Quite a bit has been posted already by numerous serious reviewers about Katsu Aki’s Manga Sutra.

link link link link link link link link link -&@Tokyopop

Let’s talk about terms first. While no doubt Tokyopop was seeking to link this book (if only in prospective customers’ minds) to the venerable Kama Sutra, even an elementary student of Sanskrit will tell you that the ’sutra’ in ‘Kama Sutra’ refers to a book or manual, not to anything erotic. Thus, a scholar might expect a ‘manga sutra’ to either be a illustrative manual like Graphic-sha’s line of how-to books, or a descriptive encyclopedia along the lines of Jason Thompson’s Guide to Manga.

(’kama’ means love, so a literal translation would be ‘book of love’; it includes not just the now-standard 64 sexual acts — standard because they are listed in the Kama Sutra — but also chapters on obtaining a wife, the standing and proper behavior of mulitple wives in a polygamous relationship, how to make it with the neighbor’s wife, and the care and keeping of mistresses*)

(* the asterisk, because I am not a Sanskrit scholar, almost unbelievably I’ve not read the Kama Sutra myself, and my facts come from Wikipedia — but according to Wikipedia, while there are 5 chapters on marriage, there are 6 chapters each on both mistresses and your neighbor’s wife. Also, the original Kama Sutra was not illustrated, but sometime in the 3rd century CE someone took care of that right quick.)

Among other sutras, or handbooks (dare I say, **enchiridions) are the Yoga Sutras, Nyaya Sutras, Vaisheshika Sutras, Purva Mimamsa Sutras, and Brahma Sutras. Of these, I think we have the Yoga Sutras at my local bookstore; the rest must only be of interest to academics.

(** inside joke. link. though it’s a joke you’ll only get if you’re familiar with ancient Greek and have read my other blog.)

Marketing trumps accuracy in that Manga Sutra is an ecchi-though-not-smutty book about a young married couple (both virgins, when they married) and their experimentation in the inevitable.

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I have nothing to add to the ongoing discussion, past the absurd:

Katsui Aki’s Manga Sutra (Futari H) versus Nao Kodaka’s and Rika Tanaka’s Disney’s Kilala Princess

Kilala Princess previously reviewed: Vol. 1, Vol. 2.

Both Published by Tokyopop
Page count — Manga Sutra (vol 1) 338 pgs vs Kilala Princess (vols 1-4) 384 pgs. Give or take.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to Left
Vintage — Manga Sutra: 1997, US edition Jan 2008; Kilala Princess: 2005-6. US editions 2007.
Translation — Manga Sutra: Christine Schilling; Kilala Princess: Katherine Schilling
Adaptation — Manga Sutra: Gary Krasney; Kilala Princess: Katherine Schilling
Retouch and Lettering: (both) Star Print Brokers
Editor: (both) Hope Donovan
Publisher’s Rating — Kilala Princess: Ages 8-12; Manga Sutra: Mature, ages 18+

You know, I thought I was being funny until I found out both series had the same editor, not to mention the coincidence of the Schilling Sisters.

[MS = Manga Sutra. KP=Disney’s Kilala Princess.]

Story:
MS: A guy and a girl get together, by way of a matchmaker and an arranged marriage, and overcome multiple hardships [ha ha] though at the end she’s still not quite satisfied. KP: A girl runs across multiple dimensions to rescue her best gal pal, helps a wandering prince find the princess that will save his kingdom, and meets a lot of Disney Intellectual Property ™ along the way.

On the one hand, we have a couple of fantasy characters wandering around in a world of their own that seems familiar but oddly disconnected from the real world and real life. And the other one has Princesses in it.

[bu-dump *ching*] The jokes just write themselves.

Both titles are takes on budding romance: Kilala is a young girl (11 or 12) who is just beginning to become interested in romantic love; her fascination with princesses and fairy-tale endings are part of her self-discovery process into both her own feelings and how she will interact with others. She’s just starting out, emotionally, so relies on the story-book Princesses as her first role models. She hasn’t been disillusioned yet.

The couple in Manga Sutra, Makoto and Yura, are also emotionally unprepared for romance, but since they are both easily twice Kilala’s age — and married to each other — they don’t have the luxury of fairy tale fantasies but instead must immediately deal with an adult, and sexual, relationship.

Both plots are paper-thin, a mere framework on which to hang artwork meant to please their respective fan bases. While the concept of MS is the more original and creative of the two, KP gets the nod here for executing better on concept: After 300 pages Makoto is still dealing with his first problem (premature ejaculation) while Kilala has already met two princesses, collected two plot coupons gemstones for the tiara Rei carried with him, and admitted her love for Rei to herself, if not to Rei –yet.

Point: Kilala Princess

Characters:
In addition to the two main characters–The Happy Couple, Makoto and Yura–Manga Sutra also introduced several ‘advisors’: Makoto’s nosy, perverted, mildly misogynistic older brother Akira (and his somewhat-understanding wife Sanae) and Yura’s younger, sexually active college-age sister Rika with her cavalcade of partners.

Kilala Princess also has a quartet of main characters. Heroine Kilala and stand-in-Prince-Charming Rei, along with Kilala’s BFF Erika and Rei’s servant/adjuntant Valdou, who hasn’t done anything yet and is likely in the book just for Rei x Valdou (or perhaps Valdou x Rei) slash dojinshi. …I mean, I’m sure he has something to do in the story later but through 350+ pages to date, he’s just been window dressing. Erika isn’t really a proactive character either, being more of a damsel-in-distress plot object rather than an independent character with her own motivations and subplot.

But hey, it’s a comic aimed at kids. And each side-trip to one of the Disney-worlds means Kodaka&Tanaka get to import a popular, well established character complete with side-kicks, villians, and backstory every other volume or so.

Both MS and KP have cardboard cut-outs for leads with the bare minimum of characterisation sufficient to engage the respective plots. While MS has a slight edge with its cast, with only three secondary characters (and it’s hard to like Akira much) there just isn’t much to go on. KP would get the point, but I don’t feel like rewarding the title for recycling Disney Princesses.

Tie.

Art:
What do you like: Disney, or Sex?

Kodaka is easily the better artist, not only when she’s aping the Disney house style but also with her own original characters and in other aspects of the manga: backgrounds, panel layout, shojo sparkles… In fact I like her original artwork much better, and while it is barely perceptible, there is a disconnect between the ‘manga’ and ‘Disney’ styles in the book. The target audience isn’t going to notice, or care, but *I* noticed and it’ll startle me out of my enjoyment of the story every 50 pages or so.

Oddly, considering that some of the original character designs for the Disney cast and crew date back to 1938, it’s the 10-year-old Futari H that comes off looking dated and a shade old-fashioned. Yura is certainly attractive enough, IMO (as are the other women) but the art–particularly in the early going–is a bit inconsistant. Actually, I might boil my objections down to a bad first impression: Yura, shower scene, page 10: what is wrong with her tits, Aki? The rendering there is so bad it initially distracted me from the bad 80s-style hair. Other pairings-and-positions throughout the book also occasionally seem awkward, though part of that is intentional to creatively dodge the censors.

Here’s a sample from Kilala Princess:

A lovely snap of Rei and Kilala sharing a moment (vol 3, pg 95).

It was a bit tougher finding suitable panels from Manga Sutra, but I think these three manage to sum the book up well.


The book is, in fact, a how to manual: from pg 39, how to take off a bra.

Though it is also very much a Japanese book:

Above, an excerpt from page 267, the splash page introducing chapter 16: Yura in a Yukata.

…and how to get into a Yukata. Very handy. Top left panel from page 274. FYI: the Japanese sound effect for stealthily reaching into a yukata is “goso goso”.

Point: Kilala Princess. Slick, professional art wins out over porn — even heartfelt, earnest, relatively clean porn. And… well, I’m a sucker for tearful eyes and shoujo sparkles.

Price:
Manga Sutra, 338 net pages, $20; about 6¢ a page
Kilala Princess, 384 net pages, 4 volumes @ $6 each. …also ~6¢ a page.

Surprisingly, a Tie. …though I’m not sure which I expected to be more expensive. (Disney ends up being fractionally more expensive)

Packaging

Manga Sutra comes in a slip case (featuring that strategically placed thick red stripe with the title on it), includes a post card insert (technically an ‘aphrodesiac recipe card’ I think; the artwork is OK, the cocktail recipe on it is less than inspiring) and is slightly oversize: the book is a chunky 6×9″, and is 360 pages thick besides. Extras in the back include ads for a cookbook, condoms, the anime adaptation of the book (Step up Love Story from Media Blasters), and additional manga titles from Tokyopop and Blu; and in lieu of translation notes: sex advice from an actual doctor, and American statistics that correspond to the Japanese sex trivia sprinkled throughout the book.

Kilala can’t stand up to that. 4 thin volumes in the standard 5×7.5″ trim size, with ads of course but without any notes.

Point: Manga Sutra.

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Of course, this isn’t a match-up that is going to nicely resolve into a quick decision in favour of one title over the other. These are aimed at two very different markets, and I may be the only person out of about 300 million that actually bothered to buy both. (*for myself, not for the kids)

And I’ve read both. And enjoyed both.

Judgement

Kilala Princess: 3 marks out of 5. The only drawback to this simple but enjoyable story is the Disney tie-in. Obviously this will be solid gold for the Princess fan in your house, but as Shoujo it is only so-so — but there are hints that the plot, such as it is, might actually thicken a bit in forthcoming volumes.

4 of these have been released in Japan, but based on price (older volumes are on sale for less, but vol.4 is ¥1200) and comparing the covers to my US editions, I’d say that the Japanese version are twice the length — we can expect 8 volumes of KP from Tokyopop.

Manga Sutra: 3 marks out of 5. I’m tempted to bump that up to 4 marks just for the sheer novelty and chutzpah of the MS release, but flaws in the work itself tend to balance out my enthusiasm for the material. While I don’t really care much for the main characters, Makoto and Yura — or perhaps I should say, I find it hard to empathize with either character — if Aki continues to expand past his core cast and begins to look at a larger spectrum of both human sexuality and the problems that arise therefrom then this could be a solid series. For what it is.

Manga sutra isn’t a half-tankoban, but rather a double shot: In this format, Tokyopop could release 16 books pulling from the 32 extant Japanese volumes. Yes, 32 — plus 3 books just ‘for ladies’. Some topics are endlessly interesting I guess.

No winners here — If one of these titles seem to be the thing that fits your niche, though, both are recommended.