<b>Review of Manga Dogs #1 by Ian Wolf</b>
<em>"A happy man may be a successful bishop, dog-catcher, movie actor or sausage-monger, but no happy man ever produced a first-rate piece of painting, sculpture, music or literature." - G. J. Nathan.</em>
Over the years I’ve been reviewing manga I've come to formulate an unwritten rule of criticism that I wish to write down here: if a manga seems to directly reference the work of "Godfather of manga" Osamu Tezuka in terms of character names, settings or themes, it will probably not be around too long.
For example, in 2012 there was the <em>Shonen Jump</em> title <em>Barrage</em>, a sci-fi series in which the main character is named Astro. Now, when your manga has a similar name to one of most famous manga characters in history, there are going to be problems (even if in Japanese <em>Astro Boy </em>is known as <em>Mighty Atom</em>). The series lasted only a few months. I once reviewed Kazue Kato's collection of one-shots entitled <em>Time Killers </em>for <em>MyM Magazine</em> and while these stories, including <em>Astronerd</em> which featured the template of <em>Blue Exorcist</em>'s Yukio Okumura, are in themselves good, none made it into a full series. In <em>Astronerd</em>, the female lead was called Tezuka. In <em>Manga Dogs</em>, there is also lead character is a girl called Tezuka, and according to the translation notes she is actually named after Osamu.
Kanne Tezuka is a 15-year-old girl who has already written and published her first manga story. She attends Tokuwa High School where she learns there is a manga course. Obviously she joins, but upon doing encounters several problems. For starters, their homeroom teacher Shizuka Okanoto knows nothing about how to draw manga, with Tezuka considering her to be useless. To make things worse, eventually the only other students in the class are three attractive guys who have ludicrous delusions about being successful manga artists.
The boys in the class are Fumio Akatsuki, who appears to only want to be a manga artist to fund the purchase of more manga; Fujio Fuji, a guy who wants to win all the big prizes even if he gets confused between manga prizes and manga licenses; and Shota Ishinomori, who wants to sell his manga in order to see it made into big budget movies. Kanne despises all three of them, but the boys end up idolising Kanne, seeking advice from her which she is reluctant to give. Even when she insults them they happily accept their insults as badges of honour and praise. To make things worse for Kanne, her own manga is rapidly becoming the least popular in the magazine she writes for.
The main problem with <em>Manga Dogs</em> appears to be that whilst it is at heart a comic manga there is relatively little in the way of material that actually makes you laugh, which is a problem. Many of the jokes are references that are too in-depth to make sense of. For example all of the main characters are named after great manga artists, but many people will not get "the joke" unless they flip to the back of the book to check the translation notes.
If you want an entertaining manga about making manga then you want something like <em>Bakuman </em>which is a much better offering being informative, educational and entertaining.
<b>Final score: 3 out of 10</b>
<em>"A happy man may be a successful bishop, dog-catcher, movie actor or sausage-monger, but no happy man ever produced a first-rate piece of painting, sculpture, music or literature." - G. J. Nathan.</em>
Over the years I’ve been reviewing manga I've come to formulate an unwritten rule of criticism that I wish to write down here: if a manga seems to directly reference the work of "Godfather of manga" Osamu Tezuka in terms of character names, settings or themes, it will probably not be around too long.
For example, in 2012 there was the <em>Shonen Jump</em> title <em>Barrage</em>, a sci-fi series in which the main character is named Astro. Now, when your manga has a similar name to one of most famous manga characters in history, there are going to be problems (even if in Japanese <em>Astro Boy </em>is known as <em>Mighty Atom</em>). The series lasted only a few months. I once reviewed Kazue Kato's collection of one-shots entitled <em>Time Killers </em>for <em>MyM Magazine</em> and while these stories, including <em>Astronerd</em> which featured the template of <em>Blue Exorcist</em>'s Yukio Okumura, are in themselves good, none made it into a full series. In <em>Astronerd</em>, the female lead was called Tezuka. In <em>Manga Dogs</em>, there is also lead character is a girl called Tezuka, and according to the translation notes she is actually named after Osamu.
Kanne Tezuka is a 15-year-old girl who has already written and published her first manga story. She attends Tokuwa High School where she learns there is a manga course. Obviously she joins, but upon doing encounters several problems. For starters, their homeroom teacher Shizuka Okanoto knows nothing about how to draw manga, with Tezuka considering her to be useless. To make things worse, eventually the only other students in the class are three attractive guys who have ludicrous delusions about being successful manga artists.
The boys in the class are Fumio Akatsuki, who appears to only want to be a manga artist to fund the purchase of more manga; Fujio Fuji, a guy who wants to win all the big prizes even if he gets confused between manga prizes and manga licenses; and Shota Ishinomori, who wants to sell his manga in order to see it made into big budget movies. Kanne despises all three of them, but the boys end up idolising Kanne, seeking advice from her which she is reluctant to give. Even when she insults them they happily accept their insults as badges of honour and praise. To make things worse for Kanne, her own manga is rapidly becoming the least popular in the magazine she writes for.
The main problem with <em>Manga Dogs</em> appears to be that whilst it is at heart a comic manga there is relatively little in the way of material that actually makes you laugh, which is a problem. Many of the jokes are references that are too in-depth to make sense of. For example all of the main characters are named after great manga artists, but many people will not get "the joke" unless they flip to the back of the book to check the translation notes.
If you want an entertaining manga about making manga then you want something like <em>Bakuman </em>which is a much better offering being informative, educational and entertaining.
<b>Final score: 3 out of 10</b>