Extended Mag: Getting into Reading Manga Magazines! 🗞

[SeanBones]

Zashisu by Morita Masanori

Genres: Thriller, Psychological, Horror, Mystery

Triggers: Intense Bullying, Violence, Horror, Some Nudity, and a rough series of seven pages where (don’t click this if you are squeamish a man has his stomach eaten by starving rats…)

Background on the artist:

Masanori Morita is an absolute manga Demi-god.

Most people in the west won’t know about him, but he is a truly legendary mangaka, He was known for his two long running series in Shonen Jump during its heyday, Rokudenashi Blues (link) and Rookies, which were made into an anime and a drama respectively.

(Despite how this looks, this is very much a comedy)

(This is also a comedy, but much more dramatic IMO)

Since then he has been published in Weekly Young Jump for another series, Beshari-Gurashi, which is the only one of his series I haven’t read. Disclaimer, I was a BIG rookies fan, and so was my wife (though she doesn’t read manga but she loved the drama!)

Morita-sensei has never really taken off in the west, probably because his work, especially for the time, was not prime import material. As an importer, are you going to bring over the action-packed fantasy of Dragon Ball or a story about a guy who maybe someday will box with someone? The choice is clear.

Oh btw, that silly boxing comedy itself had over 60 million copies in circulation by 2013. It was hugely popular in Japan, but again, that isn’t the kind of story that you want to bring over to highlight the insane creativity of the manga and anime industry.

Instead of using Rookies (though you should definitely read Rookies), I’ll later use some pages in Zashisu to highlight his strengths. But the big three are:

• His mastery of shading
• His character’s expressive faces
• His ability to write realistic characters

Morita-sensei is an extremely talented vert who clearly has the respect of his peers in the industry. He has been on the Tezuka Award committee for ages now, along with his peers Toriyama, Oda, and Inoue. Calling this guy a master of his craft is an understatement.

Manga Summary:

I think that I’m one of the first people in the west to read this, or at least talk about it, so let me give you the basic idea without going too much into spoilers. (because I think you should definitely read it!)

Zashisu is a psychological thriller, much different from his earlier high school sports manga. It involves a teacher who hears about a former classmate of his who had fallen from an apartment building with his hands tied behind his back. At the same time, his girlfriend who works at a publishing agency is reading a submission that seems to describe the exact situation of the murder, submitted before it happened. The game to solve this mystery is on!

That is all I feel comfortable sharing, because HOLY COW Y’ALL SHOULD READ THIS IT IS QUITE GOOD.

Sean’s Thoughts/Should You Read This?: (That’s right, already skipping to here!)

This series is short so far, with a slower release schedule since Morita-sensei is old, but it is dense and thrilling, and a feast for the eyes to read. If you like manga, and aren’t squeamish, then you need to read this manga. It shows you how a simple thriller can be elevated with expert shading and sheer mastery of the medium of ink. You have to see his work to understand that

This

Man

Can

Draw

But amazingly, his art never distracts from the story, it just enhances it. It isn’t just there to show off, but is executed perfectly in sync with the story. This is non-digital, but that perfect kind of non-digital that shows the artist’s hard work and gifts and experience and goddamn mastery. Even his character’s silly faces capture the motion of talking and emotion better than almost any other mangaka I’ve read. They sometimes look ridiculous, but their overall consistency allows every dialogue scene to feel so much more realistic and emotional than most manga.

Faces Gallery

Also his writing and dialogue matches perfectly with his art, but he lets the faces and the drawings do the emotion and add the flair and flavor, while keeping his character’s dialogue consistent and engaging, with jokes and little moments that give the characters their dimensions. An example is a very cute moment in the first chapter that does more to establish a relationship on one page than most manga do in a full chapter, and it felt so real because my wife does the exact same thing.

Overall, I don’t want to go into too much detail, because I don’t want to spoil anything. I’m not going to pretend the story is revolutionary or anything, but this should be read just to see how a non-fantasy story can be enhanced by the sheer skill of the mangaka’s analog ink drawing skills, and its a super solid thriller even without the art. It feels very cinematic, almost like this manga is designed to be adapted to a movie.

Since it’s only 9 chapters, I read the whole thing in an hour and a half, and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had with this project so far. I employ you to check this manga out, if only to study from a master!

TLDR:

You should read this if:

• You are an artist
• You like thrills and mystery and a little horror
• You want something short but high-level
• You are interested in manga as a medium
• You like ink drawings
• You like media that has an older style to it (this feels pretty 90s in the best way!)
• You like anything that Naoki Urasawa has made (Monster, Pluto, Master Keaton, etc)

You shouldn’t read this if:

• You need furigana, or are having trouble with slice of life manga. This is dense.
• While the dialogue is snappy which is good, he can really cram a lot of information in each piece of dialogue.
• You are squeamish.
• No seriously, the first chapter is something to stay away from if you can’t handle horror/thriller. It gets more calm after that but damn.
• No I’m really really serious, It’s wild. That goddamn rat scene is the worst of it by far, but its fucking rough.

I hope a lot of people check this manga out! I put a lot of work into the write-up for this one so hopefully it convinces someone to give it a try!