Manga: Our February selection full of poetry, music, the supernatural and legends

Our selection guides you to discover the Taiwanese poet Yang Mu through an impressive graphic novel, offers you two large-format reprints, including essential manga, and two stories that mix fantasy, poetry and the supernatural.

Oken – Struggles and dreams of a Taiwanese poet, Shih-hung Wu, in Lombardo

A stunning graphic novel, where a mixture of watercolors, black ink and fine lines brings a lot of emotion and poetry to the story.

Oken is a nickname given to Taiwanese poet Yang Mu when he was young. Born in 1940 in Hualien, he grew up at the crossroads between Japanese colonization and the handover of the island to the Republic of China, and an authoritarian government and martial law.

Oken’s youth almost did not end in the flames of History. Forced to flee Taiwan and American bombings, the young man and his family found refuge in the mountains. But against melancholy, Oken has a weapon like no other: poetry. The very one that allows him to penetrate the beauty of the world and realize that life is like a water spider: fragile, but so elegant and fascinating.

In this graphic novel, which is a loose adaptation of Yang Mu’s collection of poems under the title Mountain wind and ocean rain written between 1984 and 1986, Wu Shih-Hung follows the story of this poet who realized very early on that this is how we can rewrite pain, suffering and death.

The panels often speak for themselves, you just have to look at them, just like the nature depicted, to be captivated by the story and the emotions it unleashes.

The star watchdog, Takashi Murakami, in Pika

A beautiful and melancholic manga at the same time.

This edition is based on the 2022 Japanese reissue: complete in one volume enriched with an unpublished epilogue, Okutsu and the Dog, and a cover illustration unpublished in France. Exclusively in this publication, four color pages of the 2009 edition covers have been added at the beginning.

In this story, destinies intersect, all stories are connected either by a person or a dog. The lifeless body of a man, dead for more than a year, was found in a car wreck, with the body of a dog next to him, dead for barely three months. Okutsu, a dedicated social worker, decides to reconstruct the lives of these two companions until their last moments, not realizing that their journey will change the destinies of many beings, both human and canine…

From a dog’s point of view, life often seems very beautiful, but when you look at it through the eyes of a human, it turns out to be much harder, even sad. Death is very present here, but it appears as a release for its very different characters, but all united by a difficult life.

Nodame Cantabile, Tomoko Ninomiya in Pika

Discover or rediscover the masterpiece of Tomoko Ninomiya, the main author of the jôsei, through the large-format Masterpiece collection that specially offers new bonus chapters! This title is a must have and is one of the manga references that talks about music.

Shin’ichi Chiaki is one of the top students at Momogaoka University of Music. The son of an internationally famous pianist, he dreams of going to Europe to study conducting! Unfortunately, his absolute phobia of flying keeps him grounded… Deep in the hole and ready to give up music, one day he falls asleep in the hallway of his building and wakes up… in the middle of the trash, to the apartment of his neighbor Nodame, a talented but extravagant piano student.

She actually fell in love with him at first sight and decided not to let him go. But the one Shin’ichi sees as a real parasite could change his life and career… If she doesn’t drive him crazy first!

Nodame cantabile mixes slice of life, music, romance, humor and drama. All characters live their passion 100%. Nodame is unpredictable, has the right amount of madness and really has no limits, which is also the case with the other characters.

This manga is a breath of fresh air. It will make you discover or rediscover great works of classical music and will surely make you want to listen to them.

Earth, Kazumi Yamashita, in Mangetsu

A mix of fantasy, poetry and psychological thriller set in medieval Japan where it’s hard to break free from belief in some villages. He won this title on the 25th^e Osamu Tezuka Cultural Award.

Mixing folklore, tradition and superstition, the story takes us to the community of “Our World”, where the Kamis, giant guardian gods, closely monitor the inhabitants who fear them more than anything else. Subject to strict customs, Sutekichi is forced to sacrifice one of his twins to protect the village from drought. Eight years later, the survivor, Ann, leads a carefree life, but is strongly attracted to the “Other World”, an unknown and inaccessible universe, which lies beyond the mountains. Her curiosity, fueled by various events, will force her to defy all prohibitions in order to learn more.

Themes of indoctrination, dogmas, invisible borders created by man gradually appear in this closed space where mysteries are numerous and appearances are often deceptive. Detailed, rhythmic, highly expressive drawings take us on a journey through Anna’s search and her many twists and turns.

Beliefs, vast and mysterious forest, disturbing masks, everything is there to keep us in suspense.

Dark Gathering Volumes 1 & 2 by Kenichi Kondo, from Mana Books

A mixture of the supernatural, drama and humor and likable characters.

Keitaro, a student, attracts ghosts despite himself. A few years ago this got his best friend in trouble and he decided to stay away from others. However, he ends up taking a part-time job as a private tutor, but his student, a gifted girl named Yayoi, senses his power at first sight. Then she invites him to go with her to the haunted place. It’s the beginning of the hunt for evil spirits!

This is not about horror, or very little, but about ghosts and rituals. The author draws inspiration from urban legends and it shows. The manga is well paced and we quickly dive into this somewhat murky universe. The story takes place in the form of mini-episodes, but we have a feeling that the story will take another turn and that there will be no shortage of twists. Be careful, don’t be fooled by Yayoi’s kawaii side because it will quickly become annoying. As for the graphics, the boards are sometimes stunning and often bursting with detail. Note: Between each chapter, the mangaka gives us some honestly funny little bonuses in the “cutscene” mode.