Word: manga
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...story involves no adventures more outrageous than light, comedic romance (both of which are sadly unusual in American comicbooks, but not unheard of.) The novelty comes from reading it "backwards." The L.A.-based Tokyopop has begun publishing a whole series of pocket-sized paperbacks that reprint Japanese comicbooks, called "manga," the way they originally appeared, reading right to left. The experience is a bit like wearing generously-sized shoes on the wrong feet. It feels weird but you can get used to it. Perhaps younger comix fans, with less investment in the usual, Western way of reading, would adapt...
...most exasperating boy on planet earth! Even after 200 pages the complications have only just begun. The remaining seven volumes will appear on a bi-monthly basis starting with volume two, out in July. These kind of teased out, black and white, multi-volume stories are typical of Japanese manga storytelling. Also typical, Yoshizumi's drawings mix saucer-eyed, button-nosed caricatures with realistic details, particularly of the outfits the characters wear. Though little more than a childish soap opera, the natural, breezy dialogue (translated by Jack Niida), the occasional editor's notes on Japanese culture, and the likable characters...
...with a member of a rich brat-bully pack at an ?lite Taipei high school. (Mainland Chinese authorities were less enamored, saying it misled young viewers; Beijing recently banned the show after a few episodes aired on some local television stations.) The TV plot was adapted from a Japanese manga comic called Hana Yori Dango (Men Are Better Than Flowers). Chai, a variety-show producer, handpicked the boys from an audition of 200 (minimum qualifications: good looks and a height of 1.8 m) and dubbed them F4, short for the "Flower Four...
...similar descent takes hero Kakihara, (Japanese renaissance everyman Tadanobu Asano) to a blissful death in Ichi the Killer; in the modern Japanese cinema, death seems the only way out. This all-star gathering of evildoers unites ultraviolent comic artist Hideo Yamamoto, from whose manga the film was created, and screen violence helmer Miike Takahashi, who created last year's cult sensation Audition. Kakihara is a sado-masochistic punk gangster caught up in an underworld where dysfunction speaks louder than love. When his yakuza boss mysteriously disappears, Kakihara hunts for his abductor. In the process, he turns a mansion into...
...Despite all the hype?and bankable successes?there's still a naive, slightly dreamy look about Oyamada as he sits in his private recording studio in Nakameguro, Tokyo, flipping through pages of a worn-out manga magazine. It's only when he speaks that one detects the full weight of his 10 years in the Japanese indie-rock scene. "I'm not really into that whole rock and roll lifestyle," he says. "Even traveling in Europe, everything's kind of new and fresh and fun at first, but when you're doing the same thing 80 times...