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Recently I've been wanting to reread 20th Century Boys, and I still may, but first I decided it was probably time to read Billy Bat, which I thought of in my head as 'Naoki Urasawa's new manga.'
This, for the record, is absolutely not correct. Billy Bat started in 2008 and wrapped in 2016.
Anyway, in the course of attempting to read Billy Bat, I learned the following facts:
1. Billy Bat has never been licensed in the US so if I want to read it I will have to do it using Other Methods
2. However, Urasawa has another, actually new(ish) manga that I had never heard of in my life, called Asadora!, the first five volumes of which are not only licensed at the U.S. but available at my local library!
So now instead of rereading 20th Century Boys OR reading Billy Bat I have now read the first five volumes of Asadora!, which begins during the 1959 typhoon, when preteen Asa gets accidentally kidnapped by an out-of-work veteran who has mistaken her for the daughter of a wealthy family, which she emphatically isn't.
Once the typhoon hits, Asa and her kidnapper must work together to help out in the disaster! by stealing and flying an airplane and becoming heroes of the skies! which kindles in Asa an obsession with a.) piloting airplanes and b.) the BIG MONSTER that's hidden in the middle of the typhoon and forms the focus of the rest of the plot!
Ongoing B-plots introduced to keep Asa extra busy on top of this initial drama include:
- Asa's younger siblings keep getting into fights!
- Asa's best friends are having teen drama about wanting to become popstars!
- there's a distressed and discredited scientist scientist with his own messy mentor problems!
- almost everyone in Japan is still dealing in one way or another with the various generational traumas of WWII!
- THE OLYMPICS IS HAPPENING!
So far this is gearing up to be my favorite Urasawa series after 20th Century Boys; I love obsessive teen girl pilots, I love messy mentorships, and I love Urasawa's incredibly distinctive side character faces. And it is so pleasant to start out an Urasawa book and immediately multiple distinctive women side character faces, rather than having to wait twelve volumes for them to build up! Look at the face of this grumpy diner owner who loves Asa very much! I get to look at this face every chapter!
And now I probably need to wait a year or two to let some more volumes build up, which of course is the problem with picking up Urasawa's new manga.
This, for the record, is absolutely not correct. Billy Bat started in 2008 and wrapped in 2016.
Anyway, in the course of attempting to read Billy Bat, I learned the following facts:
1. Billy Bat has never been licensed in the US so if I want to read it I will have to do it using Other Methods
2. However, Urasawa has another, actually new(ish) manga that I had never heard of in my life, called Asadora!, the first five volumes of which are not only licensed at the U.S. but available at my local library!
So now instead of rereading 20th Century Boys OR reading Billy Bat I have now read the first five volumes of Asadora!, which begins during the 1959 typhoon, when preteen Asa gets accidentally kidnapped by an out-of-work veteran who has mistaken her for the daughter of a wealthy family, which she emphatically isn't.
Once the typhoon hits, Asa and her kidnapper must work together to help out in the disaster! by stealing and flying an airplane and becoming heroes of the skies! which kindles in Asa an obsession with a.) piloting airplanes and b.) the BIG MONSTER that's hidden in the middle of the typhoon and forms the focus of the rest of the plot!
Ongoing B-plots introduced to keep Asa extra busy on top of this initial drama include:
- Asa's younger siblings keep getting into fights!
- Asa's best friends are having teen drama about wanting to become popstars!
- there's a distressed and discredited scientist scientist with his own messy mentor problems!
- almost everyone in Japan is still dealing in one way or another with the various generational traumas of WWII!
- THE OLYMPICS IS HAPPENING!
So far this is gearing up to be my favorite Urasawa series after 20th Century Boys; I love obsessive teen girl pilots, I love messy mentorships, and I love Urasawa's incredibly distinctive side character faces. And it is so pleasant to start out an Urasawa book and immediately multiple distinctive women side character faces, rather than having to wait twelve volumes for them to build up! Look at the face of this grumpy diner owner who loves Asa very much! I get to look at this face every chapter!
And now I probably need to wait a year or two to let some more volumes build up, which of course is the problem with picking up Urasawa's new manga.
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I found and read the first 8 chapters of this and they were DELIGHTFUL, what a leading duo, very rude of Viz not to carry digital volumes of this series!! The faces really are AMAZING.
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Back to add that I was compelled to finish the rest of the 37 chapters that are currently available online and this was just SO GOOD, thanks so much for posting about it. :,D What an excellent story (and fantastic art)! The understated visual comedy is superb (somebody help poor Long-Suffering ATC Guy,) and also every government mook is my favorite government mook, the government mooks collectively being forced to babysit was too funny. <3 Also the narrative is just! So well-done! I so appreciate it when the B-plots fit neatly into the main plot.
And KINUYO!! The ultimate mom power, LOVE her, no notes.
(P.S. It is absolutely killing me that Miyako is drawn exactly like every caricature ever made of Beatlemania-era Paul McCartney, the resemblance is uncanny and I just can't tell whether this was intentional dfghk)
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(asjdfkl;dsj I'd not caught this before but you're SO RIGHT and I wouldn't be surprised if it was intentional -- Yone with her glasses could easily be the Lennon to Miyako's Paul???)
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MOOK GETTING HIS CAR TOWED WAS OUTSTANDING, the sheer dejection, comedy gold <3
(and god you're right, and Yone is the one trying to abandon their partnership, HMM)