My Hero Academia Featured Columns 

2017 in Review: Best Translation of a Foreign Material

By | December 13th, 2017
Posted in Columns | % Comments
Logo by Benjamin Birdie

It’s that time of year! The Multiversity Year in Review is here, and from now until Friday, December 22, we will be talking about favorites in a variety of categories. Let us know what we missed in the comments!

Best Translation of Foreign Material
The category might sound fancy, but it’s really simple: anything that wasn’t originally written/published in English was fair game. The chosen books represent a wide swath of comics, and all deserve your time and money.

3. The Beautiful Death

This year, Titan created a new imprint called Statix Press which is focusesd on translating European comics and bringing them to the U.S. As part of this imprint, the French comic, “The Beautiful Death” (or “La Belle Mort“) was released and has become one of our favorite comics.

The story and art are by Mathieu Bablet. In France, Bablet is known for being an amazing illustrator and comic creator. With “The Beautiful Death,” he tells the the story of a small group of three survivors living in a post apocalyptic world after an invasion of alien bugs. Yes, I sad bugs. The key to the story is that even though these three survivors are together, scavenging for food,  running from faceless insectoids, they are very much mentally and individually alone. Each is emotionally scarred by witnessing the death of essentially everybody, and are guarded to the point that none of them knows anything about each other’s lives before the invasion.

While the story is top notch, the magic is really in Bablet’s art. Every panel is ultra detailed, showing each window and balcony on multiple large buildings. Trees, bugs and people all standout the page as no shortcuts are taken with the art (which is typical of French comics). In addition, the detail, along with perspectives, are used exacerbate the feeling of solitude that each character expresses throughout the story. There are numerous panels just showing the empty city or the three survivors moving through an area from a far away perspective, so the uninhabited area can seen. When looking at each page could actually feel and hear the emptiness/silence of having no people being around. Let’s take it one step further, Bablet’s use of coloring evokes a depressing feeling as hues of grey, brown, and blue to color the majority of the book.

Really the story, art and coloring all come together to create an emotional response in the reader. That being said, I think you can all tell why this is in our top foreign translation books of the year. Right now the first three issues of this series have been released, so go pick it up. – Christopher Lewis

2. Goodnight Punpun

This year brought us the conclusion to Inio Asano’s “Goodnight Punpun” in English, and with it some of the most shocking and effective comics of the year. 2017’s volumes continued on with the visual beauty of earlier volumes, using photography and digital collage to create some of the most realistic settings I’ve ever seen, from crowded cities to the manicured Japanese suburbs to the foliage-filled forests of Japan. Asano’s pacing is also magnificent, using few panels on each page and frequent panels of environments for his short pieces of dialogue to float over. All of this makes reading the book feel less like following a set structured story and more like experiencing reality. Even when the visuals turn psychedelic, they retain a quality of being true to consciousness, and thus true to reality.

That reality becomes even more hard-hitting when things take darker turns. Every time something bad happens, you realize these absolute worst truths of humanity are true to real life. You constantly think things can’t get any worse, and right when the terrible things you’ve witnessed have become normalized, Asano will suddenly take you further down that unforgiving road. Emotional manipulation, murder, suicide, murder-suicide, attempted rape. It’s all in here, and it’s all terrifyingly realistic. Compounding this is the fact that Asano never tells you how to feel about anything. You simply observe and must make up your own mind. For that reason, reading “Punpun” can be an exhausting experience, yet also an immensely rewarding one once you realize the heart of the book.

Continued below

And when I say the heart of the book, I mean the different ways the characters end up coming to existential terms with themselves. We watch as one character’s rejection of existentialism leads them down into the darkest depths of humanity, as another’s perversion of existentialism leads a group of well-meaning people to turn into a suicide cult, and, thankfully, we get to see someone who has fully accepted the meaningless of the world find happiness. Asano, in the end, has explored existential nihilism, existential theism, and everything in between, making the point that life will always be an unfair mixture of good and bad that is thrust upon us. Only one’s decisions, even though sometimes there is no good decision, and one’s conscious outlook, though even the most positive person can dip into negativity at points, can change their perception.

Out of that conclusion, Asano’s characters ultimately find strength, and hopefully the reader can, too. It’s bittersweet — the most bitter of bitter mixed with the slightest hint of sweet — but that’s how the whole of humanity can look sometimes. Thanks, Inio Asano, for a remarkably enriching read, and thanks to Viz for their wonderful English translation. – Nick Palmieri

1. My Hero Academia

2017 has undoubtedly been a wonderful year for “My Hero Academia” content. Despite dealing with a number of illnesses, leading to a few enforced breaks and several shortened chapters, mangaka Kōhei Horikoshi managed to both set-up and brilliantly execute his most ambitious story arc to date.

The beginning of the year aptly mirrored the start of the second semester of teaching, at the titular hero academy. While Chapters 1 through 120 acted as a brilliant foundation for the narrative, covering Deku and friends’ first semester at U.A. High School and the subsequent summer break, this year’s content has very much begun the second ‘Episode’ of the series’ overarching plot; centred around the idea of ‘Work Studies.’

This fresh start for the series, as the students returned to their heroic education following a turbulent summer break in-universe, has been marked with many memorable moments. Plenty of these noteworthy events have actually been instigated by characters introduced within the year of 2017, which speaks volumes about Horikoshi’s ability as an effective character writer, amongst other things.

While his stunning designs have always allowed for an immediate sense of intrigue, the level of detail given to the personalities and idiosyncrasies of numerous new characters, over such a short space of time, ought to be praised accordingly. Be they heroes or villains, Horikoshi is willing to give these characters the time and attention they deserve, so that when a climax is reached, be it action-oriented or emotional, the scene that unfolds can resonate to a greater degree.

Although the exploits of various new characters over the last twelve months would abide by this assertion, none really epitomise it more than the sacrifices made by both Lemillion and Sir Nighteye. The gripping actions taken by these individuals, and the severe consequences that followed, have certainly helped to set the tone for the rest of the story. The reality that these instances provide, regarding the unavoidable danger in pursuing pro hero work, certainly creates an air of uncertainty concerning the safety of our more established protagonists moving forward. This though only heightens my anticipation for future events, as given his handling of Nighteye’s fate in particular, regardless of what direction he decides to take the story in, I have the utmost faith that Horikoshi will execute it with aplomb.

It would be remiss of me however, to only allude to the fantastic work Horikoshi has done with newer characters, in 2017. Alongside these examples, series’ mainstays like Red Riot and Tomura Shigaraki have also received astounding levels of development. Shigaraki especially, as the rising antagonist of the narrative, has been fascinating to assess. As his ability to lead grows, alongside his general competency as a villain, so does the threat he poses to the delicate balance of peace. While his struggle for supremacy with the ruthless Overhaul and his Shie Hassaikai was a fascinating read, I’m very interested to see just how Shigaraki and his League of Villains will continue to evolve in 2018 and beyond. – Darcy Forrester

Continued below

 

Editors’ Commentary:

 

Matt: Manga remains our most popular choices in this category and there’s no doubt that has reached the biggest audience stateside. I love this category because it offers up a bigger perspective of the world and a different approach to the medium. The more we’re aware of what’s going on around us, the better everything tends to be.

Brian: It can be hard for anyone – even folks who write a whole lot about comics – to get a clear picture of what comics are like outside of our own, individual bubbles. Something like “Goodnight Punpun” only came on to my radar because of the Multiversity Manga Club episode that featured it and our staff’s voting, but has quickly moved to the top of my ‘must read’ list. This category helps all of us look outside of our particular tastes and environments and see what else is going on around us.


//TAGS | 2017 Year in Review

Multiversity Staff

We are the Multiversity Staff, and we love you very much.

EMAIL | ARTICLES


  • critique featured Columns
    My Comics Year: Thinking Critically

    By | Jan 4, 2018 | Columns

    Back in May of 2017, I started writing for Multiversity Comics, with a micro review of “Spider-Gwen” #20. While the first draft was anything but micro (I sent in about a full review’s worth of material I had to chop down), writing was a surprising struggle. The more I looked at the book, the more […]

    MORE »

    -->