2014 Eisners: Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Materal — Asia

Since I’ve spent the day at Wondercon, here’s some quick thoughts on one of the categories from the Eisner award nominations that were announced this week.  “Best U.S. Edition of International Material — Asia” usually winds up meaning “Best Manga” as is the case this year.  After all, this specific category was essentially created after the manga boom pushed nearly all other foreign comics out of the category in some years.  This year’s group of nominations had me go, “WHAT THE SH–”

…Well, let’s just say I was a little disappointed to see that there wasn’t any overlap between what I thought the best manga of the year were and what the people at the Eisners had in mind.  In any event, their selections have impressed upon me the fact that I’ve got more stuff to buy in the future.

With that out of the way, the five nominees are:

“The Heart of Thomas,” by Moto Hagio (Fantagraphics):  I enjoyed Fantagraphics’ anthology of her work, “A Drunken Dream and Other Stories,” yet haven’t gotten around this one yet.  That’s mainly because I can’t quite get past this being presented as one of the founding cornerstones of the boys-love genre.  Some of the reviews I’ve read have indicated that it transcends that classification, so one of these days I’ll get over myself, order a copy and find out whether or not it’s any good on my own terms.

“The Mysterious Underground Men,” by Osamu Tezuka (Picturebox):  This flew right under my radar even though I’ll buy just about anything from the God of Manga.  However, this comes with the caveat of being from his earlier kiddie-oriented period.  With the exception of the odd title like “Princess Knight,” most of the stuff from that era hasn’t aged all that well.  That being said, the description of the book on Amazon says it’s about Mimio the Talking Rabbit who has to prove his humanity as he and his friends work to save Earth from an invasion of angry humanoid ants.  If nothing else, this gives me the impression that it may be weird enough to be one of those exceptions.

“Showa: A History of Japan, 1926–1939,” by Shigeru Mizuki (Drawn & Quarterly):  This is a 560-page brick from an undisputed one-armed master of manga.  At least, that’s what I keep being told about him.  I liked “Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths,” but it didn’t turn me into a true believer of Mizuki’s work.  He’s apparently planning on doing more volumes covering subsequent decades which is certainly an ambitious undertaking considering where he’s starting.  The end date for the years covered in the title of this volume is basically a cliffhanger in itself.  Again, this sounds like something I should consider picking up during one of those slow weeks where I’m not bombarded with new comics being shipped to me.

“Summit of the Gods, vol. 4,” by Yemmakura Baku and Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon):  Hey, we finally get to something that I’ve read and reviewed!  Longtime readers know that I like this series in spite of its issues, yet I’m a little surprised to see it listed here.  Mainly because this is the first volume in the series to be nominated for the award.  Of course, I’d have no compunctions about seeing it swapped out in place of “21st Century Boys,” “Slam Dunk,” “Pink,” or “Helter Skelter.”  Not “Knights of Sidonia,” though, because that would just be ridiculous.

“Utsubora: The Story of a Novelist,” by Asumiko Nakamura (Vertical):  Here’s something that I read, but didn’t get around to writing about.  This one-volume josei work is about a famous writer who gets caught by the fan whose work he plagiarises.  The twist here being that the fan not only forces herself into a relationship with the author, but wants to help him finish the work as well.  It was an intriguing slow burn of a read that went in some unexpected directions in regards to its premise.  Though you could say that I did enjoy it more than “Summit of the Gods,” I’d still have no compunctions about replacing it with one of the other volumes mentioned above.