Man Gataro—or Gataro Man, or Manga Taro, or Man-Gataro or, you know what, there’s not enough information about the guy online for me to fuss over which way I’m going to present his name—is one of my favorite mangaka… and I can’t understand a word of his comics!
A while back, one Wes Blacula shot me some Man Gataro tankobon from his trip to Japan. Specifically, a volume each of Jigoku Koshien (which I’m sure some of you have seen Yudai Yamaguchi’s adaptation of, Battlefield Baseball) and Chinyuki, which is his Journey to the West/Dragon Ball spoof.
I’d kill for some of this in English, but despite that barrier, I’ve flipped through them and “read” them on a fairly regular basis, partly because I love his art, but also because it’s so well done that I still laugh out loud at a lot of the stories. That’s pretty much the definition of a good comicker in my book.
The art itself looks kind of like it comes from a really disciplined artist that sometimes just goes completely nuts on his page. I could see someone giving his comics a quick glance and passing them by, thinking them amateurish, while they’re anything but. He’ll scribble faces recklessly on one page, and then follow those up with something shockingly realistic to further the gag.
So, for your enjoyment, I scanned a few sample pages from Jigoku Koshien volume 2 that I find particularly awesome. You don’t really need a setup, and I can’t say I have a very good one for you even if you do! Pardon the quality of the scans, I wasn’t about to cut this book up just to post it on this blog:
I know I don’t need to tell 90% of you this, but the pages read from right to left. Also, click to enlarge!
subhumanzoids 