From: doi@jrd.dec.com (Hitoshi Doi =?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRCRVowZj9OO1YbKEI=?= )
Subject: [Curtis Hoffmann] manga listings (v2)
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Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 02:12:10 GMT
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   This is an attempt to kind of catalog the weekly and monthly manga
serials, and identify which stories are in the manga that *I* at least
think are worth reading.  Most of the stories are real crap, and I
believe them to be ignorable.  Since most of the titles are in kanji
(and I can't read them without a dictionary) I will only list the titles
that I consider worthwhile, or noteworthy (and CAN read.)

   A couple of things to mention:

   Boxing Promoter Don King is a common target in some of the manga
featuring boxers.  In one, he is known as "Bob King."  He's usually
portrayed as either a bad guy, or the promoter for the evil
opponent.

   There is a class of stories exemplified by Be-Bop-Highschool (and
Rokudenashi Blues,) that is essentially about disaffected high school
boys.  The heroes can not last more than 2 pages without flying into
major rages, and then getting into fist fights.  The characters can all
be identified by their over-glued hair styles, sneers, and apathy over
anything other than rumbling and sneering (even sex is pretty much a
waste of energy.)
   The main reason for mentioning this class of stories is that there
are a large number of students in Sapporo that look like they have just
stepped out of this kind of manga.  They have a serious attitude
problem, and are the most difficult type of person for a gaijin to deal
with, since gaijin are also considered contemptable.  However, I'm told
that this phase is no longer considered fashionable in Tokyo, where it
seems to have died out.  (But these stories are still very popular, and
there is at least one anime movie based on them -- it was playing at
theaters this last June.)

   Manga can not really be given a good, simple description for trying
to categorize it.  In the book shops, it is often in the section titled
"KOMIKKU" (or "Comics").  The art style can be very detailed, realistic,
or ugly.  The stories can be simple gags based on toilet humor, or very
sophisticated plot lines that encompass murder mysteries, or soap
operas.  The main characters can be sushi chefs, food critics, soccer
stars, bored little girls, sluts, punks, gorillas, monkeys, wizards,
swordsmen, or monsters.  The feel of the artwork can be decidedly
Western, East Indian, or pure Japanese.
   But there are certain elements that do show up more often than
others.  Sitcoms generally involve families, high school punk stories
have lots of gang fights and one-on-one brawls, any story containing
magic will either be a martial arts chop suey western, or low fantasy
(ala Dungeon and Dragons.)  If the main characters play a sport, they
will be the underdog, and constantly at odds with someone from another
team.  The sports include basketball (very popular), golf, baseball
(extremely popular), Judo, Sumo, and soccer (tennis also appears, but
not much.)
   Any gag strip will be dependent on the dialog, or will be purely
visual humor where humiliating sex, or shit, plays an important role.
Most of the gag strips are pretty bad, as are the "adult" strips.  The
adult manga usually has a minimal story line, and is as likely to
feature lesbian encounters between high school girls, as it is violent
attacks by the male hero on some available woman (who of course will
enjoy the encounter by the end.)  The adult stories are usually clumped
together in adult manga, and do not show up often in non-porno manga.
(There may be a few breast shots, and some implied sex, but the really
graphic stuff is reserved more for the adult mags, of which there are
many.)
   Most manga can be safely ignored without the possibility of your
missing anything interesting.  The only time you'd really want to
actively seek this stuff out is when you're doing a study of the media,
or if you want to find something else that you prefer over what the rest
of fandom considers readable.  However, I have admittedly excluded
nearly everything that would be considered "girl's manga."  This is
partly because I don't have the interest, or the money.  But really,
it's because I don't have the time.  I leave it to someone else to fill
in the gaps they uncover.

   The numbers that show up in parathensis are simply the issues that I
was able to get my hands on.  More for my own reference than anything else.


Action Weekly (#30, 31, 33)
-------------
Crayon Shin-Chan           Kiddies badly drawn manga.  Is an anime series.


Big Comic (Comic for Men) (#13 -- 16)
-------------------------
Medusa                     Not sure of the story, by Silent Service artist
Hotel                      As featured in Mangajin
Golgol 13


Big Comic Superior (#15, 17)
-------------------
Sanctuary
5 x 4P                     Short stories by Touch artist


Big Comic Spirits Weekly (#25 -- 27, 31, 32, 34 -- 38)
------------------------
Yawara!
Futanabe                   Surreal Salaryman story with Moebius Influence
Oishinbo                   The Gourmet Critic story covered by Mangajin


Business Jump  (#17, 18)
-------------
Mildly interesting, but nothing really outstanding


Cosopu (or Conpu) Comic
-----------------------
Silent Mobius


Dog Comic Original (#14, 15)
------------------
Master Keaton              Detective-style story, art by Yawara! artist


Getsu Shonen Magazine (September)
---------------------
Nothing


Golgo 13 (#86)
--------
Magazine dedicated to Golgo 13 stories.


(Something) Gorawa (#1312)
------------------
Nothing


Grand Champion (#1)
--------------
Nothing Much


Manga Time (#143)
----------
Children's magazine, with lots of bathroom and sex humor.  No graphic sex,
though


Midori (#10)
------
Young women's magazine.  Lots of stories concerning pretty men, and
graphic sex.  Nowhere near the same amount of violence as in the men's
sex manga.


Mister Magazine (Mr.) (#16)
---------------------
Nothing


Morning (#33, 37)
-----------------------
Silent Service             Very good political comment/military soap
Cooking Papa               TV series, about a big guy that cooks w/ recipes
OL                         Office Lady, examples appear in Mangajin
Ah, Harima-nada            Sumo wrestling, also a TV anime series


Nora
----
Nervous Breakdown          By artist of Grey and Horobi


Pachinker (#7)
---------
Magazine "for Panchinker."
Nothing really interesting.


Pachinko Club (#9)
-------------
Another pachinko manga.  Some of the stories are sillier than those in
the other pachinko magazines.


Pachinko 777  (#43)
------------
Still nothing worth paying much attention to.


Pachislow Comic (#9)
---------------
Magazine dedicated to Pachinko manga.  Ignorable, unless you really like
Pachinko.  Some graphic sex.


Post
----
An adult variety magazine with some manga: Ignorable.


Pureto Booto  (In Katakana)
------------
An adult variety magazine with some manga: mostly ignorable.


Reed Comic (Men's Magazine) (#554)
----------
Midori                     Rip-off of Yawara!, with golf-playing girl


Shonen Champion (#36, 37, 40)
---------------
Nothing


Shonen Jump (#23, 25 -- 27, 29 -- 32, 35 -- 38)
-----------
Dragon Ball Z
Rokudenashi Blues          Punk High Schoolers
Dragon Quest: New Series
Magical Tarurouto-kun
Video Girl Len             (Story ended in #30 or so)


Shonen Magazine Weekly (#34, 37)
----------------------
Nothing


Shonen Sunday (#21 -- 24, 26, 30 -- 34, 37)
-------------
Ranma 1/2
Ushio and Tora             A boy, his spear, and his pet killer beast
Twinkle Twinkle Idol Star  A boy and girl as two female Idol singers
Patlabor                   Giant robot police force
H2                         New series about baseball and soccer, from the
                           creator of Slow Step and Touch.  (July 29, 92)


Super Jump (#12)
----------
Nothing major


Young Champion (17)
--------------
Nothing


Young Jump Weekly (24, 26, 29 -- 31, 33, 35, 36, 41, 43, 46, 48)
-----------------
Nothing


Young King (#10, 17)
----------
Nothing much


Young Magazine Weekly (#21 -- 23, 26, 27, 30 -- 32, 34, 36 -- 38)
---------------------
Be-Bop-Highschool
3x3 Eyes                   (Missing from #38)
Shirow's Hyper World       #26, 27.  A couple Ghost in the Shell Installments


Young Sunday (Biweekly) (#11, 14)
-----------------------
Nothing


========================================================================

   If you go into a manga store, one of the bigger ones, that places
different titles by the same artist together on the shelves, you get to
see more or less what all that artist has created (there will still be
gaps in the bibliography, unfortunately.)  The following list is not
intended to be definitive, just different.  And possibly illuminating.
I think it's interesting to see just how many styles one artist can
master.


Rumiko Takahashi:  Meson Ikkoku; Ranma 1/2; Urusei Yatsura; Rumic World
   (Firetripper, Super Gal, Mermaid's Forest, Laughing Target);
   One Pound Gospel

Tagami Yoshihisa: Karuizawa Syndrome (Super Visual Comics, 5 vol.) (Hard
   to tell what it's about); Nervous Breakdown (also hard to tell what
   it's about, up to volume 3); Horobi; Grey; Pepper (a U.S. Western:
   ISBN4-253-10232-8 C0079 P1800E); Fighter (A boxing story; Jet comics,
   up to volume 5)

Adachi Mitsuru: Touch; Slow Step; Rough; Miyuki (Hard to tell what it's
   about); H2 (2 Heroes/2 Heroines) (About baseball and soccer);
   Nine (Another baseball story, Shonen Sunday, up to vol. 5);
   Niji-iro Tohgarashi (boy-girl ninja-style swordsmen story, Shonen
   Sunday, up to volume 11)

Naoki Urasawa: Yawara; Pineapple Army (Artwork only); Master Keaton
   (Strange kind of detective story concerning an archeologist/Insurance
   Investigator; Artwork only, story by Hokusei Katsushika);
   Nippon Amateur Space Association (NASA) (comedy);
   Dancing Policeman (comedy)

Tsukasa Houjou: City Hunter; Cat's Eye

Jyoji Manabe: Outlanders; Capricorn; Russian Clash (Almost like Appleseed,
   with a little influence from Outlanders.  Large volume, no volume number,
   from FFC).  Banpanera (Not exactly sure what this is about; has characters
   similar to Outlanders and Capricorn.)  Dorakuun (vol. 1 -- 3; looks just
   like Capricorn.)

??????: Wingman; Video Girl Ai; Video Girl Len

Kia Asamiya: Silent Mobius; Dark Angel (serialized in Newtype magazine);
   Compiler; Vagurantsu (Vagrance ??)

???????: Dr. Slump; Dragon Ball; Dragon Ball Z

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other stuff:

   Interon Depot #1:  A collection of color manga works from Masamune
Shirow. (Comicborne)

   Shirow's Hyper World, which ran in Young magazine for about 4 issues,
consisted of some _Ghost in the Shell_ installments, using the character
design for Ghost that was last seen at the end of the Ghost in the Shell
book.  (Ie. -- the reincarnation.)

   There is now a series of volumes out where the characters and stories
are very similar to that of 3x3 Eyes, but the artist/writer is not the
same.  (I need to look up the title and artist name again.)  It's not as
good, though.  Plagarism lives on.

   Spriggman, the manga that has been translated as Stryker by VIZ, is
usually found in the Girl's Manga sections throughout Japan.


                               -- Curtis H. Hoffmann
                                  Aug. 30, 1992

--
Hitoshi Doi, International Open Systems Engineering        doi@jrd.dec.com
Japan Research and Development Center               decwrl!jrd.dec.com!doi
Digital Equipment Corporation Japan                     doi@decvax.dec.com
Xref: sparky rec.arts.manga:801 alt.manga:2166