Volume of the Year
What was the most impressive single volume of manga released in North America this past year? Here’s what our staff thought.
KC: In terms of quality of release, there’s a lot of quality book releases to look at. Yen’s Emma with its reversible dust cover is high quality, but not quite there. Vertical’s Gundam release feels very nice, but I unfortunately haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. Fantagraphic’s Wandering Son, slow as the release is, still is a very nice book to hold in your hands. Kodansha’s Vinland Saga is probably the overall best I’ve seen in terms of quality of book and quality of content. But it’s Jojo’s that takes the cake. I know, that’s very contradictory given that I just said that Vinland Saga was the best. But Jojo’s is equally as best and perhaps was the franchise of the year with the anime as well. There’s a lot of good books out there. Let’s read them all.
MPA: Volume of the year is a difficult category, but might be easier if I split it up to some extent. For me, the Fantasy volume of the year was Claymore 27, bringing the series to a satisfactory close with an epic final battle royal. Best Sci-Fi volume of the year would have to be Neon Genesis Evangelion 14, the final volume as penned by Sadamoto. I would be remiss in not mentioning this series for the pure fact that it got so many Americans into anime and to see how Sadamoto ends the story with a flashback to before Shinji was born was incredibly rewarding.
My favorite Horror volume of the year was the final Sankarea 11. Sankarea traveled the common path of teenage first love in an interesting zombie vehicle, which turned out to be both entertaining and touching. Best Comedy is Genshiken: Second Season 6, where Madarame’s love interests come out in the open and questions about his sexuality abound; really nothing short of hilarious.
Finally, I’m going to break the mold with my announcement of the best produced manga of the year; it was TiTiKEi from Fakku. Yes, there were some beautiful hardcover releases out there including Vinland Saga from Kodansha and Mobile Suite Gundam: The Origin from Vertical, Inc. But from a small publishing house and newcomer to the scene, Fakku hit it out of the park with TiTiKEi. Yes, it is a hentai title and not most people’s cup of tea; however, this book is printed on the thickest and smoothest paper I have come across; it has French flaps with alternative art on the front and back covers of the book binding; the translation is great and the lettering is incredibly artistic to mimic the original Japanese language and something unlike anything we commonly find in translations; and not only are 106 of its 210 pages in glossy color, but they are scattered throughout the book in six different sections! So if you have even a mild interest in hentai, please check out TiTiKEi as it is a masterpiece of production.
MW: 1. Dream Fossil
There’s a lot of titles that I could pick for this, with the titles mentioned in the other categories providing some exemplary entries, as well as the charming single volume of Wandering Son that Fantagraphics managed to release, and other volumes such as Jojo’s finally reaching US shores. But the easy standout for me was Satoshi Kon’s Dream Fossil. It’s a beautiful package full of love and passion that shows just how to make a collection of short stories, and it’s something that belongs on everyone’s shelves.
GLP: Henshin by Ken Niimura
Released by Image Comics earlier this year, Henshin stuck out to me first and foremost because of its size. Without getting too technical, the single volume release as about as big as a small coffee table book. That said, it surprised me to see that Henshin is a collection of short stories, all revolving around the transformations (both literal and figurative) one goes through in life, and in the case is with these stories, the big city in particular. Stories go for a handful of pages before unceremoniously going on to the next one, but it works. And while I would have assumed an oversized release would suggest ridiculously intricate artwork, that’s not to knock author Niimura’s style in any way. Seeing his simple yet nonetheless detailed artwork on a large page is great and has made me more appreciative of his thick brush lines in general. Definitely a worthy purchase for anyone looking to itch that short story scratch.
