この魚肉ソーセージがすごい!? by 版元ひとり

 One thing I soon learned while in Japan, is that japanese people love the everliving lights out of processed food. If you, like me, are the kind of person who likes their food raw and simple, be ready to either pay a premium or give up: raw vegetables cost a fortune, many times over those very same ingredients cooked and packaged conbini-style; bread is fluffy and utterly tasteless; most food you can find in supermarkets and convenience store can't escape this... sweet aftertaste that japanese consumers seem to want in everything, from snacks to desserts. There are of course exceptions, especially if you live far from big city centers or in rural areas, but I have to say that tasting 'real' Japanese food has been, at least for me, more of a letdown than a discovery.

One item that I simply cannot fathom is fish sausages. Hyper-processed second-choice fish meat, turned into toothpaste-like matter and then wrapped in plastic. I don't mean naruto, that's still decent. I mean bona fide fish sausages like this:

Other people, however, seem to be of a different opinion - specifically, the two dōjin creators and organizers hiding behind the circle name 版元ひとり. On their online profiles they gleefully boast that they can and will write about anything they like, which seems to include fish sausages, as the here dōjinshi この魚肉ソーセージがすごい!? (Is this fish sausage delicious?) testifies. 64 pages of gloriously gloss, full color A4, this dōjinshi 'guide' purports to be the end-all, be-all encyclopedia of fish sausages, and it pulls no punches in doing so, gathering under banner of food reviewing not only the two authors behind the 版元ひとり name, but also over twelve illustrators and three real life models. 

After a brief intro, describing in general the world and relevance of fish sausages to japanese cuisine, we are treated to a lenghty section in which more than 11 different brands of sausages are extensively reviewed, going into details such as size, calories count, texture, cooking uses and personal commentary, all of which is supported by girl-and-fish sausages illustrations (no, I'm not kidding...) by a number of Pixiv illustrators, as well as glamorous pin up shots where models pose in costumes, school attires and such along with fish sausages. If this sounds wtf and insane, I can guarantee you it is. Pictures really don't do it justice. The book is rounded up by a few recipes, and a behind the scenes making-of. It's somewhat bewildering to think of the effort put in this sausage-reviewing dōjinshi: production values are super high, and it must have cost a fair penny to stage this ode to processed fish.

The circle has an official store, where you can buy この魚肉ソーセージがすごい!?, along with other masterpieces such as この納豆がすごい！(Is this natto fantastic? spoiler: it's really not), croquette and tofu encyclopedias and so on. If you are, like me, a lover of this kind of, umm, super-otaku randomness, you will definitely find something interesting in this circle's output.

ふゆまん 3 by あきまん

 As the few followers of my blog might know, I'm very much a fan of 'wtf' moments. Still, there are times when the bar of weirdness gets raised a bit too high even for me...

ふゆまん 3 (yes, once again third in a series, sue me) is a short illustration collection by Akiman, whom you might be familiar with under their actual name: Akira Yasuda, the character designer who worked on a bunch of Capcom video games (Street Fighter, Final Fight), anime (Gundam, Code Geass) and a bunch of novel and magazine covers. Quite the pedigree, which once again goes to show how permeabile the dōjin - commercial separation can sometimes be. 

Dating back to 2008, ふゆまん 3 is a 44 pages mostly b&w collection, with a few color pages throw in at the beginning. It consists mostly of original material, specifically a number of sci-fi meets ecchi pinups drawn in the artist's signature style: thin linework, fairly soft colors by animanga standards, and an emphasis on impossibly slender battle ladies, whose armors look to be as heavy as them if not more. A 10 page full color section stands out, in which Akiman takes us step by step through the creation of a full color illustration... which, surprisingly, does not appear as a full-page illustration like the others do, only as thumbnails. Kind of a bizarre choice, but it's still nice to see an artist that actually lays his creative process bare: I feel it usually adds depth to 'simple' illustration collections, and it's certainly the case here.

Now, you might be wondering what the opening spiel about 'wft moments' had to do with this dōjinshi. Well, as I turned to the final pages of ふゆまん 3, I was greeted by... this.

Yup, they sure look like advertisements for fishmongers. Now, I think it's kinda cool that a self publication fosters local Hokkaido businesses... or is it the other way around? Still, fairly wft and random but something that I could see happen more in the future. After all, why self finance, when you can get sponsors? One can only wonder if they got a chance to preview Akiman's saucy pinups before signing the line... 

HoboNikkanAmanoShinbun Vol.02 by あまの・よ~き

 I've had since forever this bizarre habit of starting series from n°2 or later. I can't even count the novel series of which I'm missing the first volume... same goes with dōjinshi, it seems...

HoboNikkanAmanoShinbun Vol.02 is a collection of illustrations by Amano Yoki - a name you might not be familiar with, just as I wasn't when I picked up this dōjinshi based on cover alone (I'm a sucker for photography + illustration, don't ask me why). Turns out they mostly work in the ecchi / hentai genre: no serialization I could find, but a lot of one-shots in magazines and collections... stuff like  コミック魔翔, which I admit I'm not overly familiar with. A4, full b&w, clocking in at a meaty 82 pages.

Turns out, this is not 'just' a collection of illustrations, but an actual project by Amano. They set out to produce roughly one sketch a day for a full year, collecting the best inside this publication. As you might therefore expect, you won't find anything overly polished in here: Amano's daily illustrations are mostly sketches, done in a thick black line and in a rather 90s /realy 200 style, although the dōjinshi dates 2010. Mostly pinups, with a few ecchi outliers but nothing too extreme. 

There are also a few better fleshed-out illustrations in Amano's mainstream style... which I actually found slightly inferior to their sketches. The latter, for some reason, seem a lot less stiff, more lively. A brief afterword capstones the dōjinshi, but no work-in-progress or how-to section.

All in all, while the idea in itself of a 'one sketch a day' project has its merits, HoboNikkanAmanoShinbun Vol.02 still feels a bit insubstantial. There is however not only a vol.1, but even a 3 and a 4, so clearly there was some interest in the project... I might try and get my hand on one or more of them at a later date.