What the heck is "Mizushō"?

I think this log is going to be mostly about my efforts to decipher 都立水商!The School of Water Business, a manga series by Inokuma Shinobu (猪熊・しのぶ.) The English portion is part of the long version of the official title. The kanji 都立水商 are read "Toritsu Mizushō" meaning "Metropolitan Water Trade/Business." This is a short version of the full name of the fictional vocational high school where the series (mostly) takes place. One of the newer teachers thought it taught plumbers their trade, but she was quickly disabused. The water trade is only peripherally involved with plumbing of the metal-or-plastic-pipe variety, although the "plumbing" installed by nature on the chest and south of the belly button is often heavily involved.

都立水商! first appeared in the form of a "light novel" by Murozumi Hikaru (室積・光), who is given credit above Inokuma in the manga series, but actually Inokuma Shinobu has used little of the novel in his manga, though it does most definitely retain the connection to the Water Trade. So far nineteen volumes have been published. I'd love to get scans from the magazine, Young Sunday, but Kinokuniya stopped carrying it over here a long time ago, and furthermore, Young Sunday itself seems to be folding in Japan, at least according to what I can get from Inokuma's own blog (in Japanese, of course!) or maybe Mizushō is just leaving it. Where Mizushō's new home will be is still an unsolved mystery to me.

This just in: A peek at Inokuma's own site The Garden Plot shows the cover of volume 20, probably not the final version since all the other covers have a white background. It was supposed to be on the (Japanese) streets as of 9/5--which would be 9/4 here since the USA, including Pearl Harbor, is on the other side of the International Date Line from Japan. The Kinokuniya store I go to says it takes a week or sometimes two before they get shipments of the latest titles to be released in Japan.