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Short Cuts #2
Short Cuts, Volume 2
Series Description: So just what is with this fascination for the Japanese teenage girl? We're talking about the extreme variant of her -- that highly evolved creature of Japan's frantically trendy consumer culture: the ko-gall And just what goes on inside a ko-gal's overstimulated mind? Short Cuts is a surreal illustrated journey into the ko-gal's world created by Usamaru Furuya, one of Japan's most esteemed avant-garde comic artists. In this second and final volume of his Short Cuts series, Furuya revisits the gallery of bizarre comic characters introduced in the first entry: classroom bunny Mariko, obsessive Zero Boy, and Bigfoot Muku, and stranger beings still. A treat for fans of the cutting edge of comics art, as well as anyone wanting to get current on the latest Tokyo fads, this volume contains a tsunami of surreal gags and teenage madness, all rendered in Furuya's trademark mixture of peerless art and innovative layouts.
128 pages, Paperback
First published April 23, 1998
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29 people want to read
About the author
Usamaru Furuya
100 books178 followersUsamaru Furuya (古屋兎丸) is a Japanese manga creator from Tokyo. His production covers a variety of art styles and genres, such as horror, humour, slice-of-life, erotica, sci-fi, always with a personal surrealistic touch. Society oppression and the human condition are common themes in his body of work.
Furuya showed an interest in comics making since elementary school. He graduated from Tama Art University, where he had studied sculpture and oil painting.
His manga career started in the alternative magazine 'Garo', in which he published a series of one-page comics called Palepoli (1994-1995). He then worked on Short Cuts (1996-1999), a gag manga serialised in the mainstream magazine 'Weekly Young Sunday'. Other short stories from the same period were collected in the books Garden (2000) and Plastic Girl (2000).
Over the years Furuya has created work for a number of manga magazines, underground and mainstream. Among his series available in one or more Western languages are: the dystopian The Music of Marie (2000-2001); the surreal horror Lychee Light Club (2005-2006), loosely based on a play by Norimizu Ameya; the post-apocalyptic 51 Ways to Save Her (2006-2007); Genkaku Picasso (2008-2010); No Longer Human (2009-2011), adaptation of a novel by Osamu Dazai; Amane Gymnasium (2017-2020).
Furuya showed an interest in comics making since elementary school. He graduated from Tama Art University, where he had studied sculpture and oil painting.
His manga career started in the alternative magazine 'Garo', in which he published a series of one-page comics called Palepoli (1994-1995). He then worked on Short Cuts (1996-1999), a gag manga serialised in the mainstream magazine 'Weekly Young Sunday'. Other short stories from the same period were collected in the books Garden (2000) and Plastic Girl (2000).
Over the years Furuya has created work for a number of manga magazines, underground and mainstream. Among his series available in one or more Western languages are: the dystopian The Music of Marie (2000-2001); the surreal horror Lychee Light Club (2005-2006), loosely based on a play by Norimizu Ameya; the post-apocalyptic 51 Ways to Save Her (2006-2007); Genkaku Picasso (2008-2010); No Longer Human (2009-2011), adaptation of a novel by Osamu Dazai; Amane Gymnasium (2017-2020).
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 8, 2020
2020 Read #395
It was difficult giving this volume one star, but the biting social commentary of Japan ko-gal culture just didn’t jive with me. Furuya-san is innovative, yes; even so, I don’t think he’s best applied with this type of manga content.
It was difficult giving this volume one star, but the biting social commentary of Japan ko-gal culture just didn’t jive with me. Furuya-san is innovative, yes; even so, I don’t think he’s best applied with this type of manga content.
December 22, 2012
For the life of me, I couldn't tell you how I stumbled onto "Short Cuts, Volume 1." It was probably an amazon.com recommendation given the oodles of manga I was going through at the time. Or possibly it was after seeing " Bounce- Ko Gals." (I really can't imagine it was recommended in any of my Shojo Beat magazines, since it's so bizarre and lecherous.) Who knows? Maybe I found it at the used book store shoved in among the manga and graphic novels.
But it IS good. And I rank it more a collection of comics than anything 'manga.' Because it was a serialized strip in a magazine. And each of the one (occasionally two) pagers stand alone. Though there are recurring themes and characters.
Basically, a "ko gal" in Japan is a pretty, high school girl who goes on paid dates with older men for money- so she can buy brand name clothes, jewelry, ect. It may or may not involve sex.
But this is a trippy look inside their heads, or their client's weird fantasies, occasionally having the male artist break the fourth wall to make fun of his own obsession with drawing high school girl based comics.
He's a good artist, and sometimes goes off on these Dail-esk mutations and murals. Sometimes he meanders into manga/anime parodies (like Super Girl Candy! who only only rescues CUTE things/people!)
Sometimes they get kinda creepy or horror-esque.
It would have helped to know there's a translator's (cultural) notes section at the back of the book while I was reading it... though I got most of the pop cultural references anyway, being steeped in j-pop culture myself. It was just one of those "d'oh!" moments when I finished...
It's a bit dated (being published in 1999 - 2003 in the U.S.) But it's not really necessary to have read the first volume to enjoy this.
Obvious warning that it has 'adult' themed material and nudity (though it's usually played for laughs.)
But it IS good. And I rank it more a collection of comics than anything 'manga.' Because it was a serialized strip in a magazine. And each of the one (occasionally two) pagers stand alone. Though there are recurring themes and characters.
Basically, a "ko gal" in Japan is a pretty, high school girl who goes on paid dates with older men for money- so she can buy brand name clothes, jewelry, ect. It may or may not involve sex.
But this is a trippy look inside their heads, or their client's weird fantasies, occasionally having the male artist break the fourth wall to make fun of his own obsession with drawing high school girl based comics.
He's a good artist, and sometimes goes off on these Dail-esk mutations and murals. Sometimes he meanders into manga/anime parodies (like Super Girl Candy! who only only rescues CUTE things/people!)
Sometimes they get kinda creepy or horror-esque.
It would have helped to know there's a translator's (cultural) notes section at the back of the book while I was reading it... though I got most of the pop cultural references anyway, being steeped in j-pop culture myself. It was just one of those "d'oh!" moments when I finished...
It's a bit dated (being published in 1999 - 2003 in the U.S.) But it's not really necessary to have read the first volume to enjoy this.
Obvious warning that it has 'adult' themed material and nudity (though it's usually played for laughs.)
August 26, 2008
This is a funny manga with no real continuing storyline, just a bunch of gag comics. Funny stuff about Ko-gals. :) It's different from other Japanese comics because it doesn't have an overarching story, it's more like individual skits, and it was quite hilarious. There's a lot of jokes about sex in these comics, like one about a new computer that is shaped like a robot, and its "turn-on" switch looks suspiciously like a penis . . . and when a girl has trouble turning hers on but the (male) teacher manages fine, it is discovered that her computer is gay. Haha.
August 22, 2014
This second volume of "short cuts" is Japanese comics in short form, mostly featuring vapid young girls being materialistic and silly, but with some great cultural humor and, of course, lots of sex jokes. Despite being dependent sometimes on cultural context for complete understanding, it loses very little in translation, and is funny in a zany and slightly gross way that's difficult to relay without giving examples. If you think it's funny for a god with many arms to claim he couldn't have been groping schoolgirls on the train because "both" hands are on the strap, you should read this.
August 31, 2007
The second volume of short cuts can be a tad more dirty and weird, but that only makes it better. :p
August 11, 2016
The ko-gal culture was being taken somewhere...else. Maybe it's a good that this series stopped at volume 2. Super naughty.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews