Ed Chavez
September 22, 2008 
I am of the conviction that manga magazines have personalities. These characteristics are derived from the editorial staff (primarily the editor-in-chief) and the readership. Therefore, if I were to analyze a periodical solely based on the content featured within – everything from the manga to the articles, photo spreads, and ads – I can come to a conclusion as to what direction artistically and philosophically a magazine is taking. This is also how I tend to choose the comics I read and in turn the comics I share with you readers. If the original magazine doesn’t click with me, the less likely I’ll read the individual series when they are available. Call me prejudiced or call me cheap, but I have stuck with that program for fifteen years now and it has worked well for me.
Morning 2 is a magazine without a purpose, without a target and at times without a collected figurative mind. These guys do manga for the sake of making good comics. They take chances in contrast to the beliefs set by their publisher. Given Morning 2‘s brief history it would not surprise me if most manga readers worldwide have not heard of or read the magazine. Compounding the issue and further suppressing its accessibility is the belief that the magazine has launched with a slight experimental tinge. Alternative manga, however readers define it, is not apart of the average manga reader’s consciousness. To the contrary, the average reader strictly sticks with the mainstream, reading the occasional genre specific title – mahjong, housewife horror, or gekiga series – to satisfy personal taste preferences and hobby needs. Morning 2 may not be extreme like a Seirin Kougeisha or East Press title, but for a mainstream publication this is almost as weird as it gets. And the title I am looking at is the most bizarre of the bunch within this strange magazine.
Morning 2‘s HenZemi is a very specific title and an experimental one on top of that. Considered an otaku manga about the dark abnormal side of Japanese pop-culture, Tagro’s latest series is possibly the most extreme title in a magazine that reaches out to the weirdos with open arms.
Before I go into detail about the HenZemi, let me share a few thoughts about its mangaka, Tagro. Tagro has been in the business for nearly a decade drawing almost moe looking manga that, unlike moe, rarely holds back. When he debuted with Ichijinsha, his romance comedy shorts would lull readers into a comfort zone with simple, almost 4-koma minimalist, character designs and casual dialog. It was as if you were reading an extended slice-of-life gag comedy. Characters were drawn to almost SD proportions and their lives always appeared to be headed towards a goofy possibly slap-stick punch-line ending. And that’s where Tagro suddenly throws in a change-up and readers are sent into a tailspin of brief insanity. In one of his earliest collections, Mafia and Lures (originally published by Ichijinsha, now released by Kodansha), Tagro introduces readers to a 16-year-old yakuza with a passion for fishing. Or the way he presents the reunion of old friends in the short comic Drug Score. After a wonderful introduction, Tagro sends his message loud and clear – never mix history, pills and alcohol.
In his HenZemi, short for Hentai Seiri Seminar/Abnormal Physiology Seminar, Tagro decides to put his personal brand of weirdness out in the open from page one. Why hold back!? If freaks are going to be reading this series why not give them what they want – the essence of perversion from a true freak’s perspective. HenZemi revolves around the most unlikely of college courses, hentai physiology 101. This is a crash course in perversion from the fetish maker’s perspective. Students are asked to dive deep into the darkest recesses of the human soul, to only focus on the most viscous of the muck that is collected. Any human sexuality course could ask whether sex could be made cleanly. The HenZemi asks its students to experiment with their sexuality, in all elements of their lives.
Ironically, the students that are taking this course and are majoring in abnormal physiology are not who you’d think would be involved with such a personal soul-searching journey. These are average college students. Aspiring musicians, casual humanities majors and the occasional goldfish swallower• These are young people who have come to an understanding that exhibiting abnormal behavior does not mean people are perverts or degenerates. Instead, there are deep environmental and social issues behind such behavior, and understanding those influences could help others come to terms with accepting the behavior (no matter how strange it might be). Then again the seminar could also help students figure out who really are the “bad humans•bCrLf within our society. One would likely look at their professors first, as their minds are definitely corrupt, but that is up for debate.
Yet even the most normal of college students have their kinks. A student of anthropology might have a cuckolding relationship with his ultra-masochistic girlfriend. Oh, about that GF, she is seeing one of her HenZemi professors on the side for extra-credit. And that professor has a submissive lolicon fetish for another of his students that is not involved with him sexually. And then there is that struggling musician, part-time streaker, who also is a video voyeur on the side• Yeah, normal people have skeletons in their closets, but at least Tagro’s seem to understand why they are there. They also seem to nurture those skeletons more than most do.
Reading a series like HenZemi should be taken with a little bit of caution. This series is never to be taken seriously. It is as irrelevant as they come. However, that is exactly why this is a must read for comic readers and real students of hentai. This manga isn’t 18+. The adult themes are depicted in passing or through well thought out dialog. Nevertheless, the message is always clear. And unlike other manga that try to approach the subject of sexuality, like TsunDome, this series does not feel creepy. Instead it takes a slightly comical perspective to what really is a case study on behavior.
Strange isn’t new to Morning 2. They have gay cooking comics, hard-boiled Yuri dramas and are also the people who brought you Jesus and Buddha together in a Tokyo apartment. But with HenZemi they cross a line of that even makes the industry take notice• How often does anything with the word hentai attached to it do that?
