Shiwasu no Okina

A famous and hugely prolific mangaka whose works I have been familiar for many years now is 師走の翁 / Shiwasu no Okina. His works are notably original, if at times a little hard to understand story wise, and it is particularly interesting to see such original works still focussing on relatively mainstream themes.

He is frighteningly prolific – a look at his wiki entry reveals an enormous list of works, spread over a variety of different formats, though chiefly manga. He’s also very notable for mainly publishing with Aun magazine – he’s definitely one of their star mangaka.

With this status comes availability, though his huge output will probably make tracking all of them down a taxing proposition. It should be worth the effort, though.

This is probably his best work – 精装追男姐 / Sei So Tsui Dan Sha; admittedly it doesn’t have a very good title in Japanese or English. A clique of ruffian girls are amazed to discover whilst torturing a hapless boy’s penis that it is in fact harmlessly detachable, and functions independently of the original owner – hijinks ensue.

It is most original, tremendously amusing, warped, and very well drawn, so it comes highly recommended. This is a sample of the Japanese version; an English scanlation is also available. In fact, it seems some generous soul has uploaded the entire thing on Sankaku Channel.

Shiwasu’s big series is Shining Musume, with any number of volumes published over the years. The art and original themes are masterfully carried off, however I’ve always felt the story makes no sense whatsoever (as in badly conceived and written rather than simply being bizarre, which I wholeheartedly approve of), which is a disappointment. Some of the sections which caught my eye long ago:

Themes covered are diverse, everything from straightforward sex and ecchi romping to supernaturally endowed futanari and other delectable strangeness; he also conscientiously ensures a variety of girls appear, so characters are also diverse – no fixation on a particular aesthetic is really present, although perhaps unavoidably the general staple is well endowed girls.

The art is of a uniformly high quality, and shows signs of significant progress over the years. Clearly he enjoys drawing sex, and also fleshy young ladies (such as his trademark somewhat voluptuous to highly voluptuous girls, readily visible in the images presented here). His colour work is also of a very high quality.

Whilst he may have a few shortcomings (chiefly I am thinking of some of the more contorted stories on offer), Shiwasu no Okina is undisputedly a top rank mangaka, and one whose works many will want to be familiar with, not least because of the mainstream appeal they possess, coupled with originality and highly skilled art.