GoGo Monster was written by Taiyo Matsumoto, who is better known for his Eisner-winning work Tekkon Kinkreet, first published in the US by Viz as Black and White.

Matsumoto tends to write stories about youth and its interaction with adults. This story at its heart is about growing up… it’s easy to draw comparisons with the recent “Where the Wild Things Are” movie. Which is to say, if you liked that movie, you stand a good chance of enjoying GoGo Monster.

Tachibana is a grade-schooler who sees imaginary monsters that live in the school. He’s friends with the new kid Makoto, who is the only person that will talk to him–Tachibana’s imagination alienates him from the rest of the class.  Another student in the class, IQ, walks around with a box on his head and spends his time talking with the school’s rabbits. Eventually we see Tachibana and IQ come face-to-face with the reality that they can’t live in their “fantasy world” forever.  But what’s most interesting are the choices they make through the course of the story, and how these choices slowly change them into who they become by the story’s end.

There are a lot of great visuals used in the book involving airplanes and flowers, that really lend a deeper meaning to everything else happening. It’s a story that’s straightforward most of the way through, but gets very symbolic by the end; which invites a second, closer reading I’m looking forward to.

The book is also noteworthy because of the amount of care put into the publication–I have never seen so much work put into the presentation of a manga in this country. The cover art is really fantastic as well as the red art on the pages that contributes to the cover art.

[photo by Christopher Butcher, from his excellent (and never safe-for-work) blog]

If you were ever an outcast or a social pariah or knew someone that was, then you will enjoy this book, the latest in a long line of triumphs by one of the most respected manga-kas working today.

This is a manga series that follows a rural college freshman named Tadayasu. He hopes to have the ideal college experience. Unfortunately, his father insists on only letting him attend an agricultural college so that he can one day follow in his footsteps. Adding to this, Tadayasu has a very special gift: he can see bacteria and other microbes with his naked eye. This makes him a source of attention for sophomores wishing to use his talent for get-rich-quick schemes; and his professor, to help with his research in terraforming. Needless to say, a guy that can identify all the bacteria in a room is a popular guy in a field of agriculture.

This manga is certainly a very “niche” kind of subject material. I enjoy biology so I really understand and enjoy the parts of the book where they go in depth about the different microbes and their role in nature: fermentation for alcohol, food poisoning, fungus-growing, etc. I also like how the character’s talent plays into his disgust of his friend’s bacteria-ridden dorm room and the formation of cliques that monopolize lab equipment, which anyone that has ever lived on a college campus can relate to.

People that don’t have a passion for biology or learning about the invisible world of microbes will find a lot of the panels clogged with text and hard to follow. If you can get past the slower parts of the book, you will certainly learn as much as you laugh in this story about a boy that is cursed with seeing how truly essential microbes are to our everyday living.

[reviewed by student Matt Plummer, one of our customers and a regular at the Heroes Discussion Group!]

With the upcoming release of the 23rd volume of One Piece, closing the most recent story arc, I thought it would be a good time to write about this gorgeous series. One Piece is an adventure-action series that started in 1997 and chronicles the exploits of a plucky and stubborn kid–Monkey D. Luffy, who can stretch any part of his body–and his quest to become the king of the pirates. To do this, he has to find this lost artifact owned by the previous king called “One Piece”. This MacGuffin leads Luffy to sail to faraway lands and amass a crew of other misfits like himself that also have dreams they aspire to. The artwork is clean, unique, and very cartoony. It looks like a cross between Disney and Peter Max (Yellow Submarine). Every character is completely fleshed out and is usually given lots of background information concerning their dream, previous strife, and their motivation concerning the plot.

In essence, this series is the spiritual successor of Dragonbal, complete with exotic locations, heartbreak, humor, and action. It’s hard to imagine that anyone reading (or watching) this series could see it as anything less than the absolute best representation of everything a young-boys manga series should be. It is for this reason that the first edition of the next volume, 24, is owned by more Japanese, roughly one in every 28, than any other first edition volume of a series. If you want to see the highlight of what manga can offer, or if you want to see what it would look like if Mr. Fantastic was an expert fighter, then give One Piece a shot.

This is the latest English adaptation of an Osamu Tezuka work, and the first published by Digital Manga Publishing, a company that has never released a Tezuka manga before to my knowledge.  The images included in this review were taken from the excellent preview on the DMP site.  You should check it out, although just so you know there’s probably adult language and/or situations in it.

 The story focuses around these seven beautiful sisters who are sworn to get revenge on all of mankind, emphasis on “man”. And to pretty much wreck all of civilization, all for the sake of their mother who was betrayed and had her life ruined by a merchant of war that was her husband many years before. 

The girls’ plans hit a snag when they encounter an alcoholic dock worker (with the bedside manner of Popeye) named Gohonomatsu Seki.  The problem he creates is the fact that he is immune to all of the sisters’ tricks of seduction and manipulation.  This leads to Seki running for his life to different exotic locations including tribal islands and America.  This main story is fine but it can get kind of cliché at parts with how the characters speak to each other and respond.  The story is also sexist in a lot of ways; the women in the story are often little more than “damsel” stereotypes.  However, this story was written in the 60s and the roles of men and women were vastly different, considering.

The parts that are really great in this book are the short stories.  At about halfway through the book, they switch gears from the main characters, to completely different people and how they are coping with all of the problems the antagonists are creating in the world.  All of these stories are interesting, creative, and have good “twist” endings that really show what Tezuka is made of.

The artwork is expressive and very clean and cartoony is some parts.  This is something that we’ve come to expect and love with all Tezuka stories.  There are also a few parts in the story too where Tezuka depicts African-Americans in a very stereotypical manner and that too is a regrettable part of this story being made in the 60s.

All in all, not the greatest Tezuka work, but it is not without some great moments.