Yazawa Ai - general overview
Wed, Mar. 1st, 2006 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterIn which I finally talk in full about my very favoritest mostest bestest mangaka ever. Ok, maybe with the exception of Minekura Kazuya. Except Minekura has lots of people touting her and sadly only two of Yazawa Ai's series are out in the US.
Yazawa Ai writes and draws shoujo manga, usually of the non-fantastic sort. My friend first noticed her because of her very distinctive art style: long-legged, lanky characters with knobby knees and bony fingers, strong, clean lines and white space without much shading. Though her characters have the same big eyes that most shoujo manga characters do, hers have spiky eyelashes and a more realisitic shape. Also, unlike many shoujo manga characters, her noses are often more rounded and her characters actually have lips. I also adore their enormous smiles and the way they beam with happiness, or how their faces scrunch up and turn ugly when they cry.
TokyoPop and Viz's respective marketing departments continually emphasize the fashion and the glamorous lifestyle portrayed in her manga, and while her two series published in the US do have models and fashion designers and goth punk rockers, that's not why I like her so much.
I like that she tends to focus more on character development and growing romances and growing friendships. Everyone jokes that so much of manga is on crack, what with the pretty boys and the wings and the robots and the catgirls; what I find most refreshing about Yazawa's works is that there's an underlying realism to them. Granted, there's still the glamorous occupations that tend to be the norm in shoujo (fashion design, modelling, punk rock band), but the complexity of the characters really anchors the stories.
What I've read
Marine Blue no Kaze ni Dakarete (Embraced by the Marine Blue Wind), 1990-1991, 4 vols.
I read this in Chinese, and I don't remember much of the storyline. What I do remember is being thoroughly unimpressed. This is before Yazawa really started drawing in her own style; the art here is somewhat wispy and soft, very typically shoujo. It also looks like it was from the late eighties or early nineties, which doesn't help. I can see some parts where she is starting to draw much like she does later, but it usually clashes with the standard shoujo style and doesn't much work. The storyline is also fairly pedestrian; it's a shoujo story of falling in love and being emotional. Again, Yazawa has a few moments that remind me of later series, but the characters never really come alive.
Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai (I'm No Angel), 1992-1995, 8 vols.
Again, I read this in Chinese, and it's sadly not out in translation. This is one of my favorites, partly because it's the first Yazawa Ai manga that I read, and partly because it's just good. I flipped through the first volume when I was in Taiwan this year, and I have to warn you. The art in the beginning is horrible. The perspective is off, people look stiff and unnatural, and her lines veer between delicacy and boldness, and it's very odd. The story starts out like that as well, with the main character, Midori, who has a crush on the bad boy of the class, Akira. They end up on the same student council together, and shoujo plot ensues. Except, in a way, it doesn't.
There are the same dramatics that go on in most high school shoujo manga series, from the athletic competition to worries about college and graduation. What I love the most is that Yazawa focuses on all of the student council members, and then the generation of student council members after that. I like that her love triangles are sympathetic and believable. And I completely fell for Midori, who is the angel of the school in a non-schmoopy manner (she's the one in my icon). She's bright and cheerful without being too self-sacrificing; she's someone I would want as a close friend in real life.
In the end, I could go on and on about this, but what really matters is that I ended up loving every single one of the characters and really empathized with them as they went through their three years of high school, romance, and friendship together.
Gokinjo Monogatari (Neighborhood Story), 1995-1998, 7 vols.
Sadly also not available in translation. This is loosely set in the same world as TenNai, but only with a few brief, oblique references that add to the story if you pick up on them and don't detract at all if you don't.
It's another hard-to-summarize manga: Mikako and her friends go to the Yazawa School of Art (where Yazawa sticks in cameos of herself as the extremely odd principal). Mikako wants to be a fashion designer, her friend and possible crush Tsutomu wants to be a musician, and they meet others on the way. Again, it would be boring if I didn't like the characters so much. I don't like Mikako quite as much as Midori, though Mikako's probably a more complicated character. She's childish and stubborn, but also likeable in her own way. I also have a strange fondness for the extremely fashionable, chic girl whose name I forgot, who is high maintenance and neurotic, just because Yazawa manages to do it in a way that makes her human and real. She also seems to be a prototype of Komatsu Nana of Nana.
Last Quarter, 1998-1999, 3 vols.
Four elementary school kids find a young woman wandering about. She's forgotten her memories and her name; she only knows that she must find Adam, her handsome rock star boyfriend. The kids name her Eve and try to find out what's happened to the woman.
I am actually extremely fond of this little series, even though it's small and light. There's a poignancy to Eve's memories of Adam and wonderful, surreal atmosphere to the entire book. And once we find out what really happened to Eve, we feel horrible for her and for all the people involved, no matter how much at fault they might have been. I love it because, like all of Yazawa's series, the real heart is how everyone cares for each other even when they hurt each other.
Paradise Kiss, 2000-2003, 5 vols.
I've actually only read one volume of this, largely because when I first read it, it was in Japan and the manga didn't have furigana so I couldn't figure out a lot of the kanji. It's a sequel of sorts to Gokinjo Monogatari: the students who make up Paradise Kiss, a fashion design studio, all go to the Yazawa School of Art. One of them, Miwako, is Mikako's little sister. Yukari, a normal high school student, gets sucked into the world of design when they ask her to be their model. I don't actually know how things turn out, and I didn't like the first book as much as others. But since Yazawa Ai's series tend to get better as they go on, it's on my list for purchasing.
Also, I like looking at the crazy fashions she draws up.
Nana, 2000-present, 14 vols. so far
Finally! My very favoritest manga ever! Note: I've only read up to vol. 5. Nana is the story of two girls named Nana. Komatsu Nana is a normal girl from a normal town who is unfortunately obsessed with guys and a little shallow at first. Oosaki Nana is the vocalist for a punk rock band. Both of them end up in Tokyo, cute Nana to meet up with her boyfriend and punk Nana to make it big on the music scene. They end up rooming together, and even though they're incredibly different, punk Nana has her hidden soft spots and cute Nana has her hidden strengths.
I adore this manga, like most of Yazawa's manga, because I adore the characters. I like how they interact, and I adore the friendship between the two Nanas, which gets as much, if not more, time and attention as their respective romances.
I also love that they're both twenty instead of the usual high school setting, I love that they're both trying to make money and work in Tokyo. And while there is the standard glamorous occupation that most shoujo has (punk rocker band), I really like how cute Nana has to work at finding a job and budgeting, that they have to think about bringing home food and/or cooking, that they do ordinary, every day things. And I love that Yazawa makes these things interesting.
In conclusion
I make all of these sound horribly boring. The thing is, there isn't all that much that goes on plotwise. There's just this incredible depth of character that I enjoy. Yazawa never takes the easy way out of complicated relationships and love triangles; she doesn't villify people or excuse them. She simply portrays them as people making difficult choices. Sometimes these choices are bad, sometimes they're cowardly, sometimes they're selfishly motivated, but everyone lives with the consequences and grows with them. That's why I love the characters so much, and that's what keeps me reading.
Yazawa Ai writes and draws shoujo manga, usually of the non-fantastic sort. My friend first noticed her because of her very distinctive art style: long-legged, lanky characters with knobby knees and bony fingers, strong, clean lines and white space without much shading. Though her characters have the same big eyes that most shoujo manga characters do, hers have spiky eyelashes and a more realisitic shape. Also, unlike many shoujo manga characters, her noses are often more rounded and her characters actually have lips. I also adore their enormous smiles and the way they beam with happiness, or how their faces scrunch up and turn ugly when they cry.
TokyoPop and Viz's respective marketing departments continually emphasize the fashion and the glamorous lifestyle portrayed in her manga, and while her two series published in the US do have models and fashion designers and goth punk rockers, that's not why I like her so much.
I like that she tends to focus more on character development and growing romances and growing friendships. Everyone jokes that so much of manga is on crack, what with the pretty boys and the wings and the robots and the catgirls; what I find most refreshing about Yazawa's works is that there's an underlying realism to them. Granted, there's still the glamorous occupations that tend to be the norm in shoujo (fashion design, modelling, punk rock band), but the complexity of the characters really anchors the stories.
What I've read
Marine Blue no Kaze ni Dakarete (Embraced by the Marine Blue Wind), 1990-1991, 4 vols.
I read this in Chinese, and I don't remember much of the storyline. What I do remember is being thoroughly unimpressed. This is before Yazawa really started drawing in her own style; the art here is somewhat wispy and soft, very typically shoujo. It also looks like it was from the late eighties or early nineties, which doesn't help. I can see some parts where she is starting to draw much like she does later, but it usually clashes with the standard shoujo style and doesn't much work. The storyline is also fairly pedestrian; it's a shoujo story of falling in love and being emotional. Again, Yazawa has a few moments that remind me of later series, but the characters never really come alive.
Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai (I'm No Angel), 1992-1995, 8 vols.
Again, I read this in Chinese, and it's sadly not out in translation. This is one of my favorites, partly because it's the first Yazawa Ai manga that I read, and partly because it's just good. I flipped through the first volume when I was in Taiwan this year, and I have to warn you. The art in the beginning is horrible. The perspective is off, people look stiff and unnatural, and her lines veer between delicacy and boldness, and it's very odd. The story starts out like that as well, with the main character, Midori, who has a crush on the bad boy of the class, Akira. They end up on the same student council together, and shoujo plot ensues. Except, in a way, it doesn't.
There are the same dramatics that go on in most high school shoujo manga series, from the athletic competition to worries about college and graduation. What I love the most is that Yazawa focuses on all of the student council members, and then the generation of student council members after that. I like that her love triangles are sympathetic and believable. And I completely fell for Midori, who is the angel of the school in a non-schmoopy manner (she's the one in my icon). She's bright and cheerful without being too self-sacrificing; she's someone I would want as a close friend in real life.
In the end, I could go on and on about this, but what really matters is that I ended up loving every single one of the characters and really empathized with them as they went through their three years of high school, romance, and friendship together.
Gokinjo Monogatari (Neighborhood Story), 1995-1998, 7 vols.
Sadly also not available in translation. This is loosely set in the same world as TenNai, but only with a few brief, oblique references that add to the story if you pick up on them and don't detract at all if you don't.
It's another hard-to-summarize manga: Mikako and her friends go to the Yazawa School of Art (where Yazawa sticks in cameos of herself as the extremely odd principal). Mikako wants to be a fashion designer, her friend and possible crush Tsutomu wants to be a musician, and they meet others on the way. Again, it would be boring if I didn't like the characters so much. I don't like Mikako quite as much as Midori, though Mikako's probably a more complicated character. She's childish and stubborn, but also likeable in her own way. I also have a strange fondness for the extremely fashionable, chic girl whose name I forgot, who is high maintenance and neurotic, just because Yazawa manages to do it in a way that makes her human and real. She also seems to be a prototype of Komatsu Nana of Nana.
Last Quarter, 1998-1999, 3 vols.
Four elementary school kids find a young woman wandering about. She's forgotten her memories and her name; she only knows that she must find Adam, her handsome rock star boyfriend. The kids name her Eve and try to find out what's happened to the woman.
I am actually extremely fond of this little series, even though it's small and light. There's a poignancy to Eve's memories of Adam and wonderful, surreal atmosphere to the entire book. And once we find out what really happened to Eve, we feel horrible for her and for all the people involved, no matter how much at fault they might have been. I love it because, like all of Yazawa's series, the real heart is how everyone cares for each other even when they hurt each other.
Paradise Kiss, 2000-2003, 5 vols.
I've actually only read one volume of this, largely because when I first read it, it was in Japan and the manga didn't have furigana so I couldn't figure out a lot of the kanji. It's a sequel of sorts to Gokinjo Monogatari: the students who make up Paradise Kiss, a fashion design studio, all go to the Yazawa School of Art. One of them, Miwako, is Mikako's little sister. Yukari, a normal high school student, gets sucked into the world of design when they ask her to be their model. I don't actually know how things turn out, and I didn't like the first book as much as others. But since Yazawa Ai's series tend to get better as they go on, it's on my list for purchasing.
Also, I like looking at the crazy fashions she draws up.
Nana, 2000-present, 14 vols. so far
Finally! My very favoritest manga ever! Note: I've only read up to vol. 5. Nana is the story of two girls named Nana. Komatsu Nana is a normal girl from a normal town who is unfortunately obsessed with guys and a little shallow at first. Oosaki Nana is the vocalist for a punk rock band. Both of them end up in Tokyo, cute Nana to meet up with her boyfriend and punk Nana to make it big on the music scene. They end up rooming together, and even though they're incredibly different, punk Nana has her hidden soft spots and cute Nana has her hidden strengths.
I adore this manga, like most of Yazawa's manga, because I adore the characters. I like how they interact, and I adore the friendship between the two Nanas, which gets as much, if not more, time and attention as their respective romances.
I also love that they're both twenty instead of the usual high school setting, I love that they're both trying to make money and work in Tokyo. And while there is the standard glamorous occupation that most shoujo has (punk rocker band), I really like how cute Nana has to work at finding a job and budgeting, that they have to think about bringing home food and/or cooking, that they do ordinary, every day things. And I love that Yazawa makes these things interesting.
In conclusion
I make all of these sound horribly boring. The thing is, there isn't all that much that goes on plotwise. There's just this incredible depth of character that I enjoy. Yazawa never takes the easy way out of complicated relationships and love triangles; she doesn't villify people or excuse them. She simply portrays them as people making difficult choices. Sometimes these choices are bad, sometimes they're cowardly, sometimes they're selfishly motivated, but everyone lives with the consequences and grows with them. That's why I love the characters so much, and that's what keeps me reading.
(no subject)
Wed, Mar. 1st, 2006 10:43 pm (UTC)2) I think (unless I'm remembering funny) that you were hte one that was interested in various updates on the curzon dress.
http://armandae.livejournal.com/279576.html
(no subject)
Wed, Mar. 1st, 2006 10:50 pm (UTC)And ooo, thanks for the link! I am still so amazed by the dress and your sewing skills!
(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 04:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 04:15 am (UTC)hence the dry runs with muslin to get the burgundy fading to black. you have to dye it burgundy then ombre black. that will be...entertaining. wash with synthrapol. dry. dye. wash. rinse. dry. dye. dip dye dip. hang from rafters to dry
somewhere in there, the dress has to be -precut- so the gradients match up around the skirt. So. Dye burgundy. Cut skirt! pin at edges on seam allowance (so the black doesn't bleed and mar the pattern) dye dip dye dip dye dip to get the even gradient.
if i were sane, i would have bought a dress ;p thanks! ;p
(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 04:36 am (UTC)(though I must stay, it's a stunning dress as it starts too.)
Also, she says in a belated attempt to be topical, Paradise Kiss is one of my favorite manga. A surprising number of people have cosplayed the competition dress from the story, which I would have thought just too fantastical to render in RL. (Dang, now I can't find the one I liked best, only its shoes (http://www.xuangame.com/upload/2005_06/050625154443304.jpg). )
(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 04:54 am (UTC)frederick worth (the original dress) did amazing stuff. I think this is one of my favorites - the others are too...ostentatious/froufy/yadda. I like elegant. I'm minimizing the pattern a bit (less applique, as in none. The barbs/briars are going to be silk painted on...argh) because I tend to favor...stark things. (90% of my wardrobe is black *chuckle*)
Heh. I'll prolly ping oyce as updates warrant. some day, i might even get pics.....
(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 12:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 12:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 01:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 01:39 am (UTC)I need to go read through all the ones I have in Japanese...
(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 02:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 10:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 02:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 10:35 pm (UTC)Paradise Kiss
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 03:12 pm (UTC)Re: Paradise Kiss
Thu, Mar. 2nd, 2006 10:39 pm (UTC)I like that Yazawa has strong female friendships in everything I've read so far ^_^.
(no subject)
Sun, Mar. 16th, 2008 04:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Wed, Mar. 19th, 2008 08:52 pm (UTC)