Manga of Mentionable Worth

I, like many people, am pretty tired of most Japanese art. It was cool for a while, but now everything is soaked in it. I haven't bought a manga in several years, but I found a few in the regular comics section one day that peaked my interest. They were by an artist by the name of Junko Mizuno and she doesn't deal in your average Japanese story or look. Most would say her style is like the Power Puff Girls, but eyes and round, simple shapes. But if you really read though a Mizuno book you'll see that the style is more like an illustrator, which she started out as. Most of her art is seen on t-shirts, stickers, and some figurines. Here is my top four Mizuno comics that need to be read:

4) Hanzel and Gretel



Part of Mizuno's fairy tales series of comics that feature old tales redone in a way that only Mizuno could do. What is cool for us westerners is when the publisher said they were going to take her stories over to the U.S. she requested that the comics be printed in that traditional comic book paper for that classic look and she would also redraw several panels. Now that's caring about your product. What makes a Junko Mizuno comic about Hazel and Gretel any different from any other story you ask? Basically its her main ingredients: problems involving food, unnecessary nudity, violence, her illustrative style, and a whacked out story that keeps you entertained.

Hanzel and Gretel barely follows the original plot. Its Hanzel and Gretel...that's all that is from the original story. Hanzel and Gretel's parents run a grocery store (the only one in town) but soon their distributors turn evil and stop giving them food. My favorite distributor is the giant pig that cuts off the meat from himself to give to the store, but its okay because he's regenerative. Overall, not my favorite comic of hers, but its got a few twists that separate it from any other comic you'll read.

3) Cinderalla


Yes, that's CinderRALLA. Not Cinderella. This story is much more similar to the original than Hanzel and Gretel is. Only where Cinderella wanted to be rich, Cinderalla wants to be a zombie. Yes, a zombie. Cinderalla's father dies (he's a famous chef, yet another food related theme), and Cinderalla finds out that at night he is a zombie. He marries another zombie and they continue to run the restaurant. Problem is everyone wants Cinderalla to assist them in some way. Her new zombie step sisters are bothering her as well as her new mother who needs to be fed constantly. But soon she meets an attractive male zombie singer and she falls in love with him. Problem is, the only way to see him in concert is to become a zombie. Any plot where the character wishes they were a zombie is a great plot in my book. Of all her books, Cinderalla is the funniest.

2) Princess Mermaid



Yeah, it's the Little Mermaid, but like any Mizuno comic, it's not. It starts out with three mermaid sisters who lure sailors into the sea (I think this is actually a folk lore in Japanese culture). But like all Mizuno comics, it doesn't end well for the sailors. Tura, the evil sister, murders the sailors and they all feast on their bodies (the food related content of this book). Well, except for Julie, the hero. She wishes that they could just get along with the humans. Tura reminds her that her mother (and all the other mermaids) were murdered for their eyes and scales. This comic has so many things going on its crazy for how short it is. Tura's goal is the destruction of the human's specifically the ones that killed her mother. Julie ends up falling in love with a human who is related to the ones that killed her mother. As expected, chaos insues. Unlike Ariel, Julie gets an operation to be human, but its cut short halfway through leaving her partially mutilated. Tura's ending is very dramatic, I almost wished it would have been different but I guess that's what makes it so good.

1). Pure Trance


First off, this is the biggest book she ever made. It's huge by any graphic novel standards. This was Mizuno's first comic, and it was released originally with several techno cd's called, of course, Pure Trance. The compilation book is great because on several pages there are extra bits that tell about things you wouldn't know just by reading the comic, such as minor character back story and what the characters are watching on TV. I love this because it gets you one step closer into an already deeper story.

Some pages:
Nudity, but with an awesome chainsaw
Pill death, check out the info box on the bottom of the page
Violent death of a cute monster (however there are worse...)

And this story is DEEP. I mean, like a three hour movie that feels like its three hours, deep. Basically, its the future and everyone has moved underground to escape the radiation from some nuclear holocaust. People don't eat real food, they just take pills that are flavored like real food. Of course women are prone to overeating these pills and getting sick (yet again, this is the food related problem of this book). The story revolves around the nurses who work at a clinic where they treat these sick women. The head doctor is a whack job who is obsessed with eating real meat. She has her minion go out and get fake animals or real ones if she can find them. All the other nurses are level headed, but the doctor is so crazy that she abuses them all the time and at one point she kills one of the nurses. One of the main nurses takes the children of two sick women (who died), and they end up on the surface world. Everything up there is a drug trip and all the humans there are nothing but floating brains with eyes. Time passes and the nurse that brought them up there gets really sick because she isn't used to eating real things. She returns onyl to be be murdered by the vengeful doctor. So its up to the children to return and avenge the nurse.

I can't get across how great this graphic novel is. Its not only my favorite Junko Mizuno comic book, it's also in my top ten favorite graphic novels ever. Forget the Watchmen, read Pure Trance.