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To Terra... Impressions

I received my copy last week and read it later on during the week, though I didn't have the time to (and motivation) to post a thread on my thoughts for the first volume. Haven't gained much more vigor to go at a full-blown post, but "why the heck not" try to get more attention to a manga that probably isn't going to receive that much attention by the typical manga fan.

To Terra... is an old sci-fi manga created by Keiko Takemiya which contains a lot of noticeable themes that one would find in shoujo and shounen series (more notably the former, in my opinion), both new and old. The manga-ka herself is one of the infamous 49ers, who, to my limited knowledge, have only had very little of their works published in North America. Viz put out A, A Prime, Love Song, and the Four Shojo Stories anthology out years ago, and I believe that, outside of the aforementioned manga, is all we've received from the group.

Just from the first volume itself it felt as though I was reading some kind of mix between Moto Hagio and Osamu Tezuka with a dash of the always trusty "coming of age" story. The opening segments aren't definitive pieces of fiction by any stretch of the imagination, but I really like how Takemiya sets up the future with not just her exposition (which is later used in another matter) but also her creation of the little intricacies in the futuristic setting that compliment the various environmental and social themes she tackles. The panel lay out is quite worthy to note and has the type of frantic style that I find to be really engaging. Finally, the characters themselves aren't really defined well enough since what we're getting is basically a set up for later events, so it's too early of a call for me to see whether Jomy will be an interesting lead or not -- the last part of this first volume seem to give the indication that he might, though.

Then, we get to the second part of the story, and we're introduced to what seems to be the second protagonist (Perhaps the antagonist?) in the form of Keith. I was having Phoenix flashbacks when it came to the introduction of their "Mother," though with the Tezuka influence I'm not surprised. This portion turned out to be better than the first for me with a fair amount of suspense and more interesting characters. It continued on with the quality into the third portion, and now we're left to wait for the second volume to come out in April.

Overall I'm quite pleased with the introduction of To Terra... and am really looking forward to the last two installments. I am a bit put off by Vertical not translating the sound effects and the small comments that some characters make, however. I didn't really care one way or another about the flipped versus non-flipped issue when it came to this title, but not translating the sound effects is just plain lazy. I really hope that this doesn't become a norm for all manga that they license outside of Tezuka (we can count on the flopped format and translated sound effects with his work). They put out some really good quality stuff, and it'd be a shame for them to shift their standards because "it's what the fans want."

The manga-ka herself is one of the infamous 49ers, who, to my limited knowledge, have only had very little of their works published in North America. Viz put out A, A Prime, Love Song, and the Four Shojo Stories anthology out years ago, and I believe that, outside of the aforementioned manga, is all we've received from the group.

I really fell in love with the art style, which was quite obviously Tezuka-influenced...

The only other things I know of is They Were 11 (unless that was reprinted in Four Shojo Stories; I can't remember) and a one-shot Moto Hagio manga that was printed in the shojo issue of The Comics Journal from last year. Also, I don't believe Love Song's Keiko Nishi is considered a 49er, but I could be wrong on that front.

It resembles more of Moto Hagio's type of work rather than Tezuka as far as the art is concerned.

Really see more of a Tezuka influence in the character designs and especially in the layouts and the pacing.

Takemiya is obviously a fine craftswoman and everything is done with alot of skill, but I'm a tad bit underwhelmed thus far, particuarly with the main character.

I'd already remarked about the panel layouts and whatnot above. And as for character designs, I see traditional shoujo through and through, and Hagio's style is more appropriate to compare it to than Tezuka's, in my opinion.

Hagio's designs are fairly close to being anatomically correct while Takemiya's, despite showing clear development towards a more modern style, remain in the Disney-inspired aesthetic that Tezuka popularized. The way she draws hair is a bit diffrent and resembles something other than Tezuka, but for the most part her designs and facial expressions are still highly stylized.