[...] assessment of its artwork and heartfelt themes. Draper Carlson also furnished me with links to her site’s original review of To Terra, penned by Rob Vollmar in 2008, and a brand-new review comparing To Terra with a newer Vertical [...]

But something like Hagio’s Cruel God Reigns is pretty “modern”–Tamiya’s Tenma is as well and in its take on fantasy is fairly typical of some shoujo manga on the market–maybe not the ideal place to start but I’ll take it.

I get what you mean though I feel I have to point out Terra E *is* to Japanese audiences probably Takemiya’s second best known work, it did have a big female readership (and certainly shares a lot in common in terms of storytelling style with the shoujo of the era–Andromeda Stories, maybe as a reaction was actually published right after in Duo, the shortlived “asexual/duo sexual” magazine). Her award in 1979 was a duo one for Kaze *and* Terra.

I’m bilingual so also read a lot of manga in french, and I suppose it should be pointed that those awesome 3 (I still haven’t gotten the third…) volumes of Versailles are an exception–probably due to the popularity of the anime in France. For a while I was hoping/expecting that a bucnh of Oshima, Tamagishi and of course Hagio and Takemiya would be out there in French but of course–that’s not true. For a while the French had a much better slection of shoujo in general than us, but I think the opposite could be true (they don’t have Swan, never got my beloved Banana Fish, the little Hagio and takemiya we did get…)

Still I know many English translation houses are more likely to translate if there’s a French version out there–and Rose of Versailles is one of the few classic manga titles that (thanks to the anime and Manga Manga! and Utena I suspect) nearly every English speaking otaku knows–I’m kinda surprised no one has attacked it yet–even if I’m a much bigger fan of Ikeda’s Oniisama and especially Orpheus’ Window (frankly outside those three titles I find her work pretty disappointing–which is maybe why she’s not mentioned in quite the same breath as Takemiya or Hagio– but those are huge classics).

I admit when I found out Terra E–ANY Takemiya–was being translated (and I didn’t even find out from a blog but from a review in Ent Weekly) I was blown away–I just had taken it for granted none of this stuff would make it out. So maybe I’m a bit more forgiving of To Terra than I would be if I hadn’t waited 10 years to read it, and been so thankful for the crumbs we get.

However reading it again after watching the anime series did make me appreciate it all the more and I think Takemiya was more innovative in the title than you maybe give her credit for…

I only recently finally got the terrific Moto Hagio issue of The Comic Journal–and reading and re-reading the bibliography of her works just gets me more depressed. Surely after reading how great and important her manga are and Matt Thorn’s offering to translate Otherworld Barbara for anyone who will publish it should leave any self respecting manga publisher embarassed for not following suit. (I say Vertical should go all out and publish a deluxe edition of Hagio’s Cruel God Reigns, establishing clearly that it’s Literature manga dealing with Important Themes and go for the most critical praise they can get…)

But I appreciate the review and we fans who want more of this stuff have to stick together ^^;; LOL I’m sure you’re aware but Shaenon Garrity’s blog at http://shaenon.livejournal.com/tag/overlooked+manga+festival is also pretty great for emphasising this kinda stuff (i’m ehgsuperstar on there)

/end of ramble

My thanks to you, Eric for taking the time to read and respond to the review here. I sympathize with your position that a better knowledge of Takemiya’s work (of which exists only the smallest fraction in English at this time) might have offered more context from which to support a pronunciation that To Terra feels like a transitional work.

But I stand by my assertion in the review that at the end of 900 pages, I felt (and still feel) like I didn’t get the full sense of what she was about and why her influence is so important. There is no dispute that To Terra was originally created and serialized for a shonen audience and, by any reasonable definition, is a shonen manga. My disappointment came, I suspect, from expecting to read a landmark shoujo manga (a presupposition I derived from her importance to the form) and got something else.

I share both yours and Johanna’s sense of urgency to get more work from Takemiya, Hagio, Ikeda and others into print. I do believe that it will take an editor from an established manga company to properly select, market and promote these works in exactly the manner you sugggest. Until someone proves that there is gold to be mined from that material (something I genuinely believe), it’s just going to sit there, untranslated into English and I’ll have to keep reading Rose of Versailles en Francais.

I wonder if Vertical has any plans to do more Takemiya or classic shoujo authors/ i hope low sales aren’t scaring them off

I think Terra held up much better for me but I agree it has a weird format–almost like this HUGE ongoing epic, and we just “touch base” with the story at various times within the big epic. the 1980 theatrical anime is even more of this but the TV anime fills in ALl the blanks–and I think to the works detrimewnt. to me it felt WAY more “common” and stereotypical when told that way and it made me appreciate Takemiya’s story sense better.

Andromeda Stories, the current and later sci fi work published by Vertical in which Takemiya worked from a story written for her by Ryu Mitsuse (the HUGE Japanese sci fi author who Moto Hagio also adapted) is fascinating in how it’s similar and how it’s different from Terra.

The art is less spectacular for one–both Takemiya and Hagio dropped that gorgeous, over the top, shoujo style that became less fasionable in the 80s and for lack of a better term masculined their art a bit (way less full page montages, etc)–though the art is still insanely creative as is the paneling to tell the story. But in doing another “space opera”, but this time focusing on it much more from a personal/character level the outcome is very different–i think to Western manga readers, perhaps more successful.

Here’s hopign Vertical does go all out and do some of her shoujo works. Kaze to Kino Uta would be a huge commitment and is also unfortunately a work I feel could maybe cause some (unfair) child pornography problems if published in the US. It might be better to work with one of her volumes of her masterful 70s short story collections (maybe the one with La Porte a L’ete the less extreme Kaze prototype)–I’m also a big fan of her late 80s, 6 volume Spanish Harem, a pansexual story about life and romance among a bunch of rather bohemian 20something Brits in the 80s.

And PLEASE we need more Moto Hagio in English NOW. She and Takemiya worked with trhe same elements in their various stories but Hagio–to not take any credit away from Takemiya–had a bit more philosophy and thought behind her works while Takmiya was more focused on plot–i think.

Interesting review,it echoes some others I have read too, but your point about To Terra… being a transitional work are new. It was nice to learn a bit more about it in context of Takemiya’s work, and shoujo in general.

I had already decided based on the reviews that I would like to read it anyway,simply because it is a “historical” piece, but your review got me thinking a little more.

You mention themes that are recycled from previous SF, that isn’t a problem per se, (I remember seeing the first LotR movie and thinking how cliched it was), so the questions then becomes what makes it unique? What does Takemiya herself add to the genre? What does it being Japanese SF (as opposed to (US/Western)? Or what about its audience being women? (esp since in the 1970s at least SF was mostly read by men I believe).

anyhow, intriguing review, I look forward to reading To Terra… all in one go myself.

PS, now I have to Google Swan,darnit.

[...] Rob Vollmar on Keiko Takemiya’s To [...]

Thanks for your comments. I’ll be interested to see how a modern reimagination of this as an anime turns out! If that was a factor in Vertical’s decision, I can’t fault them for their pragmatism as I said before.

I guess I’ll just have to start re-reading SWAN again to get my decadent shoujo fix…

A TV anime series was made of “To Terra…” in Japan recently, and it has been licensed for western release. That may have had something to do with why this manga was chosen for translation over others. It seems to be easier to market manga, especially obscure manga, when there’s an anime version available.

[...] At Comics Worth Reading, Rob Vollmar reviews vols. 1-3 of To Terra. Julie reads vol. 18 of Red River at the Manga Maniac Cafe. At Anime on DVD, Ron Quezon has mixed [...]