"In the daylight I don't pick up my phone / 'cause in the daylight everywhere feels like home"

Color me flat on my ass. Hourou Musuko by Takako Shimura (author of Aoi Hana) has been licensed. Fantagraphics releases volume 1 this December as Wandering Son, per Amazon. Of all the series I've been reading in scans, that's the last one I expected to ever see in English. As in, holy crap. The series is about being transgendered during puberty -- at the start of the series, sixth graders Shuichi and Yoshino are, well, I can't say they're pre-op MTF and FTM respectively, as they're still only vaguely aware of what they're feeling means. Heck, 10 volumes in, three years of their time, we still don't know how much of their identities they will ultimately accept. This done as serious drama -- no fanservice, just adolescent confusion, doubled.

Wow.

Which seems like an excuse for a couple brief notes about other manga read recently:

Chotto Friday and Chizumi and Fugiomi, Kyouko Hikawa - Two short school romances from early in Hikawa's career. Chotto is a one-volume high school romance that lacks the delicacy of Onna-no-ko wa Yoyu! -- and is in fact way overplotted for its length. Still quite pleasant, and some details anticipate her later handling of similar themes. Chizumi started as one of her earliest serials but with gaps between the three volumes, she ended it after Miriam, so there's a big art shift from her early to middle style. This is mirrored by the age shift, as the protagonists grow out of high school into university. The early story is very episodic, with stories of uneven strength, but there's some charming moments even before the storytelling gets stronger; the heroine's friends are good for the best laughs throughout, though. Both series unlicensed, scans complete.

Emma volume 10, Kaoru Mori - When I first rushed through the scans of these last sidestory chapters, in which Emma and William finally get married, I hadn't noticed just how "finally" it was -- several years have passed, with Arthur not just out of Eton but out of University and studying law, Erich and Vivi are now in their teens, and Grace is married and a mother. It's even explicit in the chapter's opening narration, with Victoria dead, putting it at least 1901, three years after the main series. Which makes the multi-chapter wedding all the more satisfying -- a last, long goodbye that shows us Emma has grown into something resembling self-confidence and William has grown ... up. Now if only Otoyomegatari would get licensed.

Ozanari Dungeon, Motou Koyama - As dumb fantasy adventures with a spicing of genre awareness go, you could do worse -- a lot worse. It helps that the absurdly strong barbarian swordswoman in a stripperific outfit is played as Innocent Fanservice Girl instead of Ms Fanservice, being so much an ingenue the concept of sex baffles her. The first handful of volumes are episodic adventure yarns, but as Moka encounters more of her world's Powers That Be and becomes embroiled in their machinations, it gets somewhat deeper -- the tipping point being around the time she acquires a magic sword that's one of the PTB in disguise, which uses her to advance its own agenda. That said, it still remains a dumb fantasy adventure, though. I'm fond of the fox wizard sidekick who communicates only with signs. Unlicensed, scans available through volume 10.

Okay, and an anime note: If Yotsuba Koiwai was

1. raised by a teenage mother instead of a slacker bachelor father, and so acculturated to seeing the world through shoujo instead of seinen tropes,
   
2. sent to school where she became the middle member of a Beauty, Brawn, and Brains power trio of friends, and
   
3. drawn to look like a potato instead of a four-leaf clover,

then adapted as an anime, you might get something that resembles Hanamaru Kindergarten. Only, one would hope, better than the first episode makes it look. A lot better. Enough better that I'd be willing to watch the second. Available streaming through Crunchyroll.

... Hourou Musuko got licensed ...

---L.

"In the daylight I don't pick up my phone / 'cause in the daylight everywhere feels like home"

Color me flat on my ass. Hourou Musuko by Takako Shimura (author of Aoi Hana) has been licensed. Fantagraphics releases volume 1 this December as Wandering Son, per Amazon. Of all the series I've been reading in scans, that's the last one I expected to ever see in English. As in, holy crap. The series is about being transgendered during puberty -- at the start of the series, sixth graders Shuichi and Yoshino are, well, I can't say they're pre-op MTF and FTM respectively, as they're still only vaguely aware of what they're feeling means. Heck, 10 volumes in, three years of their time, we still don't know how much of their identities they will ultimately accept. This done as serious drama -- no fanservice, just adolescent confusion, doubled.

Wow.

Which seems like an excuse for a couple brief notes about other manga read recently:

Chotto Friday and Chizumi and Fugiomi, Kyouko Hikawa - Two short school romances from early in Hikawa's career. Chotto is a one-volume high school romance that lacks the delicacy of Onna-no-ko wa Yoyu! -- and is in fact way overplotted for its length. Still quite pleasant, and some details anticipate her later handling of similar themes. Chizumi started as one of her earliest serials but with gaps between the three volumes, she ended it after Miriam, so there's a big art shift from her early to middle style. This is mirrored by the age shift, as the protagonists grow out of high school into university. The early story is very episodic, with stories of uneven strength, but there's some charming moments even before the storytelling gets stronger; the heroine's friends are good for the best laughs throughout, though. Both series unlicensed, scans complete.

Emma volume 10, Kaoru Mori - When I first rushed through the scans of these last sidestory chapters, in which Emma and William finally get married, I hadn't noticed just how "finally" it was -- several years have passed, with Arthur not just out of Eton but out of University and studying law, Erich and Vivi are now in their teens, and Grace is married and a mother. It's even explicit in the chapter's opening narration, with Victoria dead, putting it at least 1901, three years after the main series. Which makes the multi-chapter wedding all the more satisfying -- a last, long goodbye that shows us Emma has grown into something resembling self-confidence and William has grown ... up. Now if only Otoyomegatari would get licensed.

Ozanari Dungeon, Motou Koyama - As dumb fantasy adventures with a spicing of genre awareness go, you could do worse -- a lot worse. It helps that the absurdly strong barbarian swordswoman in a stripperific outfit is played as Innocent Fanservice Girl instead of Ms Fanservice, being so much an ingenue the concept of sex baffles her. The first handful of volumes are episodic adventure yarns, but as Moka encounters more of her world's Powers That Be and becomes embroiled in their machinations, it gets somewhat deeper -- the tipping point being around the time she acquires a magic sword that's one of the PTB in disguise, which uses her to advance its own agenda. That said, it still remains a dumb fantasy adventure, though. I'm fond of the fox wizard sidekick who communicates only with signs. Unlicensed, scans available through volume 10.

Okay, and an anime note: If Yotsuba Koiwai was

1. raised by a teenage mother instead of a slacker bachelor father, and so acculturated to seeing the world through shoujo instead of seinen tropes,
   
2. sent to school where she became the middle member of a Beauty, Brawn, and Brains power trio of friends, and
   
3. drawn to look like a potato instead of a four-leaf clover,

then adapted as an anime, you might get something that resembles Hanamaru Kindergarten. Only, one would hope, better than the first episode makes it look. A lot better. Enough better that I'd be willing to watch the second. Available streaming through Crunchyroll.

... Hourou Musuko got licensed ...

---L.