Ax Vol 1: A Collection of Alternative Manga, Edited by Sean Michael Wilson. Stories compiled by Mitsuhiro Asakawa, Top Shelf Productions, 2010."A groundbreaking introduction to the most creative and cutting-edge works of Japanese independent comics, presented in English for the first time.
Ax is the premier Japanese magazine for alternative comics, heir to the legendary Garo. Published bi-monthly since 1998, the pages of Ax contain the most innovative, experimental, and personal works in contemporary manga - the flourishing underground of the world’s largest comics industry. Now Top Shelf presents a 400-page collection of stories from ten years of Ax history, translated into English for the first time.
This landmark volume includes work by 33 artists, including Yoshihiro Tatsumi (A Drifting Life), Imiri Sakabashira (The Box Man), Kazuichi Hanawa (Doing Time), Yusaku Hanakuma (Tokyo Zombie), Akino Kondoh, Shin'ichi Abe, and many many more! It’s a feast of pure creativity, and a guided tour of fascinating new directions in Japanese comics. Ready for adventure? Then grab your Ax and come on!"
"Within Ax's four hundred pages are over thirty stories that explode everything you might have thought about what manga is." - David Brothers
"Be it a form, genre or style, manga is, to Western audiences at least, characterised by its striking visual style and fantastical plots that usually eschew 'traditional' Aristotlean (Western) dramatic structure in favour of tangential and outlandish sequences designed mainly for visual impact. This generously proportioned collection seeks to explode the myth that all Japanese komikku are 'of a type' and presents a range of underground manga that runs the gamut from small-scale personal drama to weird fantasy and outright surrealism. At 400 pages, many will find they lack the stamina to absorb it all in the order presented, but that's the idea: it's surely aimed at the curious browser, designed for alighting here and there on those parts that appeal the most. And there's plenty to appeal here - too much to flag up in a short review, but I will mention the abundance of seemingly purely aesthetic nudity. Unsurprisingly, given manga's propensity towards narrative incoherence, it's the art that shines through, ranging from elegant economy to eye-popping maximalism. With its lovely, classical-looking cover and pop-culture cred, you'll be leaving Ax proudly on the coffee table for all to admire." - The Crack Magazine
"You don’t know manga. Not like this. A factory worker dabbles in chimpanzee courtship. A woman gives birth to a litter of puppies, which she and her partner try to raise as normal children. A schoolboy explodes in a cloud of maggots, a town becomes overrun with giant mushrooms, and two brothers resolve an existentialist debate through defecation.
These are just a few of the stories that crop up in an arresting new anthology, AX Vol. 1: A Collection of Alternative Manga, which compiles highlights from the first dozen years of Japan’s premier underground manga periodical. Although a few of the artists featured have already been published overseas, notably Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Takashi Nemoto, the majority are appearing in English for the first time.
“Manga should be independent, it should be open, and it should be experimental—that’s the motto of AX,” says Sean Michael Wilson, a Kumamoto-based comic-book writer who edited the collection. “The key thing is that the artist can do whatever they want to do, without strong control by an editorial force, or a consideration of financial strategy.”
Postwar pioneers like Osamu Tezuka had barely begun to establish the language of modern Japanese manga before others began to tinker with it, dragging the form into weirder, decidedly more adult territories. In the same way that Western artists insisted on the term “graphic novel” to characterize their more mature and ambitious works, their Japanese counterparts hit on the term gekiga, literally “dramatic pictures.”
These found a dedicated home in Garo, the monthly periodical started by Katsuichi Nagai in 1964. Though it would peak commercially in 1971, riding on the popularity of Sanpei Shirato’s The Legend of Kamui, the magazine continued to enjoy a cult following for a few decades after that. Nagai’s demise in 1996 sent Garo into its death throes, and key staff walked out the following year, establishing publishing company Seirin-Kogeisha. The first edition of AX appeared in February 1998, and it has continued on a bimonthly basis ever since.
“AX may not sell more than a few thousand copies, and there are other alternative outlets from the big players to go to,” writes British comic-book doyen and manga historian Paul Gravett in his foreword, “but there is still a need for freedom, for a platform for nonconformist, subversive, even transgressive manga, for new voices or for more established authors to cut loose and try something different.”
Perhaps inevitably, the end results aren’t to everybody’s tastes. Though it has been enthusiastically received at international comic conventions, AX Vol. 1 has also drawn flak from some readers on account of its, shall we say, coarser elements. The female protagonist of Saito Yunosuke’s “Arizona Sizzler” is tormented by a colossal—and very well-endowed—man, while Takashi Nemoto’s contribution, “Black Sushi Party Piece,” features a serial masturbator and a futon bristling with human penises.
“That scatological, toilet-type humor is quite familiar in Britain, for British people,” says Wilson, who originally hails from Edinburgh. “It never occurred to me that this could be in some way offensive.” At the same time, he takes umbrage at the “implication in some critics’ minds that the book would have been better without such things.”
“We can’t say ‘independent, open and experimental, but don’t put any toilet humor in, please.’ It’s not gonna work. Either it’s open or it’s not.”
Wilson, who worked closely with AX editor Mitsuhiro Asakawa in producing the collection, is quick to give credit where it’s due. “Asakawa-san is really the spring that most of this stuff is coming from,” he says. “I was only slightly involved in the compilation process, because he knows it far better than me—there’s no point in me getting in the way. So it was a mixture of what he considered to be the best, and what he considered to be representative, as a start.” The anthology took two years to complete, but he is confident they’ll be able to produce one on an annual basis in the future.
They certainly aren’t short on material. “It’s really just the tip of the iceberg,” he says. “This is only about 5 percent of what’s come out in AX so far, or less—maybe 2.7 percent or something. I’ll get my calculator out…”
Wilson is an interesting character himself. He had already published a couple of books in the UK, including an anthology of new manga, prior to moving to Japan. His work since then has ranged from yaoi (“boys love”) manga to adaptations of A Christmas Carol and Sweeney Todd, and on to the documentary-style Iraq: Operation Corporate Takeover. Most recently, he’s been working with Kodansha International on a manga version of definitive samurai text Hagakure, with artwork by Japanese cartoonist Chie Kutsuwada. Who, er, lives in London.
Like much of the work featured in AX Vol. 1, his oeuvre raises some inevitable questions. Notably: where do you draw the line about what actually qualifies as manga?
“There’s kind of like this idea that, ‘What’s art? Art is what you stick in a gallery,’” Wilson says. “What’s manga? Manga is what a Japanese person does… I’ve read various things where people get obsessed with this is and this is not manga. I don’t think it’s so important—let’s just enjoy this individual production as a good thing or bad thing.” - James Hadfield
"Most of the manga that arrives on American shores looks like what most folks expect out of "Japanese comics." Then along comes something like AX: Alternative Manga to chop those expectations to bits.
AX: A Collection of Alternative Manga is an anthology featuring some of the most interesting and idiosyncratic comics creators, from one of Japan's most boldly original manga magazines. Where most mainstream manga creators are content to rely on predictable plots, familiar character archetypes and standardized drawing styles, AX comics go out on a limb where most creators dare not go. Nothing is too profane, too personal, too sexy or too bizarre for AX. AX provides comics creators with a playground without fences that allows them to tell stories in new and provocative ways.
This 400-page chunk of comics goodness was handpicked by Mitsuhiro Asakawa, the founding editor of AX and a veteran of another influential avant-manga magazine, Garo. Asakawa selected stories to present a broad spectrum of the AX aesthetic, and what a spectrum it is.
There's no one "style" of artwork here – it ranges from the crude, aggressively naïve scrawls in The Neighbor by Yuka Kanno to the sophisticated decadence of Into Darkness by Takato Yamamoto. There’s no one type of story – some are straightforward, like Mitsuhiko Yoshida’s charming retelling of The Hare and the Tortoise fable. Other stories bombard the reader with an array of hyper-sexualized perversity that would give a Freudian psychologist a field day, or a migraine.
For fans of "alternative manga," there are new stories by some familiar names, including Yusaku Hanakuma (Tokyo Zombie) and Imiri Sakabashira (The Box Man). Kazuichi Hanazawa's Six Paths of Wealth is an exquisitely creepy Heian-era horror tale that is quite different from his earthy prison diary Doing Time. Meanwhile, Yoshihiro Tatsumi's Love's Bride is about a man who feels emasculated by his cheating girlfriend, and is probably one of his weaker stories.
But what really makes AX an invigorating read are the new talents showcased here, many for the first time in English. There are too many highlights to mention all of them, but I especially enjoyed the stylish horror of Alranne Fatale by Hiroji Tani, the surreal break-up parable of Push Pin Woman by Katsuo Kawai, the elegant slice-of-life vignettes by Akino Kondo, and the quirky humor of Enrique Kobayashi’s Eldorado by Toranosuke Shimada.
One downside to AX is that a few of the stories are juvenile and revolting, in that "look at my penis" / "look at my poop" kind of way. It's not my thing, but I respect that AX is a place where artists can flip the middle finger at conventional comics, and shock even the most jaded reader with their cheerful irreverence for the "rules" of "good" manga or even good taste.
Despite its occasional gross-out moments, AX has an undeniable energy that crackles from almost every page. You probably won’t love every story, but chances are, reading AX will blow your mind." - Deb Aoki
"Westerners talking about manga tend to think of only the most well-known titles: Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Death Note, and the like. English-speaking audiences are limited to only translated works, so publishers like Tokyopop have almost limitless control over what manga is read outside of Japan. Unbeknownst to us, then, a rich underground comics culture has grown in Japan over the past few decades, a culture that is as diverse in its style as any time in Western comics. With this new volume, work by some of the greatest comics creators in Japan has been translated into English for the first time.It is that diversity which is at first so daunting about Sean Michael Wilson’s selection from AX’s history. There’s nothing to tie these thirty-three short stories together. What will especially surprise some manga fans, used to a fairly consistent “in-house” style of artistry (the infamous anime eyes, as big and deep as Olympic pools and often filled with as much water), is the breadth of artistic styles present in the collection. In fact, eagle-eyed readers may recognize possible influences from American underground comics icons like Mike Allred or Bob Burden. (Shinya Komatsu’s “Mushroom Garden” even resembles a old-timey European children’s book.)
These styles are reproduced in Wilson’s collection to an impressive degree. With every translation project, there is a risk of losing the intention and atmosphere of the original work. This is compounded when going from Japanese to English; the process of Romanizing kanji often leaves no trace of what existed before. Top Shelf has paid careful attention to the original texts and their appearances, going so far as to tailor each story’s typeface to suit the mood.
But all this is of secondary importance to the stories themselves, which are mostly incredible. It’s true that very few readers will enjoy all thirty-three, as the genres run the gamut from children’s fables (Mitsuhiko Yoshida’s retelling of “The Tortoise and the Hare”) to artistic meta-commentary (Shigehiro Okada’s “Me”) and pure surrealism (Imiri Sakabashira’s bizarre “Conch of the Sky,” among others). But by the same token, there is something here for every comics fan to enjoy. One of my favorites, “Inside the Gourd” by Ayuko Akiyama, is a dreamlike tale of a disinterested Japanese boy who becomes fascinated by a caterpillar’s curious transformation. Like many other AX stories, Akiyama’s art is spare black-and-white line art with marvelous attention to detail, and his script is quiet and understated.
As difficult as it is to define the complete volume, AX is, by and large, a treat to read. I’ve found new writers to be obsessed with, new artists to envy, and an entire world of comics that I, like many other manga fans, previously had no access to. I might have been put off by some of the more schizophrenic offerings, but pound for pound, AX volume 1 is something that should adorn the bookshelf of any indie comics aficionado." - WHRW News
"I’ve been looking forward to Top Shelf’s Ax: Alternative Manga anthology ever since they first announced it. Between reading Secret Comics Japan back in the day (which really needs to come back into print) and the more recent "gekiga" (essentially alternative manga) releases from Drawn & Quarterly (with books like The Push Man and Abandon the Old in Tokyo), it’s been fun seeing some of the different genres and styles of manga being produced in Japan. Ax in Japan was the successor to Garo, the gekiga anthology whose founding is detailed in A Drifting Life. So the idea of a cherry-picked collection of comics from Ax over the past decade? Yes, please.
Like most anthologies, Ax: Alternative Manga Vol. 1 is a mixed bag in terms of both quality and genre. Some stories are slice of life, while others dip into the more fantastical realms. If I had to pick a single story that would typify what I was expecting from Ax: Alternative Manga, it would probably be Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s "Love’s Bride," about a man whose relationship is going downhill, while simultaneously learning about the courting rituals among monkeys. Like so many of Tatsumi’s stories, it’s a piece with offbeat and slightly deviant characters, and Tatsumi isn’t afraid to depict moments like his protagonist (seen from behind) masturbating to a photo of his girlfriend. "Love’s Bride" doesn’t offer easy solutions to the problems posed, and everyone is slightly flawed in their own way. It’s a fascinating little snapshot, and one that ends in a place that lets the reader draw their own conclusions as to what exactly will happen next.
That said, once I started reading Ax: Alternative Manga, I found a much wider array of stories and tones than I had expected. For instance, Shinya Komatsu’s "Mushroom Garden" could just have easily seen print in the Flight anthologies as in Ax: Alternative Manga. Komatsu’s story of a young man who starts growing mushrooms that slowly take over his fantasy city is almost dreamlike in its sense of wonder and imagination; it’s short and sweet, and while it’s certainly a bit odd in places it’s that sort of wide-reaching net that makes Ax: Alternative Manga ultimately so interesting, because you’re not entirely sure just what you’re going to get next. Akino Kondo’s two linked stories ("The Rainy Day Blouse" and "The First Umbrella") for instance, is almost more of a mood piece than anything else, as a young woman deals with the mundane task of buying an umbrella, and how it briefly links to a childhood memory. It’s beautifully drawn, with sparse lines but beautiful postures that remind me of children’s books. For instance, when the protagonist is walking outside with her new umbrella, looking up at the (rainless) sky, there’s something about her chipper pose and tiny half-smile that immediately brings to mind those classic illustrations I saw as a child.
Some of the stories bring a fantastical element into our real world that immediately grabbed my attention. Ayuko Akiyama’s "Inside the Gourd" is a delicately illustrated story about a young man who looks into a gourd that is supposed to house a caterpillar but instead shows visions of a young woman growing up in a beautiful garden. Akiyama’s story reminds me of the magical realism literary style, never fully defining how this story has happened but instead simply going with the flow and letting its story blossom over time until it gets to a conclusion that offers a promise to the reader of what surely will happen next. It’s one of the early stories in Ax: Alternative Manga Vol. 1, and it’s at that exact moment that I felt the book was going to offer much more than I had initially expected.
There’s a slightly sillier, humorous aspect to some of the other stories that bring the fantasy into our reality. Both Yusaka Hanakuma’s "Puppy Love" and Namie Fujieda’s "The Brilliant Ones" are crudely drawn, going-for-the-joke stories. From a woman that gives birth to puppies instead of human babies, to a student that explodes into a mass of maggots, they deliberately subvert the reader’s expectations and go for the strange. Neither is the sort of story that you’ll remember later because of their art, but the strange combination of laughs and grim moments (especially in "Puppy Love") will make them stick with you.
Only a small handful of stories ultimately didn’t work for me. Pieces like Yuka Goto’s "The Neighbor" or Kotobuki Shiriagari’s "The Twin Adults" felt both crude in art and also storytelling, but without providing a punch like Hanakuma or Fujieda that made it memorable. And while stories like Shigehiro Okada’s "Me" at least have some slightly strong art, there’s a certain lack of coherence that just doesn’t make everything connect. Still, for every slight misstep like Mimiyo Tomozawa’s "300 Years" (which seems designed solely to shock rather than to make a point), there are disturbing but interesting pieces like Katsuo Kawai’s "Push Pin Woman" or Hiroji Tani’s "Alraune Fatale."
While I doubt there’s a reader out there who will like every single story in Ax: Alternative Manga Vol. 1—I’m not entirely sure even the editors would expect that to happen—there’s such a wide variety of story here that there’s a little something for everyone interested in manga’s own alternative comics scene. I’d love for Ax: Alternative Manga to become a regular tradition at Top Shelf Productions; this new glimpse into the side of Japan’s comics industry that we rarely see has me that much more eager to go on a return trip to Ax: Alternative Manga, and soon." - Greg McElhatton
"Ax is an alternative manga magazine in Japan, a kind of go-to for exciting creators. This new anthology from Top Shelf collects a sampling of stories that have been published in Ax since its debut in 1998. As with most anthologies, I found myself drawn to some stories, while left cold to others, but you can't argue that this isn't a great showcase for some really great comics. 33 manga artists are sampled here, with biographies compiled in back and an introduction by Paul Gravett. I feel like I've been waiting forever for this to come out, as it's seen a series of delays, but it has finally arrived.
My Favorites:
Inside the Gourd by Ayuko Akiyama is a magical, gentle story told with soft lines, about a man misunderstood by those around him. It was kind of refreshing to read a story like this in an anthology that offers a lot of sex and violence, illustrating that to be a part of something as special as Ax, you don't need all the bells and whistles to stand out.
Push Pin Woman by Katsuo Kawai is another story told with soft lines and kind of reads like a dream. I almost feel like it's manga poetry - it was just kind of beautiful and whimsical.
A Broken Soul by Nishioka Brosis is an odd little story, that I don't think I really quite got, but it really stands out with its amazing art, easily the most striking pencils of anyone in this anthology.
Puppy Love by Yusaku Hanakuma follows a couple who have a litter of puppies instead of a child, but raise them as humans, and the circumstances they encounter. Strange, but I dug it.
The Tortoise & The Hare by Mitsuhiko Yoshida is a pretty straight-forward story, but I enjoyed the fable and the little twist on it.
Mushroom Garden by Shinya Komatsu is my favorite piece overall. It has beautiful art reminiscent of Herge, with a lot of attention to detail and just beautiful drawings of the city and plant life. Very magical.
Kosuke Okada & His 50 Sons by Hideyasu Moto is a weird, but cool little story with cartoony art that seems kind of old-fashioned.
Alraune Fatale by Hiroji Tani is a neat sexy sci-fi story that I really liked. Nice realistic art with a cool idea.
Six Paths of Wealth by Kazuichi Hanawa reminds me a lot of Kazuo Umezu. Great illustrations depicting a horror story, about a greedy mother and daughter and the Tales From the Crypt-like fate that awaits them.
Ones I Didn't Care For:
Into Darkness by Takato Yamamoto is very verbose, very dark and I could hardly tell what was going on in the panels. It just kind of reeked of pretension to me.
Me by Shin'Ichi Abe is just a throw-away story. I can't imagine anyone really remembering it after passing it over - unremarkable and uninteresting.
Les Raskolnikov by Keizo Miyanishi is another one that's dark and extremely verbose. It kind of reminds me of those bad soapy comic strips like Judge Parker - very over-the-top, yet stiff and unsatisfying.
Overall, I really enjoyed the experience of reading this anthology. In a perfect world (or in Japan), I would be able to seek out the artists and pick up other works by them, but for now, I suppose I need to be content with having sampled them at all, and hope for some more translations from the artists I did like. Some, like Yusaku Hanakuma (Tokyo Zombie), have work already translated in English. But since this is labeled "volume 1," perhaps more is on the way..." - Dave Ferraro
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