Category: Reviews

Manga of the Month: 87 Clockers

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87 Clockers (87超频者) by Tomoko Ninomiya

hisui_icon_4040 There are several web sites devoted solely to telling you if Abe Vigoda is alive or not. He has been reported as dead by several major news sources over the years to the point that is has become a running joke. In a way I feel 87 Clockers needs the same sort of treatment. I swear I keep thinking this series is getting canceled. When Nanatsuya: Shinobu’s Jewel Box was announced I assumed it was because 87 Clockers was over. It turns out  Tomoko Ninomiya is just doing two monthly manga at the same time. Then recently that Jump Kai, the magazine that 87 Clockers runs in, was announced to be ending in October. 87 Clockers will probably be moved to another Shueisha magazine but that is still something that was me worried. Overall it is not a series I ever hear anyone talking about so it is easy for me to assume it has gone the way of the dodo. With the latest Jump Kai scare I decided to talk a little about the series in hopes of changing that.

If nothing else 87 Clockers stands out in the realm of competitive sport manga. And this is a field that has titles like Chihayafuru and Yakitate!! Japan it is not simple to do.

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Manga of the Month: A Silent Voice

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A Silent Voice by Yoshitoki Oima

narutaki_icon_4040 How long should one punish themselves something they did as a child?

Ishida is an ex-bully, who became bullied himself during elementary school, who has now isolated himself as he drifts through high school life.

Shoko is the girl Ishida and his classmates bullied due to her hearing impairment.

Ishida seeks Shoko out, all these years later, in order to apologize before ending his life. But when he does, he suddenly finds himself making a meaningful human connection and that snowballs into another connection and another and another all which change his outlook.

Despite how serious all of that sounds, and by all means A Silent Voice is thoughtful in the burdens all of its characters carry, the series creates people who aren’t simply downtrodden.

The beginning of the series is an angering and painful few chapters as you watch Ishida and his friends bully Shoko. It is kind of hard to believe that you will empathize, believe in, love Ishida.

But you will.

This series is lovely and brilliant; poignant and surprising. There is light and hope in the series in such unexpected ways. Each character has darkness lurking, but the series creates fully realized characters that are more than a sum of their problems. The ability to connect so fully with Ishida is testament to the writing. The people from Ishida’s past, and his mistakes and how he deals with them, are incredibly complex. It isn’t so easy to dismiss people or to rebuild your life, and it is doubly hard for a boy who doesn’t truly believe he deserves better.

A Silent Voice is a hopeful, buoyant story about changing, forgiving, and accepting yourself and others that doesn’t runaway from creating characters with very real problems.

~ kate

The Beginning is the Most Important Part of the Work – Fate/Complete Material Artbook 1: Art Material

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hisui_icon_4040 Type-Moon fandom always feels like the fandom for a popular band in a niche musical genre. If you meet someone who is into the genre you would be surprised if they did not know the band. But anyone outside of fans of the genre is more likely not to know them then to recognize them. If anime and manga fandom is rock, and visual novels are progressive rock, than Type-Moon is Pink Floyd. With that analogy it says a lot about the release of Type-Moon merchandise in English. At first if you wanted anything Type-Moon it was all through word of mouth and bootleg trading. They were a popular enough company in Japan that the hardcore English fandom was aware of them but it was really the Tsukihime anime, and more importantly the Fate/Stay Night anime, that made them more of a well-known name. (I will admit it was mainly Ayako Kawasumi being in the Fate/Stay Night anime as Saber that interested me in the series.) Over the years as the fandom has grown the amount of legitimate material available in English has increased. Type-Moon anime mostly gets licensed outside of Carnival Phantasm which is even too niche for anyone outside of Japan. The main manga series seem to get licensed but the more esoteric manga falls into Carnival Phantasm territory. With Fate/kaleid liner Prisma ☆ Illya Drei 3!! even being simulpubed on Comic Walker and Fate/Zero streaming it seems like while you can’t assume you will get everything from Type-Moon legitimately it does seem like there is little that is off the table.

But two of the crown jewels have always seemed completely out of reach. The visual novels that spawned everything are the grand prize but any conversation with companies that license games makes it clear that they are far to expensive and risky to license. So unless there is a major shift your just going to have to learn Japanese if you want to buy a copy of Fate/Stay Night. But the much more reasonable dream was getting the Type-Moon art books. They are loaded with original information and are not outside of the realm of profitable licensing. Thankfully UDON Entertainment recently released the first Fate/Stay Night art book.  Fate/Complete Material Artbook 1: Art Material is not their first foray into video game art books. If anything they seem to be picking up quite a few titles lately. But Udon is wisely just dipping their toe in the water  with this book and letting sales determine if they pick up more Type-Moon art books.

This post is mainly going to look on if UDON Entertainment is a good fit for the license. Should we be secretly hoping that this is the last Type-Moon artbook they do or are they going to deliver what we have always wanted?

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