Since we’re on the topic of squee-making manga news, today the second Volume of GUNJO is on sale.
Let’s show Nakamura-sensei as much support as we can!
Archive for the Gunjo Category
Yuri Manga: GUNJO, Volume 1
(Note to people looking for scanlations of this book. The author does not work herself to the bone and pay money out of her pocket so you can steal her work. Scans are not cool – they are theft. You want the book, click the picture and go buy it. Otherwise, you’re devaluing her time and effort and there is no justification for it, other than you are selfish.)
“Is it settled?”
“It’s settled.”
With these few words begins one of the most profound, most emotionally engaging manga I’ve ever read.
Gunjo, Volume 1 (羣青 上)by Nakamura Ching is a journey from madness to madness, from profound misery to profound misery and from derision and fear into depths of despair where there is respect and even love.
It begins in the moments after a horrible crime has been committed. A woman has asked someone to kill her husband for her. She has asked someone she knows she can use – another woman, a lesbian, who has been in love with her since high school. The woman who requested the death is abusive, derisive. The woman who committed the crime is passive, almost apathetic. She flinches in the face of the other’s harsh words, but doesn’t fight back.
In between incredible, sudden violence, at moments when their existence is most tenuous, there is tenderness. No, it’s more like that there is only tenderness in the moments when they are most fragile.
We only learn later that the one woman has been serially abused by her husband, after a life with an abusive father. And we only learn later that the other woman walked away from a relationship and a life to commit this act of violence for her.
There is no real moral ambiguity here – these two women are violent and broken. They are insanely bad for one another and have together done something unspeakable. And yet, in the darkest moments, they realize they want to live and try to create something like a life out of the chaos they’ve created.
Nakamura-sensei’s art is detailed and realistic – and in those moments of terrifying violence it reaches the level of sublime. Her writing is subtle – and painful and hurtful – and breathtakingly beautiful especially when the situation is uncertain. There is a mastery of tension of just about every kind in every word and line of this story.
Moving, brutal, sublimely gorgeous and profoundly disturbing.
I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say this – Gunjo is the best manga I have read to date.
Ratings:
Art – 10
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Yuri – 7
Service – 1
Overall – 10
I would love to hear from those of you who bought Volume 1 of Gunjo – what did you think of it, now that you’ve had a chance to see it for yourself?
ChinMan Manga
Before a manga artist gets a serial, they usually start with a few one-shot stories for a magazine. In this case, before she began drawing GUNJO, Nakamura Ching drew a number of one-shot manga stories that have been collected into a single volume, ChinMan (short for Ching Manga.) This collection is eclectic, odd and intruiging. Just the way I like it. :-)
The first story follows Sae, a young woman with a mysterious disease that causes extreme nosebleeds and some kind of internal convulsions when she’s over stimulated. ….Ahem. When’s she’s kissed deeply by a worried female friend, she realizes that her illness might not be so bad, after all.
Nanako listens to her grandmother’s story of how she and her grandfather lived through hard times and were parted during the war, but doesn’t really understand her grandmother’s feelings until she herself finds love.
“Sonny” is a boxer, whose son does not respect him, until he sees him give his all in the ring.
Noboru is a 19-year old slacker who decides that he wants to become a tattoo artist. He apprentices himself to a woman who really runs him through the traditional method of apprenticing – he cleans constantly, endures physical and emotional abuse until he proves himself worthy of taking ink and needle to the skin of his master. This was far and away my favorite story of the collection.
A local boy and girl have a very contentious relationship that ends with the boy becoming a hero eternally as a Kamikaze pilot.
“Lady Stanch” is a look at life among the bosozoku and the relationships that develop between friends, enemies and lovers in that world.
A young man faces the harsh real life of someone he admired when he was younger in “Cheerio.”
And the final story is a hyper-intensive look at an artist’s tools. I mean that literally. This is a manga about the pens, pencils and brushes and one woman’s over-the-top relationship with her writing utensils.
Each story in this collection is filled with remarkable intensity. The female characters really stand out as having some strength and every character shows resolve in a way that is bound to make a reader feel like s/he too can overcome any obstacle. But these are not comforting stories, even when they are funny. They are edgy in a very real sense.
I’m particularly glad to have had the chance to read the tattoo story, and in general to have gotten a glimpse at the early work of a woman I not only respect as a manga creator, but respect personally.
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – Variable – 6-8
Characters – 7-9
Yuri – In the one story, 7
Service – 1, just on principle
Overall – 8
Before there was GUNJO, there was ChinMan.
And it was good.
Gunjo Preorder (Japanese edition)
As I mentioned on Saturday, I will be placing a bulk order for the first volume of Gunjo, so should you be uncomfortable ordering from a Japanese website on your own, you can order through me.
Here’s what I’ve come up with on costs for the Gunjo order. These have been rounded off for convenience to my brain.
Book – $10
Shipping From Japan – $5
Domestic Shipping – $5 (Priority mail)
International Shipping (this includes Hawaii, Alaska, Canada and Mexico, I’m afraid) – $15 (Priority)
Handling – $5
So, Domestic US (48 contiguous states) – $25
International – $35
I’ve added in a “Handling” charge to cover Paypal fees and packaging materials, which, sadly, do cost something. That makes the International cost $35, which is edging very close to you getting it on your own. But I don’t want to say US only, because I know that Europe always gets left out of the equation.
For what it’s worth, I am *only* shipping priority, because trust me, the alternative means your book goes for a week or two long vacation to a warehouse somewhere where it will be lost, probably forever.
So, I’ve listed the links below. Domestic will be $25/book, International will be $35/book and I apologize, but it’s still cheaper than $50/book, which is roughly what it would be if you ordered by yourself through Amazon JP with nothing else in the order.
Orders must be placed through Paypal, no money orders, because I don’t want to lose my mind doing this. :-)
The book won’t ship until it’s released, so let’s say, Pre-orders will be open until February 20 and then I close them.
Domestic Order – https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=QPE7LL64CHXT4
International – https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=YGJJXZ8WTV5B6
I hope this makes life easier, not harder, for you all. :-)
Yuri Network News – January 30, 2010
This week was the last week of having 4 jobs; as of next week, I’ll be back to my usual 3 at a time. Thank you all for your patience with gaps in reviews. I’m *still* open to guest reviews, so if you have something you’d really like to review here, email me and we can talk!
Before we start, I have a Mystery to Solve. Someone sent me an absolutely *beautiful* doujinshi from Romania. There was no name, no note, no nothing. Can someone claim credit and let me know who to thank?
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Yuri Manga
The pre-order for the first volume of Gunjo is up on Amazon JP. It’s got a February 25 release date.
Ordering from Amazon JP isn’t as hard as it appears, since all the buttons are the same size, color and shape on every Amazon, and the check-out can be displayed in English. However, I know that not everyone is comfortable with the idea of ordering from there. So, to make things easier, I’ll be coordinating a bulk order. I’ll let you know when it’s all set up, but here’s the plan: I’ll set up a link to take orders through Paypal. You’ll have to pay shipping from Japan, the cost of the book, the fees on Paypal and shipping to you. However, you’ll be paying a smaller shipping cost than if you placed the order on your own. You don’t *have* to order this way, I just want to make it easier for you if you want it. :-)
YNN correspondent Sean G. did some great investigative reporting this week, when he contacted Digital Manga Publishing and asked whether they had abandoned the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS manga. Their response was ‘We still have it. Lyrical Nanoha Strikers will come out this year. Vol. 1 is in September.’ As Sean said, “there you go.”
Octave Voume 4 is up for preorder, and the latest Comic Yuri Hime magazine has already hit the shelves.
The big news is that Morinaga Milk will be doing a color illustration for Yuri Hime. This has excited some hope that she – and therefore Nana and Hitomi’s story – will be returning to the magazine. File that under conjecture and rumor. All it really means is that she’s doing a color illustration.
CANAAN Volume 1 is now available. So far, it pretty closely mirrors the anime, which is both good, and bad.
It’s the Year of Nanoha! The movie is out, with a Number #1 song for Mizuki Nana, and the first volume of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid has hit the stands. The story is excellent, the execution gives me nightmares.
For those of us who prefer the adult characters, the first volume of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Force is also available.
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Yuri Artist Interview
Speaking of Yuri manga artist Morinaga Milk (Girl Friends), she answers 10 questions on the Comic High website. These cover important issues like her unusual pen name and what items she keeps around when she’s writing, etc.
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Other News
It’s my pleasure to announce the winner of “Get this thing out of my house! Contest” from last week – Satoshi Miwa. Miwa, can you DM me on Twitter or email me with your address and I’ll get this fine example of unrestrained crap out to you as fast as I can manage? :-)
It’s all the rage to give away manga these days among the manga bloggers – I may make this a regular feature!
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That’s a wrap for this week.
Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.
Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!
