Just a short page this time, as Brian's had a busy week. He's going to be a FATHER! Everyone congratulate him and his lovely wife, Meg.
www.smithsoncomic.comNaturally, there's a new
Chronicles of William Bazillion. I like how blithely Wiener and Darryl switch teams when presented with a new arrogant kid adventurer to follow. It's so hard to find good sidekicks.
Okay,
Overlooked Manga Festival!Actually, this manga isn't too overlooked. Bloggers talk about it, anyway, and if you can't trust bloggers to have their fingers on the throbbing pulse on America, who
can you trust? But it's worth discussing in the OMF, and besides, I like doing things that might entertain Anne Maloney.
Yotsuba&! is a fiendishly cute manga by Kiyohiko Azuma, the one palatable
moe artist. Azuma's previous comic, the four-panel gag strip
Azumanga Daioh!, was the cutest thing on God's green earth until he started drawing
Yotsuba&!, which immediately unseated it. I recommend
Azumanga Daioh!, too. But I chose this one to highlight on the OMF, because, you know. Yotsuba.
Yotsuba is a tiny, hyperactive green-haired girl who lives with her easygoing adoptive father in a quiet Japanese neighborhood. As the manga opens, she and her dad have just moved into town from parts unknown (when asked where she comes from, Yotsuba points in a random direction or says, "Left") and are getting to know the three older girls who live next door. For the rest of the manga, they all have adventures. Little adorable adventures.
Yotsuba is wide-eyed and inquisitive like any little kid, but to a cartoonish degree; everything from swingsets to doorbells to telephone poles to fireworks freaks her out hardcore and inspires a barrage of insane questions. It's almost like she comes from another planet, and maybe she does. She also possesses bottomless enthusiasm for each and every new discovery.
And that's it. That's the comic. In each chapter, Yotsuba encounters something new (hence the title, which is reflected in the chapter titles: "Yotsuba & Cake!" "Yotsuba & the Elephant!" "Yotsuba & Global Warming!") and enjoys the hell out of it, with her dad, her dad's very tall friend Jumbo, and the neighbor girls dragged along for the ride. Sometimes the adventure gets a little too intense for Yotsuba, like when she tries to feed goats at the petting zoo. I think we've all been freaked out by this moment.
It's those weird sideways pupils! Goats are so unsettling!
But for the most part the adventures are happy ones, and Yotsuba's enthusiasm for her sunny little world and its treasures is infectious. Like recent OMF pick
Aria,
Yotsuba&! is ultimately about enjoying the simple pleasures in life, stopping to smell the flowers. Yotsuba seems to live in an endless lazy summer day, which Azuma draws with fondness and care.
It's also a funny manga, with a great sense of character humor and comic timing (Azuma is a master of the beat panel). And, as you can see from these pages, it's almost terrifyingly cute. The first volume is pretty cute, and each subsequent volume gets cuter and cuter as Azuma's art develops. I'm almost afraid to pick up the next volume, for fear that my teeth will rot out of my head the moment I open the covers.
There's something almost un-manga-like about
Yotsuba&!, something that transcends cultural trappings and approaches the universality of a good comic strip. Maybe it's the characters (where else in manga do you see a laid-back single dad who hangs around the house in his boxers?); maybe it's Azuma's simple but intensely charming artwork. Whatever it is,
Yotsuba&! could be a good manga for people who don't usually like manga, as well as manga fans who need an extra cute buzz. Just try not to think too hard about the fact that, in Japan, it runs in a magazine for twentysomething men. Just
don't.
Previous Overlooked Manga Festivities:BasaraPlease Save My EarthFrom Eroica with LoveEven a Monkey Can Draw MangaDr. SlumpYour and My SecretPhoenixKekkaishiWild ActKnights of the ZodiacThe Drifting ClassroomOMF Special Event: Manga Editors Recommend Manga, Part 1OMF Special Event: Manga Editors Recommend Manga, Part 2OMF Special Event: Manga Editors Recommend Manga, Part 3OMF Special Event: Great Moments in Manga BakingShout Out LoudMonsterSwanWarren Buffett: An Illustrated Biography of the World's Most Successful InvestorSexy Voice and RoboOMF Special Event: 2006 Overlooked Manga UpdateThe Four Immigrants MangaGerard and JacquesOde To KirihitoBringing Home the SushiBanana FishSkip BeatOMF Special Event: The Greatest Manga Magazine in American HistoryCyborg 009Anywhere But HereTo TerraTown of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry BlossomsDoing TimeThe Walking ManSugar Sugar RuneParasyteJapan as Viewed by 17 CreatorsMariko ParadeGolgo 13Ricca 'tte Kanji!?Pure TranceOMF Special Event: My LegacyOMF Special Event: An All-Star Tribute to Carl Gustav HornGuest OMF by Jason Thompson: 888JoJo's Bizarre AdventureTekkon KinkreetYakitate! JapanFlower of LifeDomuOMF Special Event: Top Ten Lines from the Excel Saga mangaNanaWhat's Michael?OMF Special Event: Jason Thompson Presents the Top Ten Best Worst Manga, Part OneOMF Special Event: Jason Thompson Presents the Top Ten Best Worst Manga, Part TwoAriaComics Underground Japan
shaenon
I'm going to vote for "James K. Polk." Or maybe "Robot Parade."