On Friday, CR readers were asked to "Name Five Mangaka You Believe Have A Bigger Potential Audience In The U.S. Than They Currently Enjoy." This is how they responded.
Tom Spurgeon
1. Eiji Nonaka
2. Susumu Katsumata
3. Keiko Suenobu
4. Kiriko Nananan
5. Shigeru Tamura
*****
Nick Mullins
* Ebine Yamaji (Love My Life, Free Soul, Indigo Blue)
* Haruno Nanae (Pieta, Double House)
* Kiriko Nananan (Pumpkin and Mayonnaise)
* Minami Q Ta (Please, God)
* Shinkichi Kato (Baka & Gogh, National Quiz)
*****
Paul Pope
* Minetaro Mochizuki -- one of my favorites. Wai Wai is one of the best manga from the past few years. He is a great talent.
* King Gonta -- he is not so well known and his longest works, "House Of Hell" (about a family of Kabuki actors) and "The Way Between The Prow And The Deep Blue Sea" (a history of Medieval China) might be too Asia-centric for Western tastes, yet he is an absolute master of the medium. And he named himself "King" Gonta, which is badass, but not as badass as his work.
* Egawa Tetsuya -- one of Japan's biggest manga artists, virtually unknown in the States. Tokyo University Story.
* Masayuki Soma -- He only did a couple of books, most notably Pao Pao-Akko, about a mother/daughter relationship, often with corny, sexually-laden undertones... as in, the mom is a cougar. Great work. He sadly hung up his brush too soon. A huge influence on my own personal style.
* Suehiro Maruo -- inventor of "sick" manga. His work has been occasionally translated abroad, but he has a wider audience out there just waiting to discover his wild, inventive ouvre.
*****
Jones Jones
1. Eiji Nonaka (Cromartie!)
2. Toru Yamazaki (Octopus Girl!)
3. Toyokazu Matsunaga (Bakune Young!!!)
4. Shintaro Kago (does he have anything in English other than scanlations?)
5. I really want to say Junji Ito, on account of Dark Horse couldn't get his Museum of Terror over with anglophone readers, but I don't want you to roll your eyes, so: Kiminori Wakasugi (Detroit Metal City!)
*****
Dave Knott
* The team of Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma
* Kan Takahama
* Makoto Yukimura
* Kiriko Nananan
* Q Hayashida
*****
Chris Arrant
* Naoki Urasawa
* Iou Kuroda
* Harold Sakuishi
* Makota Yukimura
* Kaiji Kawaguchi
*****
David Oppenheim
1. Kazuichi Hanawa
2. Mitsuru Adachi
3. Tori Miki
4. Riyoko Ikeda
5. Iou Kuroda
*****
Rick Vance
1. Hirohiko Araki -- Jojo's Bizarre Adventure has been coming out for over 25 years and only like 18 volumes of it are available legally in english. Add to that all the other work that Araki does and the change in genre, tone and setting that he can pull he needs to be available to people.
2. Leiji Matsumoto -- Ryan Cecil Smith's SF comics have opened the door now someone needs to really get on making all the original stuff available in english, that sleek operatic style is so perfect for Space Opera.
3. Yudetamago (Yoshinori Nakai & Takashi Shimada) -- These guys had a bit of success when Ultimate Muscle was a Saturday Morning Cartoon, however the comic Kinnikuman and all that has come after it have not been as lucky. The pure fun wrestling action of their stories I think would delight swaths of Superhero fans to no end.
4. Mitsuteru Yokoyama -- We have Tezuka, Otomo and Urasawa in plentiful english I think there is no reason we should not also have this man who is one of the pioneers and the blocks on which the industry was built.
5. Kentarō Miura -- Berserk is stated as one of the major influences on Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit, Dark Horse has been doing a good job at printing it but I do think if marketed at all it could reach a huge audience currently not reading it. Especially with the seeming boom of the violence and the dark fantasy that has been sweeping pop culture.
*****
Abby L.
1. Riyoko Ikeda (Literally the most classic shoujo manga that has references in so many other mangas and yet it's never been translated!?!?!? Why!?!?)
2. Shigeru Mizuki (Why haven't we gotten to read Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro!?)
3. Saki Hiwatari (OK this is just because I love her)
4. Akiko Higashimura (Want to see more from her)
5. Masahito Soda (Also just love him...)
*****
David Brothers
1. Inio Asano
2. Q Hayashida
3. Hirohiko Araki
4. Eiji Nonaka
5. Keitaro Takahashi
*****
Jog
1. Kazuichi Hanawa: His autobiographical Doing Time picked up that little bit of acclaim you can always expect from really terrific manga from a teeny-small publisher, but it's the guro horror stuff in Hanawa's back catalog that's got the potential to blow the roof off the joint... or at least garner a less small, more devout Junji Ito-like following abroad. Seriously, look at his eye-popping contribution to Top Shelf's Ax anthology from the other year and tell me a whole book like that wouldn't be burning down Tumblr tomorrow.
2. Toyokazu Matsunaga: Again and again, I keep hearing the out-there comics folk cite Bakune Young as a huge thing, and I can see why; vol. 2 of that three-part series is probably my single favorite action comic ever, and startlingly contemporary in its blend of berserk drawing and high-energy genre stuff. An enterprising publisher would do well to pick up his more recent Ryuguden and bedeck that sucker with Matsunaga's excess of cred.
3. Taiyō Matsumoto: Gogo Monster was the best comic released in North America in 2009, and it was met primarily with disinterest occasionally segueing into mockery. I think No. 5 still holds the record for all-time worst-selling Viz publication, though at least you can read it in English from a different publisher on an iPad; most of Matsumoto's works aren't so lucky. Still, it took years and years (and ultimately, anime) for Tekkonkinkreet to finally hit, so hope springs eternal for this most fascinating of arty populists.
4. Sanpei Shirato: Like, when I hear "Marxist ninja comics," I think it's gonna be like those movies Godard did with the Dziga Vertov Group in the backwash of '68, where it's ostensibly a narrative, but really a confrontational formalist exercise poised to communicate mad political truths. However, tracking down old editions of Viz's (and Eclipse's) release of The Legend of Kamui straight-up got my ass kicked with the big, broad, bloody stylings of Garo rockstar Shirato and his backing studio. That was later stuff, and while I guess the diminished audience for slash-'em-up swordsman funnies today speaks more to the scene than the artist, I can't imagine some of Shirato's vintage '60s work wouldn't move nicely via a sympathetic Vertical or D&Q with the wind of renown at its back. (Its front?)
5. Ryoichi Ikegami: Yeah, he was present and accounted for with Mai the Psychic Girl and Crying Freeman and all those, back in the day, and Sanctuary was a pretty solid hit a few years later. But what has Ikegami done lately? How about a 17-volume crime comic (Heat) and a 22-volume historical thing (Lord), both with the writer of Sanctuary? Actually, I don't think a single thing Ikegami's done in the 21st century has been translated to English, which is a real shame -- his Neal Adams-like ultra-gekiga approach is ripe for rediscovery, especially after inspiring the immortal megahit Cromartie High School -- the pump is primed!
*****
Michael Buntag
1. Kan Takahama
2. Suehiro Maruo
3. Erica Sakurazawa
4. Miho Obana
5. Taiyō Matsumoto
*****
Benjamin Urkowitz
1. Shintaro Kago
2. Teruhiko Yumura
3. Ebisu Yoshikazu
4. Atsushi Kaneko
5. Sugiura Shigeru
*****
*****