Rocket Bomber

The term Emmaverse comes from Mori herself (at least in translation) in the afterword to what was to have been the final volume — volume 7:

Emma, vols. 8, 9, & 10; & Shirley (one-shot)
Writer & Artist: Kaoru Mori
Published by: CMX

Vol. 8
[this cover features a very young Kelly Stownar, with her husband Doug, 1851]
208 (201) pages.
Vintage: 2007. US edition Mar. 2009.
isbn 9781401220709

Vol. 9
[This cover features Dorothea and Wilhelm, whose last name in Mölders, or Mulders, but which is translated in the CMX version as “Meredith”]
224 (206) pages
Vintage: 2007. US edition Jul. 2009
isbn 9781401220716

Vol. 10
[since I’m concentrating on side-stories, that’s the back cover to vol. 10, featuring Arthur Jones and his fellow Eton Prefect, Henry Preston]
240 (228) pages
Vintage: 2008. US edition Dec. 2009
isbn 9781401220723

Shirley
200 (193) pages
Vintage: 2003. US edition Jul. 2008
isbn 9781401217778
[Unlike the Emma Volumes, Shirley is rated by the publisher as “Teen”, not “Teen Plus”]

Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to Left
Translation & Adaptation: Sheldon Drzka
Lettering: Janice Chiang
Design: Larry Berry
Assistant Editor: Sarah Farber
Editor: Jim Chadwick

Publisher’s Rating: Teen Plus, for “Nudity & Suggestive Situations”

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Even restricting myself to just a few scans from each volume, there is a lot of manga to cover and this will be (already has been) an image-heavy post. I’ll start with Shirley, and then we’ll get to the Emma side-stories:

##

Though it was published by CMX as a kind of coda or bonus after volume 7 (it came out about 4 months after the “end” of the Emma series) Shirley in fact dates to much earlier — it was published in Japan in 2003, when only 2-3 volumes of Emma were out, and based on both the tone and complexity (or lack thereof, rather) I think it’s safe to say the stories in Shirley either predate Emma or are contemporaneous with the earliest Emma chapters.

Recently (as in just last month, 16 Feb.) Anime News Network posted an article translated from the Japanese reporting Mori’s return to Shirley with at least two new chapters to post in nos. 10 and 11 of Enterbrain’s Fellows! magazine. (I say ‘at least two’ because each magazine installment might just be more than a single chapter each) Fellows! #10 publishes in Japan on April 15, so it’ll be quite some time yet before we know CMX’s plans (if any) regarding the new content.

That said, Shirley as published to date is only 4 chapters, the first 120 pages of so of the volume that bears her name. The basic premise is that over-worked pub owner Bennett Cranley advertises for a live-in maid, and the only response to her ad is from a young orphan girl named Shirley — the background and details of Shirley’s life before she appears on Bennett’s doorstep are left intentionally vague (though she appears to have been previously employed as a domestic… somewhere) but these are the sorts of introductory details that are swept under the carpet in the first 12 pages or so, to make way for the actual story.

The charm of Shirley, as both character and manga, is the dichotomy presented of a 13-year-old maid: seemingly capable as a servant but also emotionally still growing—and needy, though she takes pains to hide it. Bennett Cranley is both an older-sister-figure and foster mother—and employer, let’s not forget that dynamic—and perhaps the most touching part of this too-short story is the simple gift of a doll (soon to be named Marie) from employer to maid.

Following the Shirley chapters are a couple of much more generic maid stories, featuring domestics who must care for both the very young, and the very old. These are pleasant enough, just not much worth writing about; though this guy:

is my new Twitter icon.

##

Before I go on about the Emma side-stories, let me just catalogue them all:

Vol 8.

• Two chapters with Doug and Kelly Stownar
• Two chapters with Eleanor Campbell, her sisters, and her new beau.
• A chapter featuring a number of minor characters with little to hold it together past the conceit of the daily newspaper “The Times”
• a home visit by Tasha, one of the Merediths’ maids, to see her large, boisterous family

Vol 9.

• a vignette featuring Erich, the young son of the Meredith’s, and his pet squirrel Theo (in fact, the squirrel gets most of the pages in this one)
• a sweet chapter featuring Dorothea & Wilhelm in bed, savoring a slow, leisurely morning together, interspersed with flashbacks on how the two first met.
• the first meeting of Hakim and William, when both were boys.
• a chapter featuring Polly & Alma (& a number of the other Meredith household servants) and a shopping holiday in the nearby town.
• Two chapters featuring the opera (notably, three singers who perform there) in a side-story that can only be considered tangental, at best, to the main narrative

Vol 10.

• A single chapter featuring another date between William & Emma (remember those two?)
• A flashback to Germany, showing Adele and Maria when they were first hired by the Merediths
• A chapter with Arthur, the Jones’s second son, showing his days at Eton as a Prefect.
• A short chapter—six pages—giving Eleanor Campbell what might just turn out to be her happy ending
• A fun shift toward 4-koma (4 panel gag comic strips) with brief asides featuring nearly all the secondary charaters
• & the final 100 pages, which return to the main story and cap the series with it’s ultimate conclusion — but that’s another Daily Diary.

Most of these asides work just fine on their own; in fact they could have been interspersed thoughout the first seven volumes (especially the flashbacks) with very little effort. They’re included in these last three volumes because that’s the way Mori wrote them — like many of us, she just couldn’t leave these characters, and their lovely Victorian (and pre- and post-Victorian) setting alone.

Very few chapters in these last volumes are ‘necessary’; even the first chapter of Vol 10, actually featuring William and Emma, is just a nice diversion with little to add to either plot or character. Still, Mori’s art is exceptional and the characters are fun. And we also get to see a bit beyond stereotypes of ‘maid’ and ‘gentry’ — each side-story is a different facet, and by shifting the spotlight we get to see how each facet contributes to the gem that is Emma

Aside from the squirrel chapter, which is actually quite beautiful in its depiction of nature

but which struck me as flat (& a tad boring) storywise, each chapter in these 2 1/2 volumes was well worth going out of the way for. Of course, much of this is due to Mori’s care in depicting setting; chapter 5 of vol 8 “The Times” is all about setting: the paper is used both as a narrative device to pull many different character stories together, and also—from typesetting early in the morning to it’s eventual fate as a cleaning accessory the next day—as a way to outline a whole day of Victorian life.

Detail and setting are why we love Mori; though most of her plots are strong enough without the gilding, it is the attention to detail that makes the books a joy and wonder.

In many ways, these side-story chapters were inevitable: after doing years of research, and attempting to draw both servants and gentry as characters, not just stereotypes, there were details and inspirations that just couldn’t be left on the ‘cutting room floor’. The individuals in Mori’s manga demanded more, and thankfully, she (and her editors) thought enough of the original books to actaully write down many of these stories.

In particular, I feel Arthur & Henry’s life at Eton, their rivalry, and eventual role as Prefects would make an excellent spin-off manga (if we could get Mori off of her maid fetish long enough to draw it)

While the ‘original run’ of Emma is already 2 1/2 years old (by US reckoning) these last three volumes are all less than a year old (at time of posting). Volume 10 only released about 4 months ago.

For many of us, who believed the rather prominent “THE END” on page 264 of volume 7

getting any new Emma at all has been a pleasure. I have some other thoughts about both the ending of volume 7, and volume 10, but that is of course the topic of the next Daily Diary post.

To pick a favourite side story, though… well, that’s almost obvious: Vol 9, Chap 8, “On Wings of Song”

Click here for the archive of all Emma Manga Moveable Feast links

Michelle Smith at Soliloquy in Blue comes in just under the wire with her take on vols 1-2 of Emma:

“More than any other non-shojo series, Emma is the one I most frequently see being mistaken for shojo. It’s easy to see why: it’s a low-key love story between a lovely and graceful maid and the liberally minded son of a wealthy merchant family. When we first meet Emma and William, she is working in the home of his former governess, Mrs. Kelly Stownar, whom he’s been very remiss in visiting.”

Click here for the archive of all Emma Manga Moveable Feast links

There have been all sorts of things delaying and prolonging the Manga Moveable Feast, (almost all of them personal and I don’t think most of you care) but I am most pleased the ‘official’ end was put off long enough that I’m able to point you to this piece:

Eva Volin at Good Comics for Kids posts a dialogue she had with Robin Brenner about the series, about it’s suitability for teens and for library collections, and about it’s overall appeal: to teens, to adults, for casual readers and for manga fans.

“Eva: I think what Emma has been successful in doing is converting casual manga readers into lifelong manga readers. Both male and female readers have asked me about Emma because they’ve heard about it from a friend. Or they’ve stumbled across it while browsing the collection and been attracted to its sophisticated look. You’re right, it is less visually intimidating, but it is in no way simple or easy. The reader has to have his or her brain engaged while reading Emma to be able to see beyond the basic romantic storyline.

Robin: Very good point! Emma is a wonderful series for readers graduating from the stereotypical fare — the time it takes to absorb and appreciate Emma fully certainly exemplifies the strengths of the format and the diversity that manga has. I love startling people when they realize that such an intense, detailed Victorian romance was actually created in Japan.”

Click here for the archive of all Emma Manga Moveable Feast links

* yes, I know these haven’t been daily; if you can look the other way, I promise to post the rest as soon as possible.

Emma, vol. 6
Writer & Artist: Kaoru Mori
Published by: CMX

192 (180) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to Left
Vintage: 2005. US edition Dec. 2007.
Translation & Adaptation: Sheldon Drzka
Lettering: Janice Chiang
Design: Larry Berry
Editor: Jim Chadwick

Publisher’s Rating: Teen Plus, for “Nudity & Suggestive Situations”
isbn 9781401211370

##

Premise: Our maid, Emma, and her lover, William, in Full-On, BBC/Masterpiece Theater-style Costume Drama; as we near the end, special extra focus on the ‘drama’ part.

##

Review:

Spoilers!

This Guy:

…is evil.

Emma,

…faces challenges.

William,

…actually, is a bit of an asshole. But when push comes to shove (& comes to the second-to-last volume), he may just be growing a pair:

Jones vs Jones!

There is a whole volume left (actually, a volume and a half, not just because vol. 7 is a fat chunka manga but also because there are an extra couple of chapters waiting at the end of volume 10) so, while we’re close to the end we’re not quite there yet. But… maybe we could have a page at the end of the book, showing the two leads each staring longingly into the dread dark of night, though they are separated by thousands of miles,

Yeah. That’s the stuff.

Click here for the archive of all Emma Manga Moveable Feast links

So, this weekend, I really needed to find Emma, vol. 8.

For some reason, it wasn’t with the rest of my Emma Collection, and I likely would have just re-purchased it but it seems that volume is in extremely short supply at the moment.

I was sure I had, in fact, bought Emma 8 just as soon as it came out, but that was before the move.

So it’s in a box. Sure. We’ll just dig it out.

Each cardboard sleeve holds ~16 volumes, some of these (the entire top layer, under the Naruto Shadow box) are all anime DVDs anyway, so only 24 or so of these to go through, no problem.

Aside: the cardboard half-boxes that I’m using here are the sleeves that our distributor uses to ship music CDs to the bookstore: they hold 30 regular jewel cases so they are known (not surprisingly) as 30-count sleeves. They’re each a foot long, and just a bit wider than your average manga so they fit volumes of both common trim sizes (and DVDs, natch). They’re great; if you have manga overflow and need to organize it (and who doesn’t) I highly recommend them. For the move into the new apartment, I put each half-box in a plastic grocery bag (so I’d have handles) and carried my entire collection of manga and DVDs up two flights, four linear feet of shelving at a time.

Anyway: wouldn’t take long to find Emma 8, right? Well, that neatly ordered stack in the corner was just the first day of moving… after that…

So, there was a lot of crap that is to say I own many fondly regarded manga volumes and anime DVDs that I just can’t part with. I’d just kind of shoved it into a couple of corners, using the four-tiered stacks as makeshift counters and tables — and that’s just fine.

Until you need a book. This is kind of like the old folk story For want of a nail except in reverse.

##

First, get your hands on some salvaged lumber.

I just so happened to have a number of board feet of 2×12s, a lesser length of 2×6s, and not quite enough 2×4s — but a trip to Home Depot sorted that out. I also picked up some 1×4 stock to serve as cantilevered shelving, and made the most of all my leftover Simpson Strong-Tie brackets — these things rock, they’re like adult Tinkertoys or Legos.

(I had leftover brackets and lumber because the bulk of this new shelving unit used to be an 11’ x 5 ‘ x 5’ loft — not that I needed a loft bed in the new place but one does not throw away good building materials)

And then I kind of reverse-designed the thing, with a concept in mind, and of course the strong conviction that the heaviest boards should be at the bottom lest the whole thing topple. I also knew that 2×4s are much stronger when oriented vertically (they tend to bow in the middle if you just lay them flat) so there was going to be about five inches of clearance between ‘shelves’ to allow for both the 2×4 (vert.) and a 1×4 (horz.) topper.

Anyway, I knew the overall height (floor to ceiling – minus a bit for the ventilation register in the corner) and I measured my collection to determine the optimal spacing, and then I just kind of built the thing from the top down.

(I used a couple of blocks cut to length as spacers for each shelf, which you can see in the pic above.)

Repeat a second time for a second set of shelves, and set up in a corner (to take up the least floorspace, and so one can support the other with minimal bracing)

And now it’s just a matter of turning these skeletons into shelving.

The shelves themselves are only 3.5 inches deep (that being the actual width of a nominal 1×4) but the whole unit stands at least a half-inch away from the wall (because of the baseboard) and so while it seems precarious, the thin cantilevered shelves are just fine for your usual 5×8 or 5.5×9 manga trim sizes.

At the base, each unit extends out from the wall about 13” — the base consists of the aforementioned salvaged 2×12’s. It’s open inside for extra storage, and topped with a bullnosed 4’ stair tread. Luckily the boards I bought fit (their just a skosh short, actually, but still are quite stable on the base) as I measured, cut, and built the two units before the trip out to Home Depot (the third that day, I think) to buy the toppers for each base.

Now, with 48 linear feet of brand new shelves, all I had to do was unpack boxes and fill the new monstrosity.

In the pic above, I have my One Piece omnibuses (three-in-ones, whatever Viz wants to call them) laying flat to save a major chunk of real estate for the rest of the series to follow (hopefully in the same 3-in-1 format) — here’s a detail:

And of course the shelf-that-is-also-the-base is a full 12” wide and quite a bit taller; I’d like to claim that I designed it to be the exact height of that Naruto vols 1-27 box set (barely visible on the left) but that’s just a happy coincidence:

(Behind the recycled Dark Crystal Manga standee you can just see the top of the rest of the lumber: already pre-measured and cut to build a third shelving unit.)

And let me remind you: this was all for want of a book. (I found it about half-way into stocking my shelves after building the damn thing, but really, after two days how could I stop, without seeing things through to the end?)

All my Emma manga, including the elusive volume 8, now live three shelves down from the top in the left hand unit (per proper alphabetical order; I am a bookseller) just about smack dab in the middle of the shelf.

I hope I don’t have to go through this kind of thing for every MMF.

Lissa Pattillo at Kuriousity sent me a few links to older reviews at her site (that URL is kuri-ousity.com; don’t forget the hyphen) including a relatively recent (September) write-up of Shirley:

“What aids Shirley considerably is the charm of its title character. She’s young and polite, and though calm and responsible, she still exudes enthusiasm and honesty like a girl her age, which makes her both admirable and easily likeable. For me this a far difference from the character, Emma, from her name-titled series, whose flat personality had the intent of sophistication but resulted more in dull tedium. Shirley on the other hand I find infectiously sweet and earnestly looked forward to her happiness even in such a short story.”

Also at Kuriousity are reviews of Vols 1 and 2 of Emma proper.

Click here for the archive of all Emma Manga Moveable Feast links

Jason S. Yadao of the Star-Bulletin’s Otaku Ohana checks in this morning to share his review of Shirley

“There’s so much potential here for Mori to explore these mysteries further, to really develop and flesh out her characters and their relationships.

And it’s pretty much wasted.

Just when I was getting into the story of Shirley and Bennett, it ended. Or, to be more accurate, their story abruptly stops about 125 pages into the book, the focus veering away to a few of Mori’s other short stories (about maids, naturally). Want to know more about Shirley and Bennet? Sorry, but you’ll just have to wait and see if anyone translates the two-part Shirley story that Mori’s drawing for Fellows! magazine starting April 15. Whether it will tie up the loose ends introduced here is debatable. It makes me wonder about the story’s original Japanese serialization and whether Mori intentionally left the story open-ended or she was forced to stop because she was either too busy with Emma or her host anthology suspended its publication.”

At the end of the article Yadao also shares some of his thoughts about vols 8-10 — or to be more precise, part of the conversation he had with Wilma Jandoc (who also contributed her own review of vols 1-7) about the “Emmaverse” volumes.

Click here for the archive of all Emma Manga Moveable Feast links

Emma, vol. 5
Writer & Artist: Kaoru Mori
Published by: CMX

192 (180) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to Left
Vintage: 2005. US edition Sep. 2007.
Translation & Adaptation: Sheldon Drzka
Lettering: Janice Chiang
Design: Larry Berry
Editor: Jim Chadwick

Publisher’s Rating: Teen Plus, for “Suggestive Situations”
isbn 9781401211363

##

Premise: Our maid, Emma, and her lover, William, in Full-On, BBC/Masterpiece Theater-style Costume Drama. Class differences and circumstances conspire to keep them apart…

##

Review:

Following the Capital Letter Ending! of the last volume, of course it’s time to take a step back from the story (while also prolonging the reader’s anticipation for What Happens Next!) so volume 5 opens with a 2 chapter flashback. It’s a delaying tactic, lest the overall momentum built in volume 4 threaten to overwhelm the reader or precipitate the premature climax of the series.

But, oh, what a delaying tactic: Mori takes us back to 1872, when William’s father Richard Jones is just starting to enter polite society — a very young Richard, in fact, around the age when he was thinking of taking a wife. Of course, as upstart nouveau riche, even in a backwater English county he’s not getting much of a reception. It would take an odd girl to be smitten by such a man,

[Look at that hair, look at that smile. Mori, you do good work.]

What follows in these two compressed chapters is not just the courtship of William’s parents, but also a good chunk of the Jones’s family life: five kids, travails in polite society, health problems, the slow but steady grinding of a genuine, and quite fond, love against the millstone of reality and the steadily hardening will of one Mr. Richard Jones.

Many manga-ka use a shortcut—black panel borders—to denote a flashback. Mori doesn’t; there is a subtle change in art, combining a fair amount of hatching and inkwork with plainer screen tones (I note only two, both plain shades of grey) that combine to make the two introductory chapters seem like faded sepia-toned photographs in comparison to the rest of the books. I really like the effort, and the effect, which is why I bring it to your attention

After that brief, touching opening, though

There is the stark reality of the Morning After. Note: there is no dialogue, no interior monologue, in these two pages, but you know exactly what’s running through Emma’s mind, especially in that second page.

Our two leads had thought themselves separated forever. Now that William knows where to find Emma, and Emma knows William’s heart is true — they start up a fevered corresponce (fevered in Victorian terms) and even over the distance that stands between them, their love grows. Eventually, William takes a chance. Maybe he really did it without thinking, as is suggested in the book: He goes out for a walk, and before he knows it he’s on a train, then seeking out a certain manor, and walking up the drive when he’s spotted from a second story window by a certain maid who doesn’t think, just runs runs runs into his arms…

…

Yes. It’s a touching image.

I really love the reactions on the next pages, though:

I agree, Mrs. Meredith. I agree.

Click here for the archive of all Emma Manga Moveable Feast links

David comes back with a second submission, this time concentrating on vol. 10

“I don’t know if this is exactly in the spirit of the Manga Moveable Feast, which I suspect is more to introduce people to great manga than to discuss it among the converted, but I feel like exploring the tenth and final volume of Kaoru Mori’s Emma (CMX) in depth, so this will require a bit of a spoiler warning. So click for more if you’re in a place where discussing how things end won’t have deleterious influence! If not, just enjoy this little bit of adorable nonsense from Mori.”

click through to read the Mori comic strip at The Manga Curmudgeon… but don’t scroll down or you’ll run into the spoilers.

see also: the archive of all Emma Manga Moveable Feast links