Review: THE WORLD'S GREATEST FIRST LOVE Volume 4

THE WORLD'S GREATEST FIRST LOVE, VOL. 4
SUBLIME MANGA – @SuBLimeManga

MANGAKA: Shungiku Nakamura
TRANSLATION: Adrienne Beck
LETTERS: NRP Studios
EDITOR: Jennifer LeBlanc
ISBN: 978-1-4215-8869-8; paperback (March 2016); Rated “M” for “Mature”
180pp, B&W, $12.99 U.S., $14.99 CAN, £8.99 UK

The World's Greatest First Love is a yaoi manga from creator Shungiku Nakamura (Junjo Romantica).  According to SuBLime Manga, it is one of the titles that their readers have most requested for an English release.  Yaoi manga is a subset of boys' love (or BL) manga, which depicts amorous situations between male romantic leads.  Yaoi features explicit depictions of sex between those leads.

Looking for a fresh start, 25-year-old Ritsu Onodera changes jobs and lands at Marukawa Publishing.  He becomes an editor for the shojo manga magazine, “Emerald” (which is also an actual manga magazine).  Things should be looking up, but Ritsu's new boss is Masamune Takano.  When he was 15, Ritsu was madly in love with Takano, but now he wants to leave that all in the past, although Takano seems determined that they have a future.

As The World's Greatest First Love: The Case of Ritsu Onodera, Vol. 4 (Chapter 6 to 7.5) opens, the editorial staff of Emerald races to finish the next issue.  The looming Christmas holidays have pushed up the normal deadlines, and Ritsu is having trouble with a tardy mangaka.  Ritsu also cannot wait to get away from his boss and former lover, Takano, to whom he recently gave up the booty.  It just so happens that Takano's birthday is soon, and Ritsu frets over whether or not he should acknowledge it.  Takano however has plans for a romantic drive... with Ritsu.

[This volume includes Chapter 7.5 and “The Case of Shota Kisa.”]

I have to admit that The World's Greatest First Love manga has an advantage with me.  I automatically give at least a little favor to manga that are about making manga or are set in the world of manga publishing.  The World's Greatest First Love has one more advantage, and that is the fact that its workplace setting is a shojo manga editorial office.  I do like my shojo manga (comics for teen girls).

The World's Greatest First Love: The Case of Ritsu Onodera Volume 4 is the first volume of this series that I have read (thanks to a review copy from SuBLime).  That was not a problem for me, as I did not have trouble figuring out the rather straight-forward central plot and obvious obstacle facing the leads.  This is not one of those moody romantic drama yaoi manga .

This is a romantic comedy in which the lead (Ritsu Onodera) is a screwy blonde, and the pursuer (Masamune Takano) is tall, dark, and handsome.  Takano is the seme (top) who is determined to get what he wants, which is Ritsu, the uke (bottom) who eventually submits to his lover.  I don't know where this series is going; the star couple does have some issues to resolve.  Creator Shungiku Nakamura makes you want to keep reading.

B+

www.SuBLimeManga.com
facebook.com/SuBLimeManga.

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2016 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

Book Review: FORGOTTEN: The Untold Story of D-Day's Black Heroes

FORGOTTEN: The Untold Story of D-Day's Black Heroes, at Home and at War
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins

AUTHOR: Linda Hervieux – @lindahervieux
ISBN: 978-0-06-231379-9; hardcover (October 27, 2015)
368pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S.

Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day's Black Heroes, at Home and at War is a 2015 non-fiction book from author Linda Hervieux.  This World War II-era history book tells the story of an all-black battalion whose crucial contributions on D-Day have gone unrecognized to this day.

What is forgotten is what Forgotten remembers for us.  You did not see it in Steven Spielberg's 1998 Oscar-winning film, Saving Private Ryan, but African-American service men did participate in the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II.  In the early hours of June 6, 1944 (D-Day), the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, a unit of African-American soldiers, landed on the beaches of France (primarily Omaha Beach and Utah Beach).  Their orders were to man a curtain of armed balloons meant to deter enemy aircraft.

Although little was expected of these black man, their bravery and valor in not only maintaining the balloons, but also in rescuing fellow soldiers and in fighting the enemy earned praise from U. S. and Allied military officers and officials – from high to low rank.  They also earned the respect of some of the very White soldiers with whom they could not serve because the U.S. armed forces were segregated even during World War II.

However, the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, their exploits and service, were forgotten.  One member of the 320th, Waverly Woodson, would be nominated for the Medal of Honor, but it was an award he would never receive.  Over one million African-Americans served during World War II, but the nation’s highest decoration was not given to black soldiers in World War II, although many were recommended for the award.

Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day's Black Heroes, at Home and at War remembers them.  Author Linda Hervieux also chronicles the injustices of Jim Crow America, especially during the 1940s.  The past is brought to life in an extraordinary blend of military and social history.  Forgotten is the book that finally pays tribute to the valor of this all-black battalion; its crucial contributions at D-Day have gone unrecognized to this day, but no longer...  The recognition begins with Forgotten

When I saw director Oliver Stone's 1986 film, Platoon (which won the Oscar as “Best Picture” of 1986), it was the first time I saw a movie that depicted African-American soldiers serving during the Vietnam War as more than just background players.  The only reason I knew that Black soldiers served in Korea was because the assistant principal of my high school was a veteran of Korea.  Occasionally, I saw a Black actor playing a serviceman on the television series, “M.A.S.H.”  Popular media and pop culture and the arts to which I was exposed, especially as child, said very little about Black men serving in Korea.

These slights of Black soldiers during Korea and Vietnam were nothing compared to the uncountable slights against Black servicemen and servicewomen during World War II.  It seems that history practically erased African-Americans from the history of WWII.  In high school, we did not cover WWII – believe it or not.  I did not know that there were African-American pilots during WWII until I first learned that Star Wars creator, George Lucas, had been trying to get a film about those pilots, the “Red Tails” made, as early as the 1990s.  Lucas eventually financed the production, marketing, and distribution of the film himself.

I saw Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima films, Flags of My Father and Letters from Iwo Jima, but it was afterwards that I learned that Black marines had participated in that battle.  However, Flags of My Father, which focuses on the American side of the battle of Iwo Jima, did not depict African-Americans in the fight.  Director Spike Lee was critical of Eastwood for this omission, but that earned him ire for saying this, but none for Eastwood.

When I read the email in which HarperCollins' marketing department offered review copies of Forgotten, it was the first time I had ever heard of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion.  That's my fault.  As an African-American, I should be reading more books about the history of Black folks in America.  I read a lot of journalism, articles, essays, etc. about Black History, but I think I have only read three or four books about Black History or African-American historical figures during the last decade.  For an African-American who calls himself a writer, that is sad.

Well, luckily we have the pluck, skill, talent, and perseverance of Linda Hervieux.  Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day's Black Heroes, at Home and at War is an essential book about a pivotal time in the history of the United States:  militarily, politically, socially, and culturally.  It is a fantastic read, and Hervieux should probably write more non-fiction books... on any topic.

This brilliant book will often make you burning angry, but it will also make you proud of a group of men you never knew.  Black servicemen like those in the 320th made an awful, racist country that thought too much of itself look better than it should.  Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day's Black Heroes, at Home and at War is an assault on the kind of memory that is nothing more than a column of support for Jim Crow America.  This book is the restoration, not of history, but of America's story.  Now, it is up to us to make sure that neither Forgotten nor the men of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion are ever relegated to the remainder bin of history.

A+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2016 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

So Cute It Hurts: It Hurts to Be a Matchmaker

I read So Cute It Hurts!!, Vol. 5

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin.  Follow me on Twitter and Tumblr or at Grumble.  Support me on Patreon.

Review: In Search of Lost Time: SWANN'S WAY

IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME: SWANN'S WAY
W.W. NORTON & COMPANY/Liveright – @wwnorton and @LiverightPub

ORIGINAL STORY: Marcel Proust (novel)
CARTOONIST: Stéphane Heuet
TRANSLATION: Arthur Goldhammer
ISBN: 978-1-63149-035-4; hardcover (July 13, 2015)
240pp, Color, $26.95 U.S., $32.00 CAN

Stéphane Heuet is a French comics artist, who is known for his work in Franco-Belgian comics, which are called bandes dessinées (or “BD”).  Two decades ago, Heuet made a big leap in his career, which was also a huge risk, and this career-changing decision was connected to Marcel Proust.

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust, best known as Marcel Proust (1871-1922), was a  French novelist, critic, and essayist.  He is considered one of the greatest authors of all time, and his prominent work is À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time).  This monumental novel was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927.

The novel first gained fame in English under the title, Remembrance of Things Past.  This lengthy work has a theme of involuntary memory, and it follows the narrator, a middle-aged writer, as he recalls his past, the people he knew, and the places his visited.

In the early 1990s, Stéphane Heuet, decided to adapt In Search of Lost Time into comics form.  In 1998, he published Combray (Editions Delcourt), what he hoped would be the first of about a dozen large-sized, hardcover comic books (graphic novels?), the number it would take for him to adapt In Search of Lost Time into comics.  As of this writing, Heuet has published five books in this series.  In 2003, NBM Publishing released an English edition of Combray in North America.

The original prose Swann's Way is the first of the seven books that comprises Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.  Last year, in July, Liveright, an imprint of W.W. Norton and Company, published the large-size, full-color hardcover, In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way.  This book collects Heuet's comics adaptation of Swann's Way.  Liveright's In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way is also an English-language edition of the French comics hardcover, Du cote de chez Swann: Edition Integral (Editions Delcourt), which also collects Heuet's comics adaptation of Swann's Way.

In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way opens with “Combray,” in which the narrator, an aspiring writer, evokes the village in which he grew up, Combray.  This opening section includes the famous “episode of the madeleine.”  While visiting his mother, the narrator has tea with her and eats a madeleine, a small pastry in the shape of a cockle shell.  The taste of the pastry causes the narrator’s memories to return to his boyhood (the “involuntary memory”).

The second part, “Swann in Love,” tells the story of the romance between the aristocratic Charles Swann and Odette de Crecy, a prostitute.  Swann's infatuation with Odette causes him much torment, especially once he comes to believe that she cannot stand his presence and is also having an affair with the Comte de Forcheville.  Although he comes to believe that Odette is beneath his station, Swann cannot stop thinking about her and wanting her.

The third part, “Place Names: The Name,” details the narrator’s idealized boyhood love for Charles and Mme (Odette) Swann's daughter, Gilberte.  This part also deals with the narrator's preference for the manner of women's fashion, make-up, and hair as it was when he was a boy in the past, as he compares it to the way things are in the present, now that he is an adult.

While researching Marcel Proust, Stephane Heuet, and this graphic novel, I found a New York Times article from 1998 about the controversy that ensued in France after the release of Heuet's first In Search of Lost Time graphic novel, Combray.  I don't know why I found myself surprised by the controversy, as the French are so open-minded...

Anyway, it took me a long time to read this (in addition to the fact that, at one point, I misplaced my reader's copy).  I am assuming that all the dialogue (word balloons) and exposition (caption boxes) that Heuet uses in his comics adaptation come directly from Proust's original text.  Proust's winding prose reads as if someone took Shakespeare and stuck every line together to form one incredibly long run-on sentence with little to no punctuation.  Yet Proust, at least in this comic book, is not abstract.  The language is meant to be evocative, and I found that certain words go together to form phrases which in turn are meant to evoke involuntary memories in my mind.  It is as if I were remembering something that not only did I not experience, but may also not even be real.

And I like that.  I think Heuet's adaptation works best if the reader can unravel the layers of the text.  Some words are mere flights of fantasy, while others are metaphorical.  Some deal with memory and are, therefore, highly descriptive.  In “Swann in Love” I found myself having to reread portions of the text to discover when the story was focusing on the matter at hand:  character, personality, relationship, conflict, and narrative.  I think the translation of Heuet's original French text into English by Arthur Goldhammer is likely the best a translation of this can be.  It is reader-friendly, but emphasizes the beauty of the prose.

It is also easy to get lost in Stephane Heuet's beautiful art.  His “clean line” (or “clear line”) style recalls the work of Tintin creator, Hergé, and it gives the story a sense of wonder and of adventure.  That makes this journey into the narrator's memory a joyful trip.  I was never bored; I was always curious about where this story was taking me.  Honestly, In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way is not the easiest read, but it is a remarkable book, and the map of Paris and illustrated Proust family tree that comes with this version of the book helps.

A-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2016 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

DC Comics from Diamond Distributors for March 9, 2016

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