Manga Monday: Checking in again with Amir and Karluk

Life in a village, in a land of nomads, makes Amir's new family a valuable target in A Bride's Story Volume 6.

Note: A Bride's Story Volume 6 is part of an ongoing series. Check out the review of Volume 1 here, and Volume 5 here. Otherwise, read on!

Manga Monday: Let the wedding celebrations begin!

Laila and Leily finally begin their journeys with their new husbands in A Bride's Story Volume 5.

Note: A Bride's Story Volume 5 is part of an ongoing series. Check out the review for Volume 1 here, and Volume 4 here.  Otherwise, read on!

Manga Monday: Why did Mr. Smith think he could sleep astride a camel?

Mr. Smith continues on his travels, and meets two special young ladies, in Kaoru Mori's A Bride's Story Volume 4.

Note:  A Bride's Story Volume 4 is, of course, the sequel to A Bride's Story Volume 3.  The review of A Bride's Story Volume 1 is here, and the review of A Bride's Story Volume 3 is here.  Otherwise, read on! 

Manga Monday: A collection of miscellany

Kaoru Mori rose to international fame as a manga artist with her first title Emma: A Victorian Romance. Since then, Mori has moved on from England to the Silk Road with A Bride's Story, but has kept the amazing attention to detail and wonderful characters that has brought her so much success.

As a writer works, though, there will always be bits and bobs that never end up collected anywhere. Kaoru Mori: Anything and Something gathers these side stories, introductions and one-panel pictures, interspersed with the author's signature self-depreciating wit.

The first half of the collection consists of eight short stories that Mori has done for various publications. From a bunny girl at a gentleman's club to a middle-schooler getting her first pair of eyeglasses, to a wife finding a swimsuit bought years ago. The best part of these stories is that it shows the range Mori has. With her continuing series, she's exclusively written period pieces, set in the late 1800s and early 1900s. These are mainly modern-day stories, and show that Mori shouldn't be pigeonholed.

In the middle there is a charming 'Middleword' manga explaining the short stories and where they were first published. It's always interesting to see an author reflect on her stories, and the context for these is appreciated.

The second half of the book is a group of her shorter works. Interspersed between full page illustrations are small works she's done over the years. Here, we see everything from the signing pages that are handed out at large book signings to a manga of her reaction to watching the anime based on Emma: A Victorian Romance. Most of these pieces have some sort of annotation on the page, either giving the reader some idea of where they first appeared, or some note on her views of the piece. Perhaps some of her most detailed work can be found in the last three pieces, which are five-page studies on corsets, fireplaces and the servants of the Agatha Christie stories. Obviously labors of love, an amazing amount of information is squeezed into these pages.

Fans of either of Mori's series will love the never-before-collected illustrations of their favorite characters included here. This has farther appeal, however, as a look into all of the promotional material that a manga artist produces over the years. In the afterward, she mentions that as she's been writing for ten years, this book is something of a milestone for her. Here's hoping that she does get that chance to keep writing, and I for one will be along for the ride.

Highs: This book showcases the variety and detail of Mori's art, even when she's simply making advertising materials for a bookstore.

Lows: As an American reader, rather than Japanese, I would have appreciated an explanation that "Fellows" and "Beam" were magazines in which her stories were published.

Verdict: Not only for fans of her series, this is also recommended for fans of manga as a genre, for its look into the other materials that an artist produces.

Further Reading: A Drifting Life, Okimono Kimono

Manga Monday: The beauty of Mongolia reaches beyond Asia

Mr. Smith embarks on his own - and gets himself into all sorts of trouble - in A Bride's Story Volume 3.

Note:  A Bride's Story Volume 3 is, of course, the sequel to A Bride's Story Volume 1.  The review of A Bride's Story Volume 1 is here, and the review of A Bride's Story Volume 2 is here.  Otherwise, read on! 

Manga Monday: Amir and Karluk go through some tough times, and become closer because of it

Amir's natal family makes good on their threat to come back for her and she makes a new friend of her own in town.  Welcome back to more everyday life on the plains of Mongolia in A Bride's Story Volume 2.

Note:  A Bride's Story Volume 2 is, of course, the sequel to A Bride's Story Volume 1.  The review of A Bride's Story Volume 1 is here.  Otherwise, read on!

Manga Monday: A maid's situation always depends on others

William gets his father's official word of disapproval of his relationship, and Emma faces new hardships of her own in Emma: A Victorian Romance Volume 2

Note:  Emma: A Victorian Romance Volume 2 is, of course, the sequel to Emma: A Victorian Romance Volume 1.  The review for Emma: A Victorian Romance Volume 1 is here.  Otherwise, read on!

Manga Monday: Early 20th century Mongolia has never been so beautifully drawn

When writing Emma: A Victorian Romance, Kaoru Mori pulled on a lifetime fascination with Victorian England to create one of the most accurate, if still idealized, depictions of a maid's life in manga. As it turns out, while she was reading up on England, she was also fascinated with the nomadic tribes of China and Mongolia. So, quite naturally, her new series, A Bride's Story is set here.

There is quite a bit of similarity in tone and side characters between her old series and what we see in A Bride's Story Volume 1.  Her main character Amir (generally a male name, but here given to our main character) is once again a fairly strong woman. Here, Amir has a combination of Emma's earnestness and Dorothea's sensuality, even though her poor husband has no idea what to do about it. The younger children, too, are very similar to the younger children in both the Jones family and the Meredith family.

The storyline, though, is very different. Amir is very late to marriage. At 20 years old, she was a good four years past her peers' age of marriage, but she still went to the ceremony with the excitement of any bride about to start her married life.

How much of a shock it must have been, then, to raise her veil and see a terrified 8 year old boy staring back at her.

Still, this is her husband, and this is the family that she has married into, and she is content here. The family in which she was raised is still nomadic during the summers, but this family has settled down completely. Some of the cultural differences to come into view, but the elders here are indulgent of her oddities, and the matriarch is just as fiercely protective of her as she would be of any other member of 'her' family.

The only bit of continuing plot that has evidenced itself is that some of the men from Amir's birth family have come back to try to reclaim her. Their motives are fairly vague, and they were driven out, but they are sure to be back later.

Admittedly, this volume is very light on plot. Most of the book is a slice-of-life story set in early 1900s Mongolia. We see the daily workings of the family as well as the countryside in which they live. In fact, at times, the volume feels more like a cultural study, which is reinforced by a blond anthropologist, whose existence is never quite explained, that follows around and questions characters at random opportunities.

The artwork is what makes this book what it is. The embroidery of the robes, the carvings in the woodwork, and even the grasses in the landscapes are alive with detail and motion. The detail that we occasionally saw in the Crystal Palace of London and some of the formal balls of Emma are on every page of A Bride's Story. And this is what saves this book from its lack of plot.

As long as the storyline develops more, this series will certainly be worth the quality hardcover binding. After having seen how absorbing Mori's stories can be, I'm certainly willing to wait through a volume or two of beautiful artwork to see how this story develops.

Highs: Astonishingly detailed artwork

Lows: Lack of plot; strange, unexplained anthropologist character

Verdict: A slightly rocky start to what promises to be a stunning series  

Further Reading:  Emma: A Victorian Romance,   Bunny Drop

Manga Monday: Can a street girl be taught the same way as the upper class?

Maids have a strange place in Japan pop culture. Maid cafés are fantastically popular in the big cities, especially Tokyo. They seem to have taken the place of tea house among the younger crowd, with hostess bars filling the gap for older businessmen. These maid girls, especially in manga and anime, are often hyper-sexualized and this genre has taken the place of the school girl fantasy manga of a decade ago. They have little or no relation to the era from which the maid costume originated.

Emma: A Victorian Romance, is not one of these manga.

Emma had a hard start to life. Kidnapped from her home as a young girl and sold to a brothel, she managed to escape on her way there, but ended up lost on her own in London. After escaping, she lived the life of a street child in Victorian London selling flowers and the like, until she met the women who will change her life forever.

Kelly Stowner is a former governess who now lives in retirement. Upon stumbling on a fairly charming little flower girl, and about to leave her last posting as a governess, she decides to take her in as her maid. She also took the time to really pay attention to her new little charge. Young Emma didn’t leave dust on the banisters and cobwebs in the corners just because she was a lazy or sloppy cleaner.  It turns out that she simply can’t see well enough to do any better. And in an act of charity nearly unheard of at the time, Mrs. Stowner takes Emma to get a pair of glasses.  

Having been a governess, and because a household of one does leave some down time for a maid, Mrs. Stowner took the time to educate Emma as well. In her care, Emma learns to read, write, and speak properly. She also learns to read a bit of French, which implies that she was taught the classics as well. Along the way, although very shy and unsure of herself, she learns proper comportment, which in as stratified and formal a culture as Victorian England, is of the utmost importance.

In this volume, one of Mrs. Stowner’s former students, William Jones, comes to visit. He has something of a…run-in …with Emma, and is immediately smitten with her.

What follows is an amazingly accurate depiction of Victorian England, and what might happen in a romance between two people of dramatically different social classes. A self-admitted Anglophile, Mori did an amazing amount of research for the series, and it shows. She took painstaking steps to make sure each line of dialog is accurate to the period as possible. The love that went into this series shows.  And with paired with pleasant characters and a truly Victorian style romance, you get perhaps the most charming romantic story to come out in recent years.

Highs: The folks that hang out at the pub are great fun

Lows: Probably too slow-paced for some

Verdict: A very lovely series for all ages

Further Reading:  Honey and Clover, Maison Ikkoku