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One of the finest anime made in recent years, Emma: A Victorian Romance is also a testament to the care RightStuf/Nozomi Entertainment takes with their releases. While season one is available only as a box set, it doesn’t much matter. I’m pretty sure no one can watch Emma without wanting to follow this powerful love story to its conclusion.

The series opens in a middle-class household in Victorian London. Emma is a maid for Mrs. Stowner, a retired governess. The pair have been together many years- Mrs. Stowner hired Emma when she was just a child, and has educated her to a level most lower classes of that time could never hope to attain. Mrs. Stowner’s care has created a model young lady: intelligent and observant, unfailingly polite and quiet, and sharply conscious of her place in society.

And then William Jones shows up.

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1001 Nights (or Arabian Nights) is a collection of stories gathered over many years by Middle Eastern scholars. The stories themselves are less famous than the framing tale in which they were placed: Shahryar, a mad sultan, begins taking girls into his harem, spending one night with them, and then having them executed in the morning. Scheherazade is a brave woman who agrees to stay with the sultan. But that first night she begins telling him a story…fascinated by her endless collection of tales, the sultan keeps her alive so he can hear more.

Jeon Jin-seok sets his manhwa of the same title in the same place, and with the same sultan. In the Middle East, sometime during or just after the Crusades, and unnamed country is ruled by the young sultan Shahryar. After a nasty experience with an unfaithful wife, Sharyar creates a rigid schedule: Every night he has a lovely young virgin brought to his palace; he sleeps with her and, in the morning, has her beheaded. Even crueler, the women are made well aware of their fate beforehand.

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In the author’s comments section at the end of volume one, mangaka Makoto Tateno claims she didn’t know if Steal Moon would fit in the boys’ love genre, since it is a science fiction manga. She should have no worries on that account. Steal Moon is as much a science fiction story as Brokeback Mountain is a Western; slapping a ten-gallon hat on Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t make that film a cowboy movie, and sticking a couple supercomputers in Steal Moon doesn’t make it science fiction.

Nozomi is a young punk who makes his living by fighting people in narrow alleyways (I’m not totally sure how he makes money by doing this…does he take bets? Or maybe he just steals his opponents’ wallets after he knocks them unconscious.). He’s undefeated in the street-fighting world, so when a new challenger approaches with a rather sinister proposal, Nozomi doesn’t think twice about accepting. So when tall, dark and handsome Coyote beats the crap out of him, Nozomi finds himself having to do whatever Coyote says.

Usually in a yaoi this would lead to some rape scenes, but Coyote actually has something different in mind. He sells Nozomi to a company called Digital Angels. DA has an interesting business plan: they ‘buy’ people from other people, lock them in little rooms, and focus a webcam on them 24/7. Every time some perv on the Internet clicks on their particular webcam, the prisoners earns 200 yen; when they pay back their purchase price (usually in the millions) they are free to go. So they’re less slaves than, say, indentured servants.

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So a few years ago I saw a film called Uzumaki. It was a Japanese horror film, one of the creepier, more bizarre movies I’d ever seen. The movie was about a town obsessed with spirals; that odd, repeating pattern that occurs often in nature and human art. The movie featured a variety of weirdness, including a boy who turned into a snail, spiral-patterned cremation smoke and a girl whose hair curled and took on a life of its own. I slept with my head under the covers that night.

I picked up the original Uzumaki manga by Junji Ito because I liked the movie and was curious to see how it differed from the original three-volume story. It differs quite a bit. The plot is mostly the same, though cut quite a bit shorter in the film. The main difference is that the manga is far, far, far more disturbing than the movie.

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Just in time for Halloween, Kodansha International has decided to give Westerners a few tips on battling Japanese monsters with the release of Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt. The guide doesn’t cover all Japanese monsters- you’re on your own when it comes to kaiju- but is helpful against a very specific form of Japanese creepy-crawly: the yokai.

Yokai, according to the introduction, is a Japanese word that is notoriously difficult to translate. In English it is variously transcribed as ‘demon’, ‘goblin’, or ‘monster’, yet none of these accurately describes the variety and sheer weirdness of these supernatural creatures.

The book provides information on forty-three separate yokai. The guide is laid out in a fun, attractive manner somewhat reminiscent of a magazine, with lots of sidebars and little colored boxes containing quotes or important points about particular yokai. While each entry is only four pages long, they manage to convey a great deal of information. The authors provide physical descriptions, a list of each yokai’s supernatural powers, the areas where it is most often seen, and even a rough estimate of its current population statistics. They tell the most famous stories about each creature (including origin stories, where they exist) and provide references to the earliest known written sources about each yokai. Despite the lack of solid facts about yokai, the author’s entries remain remarkably free of speculation. Except for a few snarky comments, mainly about the reader’s chances of escaping certain yokai, they only repeat stories that have told in Japan for centuries (or are documented urban legends). The book also includes a helpful Japanese-to-English glossary and a list of recources for further reading/viewing.

Those familiar with Japanese culture will recognize several of the entries, such as Tengu and Tanuki. But a few will be new to even the most hardcore Japanophile. Who outside of Japan has ever heard of Wanyudo, a yokai who appears as a flaming cart wheel with an old man’s face inside, or of the ‘Bathtub-Licker’, an unpleasant creature who sneaks into your bathroom to devour the soap scum off your tub? And readers will probably learn something new about even the most familiar yokai; for instance, that are there two classes of tengu, one more violent than the other, or the horribly ironic origin story of Onibaba. It is these bits of arcane detail that make Yokai Attack! worth reading.

The book’s dedication appropriately goes to Lafcadio Hearn, a journalist who was responsible for bringing early knowledge of Japanese culture and folklore to the West. While Yokai Attack! reaches nowhere near the scale of Hearn’s groundbreaking work, it does provide an interesting peek into the darker, stranger corners of Japanese culture.

The yokai are helpfully separated into categories indicating the danger they pose to humans (Ferocious Fiends, Gruesome Gourmets, Annoying Neighbors, The Sexy and Slimy and The Wimps). The most dangerous, since I know you’re wondering, is the Tengu, followed by the Kappa. Not only are ancient legends represented, but also more modern urban myths, such as a ghost that exclusively haunts girls’ elementary school bathrooms.

The book is illustrated by manga artist Tatsuya Morino. The yokai portraits are drawn in a silly, cartoony style, which removed from them any air of menace. Morino is obviously a talented artist, but his style isn’t really suited to the subject here.

Yokai Attack! is a fun, educational read for fans of Japanese culture or horror (or both). More than likely you’ll be annoying friends and family in no time by reading snippets of yokai lore out loud to them. But hey- this information could save their lives!

Details

Publisher:Kodansha International
Author: Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt
Pages: 191
Format: Book
MSRP: $14.95
Date of Publication: 10/1/08
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Yokai Attack!

About midway through Sebastian Gutierrez’ entertaining vampire flick Rise: Blood Hunter, the lead bloodsucker asserts something to the effect of “Sex and murder are the only real pleasures man has left.”

But in the world writer/director Gutierrez creates, those are actually the only pleasures left to vampires, much to their cost. They can’t eat food, hold no love for their fellow creatures, are cut off from their families (due to their being, you know, dead) and must hide their true natures from unsuspecting humanity. And, of course, there’s the little matter of an irresistible craving for human blood.

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Some time ago, Douglas Adams wrote a short story entitled ‘The Private Life of Genghis Khan ‘ which lifted the curtain on the legendary conquerer’s civilian existence to humorous effect. The Great Khan breaks into a woman’s yurt, forcing her to treat him with all the banality of a middle-manager arriving home after a long day at the office. Later in the story, the Khan is pestered by his son to commence World Domination who in turn is treated to an endless litany of prior engagements that dissapointingly have nothing to do with conquering the known world. In the end (and I hope I’m not spoiling anything - skip ahead if you’ve not read it) it is only after being insulted by Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged that Genghis Khan is motivated enough to storm his way to Europe.

While Adams’ story is, on the face of it, preposterous it does raise an interesting question - what exactly did Genghis Khan do with his free time?

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An average student finds himself up to his armpits in monsters in Rosario+Vampire, a charming manga by Akihisa Ikeda from Viz Media’s Shonen Jump Advanced imprint. Of course, this being manga, several of the monsters are in the form of sexy young women vying for his attention. I recently obtained a copy of Volume 2 of the series, which was met with great approval from my nine-year-old daughter, who had been following the magazine serialization.

Tsukune Aono is an utterly average high school freshman, in the most literal sense of the word – he fall precisely on the median in many ways, including the high school entrance exams. Unfortunately, this undistinguished result prevents his admission to most of the best schools, but he is accepted into one exclusive academy. Upon arrival, he discovers it’s exclusive because its mission is to educate young vampires, werewolves, demons and other monsters.

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The fact that there are lesbians in Kannazuki no Miko shouldn’t be a big deal. This is the 21^st century after all, and I live in America, a >cough< enlightened country. And if sales of yaoi manga are any indication, anime fans are especially enlightened concerning homosexuality.

Unfortunately, the girl-on-girl love in Kannazuki no Miko is a big deal- but only because the unusual love triangle is the only thing the show has going for it.

The series opens in one of those fantastic, elite prep schools that doesn’t actually exist outside of anime. Himeko, one of a vast legion of orphaned anime characters, stays in the school dorms. She is the sort of girl we’re supposed to love: quiet, kind, timid, unbearably sweet. Except to a jaded old lady like me, it’s all too easy to see why her classmates feel contempt for her; she simply won’t stand up for herself. One of Himeko’s classmates doesn’t participate in tormenting her, however. Chikane is beautiful, kind abd good at everything, from archery to playing the piano. She’s the object of every girl-crush in the school, and is expected to marry Ohgami, her equally perfect male counterpart. But Ohgami actually likes Himeko…and so does Chikane.

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A supremely skilled fighter wanders the Earth, like Caine in Kung Fu, looking for the ultimate battle in Death Trance, a rip-snorting action film directed by Yuji Shimomura, action director for Versus, and featuring Versus lead Tak Sakaguchi as action director and leading man. The 2005 film is available on DVD in the United States courtesy Media Blasters.

Sakaguchi plays Grave, a mysterious man of few words who raids a hidden temple for a coffin the local monks had been guarding for a century. Rumor has it that the coffin will grant a person a wish. But when a Ryuen, young apprentice monk (Takamasa Suga), returns shortly after the raid, the head monk warns him that opening the coffin will release the Goddess of Destruction. He hands Ryuen a sword with an amazingly phallic handle and urges him to track down the thief with the sword. Unfortunately, many others are also after the coffin for the power it contains.

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