Tag Archives: John Werry

January 29, 2012 · 1:13 pm

Genkaku Picasso (vols. 2-3) by Usamaru Furuya, translated by John Werry

Doh! For some reason, I had no idea the other-worldly adventures of the Picasso/Chiaki dynamic duo [pocket-angel Chiaki directs the surviving Picasso towards doing good deeds for his fellow students] was a trilogy. I figured on a few more years of diving into secret sketches since high school lasts at least that long. Alas, we’re lucky to get even three installments because, according to creator Usamaru Furuya in his “Afterword” at series end, “This story was planned to end after eight issues [in serialized format], or two volumes, but I wouldn’t have been able to pull it all together that way, so I got to do three volumes.” He adds, “Each volume is thick, though, so it’s more like there are four! Each one’s a good value! Ha ha ha!”

Those valuable life-saving exploits in volume 2 include relieving the school’s star pitcher’s competitive angst disguised as girl problems, getting over debilitating mean-girl trauma leftover from an early age, revealing one’s true self regardless of outward appearances, and holding on to dreams even when the Simon Cowell-wannabes try to shatter your soul.

In volume 3, Picasso comes to the rescue of a former classmate who dropped out because his’ loving’ Tiger Mother whittled him down to almost nothing (parents take note, ahem), then saves a friend feeling betrayed by unrequited love from making a dangerous mistake.

Then (finally) in the second half of volume 3, it’s Picasso’s turn for some revealing sketches. Picasso’s closer friends finally begin to wonder how he knows so much about their lives. Questions, then accusations fly, sending Picasso off on a soul-search of his own … and Chiaki must guide him through one more challenging adventure. Jaded old reader that I am, I confess to getting completely blurry over the last 20 pages …

Tidbit: Hopefully this post comes just in time to be part of the Usamaru Furuya Manga Moveable Feast which ends today. I didn’t know such a fabulous effort existed until I posted Furuya’s No Longer Human (vols. 1-2) [markedly different from his Genkaku trilogy, by the way], which serendipitously got included in said Feast’s Archive. The Furuya Feast, hosted by fellow manga addict Ash Brown of Experiments in Manga, is just the latest in the Manga Moveable Feast [MMF] series founded by Kate Dacey of The Manga Critic in February 2010. To learn more about MMF, click here. Luddite that I am, I’m joining in a little late, but the adage ‘better late than never’ sure applies here! What an inspiring manga community I’ve stumbled into … addicts unite!

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2011 (United States)
GENKAKU PICASSO © Usamaru Furuya
Original Japanese edition published by Shueisha Inc.

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October 30, 2011 · 9:44 am

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (vol. 7) by Motoro Mase, translated by John Werry, English adaptation by Kristina Blachere

In anticipation of tomorrow’s frightfest, thought I should share some deathly dystopian manga – ikigami literally translating to ‘death paper.’

While each volume could potentially stand alone as a series of individual episodes that detail how the chosen spend their predetermined final 24 hours, you’ll need to start from the beginning of the series [click here for previous volumes] to follow the story of Kengo Fujimoto of the Civil Registration Section whose job is to actually deliver said ikigami to the latest victim on behalf of the National Welfare Program. No, he can’t quit, and yes, he’s had to face quite a few moral dilemmas, not to mention having to survive a kidnapping and then a knife at his throat. But you’ll have to go back to get the full scoop.

In this latest volume, a young boy fascinated with photography dreams of taking over the local studio from its aging owner who is also his devoted mentor. As the boy grows toward manhood, the two differ on the changing technology that is redefining the art of photography, eventually parting ways after exchanging vehement, hurtful words. But when the now-young man receives the official news that he has just 24 hours left, he knows the one thing he must do …

The volume’s second half follows a talented boy who gives up the one thing he loves in life – street dancing – in order “to graduate from a good school” in hopes of satisfying his father who runs a cram school. The father promises to open a dance studio – “students could refresh themselves by dancing between classes … which will help them learn better” – within the cram school, and pass the whole enterprise on to his only son. In a horrific twist, what the boy thought would be a mere deferral of his dancing dream becomes a final death sentence … but he’s determined not to let his last hours go to further waste.

Even as Fujimoto struggles to be the ideal employee, the Thought Examination Board isn’t taking any chances. Up before Chief Examiner Satsuki Kaga (definition of scary!), he starts to question himself: “… will I be able to act like everything’s normal?”

‘Normal’ this is not, thank goodness. Although … for the next 24 hours, fear certainly won’t be abnormal! Let’s hope it’s only temporary!

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2011 (United States)
Ikigami 7 © Motoro Mase
Original Japanese edition published by Shogakukan Inc.

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August 21, 2011 · 8:37 am

Blue Exorcist (vol. 1) by Kazue Kato, translated by John Werry

We all probably have a little bit of devil in us, but what do you do when you find out that your birthfather is Satan himself? Twin brothers (and, not surprisingly, polar opposites), Rin and Yukio, have been raised all their lives by Father Fujimoto, who is both a priest and exorcist. No matter how hard he tries, Rin can’t seem to be a “respectable person” – he’s constantly in trouble, especially because of his uncontrollable, violent temper.

When Rin gets into one fight too many, Father Fujimoto is forced to intervene, and as he’s saving Rin once again reveals Rin’s true lineage. With the secret out, Father Fujimoto can no longer protect his young charge, and violently loses his life trying. Rin, who didn’t appreciate the good father nearly enough when he was alive, promises to avenge his death by becoming an exorcist … “so I can kick Satan’s ass!!!”

Mephisto Pheles, mysterious friend of Father Fujimoto, appears as the twins’ new guardian. He’s also known as Johann Faust the Fifth, the president of the prestigious True Cross Academy, where both boys are enrolled. In addition to the usual high school education, Rin quickly learns that cram school for exorcists is going to be the bigger challenge. But nothing prepares Rin for the greatest shock of all: he’s definitely underestimated his academically stellar, going-to-be-a-doctor, virtually perfect brother Yukio!

While dealing with Big Issues of good and evil, life and death, Blue Exorcist is fueled by testosterone, tempered by brotherly love. No doubt Rin’s adventures caught between the dual worlds of Assiah, “the world in which we live,” and threatening Gehenna, “the realm of demons,” are sure to provide multiple volumes of just rollicking fun.

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2011 (United States)
AO NO EXORCIST © Natsume Ono
Original Japanese edition published by Shueisha Inc.

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August 14, 2010 · 2:33 pm

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (vol. 6) by Motoro Mase, translated by John Werry, English adaptation by Kristina Blachere

Federal employee Fujimoto delivers ikigami – death notices from the National Welfare Program, which insists that its arbitrary system of randomly killing one in every 1,000 citizens will teach people to value life. Fujimoto has been in doubtful turmoil about the death-system, although he knows that being a social miscreant will only lead to his own downfall and imprisonment … so he continues to deliver …

His first victim in this latest volume doesn’t have a fixed address. Yamazaki Kazuma is a “freeter,” a “freelance/underemployed worker,” who left his abusive home six years ago and been moving ever since. He sleeps in all-night internet cafés, in “a booth with a recliner,” and is thankful to survive each day. He follows AkaneBlog, written by a girl barely getting by, living in similar deprived circumstances;, she thinks about entering the sex trade as a final resort, even while she dreams about someday becoming a lawyer so she can “help people in need.” Once he receives his death decree, Yamazaki gets to enjoy life for the first time ever in his young years, but he’s betrayed once again, and plans final revenge …

In the second story, a young man decides to take desperate action against his unjust death sentence. Tomonori Ichijo, the motherless son of a once-famous investigative journalist father, barricades himself in the ward office with none other that Fujimoto as hostage. He demands to a live television broadcast so he can reveal to the rest of the world just how unfairly insane the National Welfare Program is: “This country is using fear of death … to turn us into slaves!!” He certainly has a point … will Fujimoto survive to the next volume?

While we wait, be sure to check out the previous volumes to see how just how Fujimoto ended up with a knife at his throat! Each volume provides heart-thumping adventures … while posing difficult questions about the true value of life. What would you do with just 24 hours left to live …?

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2010 (United States)
Ikigami 6 © Motoro Mase
Original Japanese edition published by Shogakukan Inc.

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June 23, 2010 · 8:29 am

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (vol. 5) by Motoro Mase, translated by John Werry, English adaptation by Kristina Blachere

The town of Musashigawa has a graffiti problem … and someone who signs his name F.K. is gaining notoriety as one of the best street artists ever. The irony is that the artist-known-as-F.K. is actually the young heir to a small painting business … but in tough economic times, his abusive father sends him out to deface private property so that someone will pay their struggling company to paint over F.K.’s art.

All that changes when F.K. receives an ikigami, his official death notice as deemed by the National Welfare Act, “designed to make our citizens appreciate the value of life.” F.K.’s final mural proves to be a spectacular statement that the National Welfare Act is nothing short of senseless murder.

Federal employee Fujimoto, whose job it is to deliver these deathly missives, is still struggling with his own complicity in what amounts to legal destruction of human life. And yet he must continue to do his job …

His next delivery takes him a student blinded by loyalty to the National Welfare system. As the son of a high-ranking National Welfare police officer, with an older brother attending the police university, Ikuhiko Sugita is under great pressure to be a model student and an ideal citizen, willing and able to turn in “social miscreants.” But his test scores are falling and his father demands he work harder: “Anyone who isn’t a National Welfare hero … has no place in the Sugita family,” he warns.

Receiving an ikigami becomes Ikuhiko’s last chance at hero-dom. With only 24 hours to live, his reaction turns to overzealous determination to turn in social miscreants, and his young life ends in terrible waste.

As Fujimoto discusses Ikuhiko’s tragic death with Dr. Kubo, whom he finally managed to ask out on a real date (!), Fujimoto finds himself saying too much again. His boss Mr. Ishii has repeatedly warned him that he must be careful about what he says to whom.  What about Dr. Kubo? Just who can be trusted is not at all clear …

By the way, if you want to start from the beginning of the series, click here for the previous volumes.

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2010 (United States)
Ikigami 5 © Motoro Mase
Original Japanese edition published by Shogakukan Inc.

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February 9, 2010 · 3:02 pm

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (vol. 4) by Motoro Mase, translated by John Werry, English adaptation by Kristina Blachere

This latest volume of Ikigami will be forever associated with the great snowpocalypse of 2010! I pre-ordered it last October, knew it would take awhile (official pub date is actually today), and finally got an email from Amazon last week saying it was being shipped. ‘Lo and behold … then I got this alert a couple of days ago: “Delivery of your package has been delayed due to extreme weather conditions or an unforeseen natural event. UPS will deliver the package as soon as possible. We apologize for this unavoidable delay and appreciate your patience.”

US Post Office, UPS, Fed Ex! All shut down by the snowpocalypse. Who woulda thunk it? Snowpocalypse indeed! It’s even urbandictionary.com’s word of the day today And any moment now, yet another storm is expected to hit DC [is it summer yet?].

Thankfully, my latest Ikigami fix arrived yesterday and, of course, I had to read it immediately. If you want to start from the beginning, you can click here for the previous volumes.

Poor federal employee Fujimoto sees everyone else has a private life outside the office, including Dr. Kubo who counsels ikigami victims and their families. But when you’re the actual person making the ikigami (death-notice) delivery, it’s hard to think beyond the death-and-destruction sentence you’ve just handed another human being. Fujimoto still questions the validity of the National Welfare Act – ”for people to understand how precious life is, they must first confront death” – and continues to discuss his concerns with Ishii, his older (not necessarily wiser) office supervisor.

In this volume’s first half, Fujimoto meets a dedicated teacher who has just been dismissed for crimes he has not committed, whose reaction to his impending death is to seek revenge not on the young student who orchestrated his dismissal, but the adults whose neglect caused the young man’s evil act. In the second half, a young mother is determined in the last 24 hours of her life to save her daughter from getting the vaccination that will determine her fate … and from a life of irresponsible neglect by her careless husband who never grew up.

Out for drinks with Ishii and Dr. Kubo (who proves to be quite the lightweight), Fujimoto realizes with great frustration that even though the receipt of an ikigami makes “anything [seem] possible in those last 24 hours” for the victim, the actual results “may be nothing more than unfulfilled possibilities.” But for Fujimoto, when Dr. Kubo confesses that she broke up with her mysterious boyfriend as they share a cab home, Fujimoto’s face registers his own hopeful possibilities. More reason to stay tuned …

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2010 (United States)
Ikigami 4 © Motoro Mase
Original Japanese edition published by Shogakukan Inc.

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November 21, 2009 · 1:49 pm

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (vol. 3) by Motoro Mase, translated by John Werry, English adaptation by Kristina Blachere

To teach the value of life, the National Welfare Act places a timed nanocapsule in one out of every 1,000 first graders’ immunization syringes. On a predetermined date between the ages of 18 to 24 – with just 24 hours notice to the moment to death – a young citizen will die. Federal employee Fujimoto who delivers these ikigami, or death papers, initially struggled over the disturbing horror of his job, but by the beginning of vol. 3, even his supervisor notices, ” … he’s really made progress. … He’s made peace with it.”

His first delivery of vol. 3 takes him to the home of a local political hopeful, a woman campaigning in support of the National Welfare Act, insisting that “only strict National Welfare Education will preserve the security of Musashigawa Ward,” recently riddled with rising crimes committed by minors. Paying the price for her public ambitions, her distressed son has shut himself away in his room the last four years, abandoned by his dismissive mother and his helpless father. When the ikigami ironically arrives for her son, the mother is more than willing to use the situation to further her political campaign.

The volume’s second half focuses on a pair of siblings – a screw-up of an older brother and his much younger blind sister whom he promises he will get out of the orphanage and finally live together in a home of their own. Just before their happy reunion, the brother receives his ikigami, and decides the one thing he can do for his sister now is to leave her his cornea. In order to bypass her growing suspicions, he enlists Fujimoto’s assistance as well as the hospital staff in an elaborate ruse to restore his sister’s sight.

Fujimoto is deeply affected by the siblings’ plight. And his intense involvement gets him “severely reprimanded.” But he’s also buoyed by his own actions: “Your expression is brighter than usual,” a colleague notices. ” …[Y]ou acted on your own free will this time. I think it helped lighten your heart a little.” That lightness is merely fleeting as he realizes with grave certainty that “[t]here’s no way I’ll ever feel a sense of personal achievement … in a job where I deliver unhappiness to people. When I think of the lost hopes … all sense of worth is blown to bits.” How he will manage to continue such deliveries will have to wait until the next volume … patience is certainly not my virtue!

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2009 (United States)
Ikigami 3 © Motoro Mase
Original Japanese edition published by Shogakukan Inc.

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October 27, 2009 · 2:41 pm

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (vol. 2) by Motoro Mase, translated by John Werry, English adaptation by Kristina Blachere

ikigami2I have volumes 3 and 4 of Ikigami already pre-ordered (although not coming soon enough, I might add) so that ought to tell you I’m well and hooked on this series. I also wish they were longer, too, but that’s a groupie talking …

So what would you do if you found out your exact moment of death, but you only have 24 hours left to live from when you find out? In the first of two episodes contained in this latest volume, a young film director-wannabe finally gets his big break and must choose between his career and his lover when he finds out his girlfriend just got served an ikigami (the official death paper). Expect a surprise ending – but no spoilers here!

In the volume’s ending episode, a clumsy young man working in a senior home saves the life of an old woman still mourning her husband’s death which happened decades ago during World War II when he sacrificed everything for his country’s honor. The young man’s ikigami arrives tragically, just when he is making important progress in his otherwise haphazard young life.

Being an official messenger of death, civil servant Fujimoto realizes, is not good for personal relationships as he gets dumped once again. He begins to harden his unsure heart, even returning a late video rental on the way to his next delivery, reasoning a few minutes won’t make much difference. But when he witnesses the final heart-wrenching moments of the young man’s life as he saves the debilitated older woman, the system’s Machiavellian “end justifies the means” becomes that much more disturbing. Let’s hope our young messenger can reconnect with his humanity …

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2009 (United States)
Ikigami 2 © Motoro Mase
Original Japanese edition published by Shogakukan Inc.

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May 27, 2009 · 9:18 am

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (vol. 1) by Motoro Mase, translated by John Werry, English adaptation by Kristina Blachere

IkigamiWelcome to a chilling debut series, which introduces readers to a strange new world in which the government knows exactly when you’re going to die. As children are immunized upon entering school, a random sampling of the immunization syringes contain exploding capsules which will prove fatal on a predetermined date. Some 24 hours before, the victim receives an ikigami, an official death paper. How he or she decides to live that final day make up the series’ haunting episodes.

Young Fujimoto – who clearly has misgivings about his disturbing new job – is the Civil Registration Section’s newest angel of death. His first victim, a bullied young man, chooses violent revenge. His second, an ambitious young singer, gets to perform his ultimate swan song.

What might you do? As creepy as these stories are (my hairs are standing on end just typing), I can’t wait to see what happens to the reluctant Fujimoto and his inevitable next victims …

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2009 (United States)
Ikigami 1 © Motoro Mase
Original Japanese edition published by Shogakukan Inc.

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