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 MangaLife RoundTable: End-of-2008-Wrap-Up
Written by Park Cooper
To: ML staffers
From: Park Cooper, EIC
Okay, Joy has made new suggestion:
Everyone name and discuss at least 1 manga/anime/imported-game that you liked best that came out this year of 2008.
Feel free to plug stuff you actually worked on, if that applies to you.
Then I edit it all into one Best of 2008 list.
Go for it please
—P
Joy Kim:
My favorite manga series in 2008:
1. Mushishi by Yuki Urushibara - I am always so impressed by the sheer consistency of Urushibara's work in this series. Each volume is as strong as the one that came before, full of memorable images, and they are often haunting and sometimes heart-breaking. I don't think I'll ever get tired of reading stories about Ginko and his travels. (Vols. 3-6 released in 2008.)
2. Wild Adapter by Kazuya Minekura - We didn't get much Saiyuki from Minekura this year, but three volumes of Wild Adapter were a pretty good consolation prize. I love the noir atmosphere, the gorgeous art, and the fascinating relationship between the two lead characters, Kubota and Tokitoh. (Vols. 4-6 released in 2008.)
3. After School Nightmare by Setona Mizushiro - The dream sequences in this series continue to be evocative and unsettling, and the story is full of unexpected twists and turns for all the characters, not just the lead. (Vols. 6-9 released in 2008.) [Editor's Note: This is the visual I went with for this article, so enjoy the prettiness etc.]
4 and 5. Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and xxxHolic by CLAMP - The crossover connections between these two series just get more and more important. In this year's releases, Tsubasa provided some very shocking plot twists and heartbreak character moments, while xxxHolic offered quieter, but no less compelling, stories. (Vols. 16-19 of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and vols. 11-12 of xxxHolic released in 2008.)
Other series I continued to enjoy from previous years include Ouran High School Host Club; NANA; Fruits Basket; Fullmetal Alchemist; and Saiyuki Reload.
And honorable mentions to the following series that were new in 2008: Honey and Clover; Sand Chronicles; and Silver Diamond. I think they are all excellent, but perhaps still in the process of hitting their strides.
My favorite anime releases of 2008:
1. Ouran High School Host Club - The anime adaptation of Bisco Hatori's manga has tons of screwball energy, and the work by the voice actors (especially Mamoru Miyano as Tamaki) is fantastic. And let's have a cheer for the industry's move toward releasing box sets right off the bat, rather than pricey individual discs (though it would be even nicer if those box sets included the whole season, rather than half of it). Part 2 of this series will come out in 2009.
2. Mushi-Shi - The final individual volumes and the series boxset were both released in 2008. My comments about the manga version also apply here, plus the anime has a lovely score and makes great use of color.
3. 5 Centimeters Per Second - Makoto Shinkai's third film somehow manages to be even more gorgeous than his earlier work, which is a pretty significant feat. The story could have been a little stronger, but the visuals--especially the use of light and detail--are just stunning and make up for a lot.
Ysabet MacFarlane:
Picking just one favorite anything is usually hard for me, but I can at least narrow things down to manga easily enough--I don't play video games, and didn't watch much anime in 2008 (although I'm really happy that the first Ouran DVD set came out).
My favorite manga that started coming out this year was probably Sand Chronicles, although I also loved High School Debut. Since VIZ is kind enough to send me review copies of a lot of their shoujo titles, I've already talked quite a bit about both of those here on Manga Life (and I have vol. 4 of Sand Chronicles on my shelf, and can't wait to read it).
Since Joy mentioned her favorite continuing series, I will too: Fruits Basket is still my very favorite manga, possibly followed by NANA, and we got a few new volumes of each of them this year. ^_^
As for manga I actually adapted, my favorites are probably Shinobi Life and Phantom Dream. Volume 1 of Shinobi Life came out last month, and it has all kinds of good stuff: time travel, ninjas, a modern-day rich girl who actually thinks for herself...it's fun! ^_^ And Phantom Dream, which is just coming out now, is Natsuki Takaya's debut series. You can tell that this is an earlier work, but I really like it--it's a supernatural fantasy with some romance and some dark undercurrents, and it touches on a few themes that she came back to later in Fruits Basket. It's interesting to see how her style develops. (TOKYOPOP is also releasing her other pre-Fruits Basket series, Tsubasa: Those With Wings, next year.)
Athena and Alethea Nibley:
Oh, at least one! That's good, because it's so hard to narrow it down sometimes. In our case, it's especially difficult because I [Editor's Note: Alethea is the one who types] feel like we're either working on something that's not coming out for another year, or reading/watching/playing something that came out two or three years ago. We're never in the now.
The one thing we worked on that came out this year that we really want to bring everyone's attention to is the Phoenix Wright manga. We became huge fans of the games working on it, and we hope that all the fans of the game approve of our adaptation. At any rate, we were really pleased with how the script turned out, so we hope all you Phoenix Wright fans will read the manga and see if you agree with us.
I talked about Hoshi wa Utau in the column last week, so I don't think I need to say any more about that, but volume one came out in Japan in January, so I wanted to add it to the list.
Also, we're going to be fangirls and point out that this has been a big year for Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time. First they had the stage show in January (which we bought on DVD and were then saddened that we didn't make the effort to go see it live), then the anime started being released in North America in April. The premise is just about exactly the same as Fushigi Yuugi: The Mysterious Play, but we've always been of the opinion that it's not the story so much as the telling, and they're different enough that you certainly can't call them twins. I'm sure most people would agree that if Fushigi Yuugi had different characters, the story would have turned out much differently, and you can see for yourself by watching Haruka. It has beautiful artwork, and it's set in Heian Japan, so you can learn a little about Japanese history.
Then the fourth game in the series came out in Japan, and then they released a DS game that throws all the characters from the first three games together. That may or may not make sense to anyone reading this, but to fans of the series, it's like a dream come true. Especially since it means all our favorite voice actors are playing three roles each! Swoon!
Park (and Barb):
This year, Barb started adapting (with a tiny bit of collaboration from me here and there) Tokyopop’s title V.B.Rose, starting with volume 6 onwards. Although technically we’ve been adapting Viz’s title Nora for slightly longer than 2007, it’s been an entertaining ride all this year, and we’ve especially been happy when we found out, halfway through the year, that the first volume of Nora sold so well. I’ve enjoyed editing a variety of things for Del Rey this year like the second and final Mao-chan omnibus, Samurai 7, Kamichama Karin chu with the Nibleys, finishing up Minima! (also with the Nibleys), and a new title that I don’t even know if I should mention yet. Therefore I shan’t, but what fun...
I will say that this year we have especially loved COWA!, as you could tell from MangaLife’s Halloween installment; I’ve enjoyed the work of Osama Tezuka, I’ve enjoyed reading Dragonball Z; I enjoyed the first 1 or 2 discs of the XXXholic anime; and I enjoyed getting into Hunter X Hunter.
Oh yeah, and THE HIDDEN started running over at Tokyopop, that was a pretty unique opportunity (at the time—although certainly I believe that the number of digital manga will increase in the future)...
Oh right... and I wasn’t editor-in-chief of MangaLife at all before this year. So that’s a heck of a thing... we’re coming up on the anniversary of that. Golly. Seems like it’s been so long, that I forgot I only started in 2008. Thank you, reviewers of 2008, especially those of you who are still with us.
So it was a pretty good year for manga and anime... Please look forward to next year...
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