Sweet and Wonderful!
Today, we at Kotonoha are thrilled to present you two new projects by two highly talented young authors: Kei Aoyama and Inio Asano. Both belong to a new generation of Japanese artists who bring a new quality to the manga medium and we are confident that you will hear a lot more of them in the future.
Kei Aoyama, the author of SWWEEET, made her debut in IKKI, a magazine that is usually known for its off-beat and original line-up. However, there’s no denying that the majority of works found in IKKI is rather cold and dry. SWWEEET, as its name suggests, is a bit different.
Aoyama’s love story starts off with a twist: The twin brothers Susumu and Tsutomu have been friends with the girl Sakura since they were kids. But when Tsutomu mysteriously disappears at the age of ten, Susumu and Sakura begin to drift apart. What Sakura doesn’t know: Tsutomu has returned, not as a person, but as the mirror image of Susumu. That is, whenever Susumu looks in a mirror, he sees his brother who talks to him. Thus begins a bizarre love triangle between Sakura, who torments the poor Susumu as much as she is tormented by her peers, Susumu, who keeps thinking he has to save Sakura because he likes her, and Tsutomu, who despite being stuck in a mirror pulls everyone’s strings.
Aoyama’s lively narrative and her beautifully rich artwork lend this strange story a surprisingly charming touch. Considering that SWWEEET is her first series, it’s amazing how well she did her job. From the paneling to the layout to the pacing, everything is excellently executed. If you like unusual and exotic youth love stories, you should definitely give SWWEEET a try. 
Inio Asano, our second author, may still be a dark horse in the West, but since his debut in 2000, he has already gained a cult following in Japan, which is pretty damn impressive for someone at his young age. Before his career as a manga creator took off, Asano worked as an assistant for Shin Takahashi (Saikano, Kimi no kakera) and it was probably because of Takahashi’s affiliation with Shôgakukan that he ended up submitting his first works to the newcomer contests of Big Comic Spirits and Sunday GX (Takahashi has published works in both magazines). Needless to say, he won. From there, it was a short step to his first series, What a Wonderful World, whose first installment already attracted some favorable attention. Asano’s clean and expressive artwork, his subtle narrative that places a strong emphasis on the characters and his sober world view struck a chord with young readers, which eventually led to him publishing a series in Quick Japan, a trendy lifestyle magazine aimed at post-teenagers and twenty-somethings, only one year after What a Wonderful World started.
Being his first series, What a Wonderful World remains Asano’s most representative and successful work to date. Composed of vignettes from the daily lives of a group of people inhabiting an ordinary neighborhood somewhere in Tokyo, the series is actually a comment about modern life itself and how we can survive in it despite all its rigors. Amusing, melancholic, funny, strange, thought-provoking—Asano effortlessly shifts from one mood to another, creating stories and characters that are profoundly human and thus always involving. It’s a shame that not everyone will find the subjects the author describes equally appealing since some of them are distinctly Japanese. But overall, it’s a great collection that every discerning manga reader should check out.
To round off today’s release (and to bring this disgustingly long post of mine to an end), we’ve got two new chapters of our ass-kicking, head-severing, entrails-ripping, finger- breaking samurai epic Shigurui. Similar to Berserk, Shigurui begins in the present, only to switch back to the past to show us how the main characters turn out the way they are now. Expect lots of mind-boggling sword duels, crazy characters who don’t take shit and so much testosterone to make Angelina Jolie grow a full beard (luckily, all the female characters in this series have kept their feminine features, and what features! >_>). God, I’m tired.
Man oh man, am I excited to see the new chapters of Shigurui! I’ll be sure to check out SWWEET and What a Wonderful World, too. I love the work you guys do! Great job!
pathologic January 15, 2007 @ 1:15 pm
Good choices on both. Likin’ Swweeet so far, and I’ve ordered a copy of the first volume of What a Wonderful World but it has still yet to ship. It’s hard to resist sneaking a peek at these scanlations, but I WILL stay strong!
some dude January 15, 2007 @ 1:35 pm
I’m loving you guys more and more, keep them up.
I have a question though; how many volumes is Hour of Mice?
Ladholyman January 15, 2007 @ 2:42 pm
@Lad: Mice is still ongoing. There are two volumes out. We will start working on the second one shortly. One of our primary goals this year is to resume work on our stalled projects. ^^;
Nomad Soul January 15, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
Thank you so much for doing What a Wonderful World, I adore Solanin and could spot that it was the same mangaka from the first few pages (I didnt know his name prior to this :D), keep up the good work guys, I can wait to read more of it.
Zwanster January 15, 2007 @ 4:42 pm
I really like Shigurui. It so far reminds me about Vagabond, except without any humour and a lot more explicit violence. I’m eager to find out what’ll happen next.
The sexual implications make me wonder, though. I hope it doesn’t turn into a sleazy rape fest. That’d be a bummer.
I’ll give “What a Wonderful World” a try as well. That cover looks very promising!
cactus January 15, 2007 @ 8:15 pm
oooh….. new series! yay!
Thank you so much… they look really cool!
but this won;t mean that ur dropping horou musuko… right? ^^;;
jess January 15, 2007 @ 11:42 pm
Although I’m not much a fan of violence, swords, and macho men killing one another, Shigurui is appealing more and more to me.
jess, I doubt they’d have the courage to drop Hourou Musuko. Many would rebel if that ever happened.
(Unless because of a license of course.)
Fantomy January 16, 2007 @ 3:56 am
Oh man, I have fallen in love with those first two chapters of What a Wonderful World…definitely want to read more! Thanks for bringing that one out!
hi there January 16, 2007 @ 10:13 am
just read SWWEET, the setting is quite interesting, I felt so sorry for the Sakura though, something really bad must have happened to make a girl twisted like that! wonder how the ‘love triangle’ will unfold, thank you for scanlating it!
chesca January 16, 2007 @ 12:44 pm
Swweet…. more tripe about school bullying where a girl takes it out on her childhood friend, who just happens to be the atypical wimp & in love with her, by raping him. The ONLY thing that this series have(had) going for it was it’s deliberate step-up from simple violence to sexual abuse as a form of escapism. Other than that avoid this series like any other poorly thought out Shonen Jump manga that just in a wannabe Seinen form.
What a Wonderful World…. gack! Pontificating over the yester-years with poor artwork doesn’t make for a remotely good manga.
Both manga’s are merely the authors hang-ups over their personal lifes as seen through 30-40’s somethings filters. Lackluster and boring to the core!
chrono January 16, 2007 @ 1:59 pm
This has probably been mentioned before with a solution and whatnot, but has anyone else had problems even getting the torrents to download or connect to the tracker?
I can’t use IRC on the network I’m on and I’m dyin’ to read the next chap.’s of Shigurui and after reading Solanin, What a Wonderful World sounds like an exciting read!
n0stranger January 16, 2007 @ 3:07 pm
“What a Wonderful World” seems nice, I especially liked the art. Not quite sure about “SWWEEET” yet, probably not my thing.
Jinchi January 18, 2007 @ 1:54 pm
don’t think I’m much of a fan of SWWEEET, though I’m looking forward to more What a Wonderful World. Just wanted to say thanks for the new Horou Musuko release!
elae January 18, 2007 @ 2:20 pm
Yeah, I’m also having trouble accessing the torrents (driving me crazy too since I love Solanin). I’ve had this problem before though so I’m going to assume somethings wrong with my tracker. Anyone have an HTTP link in the meantime?
Huff January 18, 2007 @ 9:50 pm
wooot! new horou musuko! thank you!!!!
jess January 18, 2007 @ 10:25 pm
Huh, I gotta disagree with the comment that SWWEET and Wonderful World are comics through a 30-40 year-old’s perspective. They really read like the works of 20-somethings to me — sure, maybe 20-somethings with personal hang-ups, but I’m really not sure how they come off as much older than that.
hi there January 20, 2007 @ 10:55 am
I just found out about Kotonoha, and I’m impressed!
It’s great to find another scanlator that does josei.
Speaking of ongoing series, is Sweet Blue Flowers seinen or is the Shojo heading on the Ongoing Series page just missing?
Penny January 20, 2007 @ 10:39 pm
seems that there are already zero seeds for “what a wonderful world”
me January 21, 2007 @ 2:33 pm
Http links for the latest HM, Swweeet and WaWW are up. Check the project pages. Torrents seem to be working fine though. The tracker just gets a bit slow at times. Try again later.
@Penny: It’s difficult to say if SBF is seinen or josei/shoujo. Manga Erotics F, the magazine that houses the series, is kind of a hybrid. It has titles that are clearly seinen (e.g. Uncivilized Planet, Hallucination from the Womb), but also some that are aimed at women (e.g the works by Q-ta Minami, Asumiko Nakamura, Satosumi Takaguchi just to name a few).
I only put SBF under seinen because all other works by Shimura so far have been seinen. However, if you want to think of it as josei/shoujo, then by all means please do so. It’s a perfectly legitimate classification in this case.
Nomad Soul January 21, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
Thanks for clearing that up, Nomad Soul.
Penny January 21, 2007 @ 6:12 pm
Yeah, it was my client that was acting up. I got a diffrent one that seems to be working fine now, but thanks for postint the HTTP releases anyways. As for the new projects, Asano continues to interest me. Definitally a diffrent type of story than Solanin, but similar atmosphere (WaWW being a bit more bizarre obviously). Both stories were well written, and I particuarly liked how he delivers his serious themes with a bit of humor to them. Definitally looking forward to more of this (as well as MS’s project). SWEEET looks solid as well. I love the artwork, and the quirky “kind of dark, kind of goofy” tone of the story is suprisingly well executed.
HM is amazing as always, and while I still can’t comprehend why it would be placed among the best of the samurai epic genre (yet), Shigurui is fun in a kind of retarded old-school seinen kind of way (nice action sequences).
Huff January 22, 2007 @ 2:02 am
I’m in love… But I couldn’t find SWEEET’s tankoubon in any of the stores around here. ;(
Rakshasa January 23, 2007 @ 10:56 am