Archives for December 2006

Densha Otoko: The Story of the Train Man Who Fell in Love with a Girl
By Wataru Watanabe
Original Story by Hitori Nakano
Rated T for teen (violence, language)
CMX, $9.99

With this train man, getting there is all the fun.

After all, we know how this story is going to end before it even begins. Even if we hadn’t already heard the heartwarming story of a hopeless nerd who courts a lovely miss with help from his online friends, the setup of CMX’s version of this story is so sweet that you know that in this case, faint heart will win fair lady.

So, no spoilers there. But don’t let the lack of suspense put you off. This volume, the first of three, gets the Train Man story off to a good start with plenty of humor and a hero who is enough of an everyman to be plausible and enough of a nerd to be interesting.

CMX’s version paints the story in broad strokes and plays it for plenty of laughs. The book begins by following the nameless hero (he’s known only as “Train”) as he wanders around Tokyo, mulling over his paralyzing shyness and generally getting taken advantage of. Once that’s established, we see his brief moment of heroism, when he shakes off his inhibitions to stop a drunk from harassing a girl on the train. When the girl sends him a set of Hermes (altered to “Hermess” in this version) teacups as a thank-you, he dares to dream: maybe he can talk to a girl after all. Unsure what to do—he has no friends or, apparently, family—he posts his story on an online channel for “poison men,” men who have no girlfriends. The anonymous posters offer advice and moral support, and he quickly becomes a phenomenon on the message board, more addictive than any game.

Turning a story that is told chiefly in text messages into a graphic novel presents some obvious challenges for the illustrator. Watanabe depicts Train’s online friends as cat icons, which allows him to show dramatic relationships between several speakers in a single panel, and he also shows the people behind the screens, who include a hairdresser, a manga-ka, and even a woman.

If Del Rey’s is the shoujo version of this story, CMX’s is the shonen take. Simple acts such a picking up a cell phone or opening the mail are pumped up with speed lines, sound effects, and lots of screaming. When the otaku hit their keyboards, it’s a major event. It’s a wonder they don’t destroy their computers in the process. This is clearly all done tongue in cheek, and sometimes it goes completely over the top, as when Train gets a call from Hermess and is suddenly dancing with a menagerie of stuffed animals.

The art is sketchy and jagged, with lots of background detail, which makes this a visually interesting book. The one exception is Hermess, who is distinguished by her smooth curves. Train’s otaku-ness is mainly in his head —he’s actually kind of cute—and his friends look fairly normal too, which gives the story less of a blind-leading-the-blind aspect.

If I have one complaint about CMX, it’s that their books always seem a bit thin. At 182 pages, this volume is a bit slimmer than most manga at its price point, and the flimsy paper makes it seem even lighter. The thin paper hurts the print quality and allows the images from the other side to bleed through.

Still, you can see that the CMX folks are trying a little harder. This cover is rather plain (it’s basically the cover of the Japanese version, with a bit less empty space) but it’s attractive and the quality is good. Inside is a four-color foldout page and an additional color page. Extras include a note from the artist about the cover design and a note from editor Jim Chadwick explaining the Densha Otoko phenomenon.

This review is based on a complimentary copy supplied by the publisher.

Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~, vol. 1
Story by Satoru Akahori
Art by Yukimaru Katsura
Original character design by Sukune Inugami
Rated Older Teen (16+)
Seven Seas, $10.99

Kashimashi is a gender-bender manga that alternates between serious and slapstick and somehow makes it all work.

The plot is built around an abrupt sex change and its romantic consequences. At the outset Hazumu, the main character, is a rather effeminate boy who enjoys walking in the woods and collecting flowers. He is in love with Yasuna, who turns him down because—secretly—she prefers girls to boys. Hazumu’s tomboyish friend Tomari, who has been his protector since childhood, is in love with him but can’t say so.

All this gets tossed in the blender when a spaceship strikes Hazumu and seriously injures him. The aliens reconstitute him just as he was, with one key difference: Now he is female, right down to his DNA. And for some reason they announce this to the entire world, projecting a picture of his new, nude body onto the night sky.

What follows is a curious hybrid of the hilarious and the tender. After all, nothing says comedy gold like a guy who has just grown his own set of boobs. That first peek under the shirt, figuring out which restroom to use, shopping for the first bra—all are exploited for maximum laffs. And orbiting around Hazumu are a menagerie of over-the-top characters, including his superhero-wannabe homeroom teacher, his newly lecherous father, and the space alien who comes down to study him. In a typical manga sleight-of-hand, the alien’s spaceship is transformed into a beautiful, busty girl who immediately latches on to Hazumu.

These slapstick touches lighten a more serious story about dealing with change. Hazumu’s family and friends are caring, if a bit wacky, and now they have some adjustments to make. Tomari has to deal with the object of her affections becoming a girl, and she’s also worried about losing a friend as Hazumu becomes, literally, a different person. Yasuna gets what she wants—the person she loves is now a girl—but Hazumu is almost annoyingly obtuse on this point, insisting that girls can’t fall in love with girls. And we’re back to the funny when Hazumu’s buddy, Asuta, thinks about his old friend as, you know, a gurrrl. With boobs.

Artist Yukimaru Katsura has a smooth shoujo style and uses a few tricks to make the book flow nicely. Flashbacks are shown with black borders, and when the action moves from funny to serious, she tosses out the background clutter and uses simple close-ups in large, otherwise empty panels to emphasize the change in mood. She also draws a few panels from Yasuna’s perspective, in which all the males fade to gray shadows. There is a fair amount of mild fanservice in this book, but to be honest, I didn’t really notice it because the story was pulling me along.

Seven Seas does their usual good job of production. The cover is attractive and the print quality is great—Seven Seas seems to lavish a lot of attention on covers. The book opens with a single color page. Print quality is good throughout, even in areas with complicated toning. Extras include a brief bonus story, translator’s notes, and a guide to the plants mentioned in the opening scene. I wish they had footnoted that on the first page, in fact, as I had no idea what Hazumu was talking about the first time I read it.

Kashimashi is a good story lightened with some slapstick humor, wrapped in an attractive package. There are crazy antics but also some food for though in here, more than enough for a satisfying read.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher.