ohio. One day, she meets a young couple looking for a barn for the night where their pregnant horse can give birth. Lori offers her garage and helps the delivery. Noticing how deeply Lori is moved by the wonder of life, the traveling couple gives her the beautiful white colt, which Lori names Happy.

Practical Kara opposes to raise the colt, for the family cannot afford even the medicine for the sick mother. Worried Lori takes Happy to a walk and misses it. After a while, she finds that a handsome boy, who introduces himself as Cleo, 17, a backpacker, has safeguarded the colt. Cleo asks Lori for a night’s lodging in return.

Next day, Cleo asks for staying at Lori’s home longer, for he likes Happy. Kara decides to rent him a room. Then each of the three starts off job hunting. Later, when they are together with Happy, a man approaches them and proposes to buy Happy. In reality, the man is Cleo’s stepbrother Daniel Burgstone, who has been looking for runaway Cleo. Daniel secretly tells Cleo that he will buy the horse for Cleo if he comes back home, but Cleo refuses the deal. Before leaving for the present, Daniel warns Cleo, suspecting that the real reason he refuses is because he loves either of the sisters, that they are inappropriate for the Burgstone’s, one of the richest and the prestigious families in the States.

Kara urges Lori to sell Happy, but Lori cannot give it up. Reluctantly, Kara leaves home to work in a bigger city and earn as much as possible for the sick mother. Soon Kara starts sending regularly unexpected amount of money for a young girl, without informing what she does and where she is. The mother dies before long, but Lori has no way to tell that to her sister.

Meanwhile, Cleo starts fruit vending with Happy and Lori. The combination of the fresh fruits direct from Lori’s family’s orchard, the shinny white pony, and the handsome young vendor is a smash hit. Lori gets back her smiles with the help of Cleo and Happy.

One day, a girl on a horse comes to Happy and makes it jump some obstacles. The girl, Dahlia Oakley, the current US steeplechase champion, says Happy is gifted for the steeplechase, not for the shabby packing.

Impressed by the beauty and the excitement of the hurdle race, Lori and Cleo make important decisions individually. Cleo decides to work at Dahlia’s family ranch to become a horse trainer, aiming at having Happy, and Lori as the jockey, win the US steeplechase championship. Lori also dreams of Happy being the champion, but she entrusts Dahlia with training and jockeying Happy. She makes a contract with Dahlia that no one but Dahlia can jockey Happy.

Soon, Lori notices that the contract restricts even her to ride on Happy. Dahlia says she will grant to break the contract, only on the condition that Lori wins the US championship with another horse. Since then, Lori starts training jockeying, while working at Oakley’s ranch.

To go to the US championship race, one must win a prize at the District preliminary race first, and then at the State race. Months later, Lori joins the District race, with Cleo as the trainer. There she finds her sister Kara among competition, who was found a talent for a jockey and has been severely trained at a rival ranch.

The results are that Kara gets the first prize and Lori the second, both winning the entry to the State race. Kara does not enjoy the sisters’ reunion or the double entry, though. On learning her mother’s death, she blames Lori furiously for her negligence and declares to break off any relations with Lori.

Cleo takes out downhearted Lori to a date. At a newsstand, he comes across the newspaper headline about the serious accident of the Burgstone’s. It says that his stepfather and stepbrother Daniel are unconscious. Cleo knows he must return home, hopefully for the time being, but perhaps forever…

OBAKE TANGO (“Tango, My Dead Fiance”; or “Tango the Ghost”)

AUTHOR: KURAMOCHI, Fusako. (Fusako Kuramochi)

WHY GOOD:
Kuramochi’s talent of minimalistic style shines in this short story of a highschool girl’s love. The tension of the last pages is superb.

STORY:
Ako has had two fiances in her life. The first was Tango, a boy just as mischievous and as homely-looking as Ako and her good playmate, but he died in a traffic accident. The second is Riku, who lost his parents in that accident and was adopted by Tango’s parents. At their first meeting, Ako fell into a puppy love with Riku, who was much more handsome and graceful than Tango.

Although she has been cherishing her love to Riku until now at the age of 16, she has inner conflict, too. First, she feels a little bit sorry for dead Tango to love Riku, and second, Riku seems too good to balance with herself. Then, the new, third annoyance happens; Riku apparently starts dating with another girl. Riku says something like the girl is just a friend and he is totally satisfied with being a fiance of Ako. “But does he really mean what he says? Doesn’t it right for me to free him from the forced engagement?”, Ako thinks and acts so. She tells Riku that she wants to disengage. “If you dare to. I wanted to substitute with Tango, but it seems I couldn’t,” Riku says.

* Attention: The following may be a spoiler.

Soon after that, Ako is playing basketball in school, looking back on her emotion and her acts. At that time, a hard ball hits her head…

The scene flashes back to the day of the car accident. But this time, Tango is not dead; that is we see now an alternative situation that might have happened. In the sort of parallel world, Ako becomes 16, repeating the similar scenes as before. Then one day, she meets Riku. Seemingly a strong emotion occurs her at the first glance of him. The scene flashes again and we see a basketball bounces and rolls. Probably Ako was just in a temporary faint. But now she knows that her love to Riku is almost a destiny…

DATA:
First published in 1993 by Shueisha.

Itsumo Jotenki (It’s Always Fair Weather)

Cover: Itsumo Jotenki

AUTHOR: HIJIRI, Chiaki (Chiaki Hijiri)

WHY GOOD:
It’s not a coincidence that this title is the same as Gene Kelly’s famous musical. One of the numbers in the movie, “I Like Myself”, is used as a symbol of this love story. Here, a girl with the lonely heart struggles to find the key to open the tight lock chain on her heart, with the help of a boy who loves her and thus let her feel that “I like myself who is loved by you.”
Sounds too innocent? Well, it may sound so with my outline, but once you start reading, you will soon forget the prejudice, because of Hijiri’s compelling lines and chronicle-style winding plots.

STORY:
– Situation –
Since her childhood, the heroine Takara Moroguchi has suffered from a keen sense of loss, mainly caused by the absence of her father who had left the family. The father, once a promising artist, had his young son die from his negligence while he was absorbed in his artwork, and since then, he has been traveling the world as if he was looking for his lost passion for art or getting away from his wife’s endless blame. Once in a while, he returns to his wife Yoshiko, a successful novelist, only to lend some money, and with her nasty words on the back, he leaves again.

Her mother and her grand mother moan that all the women in the Moroguchi’s have bad luck with men; if the husband is good, he will die young, and if he is good for nothing, he will live but desert his family. Hearing that jinx, Takara has learned to camouflage her loneliness by mimicking comedians and making her school friends laugh. She has also camouflaged her calf love to schoolmate Shiozaki, because of the jinx.

Takara’s school is a private music academy composed from elementary school to college. Yoshiko has chosen the academy just because she has dreamed Takara having a music talent that she herself lacks. Takara knows she has no such talent but keeps going to the school just because she wants to be accepted by her mother as an obedient, good child.

– Episodes –
At their sixth grade, Shiozaki eavesdrops Takara talking to her teacher about the scenery she saw when she was very young and her family was still happy. “There was a high mountain beyond vast plain fields, and it was fair weather. It seemed to be in a foreingn country,” she says. Suddenly, it occurres to him that this comedienne is really a clown with tears, and also that the scenery she described might be in Oregon.

When they are high school seniors, Shiozaki decides to learn the violin in Germany. On the very moment he sets off, Shiozaki’s best friend takes Takara to him, telling her that shy Shiozaki has been in love with her since the sixth grade. Shiozaki tells her that the scenery she mentioned before might be that of Oregon, for it reminds him of a picture in his photo book. Takara is perplexed with the fact Shiozaki knows about her scenery story and his confession of love.

Three years later, Shiozaki comes back to the academy’s music college. Takara begins dating with him, though worrying about her grand mother’s jinx yet. One day, the jinx comes true. Shiozaki injures in a car accident he causes while working for a cargo hauler. That work is to make money for going abroad with Takara to look for her father. Now that Shiozaki cannot play the violin, Takara blames herself to have ignored the jinx, and cries to Shiozaki that she doesn’t love him.

As another three years has past, they meet again. Takara knows she must break the jinx or the lock on her heart. “But how?” she asks herself…

DATA:
First published in 1992, by Shueisha.
Comic cover photo on this Japanese fan site

Ankoru ga Sankai (Three Encores)

AUTHOR: Kuramochi, Fusako

WHY GOOD (Kuramochi’s works at large):
Well, let me talk about the traits of this author’s works as a whole, before talking about the title above.

First, Kuramochi is a very aggressive artist in terms of the expression method of manga. Each of her stories deals with love of boys and girls, the ubiquitous theme of shojo manga, but it goes with various snappy twists. Sometimes she puts a trivial happening in the story which finally turns out to be a gimmick to show the characters’ intimate relationship; sometimes just one action or a short speech of a character implicitly shows its emotion; sometimes, a short story goes without any speech or goes entirely from a cat’s point of view. If you notice those signs, her works would be very intersting (“I find it!”) and empathetic (“Oh, I understand!”), but if not, naturally, they would appear as kind of go-in-alone works. (I have once read somewhere that Kuramochi says something like she would rather like the readers to imagine when the story looks unkind than explaining all in a “this is that” style.)

Second, her stories almost always go with girls’ perspecive. The heroine talks to herself often so that readers can share what she thinks, but the boy she loves is observed from outside. So, the readers are not able to know what he really thinks, just like the heroine is not, hence the story comes strongly empathetic to female readers. This style cannot be said to be unusual in shojo manga, yet I think it well characterizes Kuramochi’s.

WHY GOOD (Particularly on Three Encores):
As written above, Kuramochi apparently prefers a style that cumulative small episodes from daily life gradually make impressive rythm, to a style with flamboyantly dramatic plots. Some people might well take her stories as too plain or too trivial. But even those people could enjoy “Three Encores” rather easily. As this story deals with show biz, it naturally takes on some glitter and dramatic conflicts.

Another reason I like this story is maybe because the heroine of this story, Yoko, a popular singer, looks more proud of herself than other heroines of Kuramochi’s works. Although she suffers from her lack of confidence in how much Rui, her manager and secret husband, loves her, just like Kuramochi’s other heroines, Yoko struggles not to lose her confidence in her career. Other heroines often look too tied with their affection to boys to think about their own lives apart from the boys seriously, which I think can be weakness of Kuramochi’s works, if I must say.

STORY:
Yoko, pop singer, is married with her manager, Rui, but she cannot count on Rui’s love. For one thing, their marriage is unknown except the president of the talent agent where Rui works and Yoko belongs. That means people around Rui think he is free to love anybody, and surely there are dangerous people in that sense; a playboy singer, Reita, whom you cannot tell whether he is homo-, hetero- or bi-sexual, chases Rui, and Rui’s colleague and ex-fiancee, Sachiko, still loves Rui. For another, Yoko thinks the reason Rui married her so easily is because the president of the agent welcomed it because the secret marriage would give young Yoko sexier atmosphere, not because Rui desperately loved her. Besides, the time they can be alone is nowadays less and less as Yoko gains popularity as a singer. When they are alone, he seems to love her only, but in public, he is kind to anybody, maybe too kind from Yoko’s point of view.

Yoko urges Rui to make their marriage open. He says if she can get three encores, not the ordinary two, from the audience in her concert, then he will.

But things go worse. She makes troubles that lead Rui being forced by the president to leave the position of Yoko’s manager. The new singer Rui takes charge in has soon become Yoko’s rival, and the time Yoko can be with Rui has almost vanished. Now Yoko is in the worst slump ever. She decides her mind and tell Rui that she wants him as the manager and that she gives up him as the husband…

Other recommendations of Kuramochi’s:
Itsumo Poketto ni Shopan (Always With Chopin In Your Pocket);
Obake Tango (“Tango, My Dead Fiance”);
Tennen Kokekko (This one is very difficult to translate. If I dare to, it could be “The Natural Life”, although too boring. Tennen means natural, and Kokekko is a mintage; probably a combination of kokekokko(cock-a-doodle-doo) and kekko(fine).);
Arufa (“Alpha”).

Anjeriku (Angelique)

AUTHOR: Kihara, Toshiye(Toshie)

WHY GOOD: This is an authentic good-old shojo manga — all the main characters are with big round eyes in which stars shine and surrounded by gorgeous lashes; the story takes place far out of the real life, such as in Louis XIV’s palace; and the heroine is loved by (a) handsome, rich, smart, loyal, whatsoever, super-charming man (or men). Actually, you can seldom expect this much authenticity from many comics, because the authors usually try to tweak stories lest they should look hack.
It seems Kihara, who has well-established her own style of gorgeous art and lyric story, does not need to fear her story becomes hackwork.

Based on the first part of a French novel of the same title by Anne Golon, Kihara seems to have recreated the story in a way to fit better to dreamy girls. I have not read the original novel, but as far as I learned on the Net, Kihara seems to have cut rape scenes in the original for example and have given Nicola, the heroine’s childhood friend, more amicable personality.

STORY: Angelique is a young daughter of poor French baron in Luis XIV’s era. One day, her father askes her to marry a rich earl of southern France, for money. She is told that the earl, Joffrey, has a scar on the face and is handicapped on the leg. That portrait sounds far from a prince charming, but stouthearted Angelique determines to marry him, and she farewells her secret love to her cousin Philip, her own prince charming. She does not know yet that Joffrey will become her true lover soon and that she will put him into a very difficult situation…

DATA: Comic cover photos here (the site written in Japanese)

Cover Photos of some Kihara’s works (Japanese editions):
1. Angelique Vol.1 (Akita Bunko, Akita Shoten)

2. Tsue to Tsubasa Vol.1 (Shogakukan Bunko, Shogakukan)