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Forum - View topicJason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Sanctuary
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perroloco
Posts: 308 |
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Seems cool, gotta ask though, I saw the series is 9 volumes long (At least thats the number of volumes in amazon) while wikipedia says is 12 volumes.. Was it cancelled or did Viz just put the 12 volumes in 9 volumes?
Also its flipped to western order, right? I mean amazon says most volumes are from 1997 or so (Weird that the first volume is from 2004.. -.- 2nd printing maybe?) |
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perroloco
Posts: 308 |
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Seems cool, gotta ask though, I saw the series is 9 volumes long (At least thats the number of volumes in amazon) while wikipedia says is 12 volumes.. Was it cancelled or did Viz just put the 12 volumes in 9 volumes?
Also its flipped to western order, right? I mean amazon says most volumes are from 1997 or so (Weird that the first volume is from 2004.. -.- 2nd printing maybe?) |
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Brand
 Posts: 1028 |
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The Viz version covers the whole series but has more pages per volume then the Japanese edition. Thus fewer volumes. It is flipped (I don't think it detracts from it). The books came out in the late 90's. I remember going to Otakon in 2001 and going to the Viz both looking for volumes of Sanctuary but at that point they were already out of print.
I have a complete set, which took me several years to get. I was fortunate I got most of the volumes when no one was interested in the series and it was cheap. Though I had to re-buy some volumes because I lent them to a friend and never got them back, at the more expensive current prices. This was one of my earliest manga. I admittedly love it. It hits so many sweet spots for me. I loved Ikegami's art, I love stories about mobsters, the story does seem inspiring, homosexual undertones (remember this was the late 90s, yaoi hadn't really take off yet). Tokai really is the best character, he is the most interesting, and probably most complex in the series. A cruel yet oddly passionate man. I swear I always called Isaoka "Hans MoleMan" after the Simpsons character because that is what he looks like. Also it is much more amusing to think Asami had a threesome with Hans Moleman. I think they only thing I feel conflicted about today is the treatment of women in Sanctuary (I've become much more of a feminist today then when I was in high school). Kyoko starts out as an interesting female character but ends up just being submissive to Hojo. And of course all the crap Tokai does to women. But it is a big macho cheese fest in the end and it is a really great macho cheese fest. I still love it after all these years. I think the only other manga political thriller that comes close to same amount of enjoyment for me is Eagle. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10008 Location: Virginia |
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I had forgotten about this series. I never did get around to buying the trades. I did however get the whole series in the comic book version. I never did finish reading it. I should drag it out of storage and take another look.
Though at the moment, I don't think I could deal with a series involving politics. Politics: from poly meaning many and ticks meaning blood sucking insects. |
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Adonisus
Posts: 20 |
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Sounds like a great title. I'm a sucker for Men's Comics, especially Men's Comics drawn by Ikegami (or written by Koike).
I like how the story works both as a macho crime thriller and a political expose. The links between the yakuza and right-wing politics in Japan is an incredibly fascinating topic that sadly doesn't get covered all that often. The yakuza have been one of the big funders of the Liberal Democratic Party for several years, and they've also migrated over to far right nationalist Uyoku dantai groups (there's at least five known groups with explicit yakuza ties). It's been suspected that many of the people who drive those infamous gaisensha noise trucks are yakuza themselves. |
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Snomaster1
Subscriber Posts: 2904 |
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I'm not sure I'd like "Sanctuary." Granted,I've never read the manga,but after reading this,I'm not sure I'd want to. I'm not fond of the yakuza. They're a lot like the Mafia in this country. A bunch of scummy criminals who get their kicks out of hurting people. They're slime and I don't like them. Like the yakuza,the Mafia are basically scum. And,for years,the Italian-American community have had to suffer the stigma of being in the same nationality with these murdering psychos.
I agree with Mr. Thompson. I don't think I'd like "Sanctuary" too much. I'd have to take a shower just to wash off the sleaze from reading it. Last edited by Snomaster1 on Fri Nov 09, 2012 2:05 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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sepherest
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I have the first few volumes of the later release of Viz, it's a pretty decent series. The artwork is really nice but one thing that bothered me about it is how Ikegami always draws his characters in the same dramatic head turn/staring forward pose almost every other page.
Aside that, I'd probably buy more volumes of the series if I could find them at a decent price. For an older publication the paper quality is better than what most publishers use now for manga. |
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Brand
Posts: 1028 |
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I don't know I'm an Italian-American and I love mob stories. Not just Mafia stories but all kinds of organized crime stories. It's not like I would look up to these people, because I don't, but the dynamics of people in organized crimes and their beliefs to each other are intriguing. Of course I grew up in white suburbia so organized crime wasn't to on the radar much (though it did happen, I remember coke rings getting broke up when I was in middle school and high school). I'd imagine if you have to deal with these people in real life it's far less idealistic and way more terrifying. |
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 390 Location: Florida |
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The "head tilted downward, eyes looking upward in defiance" pose that Ikegami heroes are fond of needs to be replicated more often in real life. At least, that's what I tell myself. Any attempts to replicate the antics of an Ikegami hero might make you look like some sort of psychopath if you don't have the looks for it.
When I do various "manga for American comicbook readers" panels, I tend to focus on seinen manga, particularly those illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami. A lot of the people who see his stuff are interested in checking it out. Ikegami's manga so effectively bucks the Shonen Jump editorial art trends which are often assumed as representative of all manga that the Tokyopop indoctrinated will often try to argue that "it's not REALLY manga," per the author's own anecdote. This is an inroads that manga would be suited to make: raising awareness that "hey guys, seinen and josei EXIST and those are more in keeping with the comics you're reading now" at the anime/comic convention attendee level. Of course, time and again I run into the same problem: With the exception of Crying Freeman, Ikegami's work is all years out of print in America. Sometimes by decades. ComicsOne is long gone, so no more pinnacles of manga in Wounded Man or Offered. Viz, despite being the giant of the industry, can't be bothered to keep Phoenix in print now that Tezuka has an audience or think to reprint Eagle in an election year. So the notion of reprinting former hits like Sanctuary, let alone Mai the Psychic Girl, Strain, or the "I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back on it HOLY CRAP" historical fiction Samurai Crusader is completely beyond their capability. The English editions of Ikegami's Spider-Man manga were never collected. Short of hitting paydirt in the used bins, how's anyone going to legally get a complete set of this guy's stuff in 2012? Or know that it ever existed in the first place? I remain convinced that there is an audience for titles like Sanctuary and the like in the US. It's just not kids, teenagers, or even most college-aged anime fans. Mind you, I read it as a teenager. It was probably a bad influence. Now, I'm not saying I ever PERSONALLY poured tomato juice on the bedsheets of a passed out lady so that she'd assume the worst upon waking up, only for me to send her the empty can to her office at work thus demonstrating how HAW HAW PRANKED I can be. I'm just saying it could double as an opener for a romantic comedy. Remember the main lesson to learn from shojo manga and Sanctuary alike: it's okay to commit any atrocity as long as you're handsome. |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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Ah, yes, got Sanctuary, can't exactly remember why, but I'm going to blame you, Brand
 We're bad influences on each other's manga purchasing habits, it's a fact.
Actually, a good year or so down the line from getting this series for inexplicably cheap (got an eBay lot for cheap that had volume 7, bam! done, but not really, still had to get 3 cheaper vols which wasn't a big deal, then, at the following Otakon, I found another copy of vol 7, and I already traded it to someone else so don't ask), I got Fist of the North Star purely because Buronson wrote it, so I knew it would have no problem with manliness and would probably have some bromance in it too (Rei, anyone?) I actually sometimes had trouble telling who was talking though, which is why I think a lot of the panels in Sanctuary were just one head with one or two word bubbles, it was always that person talking. And despite the photo-like art, I sometimes had trouble telling characters apart somehow. I feel like it was somehow a minor detraction overall though, when not being able to tell characters apart or who was talking sometimes would usually bother me more than that. But maybe since it was such a page turner, it mattered less. But I keep comparing Sanctuary to Banana Fish. Both have mobsters and politics, sure, but it's really the copious amounts of EPIC BROMANCE that makes me keep comparing them to each other. No one does bromance quite like Japan apparently. |
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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When I reread Sanctuary, I have to admit, one thing that immediately jumped out at me was how the lettering completely turns to sh*t around volume 5 when they switched from hand-written lettering to some REALLY bad font lettering. (shudder)
Anyway, I agree: it's a shame that there's no translated manga out there like this anymore. Or maybe, like Eagle and Oishinbo and Drops of God and every other seinen manga that people dreamed would be a crossover hit, there's no easy way for it to reach a 'non-manga audience' anymore. (Or, maybe there's just no easy way for *any* comics to make money in the US anymore, unless it's one dude doing a hit webcomic with low overhead, or some corporation publishing unprofitable comics as pitches for superhero movies.) I think Ikegami's art is still stunning though. (Although I haven't read his recent untranslated work.) When Ikegami came to Viz to attend Comic-Con (around the time that the Ikegami-Frank Miller crossover was still up in the air... I think Ikegami was the one who blew it off because he didn't think Frank Miller was big enough, this being before "300" or the "Sin City" movie) he drew a portrait of the office manager, Kumi, which really looked like her, and she kept it framed behind her desk until she left Viz. |
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Mujaki
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This post nails dead to right probably THE keystone issue as to why I've long been completely alienated from being an active manga and anime fan for a good majority of the last near-decade now. I was introduced to anime and manga in the very late 80's/very early 90's primarily THROUGH hardline Seinen such as this. THIS to me was primarily (not wholly, but most overtly) what Japanese manga art was for YEARS, for my entire adolescence, and the complete and utter dissolution of this type of art and storytelling from even being acknowledged as existing in modern manga and anime circles has absolutely kept me totally distanced and made to feel completely unwelcome and almost at times discouraged from continuing to be a fan. Not only am I exactly this type of manga's (and anime's) audience, I've BEEN in that boat for my entire life, and I feel like I USED to be catered to back in the early-early days of the medium's history in the West (80's and 90's) when this stuff would get actively licensed. The longer today's companies and the fanbase in general continues to ignore these titles and people like me who will GLADLY plunk down for stuff like this in a heartbeat, the more distanced I'll continue be from wanting to follow new releases (outside of Discotek who are a godsend) and take part in today's fandom, whose dedicated tendency to completely wuss out and skeeve away from stuff like this leaves me 100% baffled and made to feel more than a bit frustrated, angry, disgusted, and most importantly just incredibly isolated as a manga/anime fan. For die-hard seinen/gekiga fans like me, with rare little exceptions here and there, the vast bulk of the 2000's have been unquestionably the rock bottom worst time ever to be a fan on the whole. If there was just SOME sort of cultivated, dedicated following or community for specifically manga and anime of this nature that still existed which I could throw my lot in with, then at the very least it'd take so much of this completely deadening sense of solitude that has marked my 2000's experience as a dramatically less enthusiastic fan of this medium than I used to be growing up in the early to mid 90's. Seinen/Gekiga wasn't just a hobby to me: these WERE my childhood cartoons and comic books for my entire life. This is what I was reared on, and this is what made me give a damn about this medium in the first place. That they were inherently adult-aimed and of adult subject matter meant that as I grew up, my enjoyment of them was only enriched and deepened that much further, as opposed to so much of kids' media which by its very nature loses its luster the older you get. And I feel like they contributed to broadening my horizons at a very early age and directly lead me into getting into a WIDE variety of incredible stuff in a ton of other mediums in other cultures (as opposed to the vast bulk of shonen, which in my experience is more often than not so creatively stagnating that it typically leads most people to simply getting into just more shonen). That seinen/gekiga has come to be completely ignored or unacknowledged as existing at best and just outright spat upon and written off as "garbage" at worst (and by people whose own tastes in manga and anime are 8 or 9 times out of 10 hardly anything worth bragging about no less) does more than make me sad and depressed, it makes me feel like I no longer have any place to turn to or reason left to be an active fan of anime and manga at all. |
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Hellfish
Posts: 391 Location: Mexico |
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I know Sanctuary is considered great but wouldn't buy Sanctuary, I am just sick to death of Macho sentimentality, and how rape is used on it.
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