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And so comes the end of the August 2011 Manga Moveable Feast, celebrating Fumi Yoshinaga. I want to give a huge thank you to those of you who participated this week. It’s been a real joy exploring Fumi Yoshinaga with all of you. Thank you for your support, and for writing some fantastic pieces throughout the week. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. I don’t have a fancy essay for you today, but I didn’t want to rush right back into my regular reviews. Today is a day off, thank you very much. At any rate, I also wanted to give everyone a final day to submit pieces to the Manga Moveable Feast, so here are the final links I collected on Sunday.

Lissa Pattillo of Kuriousity makes a very helpful list of where you can buy Yoshinaga’s manga online.

The gang at Manga Bookshelf has a roundtable to discuss what they love about Flower of Life.

At Otaku Ohana (via Star Advertiser in Honolulu, Hawaii), Jason S. Yadao posts his thoughts on Not Love But Delicious Foods… and All My Darling Daughters.

At Otaku Champloo, Khursten Santos got adventurous and cooked two recipes out of Yoshinaga’s Kinō Nani Tabeta?

At All About Manga, Daniella talks about how much she loves it when Yoshinaga talks about food in her manga.

Linda from animemiz’s scribblings talks about character development through Don’t Say Anymore, Darling.

Ash Brown has some quick takes on several Yoshinaga series at Experiments in Manga.

Yesterday’s feature post: The Women of Ōoku Part 2.

And finally, the MMF archive.

So, where can we go from here? Well, not all of Yoshinaga’s works have been published here in America, though a bulk of them have. Apart from her doujinshi (which includes continuations on her Antique Bakery series as well as Slam Dunk yaoi), there is the foodie yaoi manga Kinō Nani Tabeta? (What Did You Eat Yesterday?), which is a current ongoing series in Japan. The odds of this one getting licensed aren’t terrible, but it may take some fan clamoring (Make it so!). Wikipedia lists two one-shot titles, Shitsuji no Bunzai (A Butler’s Place), which appears to be a doujinshi or spin-off (or maybe an outside chapter that was published in the collected volume, or in Truly Kindly) of Lovers in the Night; and Kodomo no Taion (A Child’s Temperature), which appears to be another collection of short stories. There are several shounen-ai novels attributed to her as well.

For those new to Yoshinaga, specifically those who have not explored her works yet, I think a safe recommendation would be All My Darling Daughters. It’s not one of her yaoi titles, and it’s not obscure like Not Love But Delicious Foods…, but could be classified as either a shoujo or josei manga. Plus, as a one-shot, it’s not a big investment like Ōoku The Inner Chambers (nor is it hampered by Ōoku‘s unfortunately cumbersome translation). However, if you’re looking to explore Yoshinaga’s yaoi titles, I think Ichigenme…The First Class is Civil Law would be a good starting point. Of course, I’m sure others would make different recommendations, as there are many different views and opinions on each of Yoshinaga’s books. It’s difficult to pick my own favorites, but if pressed, I think I would have to say they are Ōoku The Inner Chambers, Ichigenme…The First Class is Civil Law, Garden Dreams, and The Moon and the Sandals.

Again, thank you to everyone who participated this week! I will accept late posts throughout this week to add to the archive, for those who wanted to participate but were pressed for time. Please send such links directly to me. And many thanks to Viz Media, Yen Press, Digital Manga Publishing, and Tokyopop for taking a chance on this creator and bringing Fumi Yoshinaga to America.

Kris
kristin@comicattack.net
@girlg33k_kris