A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, by Moto Hagio
In Two Sentences Or Less: Mostly a little slight. Hagio's better in long form.
The Long Version: The best things in this collection are Hanshin, a deeply professional punch in the stomach, and Matt Thorn's interview with Hagio. Interestingly, these are also the only things in the book to have been previously published in English.
That's not to say that the book's not worth buying, because it is, but it's hard not compare this stuff to her longer work. The ones that stood out most to me:
Iguana Girl - Vivid, disturbing, and obvious in a way that can't diminish the former qualities.
A Drunken Dream - Needed to be twenty pages longer to escape feeling like cheating.
Girl on Porch With Puppy - Hah.
The Child Who Comes Home - In places, a little lazy; in others, a genuinely affecting depiction of grief.
The Willow Tree - I'm unclear why she bothered to write this, and then, having written it, publish it. Did a friend ask her for a short story of a really specific page-length, and this was what she had lying around?
...this comes off as quite negative! Sorry about that, that's not really the intention. But I really don't think another short story collection was the way to reintroduce Hagio to the west. It's been tried before, if in a very different publishing climate for manga, but part of the problem really is that her longer works are much stronger. I am open to argument over exactly what should've been first, but I argue in favor of The Poe Clan, with Heart of Thomas as the runner-up.
(I'd suggest Marginal, except that my feeling is that that visual style doesn't go over well in the North American market - for some reason it actually feels more dated than the two older works on first glance. On the other hand, Heart of Thomas does have those old-school tone shifts - like Eric's fit here - that I think might throw people who read mainly modern manga. Those things are signalled very differently now than they were once-upon-a-time; there's this really specific architecture of panel flow, and I think there are federal statutes regulating line thickness for superdeform-style and goofy heads. I hear Sakura Kinoshita spent a couple days in jail over volume two of Matantei Loki. The prophesied second coming of Osamu Tezuka will probably be brought to an abrupt end by a stoning prompted by an unorthodox use of diagonal gutters.)
tactics 8, by Kazuko Higashiyama and Sakura Kinoshita
In Two Sentences Or Less: In Which The Mangaka Continue Their Tradition Of Cutting Away To Cheap Jokes Every Time The Story Appears To Be Going Somewhere.
The Long Version: The first chapter is the finale of the plotline from the last volume, which went much deeper into the dysfunctional nature of Kantarou and Haruka's relationship than any of the previous storylines had. The rest of the volume, naturally, consists of comedy one-offs.
Not that they're bad comedy one-offs, for the most part! But it's getting to be obvious that this is something Higashiyama and Kinoshita do when they feel in over their heads. I think that they do know where the plot's going, but that they're uncomfortable with it and aren't in a hurry to get there.
The Princess and the Hound, by Mette Ivie Harrison
In Two Sentences Or Less: Too much manpain, not enough Princess. Or hound.
The Long Version: I think that actually was the long version.
Well, I'll say this much -![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rushthatspeaks is right in comparing this to Robin McKinley, because the tone is very like hers. The problem is that Harrison isn't willing to put the kind of weight on the story which McKinley-style prose is designed to hold. The actual conflict here is very minor, because the characters who would be ripping each other's hearts out in a McKinley book are too restrained to do it here. Things feel too easy, and when I got to the end I thought - "what, that's it?"
Fire Dancer, by Ann Maxwell
In Two Sentences Or Less: Man, why the hell isn't more sci-fi like this? And by "like this," I of course mean "completely insane."
The Long Version: I'm actually just going to quoteoyceter here:
I ask you - what is not to like?
In Two Sentences Or Less: Mostly a little slight. Hagio's better in long form.
The Long Version: The best things in this collection are Hanshin, a deeply professional punch in the stomach, and Matt Thorn's interview with Hagio. Interestingly, these are also the only things in the book to have been previously published in English.
That's not to say that the book's not worth buying, because it is, but it's hard not compare this stuff to her longer work. The ones that stood out most to me:
Iguana Girl - Vivid, disturbing, and obvious in a way that can't diminish the former qualities.
A Drunken Dream - Needed to be twenty pages longer to escape feeling like cheating.
Girl on Porch With Puppy - Hah.
The Child Who Comes Home - In places, a little lazy; in others, a genuinely affecting depiction of grief.
The Willow Tree - I'm unclear why she bothered to write this, and then, having written it, publish it. Did a friend ask her for a short story of a really specific page-length, and this was what she had lying around?
...this comes off as quite negative! Sorry about that, that's not really the intention. But I really don't think another short story collection was the way to reintroduce Hagio to the west. It's been tried before, if in a very different publishing climate for manga, but part of the problem really is that her longer works are much stronger. I am open to argument over exactly what should've been first, but I argue in favor of The Poe Clan, with Heart of Thomas as the runner-up.
(I'd suggest Marginal, except that my feeling is that that visual style doesn't go over well in the North American market - for some reason it actually feels more dated than the two older works on first glance. On the other hand, Heart of Thomas does have those old-school tone shifts - like Eric's fit here - that I think might throw people who read mainly modern manga. Those things are signalled very differently now than they were once-upon-a-time; there's this really specific architecture of panel flow, and I think there are federal statutes regulating line thickness for superdeform-style and goofy heads. I hear Sakura Kinoshita spent a couple days in jail over volume two of Matantei Loki. The prophesied second coming of Osamu Tezuka will probably be brought to an abrupt end by a stoning prompted by an unorthodox use of diagonal gutters.)
tactics 8, by Kazuko Higashiyama and Sakura Kinoshita
In Two Sentences Or Less: In Which The Mangaka Continue Their Tradition Of Cutting Away To Cheap Jokes Every Time The Story Appears To Be Going Somewhere.
The Long Version: The first chapter is the finale of the plotline from the last volume, which went much deeper into the dysfunctional nature of Kantarou and Haruka's relationship than any of the previous storylines had. The rest of the volume, naturally, consists of comedy one-offs.
Not that they're bad comedy one-offs, for the most part! But it's getting to be obvious that this is something Higashiyama and Kinoshita do when they feel in over their heads. I think that they do know where the plot's going, but that they're uncomfortable with it and aren't in a hurry to get there.
The Princess and the Hound, by Mette Ivie Harrison
In Two Sentences Or Less: Too much manpain, not enough Princess. Or hound.
The Long Version: I think that actually was the long version.
Well, I'll say this much -
rushthatspeaks is right in comparing this to Robin McKinley, because the tone is very like hers. The problem is that Harrison isn't willing to put the kind of weight on the story which McKinley-style prose is designed to hold. The actual conflict here is very minor, because the characters who would be ripping each other's hearts out in a McKinley book are too restrained to do it here. Things feel too easy, and when I got to the end I thought - "what, that's it?"Fire Dancer, by Ann Maxwell
In Two Sentences Or Less: Man, why the hell isn't more sci-fi like this? And by "like this," I of course mean "completely insane."
The Long Version: I'm actually just going to quote
oyceter here:I laughed every time I encountered "Kirtn," which I unfortunately pronounce as "curtain." I also giggled over his furry virile manliness and his sexual frustration. Also! There are talking rocks! And there is a species that is so foreign that they forgo apostrophes for slashes! I kid you not, they are called the J/taal. Rheba knows nothing about sex, given that her planet exploded before she could learn.
I ask you - what is not to like?
