Top 10 DMP Manga That Should Be Rescued

Once again, the rumor mill is churning about Digital Manga Publishing's future as one Kickstarter is all but confirmed to be dead and others face an uncertain fate.  While it may be a little too early to start writing the eulogies, it's not too early to look back upon the many works they've licensed and wish for some of them to see print again.  With over a decade's worth of books scattered over a handful of imprints, there's more than enough to make a Top 10 list's worth.

Naturally, there are a few caveats.  These are my choice and my choices alone; your choices may (and likely do) differ.  They are listed in alphabetical order because trying to rank these numerically would be too arbitrary even for me.  There's no Project H titles included because I don't read hentai manga, so I leave it to others to determine what titles there are worth saving.  Finally, his list is far from a complete one, but it's one that I feel represents a reasonable slice of the variety of books they had to offer.  With all that out of the way, let's begin:

AI NO KUSABI
DMP dabbled with not just BL manga, but BL light novels early on in their life.  Most of them came and went without any notice, but the one exception to this was Rieko Yoshihara's Ai no Kusabi series.  This tale of a forbidden love between a high-class citizen and his lower-class pet in a caste-driven future society has thrilled not only fans of BL, but fans of sci-fi literature.  Unfortunately, the mid-00s were not a point where the world was quite ready for English-language light novels in general, much less ones about gay romance.  These days, it might find a more receptive audience if put into the hands of a publisher with a better understanding of how to publish light novels.  At the very least, it would be a welcome alternative to Isekai Fantasy Novel Series #4893.

ANTIQUE BAKERY
DMP put out a lot of Fumi Yoshinaga manga, be it some of her earlier BL works or her later slice-of-life manga.  I'd certainly like to see them all rescued, but if I must restrain myself to just one then I must pick her 1999 break-out work, Antique Bakery.  It's a story of four men who are able to move on from past traumas and find friendship (and in some cases a little more) by working together in a small cafe.  True to form, it's just as much about celebrating good food as it about nuanced character writing, combined with Yoshinaga's elegant brand of art.  While we might not be able to save the scratch-and-sniff portions of the covers, we should take this opportunity to re-introduce fans of food manga and slice-of-life stories to a classic.

BAMBI AND HER PINK GUN
DMP would probably be one of the last companies anyone would expect to release something like Atsushi Kaneko's Bambi and Her Pink Gun.  It's a non-stop barrage of outrageous, even irrevent ultra-violence that took much more influence from the independent fringes of American comics in the 70s and 80s than it did from manga.  It never fit in alongside the pastel-colored BL books, and it was cancelled after two volumes.  These days, there's a home for alternative manga like this with publishers like Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics, and it would be a perfect fit for libraries like theirs.


CLASSMATES
Many of DMP's decisions in recent years are baffling, but for me few of them are more so than their refusal to publish Asumiko Nakamura's Classmates and its sequels in print.  It's  a sensitive, well-told story of two young men who connect over chorus practice and end up falling in love that was also adapted into an equally excellent film in 2016.  You would think that would have been as good of a time as any to put it onto paper, yet that time came and passed without results.  Maybe they thought Nakamura's wispy, heavily stylized art wouldn't appeal to BL fans as a whole?  Were there some complicated rights issues keeping it from print? Or just a cost that DMP wasn't willing to bear?  Whatever the reason may be, it's a wrong that's in great need of correction.

EARTHIAN
We don't get a lot of old BL on these shores.  While there have been plenty of publishers that have tackled BL over the years, very few of them have dared to publish a lot of BL series made before 2000, much less from the 80s.  Earthian is one of the few exceptions, a shoujo fantasy series with a strong shonen-ai subtext that was one of the first major works by Yun Kouga.  What starts as a story of angels observing humanity to tally our sins and accomplishments turns into a story of two young men defying their very society to pursue their hearts, complimented by Kouga's lovely artwork.  This one may be a bit of a stretch in more ways than one, as it's been published previously by Tokyopop and DMP only had the digital rights.  Still, perhaps a third time with a proper publisher might be the charm for this one.

MR. MINI MART
There are dozens of stand-alone BL books in DMP's library, but there's a couple in particular that I want to highlight.  The first is Mr. Mini Mart, by Kiss Him, Not Me! creator Junko.  It's the story a bullied young man who bonds with a rough coworker at the local convenience store.  While it doesn't do anything particularly radical story-wise, it does cover the topic of bullying with sensitivity and the romance is understated and sweet.  Unfortunately, it's hard to recommend to newfound Junko fans when it's been out of print for years and currently can cost as much as $50 second-hand, but that's a problem that can be fixed with a simple license rescue.

TAKASUGI-SAN'S O-BENTO
I'm a sucker for food manga, so I was disappointed that DMP never put out more than the first two volumes of this series by Nozomi Yanahara.  It would seem like an easy sell to fans of manga like Sweetness & Lightning, as it also deals with bonding with others through food after the loss of a family member.  In this case, it's about a graduate student who find himself caring for his estranged aunt's pre-teen daughter Kururi.  Initially he has a hard time figuring out how to parent, much less help Kururi process her grief, but the two are able to connect once Kururi starts recreating some of her mother's recipes.  The two volumes we did get were delightful, and it's criminal that it might disappear into the ether unless some other publisher was willing to finish it.

UNICO
I'm sure plenty of people would say that all of the Osamu Tezuka manga DMP released should be rescued.  That's a matter of debate, but  there's one work of his that should stay in print, it's 1976's Unico.  It's a timeless collection of stories about the titular Unico, who despite a curse from Venus is able to bring happiness to everyone he meets.  The writing is whimsical and wistful in equal parts, and the beautiful full-color artwork adds to its storybook charm.  It's a manga that appeals to audiences of all ages and can stand proudly alongside the likes of Princess Knight and Astro Boy.  It's a manga that never needed a Kickstarter to exist (much less two), and it's absolutely one that deserves a second chance with a more supportive and stable publisher.

UTAHIME: THE SONGSTRESS
I suspect that I may be the only person who even remembers that DMP released this book.  I've long been a fan of Aki, a josei mangaka whom I love because of her ethereal art and her quiet yet affecting stories of regret and disconnection.  Utahime is one of her earlier works so the art here isn't quite as delicate, but the story is a fine slice of breezy fantasy.  It's set in a land where the fortune of the kingdom and king is supported by a group of magical songstresses who must sing through the night until their bodies wear out.  This system has operated for generations, but it takes the birth of a princess determined to rule and a songstress's son blessed with her gift to enact any change.  I'd love to see Yen Press give Utahime the same lavish treatment and wide distribution they gave to Olympus and The Angel of Elhamberg.

WARNING! WHISPERS OF LOVE

Comedic BL is hard to find and hard to do well, but Puko Okuyama is one of the few BL mangaka I've found who specializes in it.  While DMP has the rights to a few of her works, I'm going to focus on the first book of hers I read.  Like a lot of of stand-alone BL manga, this is a short story collection, but Okuyama makes all of them work thanks to the combination of her unusual, shonen-esque art and laugh-out-loud premises.  I've reviewed this one previously, so you can read my extended thoughts there, but it's the sort of light-hearted fare that would appeal to readers beyond the BL fanbase and a good fit for any competent publisher.



Those are my selections, but that's far from all that DMP had to offer.  What manga of theirs would you like to see rescued?  Feel free to make your own lists and suggestions in the comments!