(no subject)

[oyceter]

Wah, reading telophase's visual analyses of manga and watching Fruits Basket seems to have reawakened my long dormant desire to read manga! I am doomed. I hit the peak of my anime/manga obsession around senior year of high school, and I actually bought the entire set of Rurouni Kenshin and brought it over to America! That's a whopping 28 vols. Someday I need to ship over my collection of X, Mars, and assorted Yazawa Ai manga. Although maybe I'll just succumb and re-purchase all of her Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai in Japanese at the Kinokuniya here.

It's sort of funny, because I know people around me on LJ have been getting into manga for quite some time now, but I always sort of stood off to the side. It's still a little strange watching people go through the first stages of obsession, mostly because I remember doing it myself back in high school. I would think I'd be more nostalgic and happy about it, the way I am when people I know start to get into Buffy and Angel for the first time, but it's just so strange because all of my old favorites have just started to be published here, or people are reading all these new manga that I haven't heard about. I suspect my knowledge of anime/manga is still stuck in 1999. It is very strange though -- Rurouni Kenshin, the manga that got me started on manga, has only really recently started being published here. I still remember eagerly awaiting book 21 to come out in Taiwan, 6 years ago. For me, it's long concluded and over, but for people here, it's still new. Same with X. Well, not concluded for me, but prematurely ended! Grrr. And I look at all the shelves of manga at Borders and Barnes and Noble, and I don't know what to pick up anymore. It also doesn't help that they're still so expensive here. Used to be about $3 a volume back in Taiwan, and I can't quite justify shelling out so much yet.

So I've been reading people's entries and being very happy about that, but not quite getting into the spirit myself. But then I found out Nana by Yazawa Ai, possibly my favorite manga series, has finally been licensed! Joy! Celebration! I keep wanting to make everyone read Yazawa Ai, but only Paradise Kiss is translated right now, and that's far from my favorite of her series. Now I've been hankering to reread Nana and to finally read vols. 6-9. Except I lent vols. 1-3 to someone and never got them back before graduating.

Today I ventured out to Kinokuniya in search of the first three books and discovered it's up to vol. 12 now! Yikes! Of course I got them. But the store didn't have vols. 1, 3, or 10, so I have special ordered them from the SF store. And (you see where this is heading) I found that there is a Nana artbook!!!!!! I am so excited!!!! It's a Yazawa Ai artbook!!!! The only other one I have is from Gokinjo Monogatari, which I like, but not half so much as Nana! Also, I adore her artwork, because it's so different from typical shoujo style. I spent much more money than I should have because of that artbook. But... it's so pretty! And for some reason, buying them in Japanese makes me feel a little better because they're imported and still cheaper than the translated versions. So far... Plus, this way I don't have to wait for them to be translated, hee. And I shall also sort of justify this as a way to practice my extremely rusty Japanese.

You know, with all this talk of manga going around right now, I was sort of contemplating ripping off my thesis and cobbling together a brief history of shoujo manga/shounen ai, or a brief intro to the Japanese language or something, but I'm not sure if that would be entirely pretentious and telling people things they already know, or what. I think I researched so much for my thesis that I can't tell anymore. And it's sort of odd because I remember first getting into anime and people online spouting their "credentials" and the like, which is partially how I ended up in East Asian studies, but I really don't want to go off and sound like I am some know-it-all, because I am far from knowing much about it at all...

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

You know, with all this talk of manga going around right now, I was sort of contemplating ripping off my thesis and cobbling together a brief history of shoujo manga/shounen ai, or a brief intro to the Japanese language or something, but I'm not sure if that would be entirely pretentious and telling people things they already know, or what.

Hey, go for it. There's always someone who doesn't know about it and falls into your essay.

I've ended up going overboard on the layout essays because there's nothing like this out there for manga. Scott McCloud has Understanding Comics for American comics (which has lots of parts that apply to manga), but very few of the wannabe mangakas and the manga fans out there have read it, and none of the How To Draw Manga books out there spend more than a couple of pages on this sort of stuff.

[oyceter]

I adore your layout essays, especially how detailed they are and how well they explain things! I've found myself flipping through my manga collection and trying to see the art in a new light now. It's really, really fascinating.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I think I got the basic idea from reading Patricia Wrede's ripping-apart of stories on rec.arts.sf.composition. I can't do it with prose fiction, but I seem to be able to do so with manga.

And every time I plung into the panel-by-panel I think "Dear God, everyone's going to be bored by me doing this yet again!" but that's how I end up spotting stuff that I never would have noticed before, like how all the dark stuff was over on the left-hand side in the second Naruto spread, to stop your gaze and push it back over to the right-hand side.

[oyceter]

Oh, no, I'm not bored at all! Actually, I really wish you would go into them in even more detail, heh heh. I am fascinated by manga analyses, and it frustrates me because I didn't get to read much that isn't all about gender dynamics and shounen ai back in school.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I am not at all bored by any of the analyses, I feel smug for having asked the triggering question, and I would love to read MORE MORE MORE. If you felt like writing more.

And I would love to hear anything you have to say, oyceter.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'd be willing to write more, but I think I need to have something new to focus on each time, unless I wanted to get into comparisons of how different mangaka approached the same problem. But if I don't knock the doujinshi out of the way and work on something for rachelmanija, she's going to kill me. XD

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Oh, please, please, DO write either of those two essays; I'd love to hear them.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I would love to read your thoughts on shoujo/shounen ai, Japanese, Yazawa Ai, or any other manga-related topics. Also, at some future point when I've finished watching the series, perhaps we could discuss Utena.

[oyceter]

I'd love to discuss Utena! It's been a while since I've seen it, but hopefully the memory of the thesis shall keep it alive in my head ;).

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I had a small discussion about Utena in a friend's LJ (friendslocked, unfortunately) and how it subverts the traditional roles of Prince/Princess and so on in ways that aren't like the traditional subversion of those roles, if that makes any sense. It sets you up to think one thing, then pulls the rug out from under you.

And then it's just crack.

[oyceter]

Oooh that's so cool! I think I wrote something about the European-esque coding of the setting, as well as all the gender role twisting and individualism, but I don't remember too well. Heh, and I'm too scared to reread my thesis to figure out what I was thinking back then because it's so embarrassing!

But yes to the crack part. Very crack. I love it so much.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I just went back to check what I said, and I couldn't find that entry in her LJ. But she's a very-frequent blogger and I probably didn't look back far enough. I think I said something like (highlight for spoilers in case rachelmanija or anyone else hasn't finished it yet):

It starts with a 'normal' inversion of roles - the Heroine, instead of being the Beautiful Princess, is the Prince. And you think that it's going to play out like that, with the Prince winning the Princess from the clutches of the Evil Wizard (only *gasp* they're both female! and we just have to find out who the Evil Wizard actually is), but the Prince actually ultimately fails in her quest. But her quest also succeeds in that it shows the Princess how she can rescue herself. And it turns out that the Princess is also the Evil Witch, partly responsible for the whole mess, and that the Evil Wizard and the original Prince are the same person, and that the Evil Wizard is trapped in a prison of his own making because he can't see that the way to break out of it and gain what he's seeking is just to step outside. Just as you think you've got a hand on what the fairy-tale tropes are and how they're subverting them, it inverts what it's set up, and goes off in a completely different direction.

Mind you, it's been about four years since I've seen it, so my recollection of the details is hazy.

[oyceter]

Oooo, yes, I like that. This really makes me want to rewatch the series... not all of it, but the final two arcs or so.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I really wanna re-watch the Black Rose saga. Mikage is one cuddly little psycho, yes.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

>I was sort of contemplating ripping off my thesis and cobbling together a brief history of shoujo manga/shounen ai, or a brief intro to the Japanese language or something<

I would read--I haven't read manga yet because they're so pricy, but I have a feeling that I will at some point because people on my flist make them sound fascinating.

Actually, first question for you, since I've only seen it visually: is the word pronounced, "man-gah" or "mon-gah"?

[oyceter]

Yeah, the price factor really keeps me from manga... I don't mind spending $10 on a book, but when it's that much for a 10 volume series, I get much more iffy.

And it should be pronounced "mahn-gah"... the vowels in Japanese are very similar to Italian (I think). So "a" sounds like "ah" in "father."

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I've been curious about that.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I really hate people who correct me to "MANG-a". Have they no clue? Well ... obviously not, actually.

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

Ok, I've decided that you are like the bit of me that I left in the valley when I moved down here. How else can I explain that you always write about what I am thinking? First homesickness and food, then knitting and now ice skating and getting back into reading manga because your list is? It's like we are one person! Only you are the one that owns rats. I have a thumbed cat. This is probably why we cannot exist on the same coast. The universe would implode.

I have had a lot of similar feelings re: manga. It's interesting sort of getting back into it again. Over the past couple of years I've watched its popularity and availability grow and thought to myself, "man, if I were still into this stuff, I'd be SO excited." But now I'm sort of cut off from all that. When I first got into it in high school, I had a lot of recently immigrated friends who'd show me the good stuff, friends active in fansubbing, local cons, Fuji TV, and a Kinokuniya. I tell people with complete honesty that for a long time I was more familiar with Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and even Indian pop culture than I was with American. Sakai Noriko and Amuro Namie were much more familiar to me than say, the cast of Friends.

I used to think I'd be an animator or a comic book artist. I was very serious about it for awhile. I know now that it probably wasn't meant to be, but reading about this growing industry is fascinating.

[oyceter]

Hee, my sekrit twin! You have a thumbed cat?? Neat!

Yeah, I'm feeling this funny buzz. Part of me is so excited that it's finally taking off here and people are finally reading it, but the other half is too tired to care. I started up the anime club in my college, as we much have been the only college in America without one, and I had to work like mad to convince all my friends that no, anime was not violence and porn, and I think I sort of got tired of it after a while. So I am happy about the wider acceptance, but probably still feeling a little burned out from all the anime club stuff.

[busarewski.livejournal.com]

re your thesis and writing up something, go for it! We all would love to read more, and you could probably get it published quite easily now, right on time.

Continuing the theme, I think I wrote a comment in coffee_and_ink's lj on manga and your thesis. Is it possible to read it somewhere? Do you send it to a poor unknowing newbie? Or do you want to hold on to it for a while and see if you can do something different with it?

Oh, and btw I loved the knitting patterns you're planning to do and must try them myself. Just easy enough to handle in front of the telly. The yellow top was soo cute

[oyceter]

Thanks! Heh, I'm not quite sure anything is publishable or anything, but it's a nice thought ^_^.

And sorry I didn't get back to you sooner re: the thesis.. was out at a con with no internet.