Hetalia: You Should Read This Manga Even If You Don't Want To

Posted on August 15, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

I’ve been dying to get this post out for a little while now. I was hoping to do it sometime this month as the print version of Hetalia Axis Powers isn’t out until late September, but since TOKYOPOP has announced that the digital version is already available, I’m going to go for it.

Disclaimer: I’m not going to lie to anyone, I worked on this manga as a script editor. In case you don’t already know, I work as an independent contractor (read: freelance editor) for TOKYOPOP. The fact that I’m breaking my own personal ethical standards to write this post? That’s how much I want you to read Hetalia Axis Powers. (The OFFICIAL versions, please.)

So you’re kind of skeptical about picking up Hetalia Axis Powers. I understand. There’s a lot of screaming fangirls, you hear a lot about pairings between the different (male) characters, it doesn’t seem like your cup of tea. Here’s why you should read it anyway.

1. This manga is funny even if your least favorite subject was history: It really is. It’s all about humor, whether that be humor about the historical behavior of the countries (i.e. wars, alliances, random incidences), humor about the stereotypical behaviors of the country and humor about the interactions between countries. That’s why the countries are drawn so cutely. YOU CAN’T HELP BUT LAUGH WHEN THEY LOOK SO SILLY AND CUTE!! (Ahem. You see why the fangirls act the way they do?)

2. It’s not a boys love manga, I promise: I can understand why people don’t want to read BL or yaoi. It’s not for everyone. But this manga is NOT about little gay countries. There are less instances of the characters “acting gay” to each other than fingers on your left hand and there are even boob jokes. Everything else is implied. Sure, you can look at the manga that way, but if you don’t HAVE to. (If you want to, by all means.)

3. It’s really not that offensive: If you’re adamant about getting hurt by the stereotypes perpetuated in Hetalia, fine. There are a million bad traits that Himaruya could have touched upon with any country in his manga, but he generally avoids going into dark territory. Hetalia is a yonkoma (gag strip) manga with light-hearted humor, which is pretty typical for most yonkoma manga. Having worked on the first two volumes already, I can only think of one really dark moment in the manga and it has NOTHING to do with stereotypes. Actually, I think America gets the worst jabs out of all the countries in the book for being weirdos. (My opinion is that Americans kinda deserve it. This country can be totally backwards sometimes.)

4. You’ll learn stuff you’ve never known before: Hetalia isn’t going to help you pass your history classes, it’s more like a Wikipedia page than a historical tome, but it’s still pretty fun. Let me tell you: fact checking this manga was super fun. I love history left, right and sideways, but I’m not a super-serious historical scholar. Still, Himaruya’s notes throughout the manga help clarify the strips as well as give you an excuse to go explore the history behind Sealand (and many other things). Many hours will be spent with multiple tabs of Wikipedia open and you will find yourself enjoying it. (Unless you are the type that is so turned off by learning anything new, you just can’t bring yourself to find out what the hell Sealand is.)

5. It really is funny, you guys, just try it: I understand why people don’t want to get into over-hyped series. I understand that Hetalia may not be your type of humor or your type of manga in the end. But it’s still worth a shot, even if you only flip through a friend’s copy or check one out from the library. Don’t pass something off you haven’t even read, especially something that’s really popular because it certainly has to be popular for one good reason or another. You don’t have to be a fangirl if that crowd turns you off, that’s fine. Just take the time to try it out. I promise that a lot of you will be happily surprised. (Cute and funny, it’s like the most powerful combo ever.)

I know I would love to hear your feedback on Hetalia and so would TOKYOPOP. Let me know, let TOKYOPOP know on their facebook page, twitter or anywhere else you can get a hold of them. Have you read it yet? Do you like it? Why do you like or dislike it? I want to hear it all!

Posted in manga, opinion | Tagged , , , , , , | 33 Comments

Manga Factory Starts a New Tour Division–Why?

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Last week fledgling manga publisher Manga Factory announced that they were offering a 6-day tour to Japan called the “Escape to Tokyo” tour that begins next month.

All I have to say is: “Dear Manga Factory, why would you do this to yourselves?”

Let me explain. My mother’s owned her own travel agency for decades and regularly does group trips that I accompany her on. Group trips are small nightmares. First there’s the planning aspect of things: what do you do, where do you go kind of stuff. It seems like Manga Factory has that part down, so good for them. Then there’s the getting people to fill up your space (which you have hopefully gotten from the hotels and airline way ahead of time), which takes lots of time. Many, many months, in fact, because it takes time for payments to process and to get various visas, etc. This “Escape to Tokyo” tour is leaving in a month. Eeeeeeep.Not only that, but if you don’t fill your space by certain dates, the hotels and airlines can take them away from you. Last minute seats are usually much more expensive too.

Let’s add in the facts that a) we’re in an awful economy and b) otaku usually don’t have a lot of money. Just how is this tour division going to get it’s legs off the ground? Just how is their parent company going to get it’s legs off the ground if this tour doesn’t go as well as they’ve planned?

I don’t really want to be too pessimistic here. There may be legitimate reasons for Manga Factory to hold this tour. Perhaps a large number of their staff are going to Japan for business and/or pleasure and they thought they’d do a little side business while they were there. Could drum them up some money. They may have started this idea while Aurora was still going and wanted to continue it at their new company. OK, but that’s mere speculation on my part and they could be totally playing this by ear.

They also have pretty competitive prices with their biggest rival, Digital Manga Publishing‘s Pop Japan Travel (who is also running a tour around the Tokyo Game Show.) While Pop Japan Travel’s tour is cheaper and more customizable, Manga Factory’s tour is slightly longer and offers a lot of things that Pop Japan Travel’s tour doesn’t such as butler cafes, drag queen shows and an excursion to Cosplay Festa. Actually, if I had the choice I’d go for Manga Factory’s tour, just because I’ve been to Japan before and seen most of the Tokyo sights I want to see. However, if I was going for my first time, I’d certainly want to go see more of the traditional sights that Pop Japan offers instead of focusing solely on otaku-related stuff. Manga Factory doesn’t take you anywhere interesting in that sense, until you have a free day on day 7. Every preceding day is otaku sights, otaku sights and host clubs. It’s actually a pretty rigorous tour in that sense. If this were a group run by my mother, there would be free time at the beginning of the trip to get over the nasty jet lag.

Still, this tour could be successful for Manga Factory (I’m hoping it is,) except for one issue: THERE’S ONLY ONE MONTH UNTIL THE TOUR!!!

I don’t know how many spots they have to fill, but boy am I hoping it’s a really really small number… Taking a trip overseas is expensive and even people wealthier than your average American otaku need time to think about making such a big decision. Next time, please give everyone much more than a month to sign up for your tour.

Best of luck, Manga Factory. I really want your tour to succeed and even if it doesn’t, I want you to succeed as a publisher.  I’m just a blogger and a freelancer who happens to be familiar with the travel industry.

P.S. I really hope you’re not using JTB for your Ghibli museum extension because… they aren’t the greatest way to take your precious clients there. I had a fairly bad experience when I went with them and then I found out I could just buy the tickets at Lawson instead. (Seriously, they carted us around Tokyo for an hour before they took us to a train station where we waited for another hour to meet our tour guide who did absolutely nothing except take us there. Don’t use JTB for otaku stuff.)

Posted in opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

My Life As a (Rookie) Editor: Playing Catch-up

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Wow, I haven’t done one of these in awhile, huh?

I’ve been crazy busy since July, probably late June. I went to Anime Expo and San Diego Comic-Con, caught a cold, did about 3-4 script edits for TOKYOPOP plus other editorial work for them, probably had about 5-6 math tests and just as many homework assignments, turned 23, ran a contest, wrote 13 different blog posts (not including this one), started Webcomics Wednesdays, went to a midnight release party for the last Scott Pilgrim book and met so so many people I’m not sure I can remember them all. On top of that, I’ve been working to start a travel blog for my mother’s business and negotiate with another potential client.

Who says freelancers just get to sit at home and lounge around all day! I’ve been working hard! Luckily for me, I got the largest amount of hits on my blog EVER! That was pretty cool. I hope I can top those numbers soon. 😀 I’m counting on you guys! Always let me know what you want to hear about, please

Because of this, I’ve sort of half-missed the month of my first two releases as a freelance editor: Zone-00 4 and Sgt. Frog 19! Both have been out since July, so please pick them up if you’re interested. Especially Sgt. Frog, which doesn’t really necessitate the purchasing of volumes 1-18 to pick up volume 19. It’s pretty episodic. (AND IT NEEDS MORE LOVE!)

I have a few loose goals for the rest of August and the coming months.

1. I need to lose weight, which I haven’t been able to focus on since everything’s been so crazy. Now that a lot of major events and a time-eating math class is out of the way, I’m going to spend more time at the gym for sure.

2. I need more clients, which I have also had to put off because July was insane and then the first few weeks of August decided to follow suit. I’m going to refresh my resume this weekend and make some impassioned pleas to give lil ol’ me some more work.

3. I need to read more manga. I have a huge stack. I bought over 100 volumes of manga in July (for really cheap), acquired more since then and I haven’t been able to make a very large dent in my stack. Because of this, I don’t think I’ll be buy much new manga in August. ^_^;;; At least reading manga qualifies as job research! Hehehe.

As is customary, here’s a list of stuff I’ve been working on that will be out in the next few months:

August:

Genju no Seiza 8 and Kyo Kara Maoh 7

September:

Hetalia Axis Powers 1 (!!!), Pet Shop of Horrors Tokyo 7 and Fate/stay night 9

Tomorrow I plan on sleeping til 9 a.m.!

Posted in manga | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Webcomics Wednesday: Octopus Pie: There Are No Stars in Brooklyn

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Supporting the webcomic artists I love always felt like a nice thing that I should do one of these days but I didn’t really have the means do to it. That’s why getting a print edition of Meredith Gran’s Octopus Pie was a little important to me.

Unfortunately for me, the opportunity to meet Meredith Gran and buy her book fell on a day when I had other obligations. This story has a happy ending, however, since my loving boyfriend went and got the book for me! Thanks, honey!

Octopus Pie: There Are No Stars in Brooklyn is the collected stories of Eve Ning, a disgruntled organic grocery store clerk in NYC who has just been dumped and winds up living with an old classmate who is more than a little weird. That’s because Hanna Thompson, the aforementioned old classmate, runs a small baking business and her customers are the kind who prefer their pastries to be made by people who are also totally baked. Unsurprisingly, Eve isn’t terribly happy with this arrangement, but Eve, Hanna and Hanna’s boyfriend Marek still manage to get along and have more than a few odd adventures together while Eve tries to find stable footing in her life again.

This sounds like a pretty boring description, I know, but Octopus Pie is one of those webcomics that’s like chicken noodle soup: everyone has a different recipe with a different ingredients. It doesn’t matter because the end product is still delicious, even if it’s the most common soup out there. Thus, Gran’s characters are the delicious noodles, chicken and broth that make every spoonful of  laid-back storytelling more exciting because they bring their own flavor.  This is slice-of-life at it’s best: the relative normalcy of events, but with people interesting enough to capture your attention over and over.  Every once in awhile, Gran gives us something completely ridiculous, but then everyone just goes home to their beds. That’s certainly more real than a lot of other slice-of-life comics I’ve read.

The art is decidedly cartoon-y with football heads, super-deformed bodies and large, bugged out eyes, but this caricature only makes it easy for the reader to recognize separate characters. This quality also lends itself to the humor of the strip, as a stare from Eve, Hanna or any other character always looks a little funny. There is a point in the book where Gran switches from completely digital inking to hand-inking the comic, which makes the art a little sketchier than it previously was. It personally didn’t bother me, but it should be noted that it goes from smooth to a little rough with no warning in the actual book. (The website, however, did warn readers about this switch when it happened.)

But why, do you ask, should I spend 17 bucks on a print edition when I could just read it online for free? For starter’s, you’ll be protecting your own interests, DUH. If you read and love Octopus Pie, then supporting Gran with your cash means you’ll more likely to see future Octopus Pie content on the website and/or other future projects from her. I’m sure this is already obvious to most of my readers, so I won’t go on.  Second, it’s actually quite a lovely book. It’s pretty thick, the cover is nice and it’s packed with two full years of comics, so you’re definitely getting your money’s worth page-count wise. There are a few extras included, so you’re not getting the EXACT same thing as your online experience.

If you’re a little on the fence about this one, I don’t think there are quite enough extras to totally justify a purchase. I wish something like nore extra illustrations or Gran talking about her inspirations behind the characters were included to spice up the extras a little. The book is also printed in an odd shade of green which reminded me a little of how manga magazines are printed in different colors for reasons that I don’t know. The problem I had with this is that the color green was a little bit yellow-y and yellow is pretty hard on the eyes. Did this make it totally uncomfortable for me to read? No, but I did feel a little eye strain after awhile. Those are the only bad things I have to say about the print edition and if you still want to support Gran’s endeavors financially, she has a wonderful line of products in her part-Topatoco, but mostly her own online store, including fun glassware (meant for alcohol consumption), t-shirts and other fairly standard wares.

I feel like Octopus Pie is worth reading (and buying), especially if you’re a fan of oddball slice-of-life. It isn’t autobiographical, which is a road many similar webcomics like to take, but it’s certainly a lot of fun and will make you wish you had these kinds of oddballs around.

And if Gran is reading this, thank you for the little doodle of Victor in my copy. Little did you know he was my favorite.

Posted in comics, reviews, webcomics | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Announcing the Scott Pilgrim/Mighty Fine Contest Winners!

Posted on August 8, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Last week I held my very first contest on All About Manga and 17 people responded with their favorite scenes from Scott Pilgrim! (Although, one person was technically disqualified for posting after the contest ended. Sorry, Jessica!)

Everyone’s enthusiasm for the series resulted in a ton of entries that turned into miniature essays about their love for Bryan Lee O’Malley’s incredible graphic novels. In fact, there was so much enthusiasm, my blog now gets multiple hits from the search term “I’ll be your dipping sauce bitch” every day. BEST SEARCH TERM EVER.

Here are my top three, the winners, in no particular order because you’re all getting the same prize. (A t-shirt from Mighty Fine.)

From Yan, whose favorite scene was Scott Pilgrim’s disappointment at winning a souped-up skateboard after his fight with Lucas Lee:

It’s a darn shame that Scott both: (a) sucks at skateboarding due to “not having allocated points into that skill when younger”, and (b) has the skateboard simply phase out of reality. Afterward, Scott proclaims the events that transpired to include the “worst fight ever”.
Now, while I find the actual meeting and subsequent battle between Scott and Lucas to have been hilariously fun to read, the particular scene mentioned above has undoubtedly become my overall favorite. It parallels 2 events, one real-world, one cyber, that most people who have had the pleasure of reading the Scott Pilgrim series would easily relate to. Holidays as a child: Many of us have grown up receiving gifts from family and friends that, oftentimes, was the opposite of what we had hoped to get. Thereafter, deeming the holiday itself a “failure”, not even considering the concept behind it as being more important. The second? RPGs of the variety where people “farm” for better equipment, among many different classes. Surely you’ve played an MMORPG where, upon killing a difficult boss, they drop a really great, rare item… which you can’t even equip because you’re the wrong class type or you allocated points incorrectly! GAAAAAAAH!!! Are you as frustrated as Scott? I know I was.

Choose your hobbies wisely, my friends.

From Max, whose favorite scene was Scott Pilgrim and Todd Ingram’s fight at Honest Ed’s:

Being a consumer is such a scary responsibility; it’s no wonder it gives the childlike Scott and Todd such a migraine. In Honest Ed’s, EVERYTHING is available to them, since they live in a videogame and no one pays for vacuum cleaners in a videogame. Yet the other shoppers, who live in reality, seem totally unaffected by their environment. These are the adults; they’ve accepted their role in society, and can fulfill their responsibilities without throwing hissy-fits. It’s very possible that when Scott thinks he’s “going blind” he is actually going through an important epiphany, but his body is physically rejecting it. (In the end, he learns nothing anyway.) It’s equally significant that in this scene, Todd has a vision reminding him of his responsibilities, and of the immature decisions he has made.

Even though things are free in videogame land, the IMPORTANT things are not free (i.e. True Love, which must be fought for) and weapons made from consumer products are utterly ineffective. Since fighting is equated with Love in Scott Pilgrim, it might not be such a stretch to call the Honest Ed’s battle a commentary on the emptiness of Things; “Money can’t buy me love.” Which, you know, isn’t really that big a statement, but the fact that it (might be) there at all is more than enough.

Wow, that was actually quite deep! Bravo Max!

From Ted, whose favorite scene is Scott’s fight between him and the Katayanagi twins where Kim Pine encourages Scott to win through fake texts from Ramona:

It marks such a maturation point for Scott and the series. The twins kidnap Kim and mock her for standing by Scott and she becomes essential to his beating them while essentially misleading them. Kim has to standby Scott and decide that his love for Ramona is more important than whatever crap has been in all of their pasts.We also don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen between Ramona and Scott, but we want to believe Kim just as much as Scott does even as we start to realize that this volume might not have a happy ending! O’Malley foreshadows it really well with Ramona and Kim’s asides earlier on (like the camera phone scene outside the party).

The whole scene is such a dynamite moment for O’Malley as a storyteller to load what ends up being Scott’s penultimate victory with this ironic uncertainty. I’ve heard a lot of people call Book 5 the darkest in the series and this moment definitely qualifies it, but it also re-emphasizes the characters at the heart of the story and the lengths they go for each other.

Very true! This is also one of my favorite scenes for the strength it inspires in Scott, although it only serves to bring him down more when Ramona leaves.

Thank you to everyone for participating and Mighty Fine for the awesome tees! I’ll be contacting the winners shortly to get their information so we can send them awesome Scott Pilgrim tees!

I hope every one gets a chance to see the movie next week!

Posted in comics, manga | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Welcome to Webcomics Wednesdays

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

I know this blog focuses mostly on manga, but I figured that it would be fun to do a regular post on something a little different: webcomics.

It’s not big secret that I love webcomics. I’ve been reading them since I was 14, perhaps a little earlier. I’ve tried my own hand at webcomics. (I’m not sharing.) I met my boyfriend reading his old webcomic, Blue Zombie, back when we were in high school and now I edit his current endeavor, Lumia’s Kingdom. We even collaborated once, very briefly, and I still write comics that I would like to become webcomics had I the talent and time to draw them.

I certainly haven’t read every single webcomic out there, like PVP or Penny Arcade for instance. (Both target gamers, which I am not.) Still, it’s a little hard for me to ignore webcomics when popular ones get picked up by larger publishers (Megatokyo and, technically speaking, Hetalia) or when the creators take it to the next level and self-publish.

No webcomic creator will tell you that it’s easy to do, but with more and more successful webcomics going these routes, it’s certainly taking the stigma off of making them. On top of that, webcomics have the potential to be successful in different ways than print media can be. They can target the niche markets and gain a large following with relatively little cost (compared to the risk of starting a completely new title that a large publisher has to take.) Webcomics are thus a lot more diverse and daring in subject matter than the world of publishing because there is no one telling creators that their webcomic won’t sell. Best of all, creators own the rights to their work and fans will come out of the woodwork to directly support them with books and merchandising.

So thus I hope to introduce a new weekly feature on my blog that explores webcomics, starting with a few webcomics that have made the leap to print, and talk about how they contribute to the vast world of comics. If all goes well, I’ll also be able to include interviews and guest posts from creators themselves, as well as exploring webcomics-related issues. I’ll try to post faithfully on Wednesdays in the spirit of alliteration and recommend a lot of good webcomics for you to read.

For starters, some of my long-time favorites:
Questionable Content (Which, I think I have been reading the longest.)
Hark! A Vagrant (I am a total history nerd and I love the sarcastic take.)
Red String (Romantic shojo and also a long-time favorite.)
Johnny Wander (Adorable auto-biographical comics.)

Posted in comics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Scott Pilgrim/Mighty Fine Tee Contest!

Posted on July 30, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Edit: Contest is closed. Thank you everyone for participating!

I am so excited, you guys! My first contest on this blog!!!

Here’s what’s going on: the super-awesome t-shirt company Mighty Fine has given me the chance to give you some of their awesome Scott Pilgrim tees to three lucky people!

Here’s the catch: You must defeat my seven evil exes! I mean, tell me your absolute favorite scene out of all six, super-awesome volumes of Scott Pilgrim and why that scene rocks your world. That’s going to be a tough decision, huh? The other catch is that Mighty Fine’s going to be keeping the prize tees a surprise, although all their Scott Pilgrim tees are fantastic and I want ALL OF THEM, so I think you guys should be just fine.

Here’s the rules: You have one week (until: 8/6) to leave a comment with your favorite scene below. After the week is over, I’ll pick my three favorites out of your answers and contact you so that Mighty Fine can send you prize! Be as passionate and descriptive as you can be when telling me about your fav!

As an example, let me describe my personal favorite: I am inexplicably in love with a scene from volume 2, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, just before The Clash at Demonhead plays and various characters are talking to each other. Kim Pine starts talking to her co-worker Hollie, who introduces her roommate Joseph. Hollie tells Kim that they’re only there because Joseph has a huge crush on The Clash’s bass player, Kim asks if he’s hot and Joseph responds with “He is as hot as the flames of the hell you bitches are going to.” WHAT AN EXCELLENT COMEBACK. I love it. It makes me laugh every time and I really want a chance for someone to ask me if some guy is hot so I can say that exact line. It’s definitely one of the most memorable lines for me and I feel it touches upon what makes Scott Pilgrim so great: these little moments of sheer genius character-related humor.

So leave me your favorite scene and win yourself a t-shirt! Go Go Gooooo!!! And thank you Mighty Fine for providing the prizes!

Posted in comics | Tagged , , , | 31 Comments