I was out wandering the various Asian malls that make up Toronto and surrounding areas, and was reminded by this poster just how awesome Junko Mizuno is. Mizuno is a mangaka whose work has sporadically been published in English, primarily as part of the defunct Pulp line by Viz. Her three fairy-tale inspired graphic novels, Cinderalla, Hansel & Gretel, and Princess Mermaid mix her trademark cute-grotesque style of art with an end-of-the-millennium Japanese cultural mania and inject them into classic and seemingly comforting tails. In addition to the triumverate of colour fairy-tale manga, Mizuno has also had two black and white manga translated into English; Pure Trance and The Life of Momongo (which appeared in the out of print anthology Secret Comics Japan). Pure Trance is probably Mizuno’s masterpiece, a sprawling and depraved journey through the end of the world and the breakdown of society, as viewed through a sort of Kabuki-cho-Powerpuff-Girl lens, though Momongo is probably my favourite for its distillation of Mizuno’s themes and style down to a short, sharp story.

As you can see above, that top illustration is just a small part of this larger poster, the art of which inspired these plush toys from the PostPet line… I didn’t end up buying the toys, sadly, though I could’ve got the pair for $40! Maybe they’d have thrown in the poster too? Anyway, if anyone loves me as much as $40, now you know what I’d like for my birthday. 

Back to our subject… Mizuno has always been a solid illustrator, and recently she’s been moving more and more into the illustration/high-end vinyl toy/fine art world, much to comics’ loss (though there are still many volumes of her work that remain untranslated… I’ve got 3 myself!). In addition to these plush toys, there’ve been a ton of great vinyl adaptations of her work and you can see more at her blog (linked below). An outstanding collection of Mizuno’s illustration is on display in the Mizuno art book Hell Babies, as notable for all of the great illustration it contains as it is for its superlative presentation; puffy, sparkly vinyl covers house die-cut rounded pages and multiple paper stocks. Published in North America by Last Gasp, Hell Babies is out of print at the moment but fret not! A new edition of Hell Babies was released in Japan last year with an additional 16 pages, and I’ve been led to believe we’ll see an English edition sooner than we think…

Of course, for those of who can’t wait, The Japanese edition is currently in stock at The Beguiling, thanks to a trip to Japan… It’s pretty awesome, and looks lovely as part of my little Junko Mizuno collection. If you want one drop us a line at mail at beguiling dot com, but they should be available everywhere by the end of the year.

Oo! Look! Extra pages with the shiny paper! How can you resist?

For more information on Junko Mizuno, here’re a few links:

jaPRESS (Mizuno’s North American Agents): http://www.japress.com/
Junko Mizuno @ Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junko_Mizuno
Junko Mizuno @ Viz: http://www.viz.com/products/products.php?series_id=86
Junko Mizuno Website (Under Construction): http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~mjdotcom/
Junko Mizuno’s Blog: http://jmnews.exblog.jp/

- Christopher

In September 2007, my husband and I traveled to Japan for two weeks as the fulfillment of a dream of mine to visit the country. On my trip I took nearly three thousand photos, and since my first day in Japan I’ve been photo-blogging my trip. Obviously comics212.net’s interests run towards comics, manga, and popular culture, and so the subjects of my photographs generally break down along those lines. But I found it impossible to be in Japan and not be captivated by it, from seemingly mundane experiences like visiting a convenience store to the truly surreal experience of visiting a Japanese theme park, and everything in between.

Below is a list of my entries about this trip, with rough descriptions of what each entry entails. Thanks very much for reading, and I hope you have as much fun viewing these photos as I did taking them.

- Chris

INDEX:

Day 1 (Convenience Stores and Shopping Malls)
Day 2 (Here I Am, Rock Me Like A hurricane)
Ikebukuro Tokyu Hands
Ikebukuro Sunshine 60 and Toys R Us
Namjatown. (Ikebukuro)
Animate, Tekkonkinkreet, and Ikebukuro
Sidetracked: Let’s Talk About Comic Shops
Akihabara Electric Town
Asakusa, Odabia, and Village Vanguard
Harajuku, Gothic Lolita, Yoyogi Park
Harajuku, Peanuts, Tintin, Moomin, and High Fashion
The Studio Ghibli Museum & Mitaka
20 Photos of Himeji
Kyoto Train Station
The Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum & Takarazuka
How To Draw Manga with Osamu Tezuka (Tezuka Museum)
I Just Counted… (an aside)
Kyoto International Manga Museum
Shinjuku Kinokuniya Books
Nakano Broadway Mall
Shibuya, Tsutaya, Ginza, Ramen Museum, Macadonaru, The End

See All Posts From This Trip:
http://comics212.net/category/japan/

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Image: Statue of Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix, outside of the Tezuka Museum. Photo by Christopher Butcher.

The thing about Japan is, it’s where I’ve always wanted to go, and having been there, part of me thinks that it’s where I want to be. That’s not to say that I’m blind to the socio-economic realities of what that means; I’m aware that even the most acclimatized westerner is still gaijin, and that it would never really be my home the way Canada is. But Japan is, in many ways, the realization of many of my dreams about comics and culture, and about society as a whole. I can’t say that a day has gone by since I got back that I haven’t thought about returning. I feel like I only scratched the surface of the country during my last visit there, and despite frequently being hot, sweaty, tired, and wet (typhoon!), I was never, ever bored.

This is my last Japan Travelogue post, bringing us right to the end of my trip. The last two days marked a significant downturn in the lack of pictures taken, owing partly to the novelty of picture-taking wearing off a little, and partly due to the fact I lost the camera. Well, heh, I actually left it in the Ramen Museum overnight and had to rush back to Yokohama on the day of our flight out of Japan to pick it up.

Incidentally, I’d like to thank everyone for reading and enjoying these posts, particularly the people who’ve told me that they never had any interest in visiting Japan until visiting my blog. That means an awful lot to me, that’s why I’m here really: To Share The Joy. :)

With that, click “continue reading” to find out about my last two days in Japan.

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Nakano Broadway Mall is pretty darned cool. Located at Nakano JR Station just a few stops from Shinjuku, Nakano is your typical Japanese mall, except 75% of the ‘typical’ stores have been replaced with shops aimed squarely at hardcore otaku. From the arcade areas to the original art and animation cells to the manga and the toys to the idol goods and video games… just fucking everything. You will spend a fortune, nerd, so be sure to bring one with you.

I had such a good time here. To see some of the amazing stuff we found at the mall (like that original Tezuka sketch up top going for $1500 or so), just keep reading.

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Hey there! Welcome back to the photo-tour of my trip to Japan. In case you’re just joining us, it took place between the 3rd and 15th of September, 2007. You can see all of the previous entries by clicking: http://comics212.net/category/japan/.

…so right after we get back from our sojourn to the Kansai area (Osaka/Kyoto/Nara/Himeji), we decide to head out to Shinjuku. In retrospect this was a huge mistake, because Shinjuku is a massive area of town with the JR Train Station right in the center, and really, it’s the hub of everything. To the west of the station is Tokyo City Hall and the financial district, to the east is Kabuki-cho, the naughty area of town. To the south though is an awesome building that combines a Tokyu Hands (see our Ikebukuro entry from much earlier for more on Tokyu Hands), a Takashimaya department store, and a massive 8-floor bookstore, Kinokuniya Books. Kinokuniya is probably best known in the west as the best place to get all of the cool untranslated manga, and they’ve got outlets all over the country. In Japan though, it’s just the largest bookstore there is, with the Shinjuku flagship store weighing in with 8 massive floors, including an entire floor more-or-less dedicated to English-language books.

We got to Shinjuku late as it was, and then spent 2 hours at Kinokuniya (when honestly, we could’ve spent a whole day). We should never have tried to do this on so little time. What were we thinking? Next trip we’re going to explore more of Shinjuku, but we also might just plan for a good 6 hours at this bookstore.

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Copyright (c) 2006-2008 Kyoto International Manga Museum. All Rights Reserved.

One of the most interesting stops on my trip was on the relatively recently opened Kyoto International Manga Museum, located in Kyoto. I almost missed visiting the museum on my trip, but I’m very glad I attended; it’s an essential stop for any manga afficionado or comics commentator visiting Japan. It is at once, a thriving commercial attraction, valuable historical record, and prime exhibition space. Consisting of thousands of manga (free to read with a paid admission), numerous permanent and rotating gallery exhibits, and all housed in a gorgeous converted elementary school in downtown Kyoto, the museum is an absolute wonder and tremendously inspirational.

In preparing this particular entry, I realised that I hadn’t taken as many interior pictures of the museum due to copyright law and out of respect for the proprietors of the museum, and so I’ve had to fill in some of the gaps with pictures from the Museum website at http://www.kyotomm.com/international/english/. Copyright information for all photos that aren’t mine is listed underneath each photo.

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I’ve posted about 640 Japan photos to this blog since my first post on September 5th, when I was actually IN Japan. Man…

One thing I’ve noticed is that I started taking fewer photos as the trip went on, all of the strange and wonderful started to get a little more familiar, and therefore less-likely to make me stop and pull out my camera. Andrew and I had a wonderful conversation last night about all the stuff we’d seen that we didn’t photograph, like some of the crazy department stores, or the restaurants, or the street fashion. Hell, you’ve only seen 640 photos of the more than 2000 I’d taken by this point in the trip. Seeing some of the wonderful photos in Amy & Kazu’s photoset reminded me that there’s so much more to this trip that didn’t make it to the screen here (mostly because it is so far away from being relevant to comics I couldn’t even pretend to post it).

Anyway, thanks everyone for continuing to read and enjoy these posts! I particularly appreciate all the links you’ve been sending my way too ;)

We’re getting near the end, I think there are maybe only 5 posts left in the trip, but there’s some good stuff too. Thanks for reading!
- Christopher
Photo: Representing TCAF at the Nakano Broadway Mall.

So the last entry had my visit to the Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum in Takarazuka, Japan. One of the coolest features of the museum is one that I didn’t show you: Little How-to-draw and how-to-create-characters instructional illustrations by Tezuka that were set into the floor. Although it’s probably an exercise for the kids or something, I still thought it would be cool to show you the illustrations, and hopefully you find them interesting (or useful!). Enjoy!

Finally, Amy Kim Ganter (creator of Sorcerers and Secretaries from Tokyopop) let me know that she and her husband Kazu Kibuishi just got back from a trip to Japan in December, and they’ve got tons of their own photos of Japan to ooh and aah over (they’re pretty awesome…). Check out their photos at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/studioamzu/collections/72157603502094080/

…and check out week two, part two in particular for more views of the Tezuka Manga Museum.

- Christopher

Hi there, and welcome back to the ongoing chronicles of my 2007 Trip to Japan! You can check out previous entries by clicking “Japan” under the categories tab to the right.

This time out we’re heading to The Osamu Tezuka Museum in Takarazuka, Japan, just outside of Osaka. Although the man needs no introduction, I’m gonna do one anyway: Osamu Tezuka is the God of Manga, one of the originators of the medium and undeniably a pioneer. His numerous creations include Tetsuwan Atom, known to the west as Astro Boy, Kimba The White Lion, Phoenix, Black Jack, Princess Knight, and many more. In fact, the full range of his creativity is on display in the museum, and the whole thing is a testament to his amazing work and career. The Tezuka Museum was definitely one of the highlights of my 2007 trip, and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting the country as an essential stop.

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Thanks to everyone for the compliments on this photo-journal. The response has been pretty phenomenal, and I hope the Japanese government sees fit to throw a few kickbacks my way… I wake up every morning and I’m kind of angry that I’m not still in Japan. :-/

This time out, I gotta thank a friend of mine who helped me out of a fairly major blunder on my trip to Japan. Several of the photos this time out (including the one above) are by my friend Eric Kim, a budding amateur photographer and the artist of Oni Press’ Love As a Foreign Language. All of the photos from the Tezuka display come courtesy of Eric, and you can check out the photos from his trip to Japan at his flickr page, http://flickr.com/photos/inkskratch/ .

We arrived at Kyoto train station and it was really, really hot. Unfortunately there’s no Relax Time for us, we’ve got a packed day of temples and shrines to see, plus the Kyoto Manga Museum and the Tezuka Museum and… Yeah. The Best Laid Plans are completely shot to hell by the presence of this:

Continue Reading After The Cut:

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