Takemiya's Classic Manga, To Terra
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on February 13, 2007 Sign up now!
by Kai-Ming Cha, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 2/13/2007
Later this month Vertical Inc., the New York City publisher of classic manga and contemporary Japanese literature in translation, will release its third manga project, Keiko Takemiya's legendary science-fiction work, To Terra.
Takemiya is considered one of the pillars of shojo manga, having been part of the Fabulous 49ers, the group of women artists and writers who established and solidified the girls' comics industry in Japan in the mid and late 1970s. Takemiya also gave rise to the bi-shounen (beautiful boy) genre through her book, Kaze to Ki no Uta (Song of Wind and Trees). The genre developed into today's boys' love and yaoi narratives.
Surprisingly, To Terra is neither shojo nor shonen-ai (generally less explicit boys' love) although it harbors elements of both. "Takemiya is a shojo master," says Anne Ishii, Vertical Inc. director of marketing and publicity. "And [in To Terra] there are shojo elements and homoeroticism that are apparent in later volumes. But the adventure is a strong shonen element."
To Terra is a futuristic science fiction manga in which humans have been displaced to outlying planets. Technology and a strict social code of ethics enforce a superior generation of human that is bred and indoctrinated—much like in Aldous Huxley's classic novel Brave New World—to return to Terra (Earth). But heavily regulated social order gives rise to a species of human called Mu—individuals gifted with the power of ESP. Because their telepathic abilities pose a threat to the controlled social order, the Mu are driven underground and develop into an insurgency.
Ishii says the book's plot focuses on an "establishment and an antiestablishment. And when both sides go to the extreme, they both end up in the same place. It's like a debate between extremist liberals and conservatives; they end up saying the same things." But, she adds, "It's about adolescence and becoming an adult as much as it is discovering you have extrasensory powers and finding out you don't live on Earth."
Ishii says that Takemiya's To Terra was largely influenced by Japan's student movements of the 1960s, when college campuses became hotbeds of political unrest. She was also highly influenced by working with the legendary manga-ka Osamu Tezuka. "[Tezuka's] Astroboy is full of futurism," Ishii says. Vertical is marketing To Terra as science fiction, bypassing issues of gender distinction in favor of genre distinction.
Vertical readers may be surprised by the classic look of Takemiya's work. Unlike Tezuka, whose comic drawing style closely resembles cartoons and thereby has wide appeal, Takemiya employs an art style deeply anchored in the 1970s shojo manga aesthetic. The high school protagonist, Jomy Marcus Shin, is depicted with the enlarged pupils typical of girls' comics, as well as the slim, delicate figure characteristic of depictions of both genders. So far, Ishii has found reader response positive, with many expressing an interest in reading classical manga.
"There's something immediately touching about it," she said. "It's old, but new. It's space travelers wearing bell-bottoms. It's incredible that one woman drafted that many spacescapes and travel machines."
To Terra will be released just before the New York Comic-con, and Vertical plans to promote the release heavily during the convention.
