Forum - View topicDomu
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DarkWarLord
 Posts: 141 Location: Tucson, Arizona |
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I was checking out some manga and I remembered seeing this one and hearing people on ANN talk about it. I just want to know, is it any good? I heard a few things about it and forgot what people said. I like any manga, as long as it keeps my attention and it's interesting. I just want to know what's it about and your opinions on it. Also, are any other short, underground type or out of print manga that are really good. Thanks again for everyone's time.
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smoochy
 Posts: 367 Location: Texas |
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[quote="DarkWarLord"]I was checking out some manga and I remembered seeing this one and hearing people on ANN talk about it. I just want to know, is it any good? I heard a few things about it and forgot what people said. I like any manga, as long as it keeps my attention and it's interesting. I just want to know what's it about and your opinions on it. Also, are any other short, underground type or out of print manga that are really good. Thanks again for everyone's time.[/quote]
Aye, Domu was excellent, from the creator of Akira. As for underground manga, I guess Yoshihiro Tatsumi's work would count as such. |
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jgreen
 Posts: 1325 Location: St. Louis, MO |
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Domu is a great little series. The characters in it are interesting, and the plot has a lot of nigh-disturbing existential/psychological horror elements to it. It's more streamlined than Akira, and more interesting than Legend of Mother Sarah, to compare it to Otomo's other manga available in English.
I don't know what kind of "underground" manga, you're looking for, but here's a couple: - Secret Comics Japan: A very strange little one volume anthology from Viz that features a bunch of self-contained stories by a variety of underground manga artists. Filled with effed-up horror stories and even a little "h", this one's definitely adults only. It's out of print, and Amazon only has one left in stock so you might have to hurry on this one. 
- Octopus Girl: One of the strangest manga I have ever seen. Definitely not for the squeamish. This one actually *just* came out from Dark Horse a few weeks ago. |
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DarkWarLord
Posts: 141 Location: Tucson, Arizona |
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Thanks guys, these are the kind of manga I had in mind. Keep 'em coming.
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Kagemusha
 Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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Domu is superb. Definitally one of the best examples of Science Fiction or horror on the market. Also quite an impressive example of layering, as Otomo manages to say alot (social commentary, ideas on the nature of evil and innocence) within a single volume. As for underground manga available in English:
Secret Comics Japan-Exellent anthology. There are of course some ups and downs, as a few of the stories from the "real" artists dabbling in manga come off as pretensious and convoluted, but the stunning and almost lyrical Swing Shell is worth the purchase alone. Also features exellent contributions from people like Nananan Kiriko, Yoshimoto Yoshimoto and Usamaru Furuya, who shows how good he is with the brilliantly hilarious Palepoli. Yoshihiro Tatsumi collections-Not underground per say, but Tatsumi was certianly the father of Japanese alternative comics with his gritty, dark and rather disturbing stories of everyday people consumed by the modernization of Japan during the 1960's. The first one, the Push Man, is very good but a bit uneven. The recently released Abandon the Old in Tokyo is where he really hits his storytelling prime. The latter is one of the best releases so far this year. Kinderbook-Wonderful slice-of-life tales by the uber-talented Kan Takahama. Like Tatsumi she has a keen eye for portraying the events of everyday life; unlike him she comes from a modern perspective that's both hopeful and bittersweet. Really amazing stuff, and a new collection from her comes out in October. Mr. Arachi's Amazing Freak Show-Macabre in the truest sense. Suehiro Maruo is an amazingly talented artist who tends to be ignored in english because of his focus on violent and gory portrayals of sex (though it should be noted that they're more inspired by traditional Japanese erotic art than most modern "sex n' blood" stories). He's an aquired taste for most, so it's best to do an image search to see if his art interests you. There are a couple of older collections like Comics Underground Japan and Sake Jock, but those are pretty much impossible to find. |
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DarkWarLord
Posts: 141 Location: Tucson, Arizona |
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Thanks Kagemusha, you're the main person I wanted to ask
 . Do you know of any other manga series that are more mature and some non-mainstream ones? Oh, and it would be nice if anyone could add a link to amazon.com like jgreen did, I have to order the manga off of amazon. Thanks in advance . By the way, most of the manga you guys mentioned looked pretty good and I'm thinking of buying most of them.
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Kagemusha
Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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As for the Amazon links, the first two books are Tatsumi's collections, and Kinderbook is only available used, but a new printing is coming in october, the same time her new book Awabi comes out, so I'd just wait. Mr. Arashi's is harder than I thought to find, though you might want to poke about ebay or into a local comicbook store provided they carry more than superhero books. There really aren't too many other great underground titles in english unfortunatally. Ponent Mon publishes a variety of literary manga, some of which is considered underground (Takahama's work doesn't fit the underground label or steriotype, but it was serialized in the legendary underground anthology Garo). Doing Time is one of them, though I'd be hesitant to recommend it. Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators has both underground and progressive-mainstream artists like Taiyo Matsumoto and Daisuke Igarshi (remember, mainstream manga publishers are willing to put out some pretty experimental stuff), as well as many French artists, and is all around exellent.
One thing about underground manga is, like I said, certian Japanese publishers (some of the smaller ones, but also the giants like Kodansha and especially Shogakukan) are willing to publish very experimental and progressive works. From what I can understand underground is strickly a term for matterials that are either self published or featured in one of the avante guard magazines (at one time Garo and now AX). As for hentai that happens to be very experimental (like from Jiro Matsumoto or Naoki Urasawa), I'm a bit unclear on how that's classified. |
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Cloe
Moderator
 Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Hey, mister! That would be Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show. And you stole my recommendation! You know I love recommending that title.  I must have been lucky when I ordered mine; I got a second-hand copy through amazon. Here's the Amazon link, even though it's currently unavailable. Maybe you can check back later to see if any used copies are for sale.
I'm going to throw Junko Mizuno into the mix, even though one of her shorts is included in Secret Comics Japan. Her artwork is always organic and beautiful and strange. Princess Mermaid is my favorite work of hers, but everything she does is good. Oh, and Domu is a masterpiece. It should be on any self-respecting manga collector's shelf. |
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