December 15, 2007

Genshiken

After four years of university, the Genshiken manga comes to an end with a total of nine volumes. It's been quite enjoyable following the members of Genshiken as they came to know each other and to know themselves, and I have no doubt I'll be re-reading this manga in the future.

I could really identify with the Genshiken, their ideas and personalities, and the clashes arising from Kasukabe's and Ogiue's attitudes towards otaku. Kio Shimoku made some excellent choices in the characters he brought together in the Genshiken, with depth and realistic personalities (with the occasional amusing ones) that both highlight the ideas and challenges of otaku while complementing each other to bring out interesting and intelligent interactions and ideas.

Shimoku is a very good manga artist. Many artists, even for popular series, are poor at creating a sequence of panels, establishing context, and making clear exactly what is going on. This manga suffers from none of those issues. There's also a lot of time and detail put into every frame, into the characters look and mood, and the backgrounds. I suppose that's particularly important given the subject matter and audience of this manga, but it's always nice to actually see an artist put so much effort into his work.

At the end of the nine volumes, I found myself slightly disappointed that it was all over, but not as much as after reading through Azumanga Daioh. Perhaps that's only because I had to wait so long between volumes of Genshiken, and reading it through in one sitting would make my attachment to the characters stronger. There's a little bit left open for a continuing series, but I doubt that will happen.

Posted by josuah at December 15, 2007 4:53 AM UTC+00:00