Manga Village

Natsume Ono is one of my favorite creators in comics today. Her distinct style and charismatic writing have filled many of my evenings with beautiful imagery of Italy and feudal Japan, and her characters have sparked my imagination and wanderlust. When Ono’s first works were brought to the USA, we started somewhere in the middle – Ristorante Paradiso and not simple were a progression of sorts from La Quinta Camera, which is some of Ono’s earliest work. The series started as a webcomic, and was brought to print in one volume through Viz Media’s IKKI COMIX imprint. Of all the creators popularized by the IKKI format from Viz, Natsume Ono is the most complex, and most wonderful. La Quinta Camera is certainly an expression of that – but Ono has learned much between her initial comics debut in 2003 and her currently running series House of Five Leaves. By Natsume Ono Publisher: VIZ Media LLC; Sig IKKI Age Rated: T for Teen Genre: Slice of Life Price: $12.99 La Quinta Camera is a series of vignettes focusing on four men who live in a five-bed apartment in Rome, and how they use that fifth room; or rather, who they rent…

Go back to the beginning, when the owner Lorenzo was just opening Casetta dell’Orso. His wife Olga’s particular preference for a certain bartender inspires Lorenzo to hire an entire staff of gentlemen in glasses. Watch the cranky-but-kind Luciano juggle babysitting duty and the advances of an amorous customer. Witness handsome playboy Vito meet a healthy young college student who will eventually become his wife. All this and more awaits you, just beyond that discreet restaurant door… By Natsume Ono Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Drama Price: $12.99 Most of the men you see in manga are young and good-looking, almost to the point of being beautiful, in order to appeal to girls and young women. But what if your tastes run toward the older, more “distinguished” looking man? Then this is the title you’ve been waiting for. Gente is a sort of prequel/sequel to Ono’s previous work, Ristorante Paradiso. Gente tells the story of how the bespectacled, older gentlemen came to work at Casetta dell’Orso. It starts with Lorenzo finding and bringing the men together to work at his restaurant, and then each successive chapter tells a tale feature one of the gentlemen, inside and out of…

Publisher’s description: Complex, powerful, and emotionally wrenching, not simple is a novel told in visual form by one of the most acclaimed creators at work today. R to L (Japanese Style). Ian, a young man with a fractured family history, travels from Australia to England to America in the hope of realizing his dreams and reuniting with his beloved sister. His story unfolds backwards through the framing narrative of Jim, a reporter driven to capture Ian’s experiences in a novel: not simple. A story within a story, a book within a book, a tale about the search for family, for an emotional home. By Natsume Ono Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating:Teen+ Genre: Drama Price: $14.99 I found this book very affecting, yes, but neither as brutally disgusting as Tucker Stone, nor as frank and “phenomenal” as Christopher Butcher seems to have. Instead, I fall somewhere in between. When I first saw the cover image, I fell in love. Seriously, I probably drooled a little. And the look of the book is gorgeous. It’s a great size, with subtle colors and line work on the cover unique among it’s manga brethren. In fact, the interior art, the pacing, the characterization– it has…