Forum - View topicDeserving of hype: The Quest For The Missing Girl
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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We've had some great releases in the past two or three months - Solanin, Black Jack and Me And The Devil Blues all spring to mind - but I think Jiro Taniguchi's The Quest For The Missing Girl might just beat all those titles to the much coveted "best manga Moomintroll's read since the summer" spot.
I realise that those of you outside the UK can find it difficult to get hold of Fanfare/Ponent Mon releases but, trust me, this latest release is well worth tracking down. Taniguchi is known for his stoical mountain tales and he's known for his bleak, hardboiled noir stuff. The Quest For The Missing Girl does a fantastic job of bringing the two themes together. The cities and the countryside are both lavished with Taniguchi's usual meticulous attention to detail and the narrative, whilst not as convoluted and opaque as noir should be, is nonetheless riveting. The whole thing - from rural mountains to grief filled apartments and from sleazy Tokyo streets to the blandly oppressive presence of corrupt corporate giants - all drips atmosphere and, all in all, it's a great, dark but redemptive, edge-of-the seat ride. In fact, I think I might just like this even more than I did The Ice Wanderer (which, incidentally, is also brilliant). So what are you all waiting for? Go buy it already. And then go back to your bolt holes and prepare for all the Taniguchi goodness that Fanfare have promised to provide us in 2009 (the five-volume Summit Of The Gods starting in the spring and the two-volume A Distant Neighbourhood starting in the summer). |
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Highway Star
 Posts: 227 Location: Ireland |
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Man, I keep forgetting about this... its on my "to buy" list alright, alongside Goodbye, Devil Blues, Solanin, Red Colored Elegy and others. I'd add Black Jack to the list, only for I'm holding out to see if I win any copies of it off David Welsh.
I thought Ice Wanderer was amazing, and if in your opinion The Quest is even better, then it must be something else! Oh, did you catch the news about a newly-drawn Taniguchi story that's being hosted online for free (though in Japanese)? Its apparently about the relationship between a student and her professor. Great artwork as usual from the chapter I read of it... |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Those are all great books but personally I'd put this and Good-Bye at the top of the list - Good-Bye is amazing. Or, rather, it's difficult, uncomfortable, culturally relevant, insightful and amazing.
Don't hold out too long - I hear Vertical are in serious financial trouble...
No. Do you have a link? |
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Not a Jellyfish
 Posts: 539 Location: Boston, MA |
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Oh, you guys make me so happy. I seriously LOVE Taniguchi. It's so hard to get a hold of his works, here, though. I'm still working on tracking down a copy of the Ice Wanderer. Not to mention Times of Botchan and Icaro. Thanks for giving me info on what to look forward to next year. Also, apparently I need to pick up Me and the Devil Blues since both of you mention it. I had been considering picking it up, but was delaying it at the price point (even though it is a nice volume).
The Quest for the Missing Girl sounds great. Especially if it combines Taniguchi's best two elements. He's an amazing artist and one of my favorite comic artists ever. I really look forward to this. I'm gonna have to track this down now, too. Oh, and I also have to reiterate: Get Good-Bye. It's absolutely incredible. Moomin said it perfectly. If you liked the other two Tatsumi releases, this is a must. |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Slightly OT: putting the word "hype" and "manga recommended by HellKorn, Kagemusha, Moomintroll, or even dormcat or abunai" is equivalent to creating an oxymoron.
I'm quite serious; manga we absolutely love often sell poorly: 曲高和寡. By the way, I may recommend a never-heard-of series in a few days. Stay tuned. |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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You can get Ice Wanderer and Botchan here for a reasonable price. It's a British site but they have free shipping to the US. I've been looking for the first volume of Icaro myself but it's long out of print (in English - the French release is still out there). One day...
If Hellkorn's reading this, I'm sure he'll be happy to (very eloquently) recommend it too. As for the price point: don't forget that it's an oversize omnibus edition, so you're getting two Japanese volumes with each US volume.
My work here is done. 
Sadly true. I predict that the best (English language) releases of next year - A Drifting Life, Awabi, AX Collection, Children Of The Sea etc. - will be met with wild excitement by the usual half a dozen people on this board and complete indifference by everybody else. But a man can dream...
Agreed. Thankfully some of it (like the Yoshihiro Tatsumi books and Red Colored Elegy) seems to have been selling relatively well to the alternative / underground / artsy comics crowd (who are used to paying three times as much for their books and can thus support smaller releases with a higher physical quality).
I'll look forward to it. --- Off Topic: Talking of obscure manga, has anybody read any of Yuichi Yokoyama's stuff yet? He's had two books published in the US by PictureBox (Travel and New Engineering) one of which was nominated for an Eisner award but I've yet to meet anybody who has actually picked either of them up. It would be nice to get an appraisal from someone here before taking the plunge since they're not particularly cheap. |
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Highway Star
Posts: 227 Location: Ireland |
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Yeah, as Moomintroll mentioned, Book Depository is your best and cheapest bet. They (suprisingly) have Hotel Harbor View for dirt cheap there as well. And they have most volumes of Times of Botchan, if not all.
There might be a slight chance for Children of the Sea, its one of Mangascreener's most popular scanlations at the moment... I have high hopes for the AX Collection. Sean Michael Wilson is a cool guy, he seems very dedicated to it.
Sounds iiiiiiiiiiinteresting... :B
Nope, I haven't read it. I've read some reviews on them, and read an excerpt from Travel though. Seems very interesting. Even more niche than Fanfare material though. I might give them a check sometime... |
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HellKorn
Posts: 1669 Location: Columbus, OH |
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I like The Ice Wanderer but found it uneven -- no surprise, considering it's material spanning years from Taniguchi's career. However, I'm quite fond of Hotel Harbour View, so I'm game for Taniguchi-styled noir.
Everyone needs to buy Me and the Devil Blues. Great pulp-ish storytelling with one of the most interesting creative backdrops in comics, let alone manga. The art is also practically unrivaled for manga released in English. ... Not eloquent enough?
Do you mean A Drifting Neighborhood...? You're also forgetting Pluto.
Haven't bought Travel yet, but New Engineering is... interesting. It's a really fascinating dissection of movement and imagery in comics -- hard to explain what I mean without going into an essay-length post about it. Aesthetically I love it, though; it's very ambitious and uses perspective like few other comics do. |
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Highway Star
Posts: 227 Location: Ireland |
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I found it a bit odd myself how some stories were a few years older than the others. Because of that, there's a lack of consistency in Taniguchi's style (well, in my opinion, e.g. compare the whale story with the one about the two trapped in the cave).
Nope, A Drifting Life is the new autobiography of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, which D&Q confirmed they are translating and releasing for next year. Should be quite an interesting read. Also, you're thinking of A Distant Neighborhood, Taniguchi's self-written masterpiece.
Yeah, that's what most reviews mentioned. I'd imagine its quite hard to review something like that. I'm in love with the few Yokoyama paintings I've seen so far... |
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Highway Star
Posts: 227 Location: Ireland |
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Found it; http://futabasha.pluginfree.com/weblish/futabawebact/Kawakami_Sensei_001_1_F6E41/index.shtml?rep=1 Its called The Teacher's Briefcase (Sensei no Kaban). And I might've mixed up the facts, I think Futabasha only posted the first chapter. Regardless, its well worth a look! Lovely suburban backgrounds... Also, this might be of interest to many here; A review of heta-uma legend Takashi Nemoto's Monster Men Bureiko Lullaby, from the publishers of Travel and New Engineering. I haven't heard much of this at all, but it sounds like a safe bet for fans of Tokyo Zombie... |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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I couldn't find any reviews last time I looked (a while back) but I've had another gander and found this pretty comprehensive review. Looks interesting. Challenging and a bit daunting but definitely interesting.
Thanks for that - it looks lovely. Taniguchi's (ever so slightly naive) colour pages always seem reminiscent of something else I've seen but I can never quite put my finger on what it is or who produced it.
I think it works better read in two halves rather than in one sitting and all of the stories stand up on their own too (which is the way I'm most likely to re-read them) but I can see what you mean about it feeling a tad uneven when viewed as a whole.
Perfectly adequate my dear fellow.
Pluto is on my list but I don't know enough about it to rave about it just yet. As for A Drifting Life - what Highway Star said. It's probably the book I'm most looking forward to next year.
That's enough of a recommendation for me. |
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smoochy
 Posts: 367 Location: Texas |
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I enjoyed The Walking Man quite a bit and I have the first two volumes of Times of Botchan and a copy of Hotel Harbour View and Benkei in New York lying around somewhere, so I have high expectations for this book. I already had decided I would pick up, I don't think Ponent Mon has made a misstep and I like Taniguchi, but after seeing it highly recommended by the other people in here whose opinion I trust, I'm pumped.
As for this new Tatsumi work, it's one of my most anticipated releases. In my opinion all of his work that Drawn and Quarterly has released has subsequently gotten better and better. I know that this'll be different since it'll be an autobiography instead of a best-of from whatever year, but I trust that it'll be quality work, Tatsumi and D&Q haven't let me down yet. I hope that if Tatsumi sells enough for them we’ll start seeing more than one volume per year. Speaking of some manga that needs to get released faster, Last Gasp has finally released more volumes of Barefoot Gen after almost three years since the volume 4. They started releases back in 2004 and now in November of 2008 we have six volumes of the ten volume series with volumes 7-8 due out in March of 2009. Maybe I'm the only one still following this series, so the rest of you need to do your duty and go out and read it and enjoy! |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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I've only read one chapter of Barefoot Gen (the excerpt in Frederik Schodt's Manga! Manga! The World Of Japanese Comics) and I've been meaning to read the rest ever since but never quite seem to get around to it. Now you've reminded me about it, I guess it'll be another title for me to start in the new year...
There are a few other Taniguchi titles you might want to hunt down: Samurai Legend, Summer Sky (a short story in Japan As Viewed By 17 Creators) and The Ice Wanderer are all well worth a look and the two-volume Icaro is supposed to be very good too though I haven't seen it myself.
Nor me - but I do wish they had the money to bring things out a bit more regularly. We've had, what, three releases from them in the past year? Everything they put out through Fanfare is gold but the wait can be excruciating. |
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Star Dream
Posts: 1 |
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I have had this Icaro for a few years now. I have to admit that it is beautiful but the story is seriously lacking. The story just feels incomplete. Reading it feels like reading book 2 and 3 of a 5 book series. I don't think the story is really finished which is annoying because it could have been really good. Jiro Taniguchi is a master though. I saw the Quest for the Missing Girl in a comic shop recently and was impressed. I will definately be buying this soon. |
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Not a Jellyfish
Posts: 539 Location: Boston, MA |
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I have now ordered myself copies of Travel and New Engineering. I'll be picking up Me and the Devil Blues with gift cards I should be getting for Christmas.
And many of the other titles mentioned are already on my "To Buy" list or I already have. Hotel Harbour View was also recommended to me, and I must say I'm already a huge fan of it. I'll be keeping an eye out for an American release of Missing Girl. And going to the book depository as soon as I can to order the other goodness mentioned in this thread. Thank you guys for being so awesome. Maybe we should turn this thread into an obscure manga recommendation thread (or make one). I know I would be appreciative. |
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