Morning, Issue 2-3, 2004
James Moar
blogosphere), I thought I might contribute a look at some in its natural
habitat. What I've got here is an issue of a manga anthology aimed at
20-something and up businessmen, called Morning. It's published by Kodansha,
and you can read something about it on http://www.kodanclub.com/
Before I start, I should point out that my command of Japanese is somewhere
between 'slim' and 'laughable', and if you're already reading manga in
Japanese, this review isn't really for you (though I would appreciate any
comments or corrections). This is for English-language readers who'd like to
hear about what a manga magazine looks like, and about some titles that
haven't gone through the filter of being selected for import.
Okay, surface impressions first. The magazine is 510 pages long, costs 270
yen (about $2.50 or £1.40), and it's slightly precariously held together by
a stapled spine. It's got a brightly coloured cover, which is doing its best
to bury a good picture under a mountain of text advertising the contents.
Turning to the contents page at the back (where the front page would be if
we were reading left to right), it shows there are 29 stories in the issue.
They vary in length, with 20 pages being common for more serious stories,
and more humorous ones generally shorter. There's a form for readers to fill
in and send back, listing their favourite stories in the issue. This is a
common feature of manga magazines, used to determine which titles flourish
or perish. After all, raw sales figures can't say which stories in an
anthology are selling it.
There are very few adverts relative to the page count - a US comic with the
same proportion of ads would probably have about 2 pages of them - and
they're for things like cars, mobile phones and credit cards, along with a
couple of things that would be nostalgia products for the readership:
anniversary editions of Street Fighter II and V Gundam. Plus, there are
house adverts for some of Kodansha's other manga anthologies, and their
burgeoning stacks of graphic novels.
Before I start talking about the individual titles, some general remarks. In
many of the stories, the gutters at the side are used for recaps,
introductions of the characters, and plugs for the collected editions. Helps
bring new readers up to speed without leaving the later collections full of
recap, I suppose.
Compared to the shonen (boy's) manga I've read, the art in most of these
stories is less 'pretty', and tends to be more restrained and realistic. The
humour titles, though, are more mixed in style, being variously simple and
cute, simple and plain, or detailed and wonderfully ugly. The settings of
the stories have a restraint similar to the art - the sort of fantasies they
play to seem to be more those of having an exciting job than the shonen
dreams of "being the number 1 [fill in the blank here] in Japan"/"having a
harem of girls"/"being the only one who can save the world".
The first story is called "Kabachitare!" It's by Yuji Aoki, who also did
"Naniwa Financiers" (described in Frederik Schodt's Dreamland Japan). It
seems quite similar to that title, being another story of business
manouvering (this is where my laughable Japanese comes in - I don't know
what business), and in the same art style. It looks nothing like the
stereotype of manga, being bold, blocky, and unglamorous.
I can't tell you the name of the next story, but it's also set in a business
environment (a bank, maybe?). Our guy and girl heroes get caught on the
receiving end of a stick-up by some Chinese thugs, put them out of
commission with a well-timed tackle (from him) and some martial arts (from
her), and later exchange Christmas presents. Incidentally, if you're someone
who believes all adult manga is violent porn, a shot of the female lead's
bum in the martial arts sequence is as close to evidence as you'll get from
this issue of Morning.
It's harder to make out the plot of "Psycho Doctor Kai Kyosuke", but it's
something to do with doppelgangers and flashbacks to a man's youth,
apparently to prepare the way for his psychological healing by the title
character.
"Haruka 17" is about an aspiring actress. Here she's auditioning for a part
and trying desperately not to freak out.
"Zipang" is a WW2 drama, by Kaiji Kawaguchi, whose "Eagle: The Making of an
Asian-American President" has been imported. A pool game between Japanese
naval officers is intercut with battle scenes.
"Say Hello to Black Jack" is a medical drama, maybe named for Osamu Tezuka's
very different-looking "Black Jack". Hard to make out the plot here, but
perhaps it's a medical-ethics piece. The artist (who's also the writer, as
with most of these stories) does some wonderful detail on an old woman's
face, but everyone else is drawn more simply and their eyes are too far
apart.
Next, a humour piece called "Barber Harbor" ("Baabaahaabaa" transcribed
literally from the Japanese). It's formatted as a set of several 4-panel
strips, though they're not intended to be published separately. That's
common in Japanese humour comics, and there's even a manga magazine devoted
entirely to 4-panel strips. As for this one, it's about a barber and his
apprentice. Simplified art style, with lots of incidental scrawlings in the
gutters.
"Dragoncherry" is another one I haven't made much of. There's a school
setting, and some people with an unpleasantly overstuffed look to them sit
around after class and talk about something.
"The Evolution of the Office Lady" is another set of 4-panel strips,
featuring light workplace and home humour in a cheerful art style. This one
gets colour pages this issue.
"Do You Like America?" has a US setting, featuring a somewhat
disturbed-looking man training himself and his family with firearms by
shooting at a picture of Osama Bin Laden, and apparently spreading emotional
turmoil all around.
"Le Chef Cuisinier de L'Ambassadeur" is a cooking manga. It looks quieter
and more cheerful than "Iron Wok Jan!", the only translated cooking manga I
know of, and the food doesn't look like it rides the ragged edge of disaster
the way IWJ recipes do. Plus you get four courses in 18 pages, so don't
complain to me about decompression in your manga.
Another humor piece next. This time, it's a continuous story, something to
do with genetic engineering and a "Paradigm Machine". Hopefully, it's
well-written, because there's panel after panel more than half-filled by
speech bubbles. Didn't catch the title.
"Glaucos" is a diving story, and has art similar to Takehiko Inoue's on
"Vagabond", which is nice. This week, swimming with dolphins.
"New Tales of the Three Kingdoms", a Chinese saga by "King Gonta" is next.
Good art here as well, as a high-and-mighty looking warrior meets and talks
to a vagabond.
"Nessun Dorma" has thin-lined art that looks quickly drawn. A comedy, with
the characters talking their way through a meal in a traditional Japanese
house.
The next story is set in Japan during WW2, with ruined landscapes, Nazis,
and kids struggling to get by. It gets a few colour pages as well, and marks
the half-way point in the magazine.
"Cooking Papa" is another cooking manga, currently on its 824th instalment.
It's about a man who enjoys cooking for his family, and (this time out)
teenage romance and stargazing. A recipe for this week's dish is included.
The art has the more cartoony and rounded style of older manga.
I'll pass lightly over "Massugunadodekimishii", seeing as I can't tell what
it is.
"Giant" is about baseball, with a thick-lined art style that uses distortion
to represent movement, with a particular fondness for exaggerating the
effect of motion on the human face.
"Chimara" has a pleasantly rough-hewn style, and might be SF - it has
something to do with someone setting up their own country, anyway.
I have no idea what "The Marriage Star" is about, and judging by the way it
jumps between scenes here, this isn't the best instalment to find that out
anyway. There's an unsettling phoneyness in the expressions of most of the
characters here, as if they were members of a cult. Maybe that suits the
story to a tee, or maybe it's just bad art.
Next, more 4-panel strips, this time set in a forest and featuring rounded,
low-fi art.
"Chabudai Kenta" features angry adolescents, an attempted jump off a
rooftop, and a hostage situation.
"Old Age Power" is a comedy with art which has a loving eye for ugliness -
quite similar to "Bakune Young". An old woman leaves her ailing husband at
home and goes to watch a location shoot by her favourite comedian, until he
shatters her illusions by yelling at her for interfering with taping. At
which point, the husband enters to assault the comedian for his rudeness,
only for his wife to beat him up herself. This and the next strip are
packaged together in a section called "G-Spot".
"6-Mart" is a romantic comedy set in a convenience store, and I think this
might be its premiere issue. From what I can make out, it has a cheerfully
down-to-earth air about it, as a boy and girl on the checkout joke and flirt
whilst dealing with customers and other inconveniences.
The last big title is another historical drama, with art similar to Takehiko
Inoue's. I had it misidentified with "New Tales of the Three Kingdoms" at
one point, as it's working similar ground.
The issue closes out with the "Uhauha Comedy Corner", including a
demonstration of the results of transposing the ending of "Planet of the
Apes" to various Japanese locations, and a political cartoon about George
Bush.
And so, there you have it. The contents of one issue of one magazine. And a
weekly magazine, at that...
--
James Moar