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Tenshi Nanka ja Nai (Complete Version special) Attention: Slight spoilers about halfway down, so read the first two volumes first :) My first manga was Tennaiwritten by Yuu Kurosawa
It was the summer of 1991. I had been an elementary school student at the time and had never, for the most part, read any manga before. That summer, during a family vacation, my mother bought an issue of Ribon because she had wanted to read it herself. After she finished reading it, I flipped through it and began to read Tenshi Nanka Janai, which had just begun its run. I was immediately drawn to Akira's coolness. His hairstyle fit him perfectly and his smile was gorgeous. from the next issue on, I began buying them myself, wanting to read what happened next. Today, I even read shounen manga, but my first manga experience was with Tenshi Nanka Janai. Since that time, Tennai has been published in tankoubon form and now a Complete edition as well. I've collected the telephone cards that were available to all by request, and even to this day have an unused playing-card set that was included in one of the issues as furoku. And then came Shrinky Dinks—an arts and craft toy in which you trace over a picture with an oil-based marker onto a thin piece of plastic and pop it in the oven for a few minutes. It would then shrink and become little charms. I often traced Tennai illustrations. When one came out particularly well, I would trade them with friends. I read, I collected, I drew... I was obsessed. Ai Yazawa-san's comics are drawn with clear lines; clear enough to trace onto Shrinky Dinks, but they had a soft quality to them. I loved this combination. I believe that Tennai was created in the era of Yazawa-san's greatest change and growth as an artist, but, simply put, I was just happy that Akira looked more and more handsome as time went on. The story is wonderful. It's a high school story, but the focus was rarely on school work, rather it was on school activities and events. Since it was a brand new school, they were able to create new traditions. All of them, like a "destiny card" school festival, an original school play created to welcome new students, a gangster field day, seemed like so much fun. The student council in my school had a very run-of-the-mill events, so I had always wished to go to a school like Midori's and Akira's. When it came to plotting the romance, however, it was a little unbelievable. In the beginning, and thoughout the story, the name "Hiroko" caused so many problems, that there were hardly any times of peace. When thinking about it realistically, there were times I thought, If they were really having so many problems, they would have broken up a long time ago. But I found those passages to be entertaining in a way, too. The greatest weakness was how Akira and Midori never officially said to one another, "Let's date", yet they sort of floated into a relationship anyway. Since I am not the type of person to fault the guy, I cheered Midori on by saying things like, "Come on, Midori! Get your act together!" When it came to love and relationships, I think I was very much like Midori, but when it came to school, I was like Mamirin. In shoujo manga, I tend to relate to its characters and storylines in this manner. I believe that in every shoujo manga, fashion is very important, but I love the clothes in Yazawa-san's work. They all make me think, "Oh, how cute", and "I'd love to wear something like that!" It made such an impression on me that I bought a Ken-chan Hat for myself. Of course, I have the Tennai illustration book as well. After Tennai, Yazawa-san wrote the heavily fashion-based Gokinjo Monogatari. In one scene in this story, Midori made a cameo appearance at a flea market. I was so excited to realize that the two stories are connected and are taking place in the same time frame. There were other situations where the characters interconnected and it was entertaining to see that. I think the secret behind a solidly-defined world in manga is the love and care one puts into his characters. The run in Ribon was three years. The story progresses in the same amount of time. Whenever I reread it, I always cry at the same spots, but the end makes me cry non-stop. within this first volume, the scene at the Ferris wheel still makes me tear up. Looking back and thinking about it, I'm amazed. This was the first manga I ever read, but it's till my favorite because of the superior story and art. This story full of personal memories has evolved and is now being released as a Complete version. As a current fan, this makes me very happy. Yuu Kurosawa - Born July 7, 1982. Currently working in movies, dramas, and commercials. VocabularyTennai: Short for Tenshi Nanka Janai :) Ribon: The monthly manga magazine Tennai was published in. Manga magazines are collections of many continuing manga series by many different authors all in a single volume. These magazines are also called phonebooks because they are HUGE. The paper is usually very thin and cheap, but you do get a lot of pages for a very low price. Tankoubon: A trade paperback basically. When enough material is drawn, the pages from the magazine is collected and printed in a single book. The paper is of higher quality than the manga magazines. Complete edition: After a period of time a manga gets printed as tankoubons, if it is popular enough, the manga can be republished in a different format. In Tennai's case, the Complete edition contains two of the original tankoubons in one book, as well as including color pictures not included in the original and also a postcard. This is the version our scans are from, but I am labeling them according to the original eight tankoubons. Furoku: A freebie; usually refers to the little extras that come with the manga magazines. Things such as small stationary sets, stickers, card-board desk sets, etc. Gokinjo Monogatari: A manga currently being scanlated by Shoujomagic. |