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krpalmerWith all the manga being translated into English and officially released over here these days, an “I’m surprised this got licensed” reaction might say more about the person making it than anything. I can admit my own latest reaction like that was on noticing a “manga based on anime,” that anime being an early-1980s “magical girl” series from years before Sailor Moon reconfigured the genre into “teenage warriors confronting evil.” It also mattered, though, that I’d already managed to see that older anime series several years ago. Curiosity about “something different” (which expands the amount of anime I see, but limits the amount of video not “animation from Japan” I watch) had mixed with a peculiar, perhaps-misguided sort of charity towards an effort at crowdfunding the official translation and DVD release of older anime, and that overcame a slight but distinct sense of embarrassment at the mere title “Creamy Mami.” The effort just managed to release all of the series and shut down afterwards; since then, though, Creamy Mami has started streaming on the niche-within-a-niche service RetroCrush, which could well have played a significant role in the manga making it over here. In any case, I was amused enough by that happening to buy a volume.
As its subtitle suggested, the manga focuses on Megumi, the established and conventional idol singer the magical girl Creamy Mami kept upstaging over the course of the anime. Megumi is introduced this time around as having grown entitled and arrogant behind the scenes from success, but her annoyance, suspicion, and feelings of being challenged as everyone around her starts jumping through hoops to work with the mysterious peculiarities of a however magical new singer did seem well developed. I had a vague feeling of familiarity at some of the events seen from Megumi’s point of view (by the end of the volume she’s grappling with suspicions Creamy Mami and a young girl named Yuu are somehow connected, but her scheme to uncover the truth, its slight cruelty somewhat countered with a few half-apologetic thoughts, was magically foiled). That, though, made me suppose this the manga might not be very satisfying for someone who hadn’t already seen the anime. Even so, while I keep making wry admissions about “manga based on anime” not looking all that impressive, Emi Mitsuki’s artwork did seem a clean-lined cut above a lot of my cautionary examples.
Perhaps these comments are a bit thin to build a post around, but at the very back of the volume Mitsuki included an afterword mentioning “like many people who grew up watching Mami” and more experienced perspectives on Megumi. It was somehow a new and surprising perspective for me; maybe I just hadn’t wanted to consider my own age in relation to when the anime aired. I also found myself contemplating comics over here based on “kids’ shows from the 1980s” I’m aware of but don’t delve into, comics not depending on attempts to deepen decades-old intellectual properties but which I might not be aware of at all, and unilingual English-speaking anime fans overrating their entertainment from overseas. Maybe all I can say in the end is that while I brushed by or just plain missed chances to get started on some nostalgia-based comics only to turn around and face intimidating amounts of collected issues later, “a first volume of manga” felt easier to get started with.
As its subtitle suggested, the manga focuses on Megumi, the established and conventional idol singer the magical girl Creamy Mami kept upstaging over the course of the anime. Megumi is introduced this time around as having grown entitled and arrogant behind the scenes from success, but her annoyance, suspicion, and feelings of being challenged as everyone around her starts jumping through hoops to work with the mysterious peculiarities of a however magical new singer did seem well developed. I had a vague feeling of familiarity at some of the events seen from Megumi’s point of view (by the end of the volume she’s grappling with suspicions Creamy Mami and a young girl named Yuu are somehow connected, but her scheme to uncover the truth, its slight cruelty somewhat countered with a few half-apologetic thoughts, was magically foiled). That, though, made me suppose this the manga might not be very satisfying for someone who hadn’t already seen the anime. Even so, while I keep making wry admissions about “manga based on anime” not looking all that impressive, Emi Mitsuki’s artwork did seem a clean-lined cut above a lot of my cautionary examples.
Perhaps these comments are a bit thin to build a post around, but at the very back of the volume Mitsuki included an afterword mentioning “like many people who grew up watching Mami” and more experienced perspectives on Megumi. It was somehow a new and surprising perspective for me; maybe I just hadn’t wanted to consider my own age in relation to when the anime aired. I also found myself contemplating comics over here based on “kids’ shows from the 1980s” I’m aware of but don’t delve into, comics not depending on attempts to deepen decades-old intellectual properties but which I might not be aware of at all, and unilingual English-speaking anime fans overrating their entertainment from overseas. Maybe all I can say in the end is that while I brushed by or just plain missed chances to get started on some nostalgia-based comics only to turn around and face intimidating amounts of collected issues later, “a first volume of manga” felt easier to get started with.