Top Ten Manga and Manhwa for 2006
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on December 19, 2006 Sign up now!
by Kai-Ming Cha, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 12/19/2006
Top Ten Manga
10) Blood Alone by Masayuki Takano (Infinity Studios)
Newcomer Infinity Studios strikes gold with this series about a girl vampire and her guardian. Takano's creative approach to layout and light-handed artwork will be refreshing to manga readers everywhere.
9) Boys of Summer by Chuck Austen and Hiroki Otsuka (Tokyopop)
Boys is a manga series with an American edge.Austen steps up to the plate with a sexy and touching script about college-bound Bud Waterston who can't keep his eyes off the girls and can't keep his passion for baseball hidden.Otsuka is generous with the panty-shots, making 'Boys' a titillating and edgy reading experience.
8) The Judged by Akira Honma (DramaQueen)
The boys love genre isn't all butterflies and rainbows. The Judged is a haunting and powerful love story about a rookie detective and a corrupt politician. Dark, but not sadistic, this release reveals the potential of a mature boys love narrative.
7) Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata (Viz Media)
Volume 1 was released in 2005, but the Death Note series continues to build its fanbase.Volume 2 has gone into multiple reprints as has volume 3. The Death Note live action movie opened in Japan last June and premiered at Hong Kong's International Film Festival this past August. Currently countries in Europe, Italy, Germany and France, are negotiating to get the movie to their audiences.
6) Project X: Nissin Cup Noodle by Tadashi Katoh, Akira Imai (DMP)
The Project X series is business manga that portrays business phenomena and trends in Japan - and depicted with the same passion and fervor as a regular comic.In Cup Noodle Katoh and Imai give a history lesson and business lesson in one, portable, hand-held manga - much like the 'cup' noodles in the story.
5) Air Gear by Oh! Great (Del Rey Manga)
Oh! Great can draw action like no one else can.His portrayals of movement distill a kinetic energy and fluid physicality that reverberates with readers.Junior high wrestling champ Babyface Itsuki takes to the air with Air Trek skates—motorized super shock absorbing inline skates—to settle the score with Air Trek gang the Skullsaders.ADV has licensed the anime for U.S. release.In the meantime, the manga will have readers daydreaming about flying through the suburban Tokyo skyline.
4) Eden: It's an Endless World! by Hiroki Endo (Dark Horse Manga)
Heavy on narrative and light on technical jargon, Eden is a post-apocalyptic manga series for the geek in all of us.Set in the aftermath of a deadly virus that has destroyed whole towns and colonies of people, Eden follows multiple intertwining plots centered on one family that tie them all together.Endo takes note of Kazuo Koike's mantra: character, character, character.The result is a layered narrative and complex characters as rich, deep and enjoyable as good chocolate cake.
3) Punch! by Rie Takada (Viz Media)
Essential shojo fare.Elle Nagahara has a hot fiance who adores her and a brooding potential boyfriend she's scared of.Elle is interested in neither yet curious about both, making the situation more of a love angle than a love triangle and maximizing the tensions that build as the rivalry between the two boys escalates.
2) Basilisk, by Masaki Segawa, based on the novel by Futaro Yamada (Del Rey Manga)
If Shakespeare set Romeo & Juliet in feudal Japan and the Montagues and Capulets were warring ninja clans with X-men mutant-type capabilities, you'd have Basilisk.This is the top franchise for 2006 with the original novel also released by Del Rey and the anime series running on the IFC.The movie adaptation, Shinobi: Heart Under Blade, toured festivals in the states this past summer.
1) The Building Opposite, by Vanyda (FanFare/Ponent Mon)
The quintessential "nouvelle manga" of 2006. Vanyda's The Building Opposite brings together four distinct voices that create parallel narratives of the inhabitants of one apartment building.There's the young couple, the older couple, and the single mother with her child.The vignettes are exactly that, less contained, plot driven storylines than slice of life events that spill over to overlap one another.The result is a graceful depiction of the everyday in all it's humor, unspoken tragedy and simplicity. Not to be missed in 2006.
Top Five Korean Manhwa
5) 0/6 by Youjung Lee (Netcomics)
Boys comics for boys.Moolchi, a classic high-school nerd who gets bullied on a regular basis, is sent a beautiful cyborg bodyguard to protect him and fulfill his every wish.Funny, sexy and gorgeously drawn.
4) Banya: the Explosive Delivery Man by Young Oh Kim (Dark Horse Manhwa)
Set during war in ancient Korea, Banya works as a messenger delivering messages to others.Kim's rendition of this service is similar to the Pony Express, but mercinary and ruthless.Kim does an excellent job illustrating the battle scenes.His drawing style is reminiscent of Takehiko Inoue's in Vagabond.
3) Audition by Kye Young Chon (DramaQueen)
Forget about boys love. DramaQueen licenses some of the best manhwa to come out of Korea. Audition is as gorgeous as it is entertaining.Chon flexes the cross-dressing muscle in this series as two friends/rivals (who dressed as boys in high school) re-unite to find five boys (some of whom have a strong feminine allure) that will be the future of boy bands in Korea.Anyone who thinks girlish looking boys aren't sexy and girls who dress as boys aren't hot, needs to read Audition.
2) DVD, by Kye Young Chon (DramaQueen)
Chon just makes good, funny, and beautiful comics. In DVD, Chon draws upon the newly forming sentiment of westernized youth in Seoul as two best friends DD and Venu take in Ddam Shim as a third roommate.Male readers will have no trouble seeing eye-to-eye with the male protagonists as they discuss the allure of long eyelashes and the delight of padded bras.Meanwhile, female readers will appreciate the beautifully drawn girls and boys and the tinge of heartbreak and betrayal.
1) The Great Catsby by Doha (NetComics)
Catsby is a solemn and beautiful testament to post-graduate life and love. Doha's anthropomorphic depiction of Catsby and his roommate Hondu is sincere and heartfelt.
