Weekly Masayuki Ishikawa - The National Bird of France

I know I really slowbro'd this one, but that's just how it goes.

Now, I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but I happened upon my copy of this story collection over break, ended up reading through it, and I realized that I've come a long way Japanese-wise. In other words, I might work on a few more stories than the 3 I originally picked out. Won't happen until Seireihen is finished, though.

Discommunication Seireihen chapter 10

Well, just one chapter this time. I found it mildly unsettling, if not disturbing; that's Ueshiba's stock in trade, really.

I'm going to be busy for the next month or so. Have a happy Festivus and we'll continue this next year.

Kabu no Isaki chapter 10

Well, here we go again.


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I was feeling facetious, so I asked Google for directions from Nagai to Kisarazu. It does just fine for ground routes, but as far as I know, there's no as-the-crow-flies distance measurement option. Using a ruler, I measured 30-odd kilometers in our world, which makes 330 km in KnI's world. [Addendum: Found the Ruler feature in Google Maps Labs; it measured 33.1 km.]

There was one sticking point in this chapter that I'm still not completely sure about. Isaki actually says "liaison aircraft" where I had him say "air courier." So what's a liaison aircraft? It's a small plane used for non-combat military purposes, like transport and reconnaissance. The Pitts Special is not a liaison aircraft, but the L-4 variant of the Cub (the "Grasshopper") is. So perhaps they were talking about the Cub, but the rest of the conversation doesn't make nearly as much sense that way. I might be wrong, though, so I'll come back to this if necessary.

Suddenly, AX

I finally got my hands on the first volume of the AX Anthology yesterday, chock full of some of the trippiest comics ever made. The tale of the obtaining is long and harrowing: I made a preorder on Amazon in January. All seemed well, with an email in May saying that the expected date had been moved forward a couple of weeks to the end of July. Come the end of July, however, an email appeared that asked, "we haven't been able to get this, do you still want us to try?" I thought the situation was a little odd, as Top Shelf reportedly was selling copies at San Diego Comic-Con, but I continued to wait. At the beginning of August, Amazon gave me a new ship date of mid-September, only to deliver another "we haven't been able to get this" message on September 10th. Then two weeks later, the order was cancelled by them for lack of availability.

Then about a week ago, I was ordering some other books on Amazon, and oh hey look the AX Anthology is available and in stock. The rest, as they say, is history.

Kabu no Isaki chapter 9

A bit of an adventure this time.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, New Edition

You may have heard about this: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou has been republished in Japan. This new edition, literally "new edition" in Japanese (新装版, shinsouban), is 10 (thicker) volumes versus the original 14. It contains all the color artwork from the magazine serialization, plus some little rough sketches here and there on the pages between chapters. The covers are all new, and as the ad on the right (from the August issue of Afternoon) says, the concluding chapter "Touge" will be published in volume 10 — it appeared over a year after YKK ended serialization, so it's never been collected into a tankoubon. Basically, think of this New Edition as a new print run of the series, with minimal extras.

So the question is, should you buy this? If you're a die-hard YKK fanboy, then the answer is obviously yes, especially if you don't own the previous edition, which is long out of print. (Even if you do, don't let that stop you.) For everyone else, we can ask a more pointed question: is YKK ever going to get licensed for publication in English? I've paid a bit more attention to licensing this season than I have in the past, and I have to say I'm pessimistic. Vertical's Ed Chavez asked for suggestions on Twitter and elsewhere a few months ago, and the ensuing conversation was instructive. First, publishers aren't going to license something that isn't going to turn a profit (duh). Tied to this are the up-front licensing fees, which are directly proportional to the number of volumes involved. If we presume something like $10K per volume, that's quite a chunk of change. Second, the majority of sales come from major retail channels — big stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble. While it's unlikely that YKK's content will keep it off of shelves, booksellers are certainly going to wonder if it's going to sell. While YKK is on top ten lists the internet over, the question remains: will it sell to a wider audience?

I firmly believe that Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is the apotheosis of the slice-of-life genre, and a brilliant example of the possibilities inherent to the medium. It's unfortunate that no publisher has had the guts to bring it over, and while I'd like to believe that it will happen, it's hard to say. If you're thinking about buying the New Edition, you've probably got a year or so to make your decision; due to the vagaries of the Japanese manga market, only the most popular books are kept continuously in print, and the rest eventually sell out. As for how to get your hands on Japanese-language manga, I've started writing an overview that you can find under "Pages." I hope it'll be helpful.

Discommunication Seireihen chapters 4-9

I'd forgotten how long it takes to compile those notes. It's a fairly straightforward task, but somehow all that copy/pasting URLs and ahref-ing gets old real fast. But it was fun tracking down references, watching weird commercials, and learning more about the tokusatsu shows the author is so fond of. Ueshiba is not shy about letting his influences show, and as a Westerner, establishing this series' place in the wider schema of Modern Visual Culture is a fascinating exercise. While youtube is an easy place to start, so far I've tracked down the DVD of the Teito Monotagari anime (Doomed Megalopolis) and I'm looking forward to getting Natsuhiko Kyogoku's Summer of the Ubume.

This is the first summer in a while where I've been completely free; no obligations, no job, no nothing. While I haven't gotten as much done as I would like, I guess I've managed to make some progress. The semester is approaching, though, and I need to get ready for it. I can't keep up this pace forever, but I have managed to streamline my process somewhat, so this project will get wrapped up sooner or later.