Yoshinaga Fumi - Flower of Life, vol. 01-03 (Eng. trans.)

[oyceter]

Despite Yoshinaga being widely praised, I tend to avoid her manga because her kinks are... most decidedly not mine, let us say.

Hanazono Harutaro's leukemia is in remission, and so he's enrolling in school late. He soon quickly makes friends with the somewhat short and chubby Shota, which is how he ends up in the school's manga club, run by super-otaku Majima. Not much happens in the three volumes, and quite a few chapters aren't even on Harutaro. What's great about this manga is how normal and ordinary it is, from Majima's all-too-real rants about manga to a young manga writer's love of art supplies (I forgot her name.. Shin something?).

It's a very difficult work to describe, because so much is in the details. Yoshinaga is excellent at observing people, and I especially love the Christmas arc in the third volume, which by all rights should be schmaltzy and cliched, but is instead wonderful and makes me smile. I love how Yoshinaga's geeky love of manga shines through even as she makes fun of it at times, and I particularly love how fond she is of her characters, even prickly Majima. My favorites, though, are manga writer girl and Shota (people talking about weight in a manga!), and I am so glad manga writer girl doesn't get a makeover.

There is one plot point that I very much dislike, but I love the others so much that I will keep reading. I'm not sure how well this will work for non-manga fans, because it is filled with such love and bemused affection for manga, but if you love manga and know anything about it, this is wonderful.

Yoshinaga fans, tell me -- should I read her other series? I loved the first half of Antique Bakery, but not the second about Tachibana's angst and Ono's assorted relationships, and I am very, very bad with non-consensual anything and/or huge power differentials. But I love her characters in this so much.

Comments

[the_rck]

I have mixed feelings about Yoshinaga's work. Some of it I like a great deal, and some of it bores me. I liked the series about law students but haven't read all of it. How much I like a particular work of Yoshinaga's seems to vary depending on the level of explicitness with the more explicit stuff boring me. I've also found that I'm helped by not reading different works in close proximity to each other because, when I do, I start getting caught on how alike the characters often look.

Sorry not to be more help.

[oyceter]

No, this is helpful! I suspect I may be with you re: the explicitness, since I like her portrayals of obsessions like manga or art or baking or the like the best so far. She's so good at capturing how off-putting it sometimes is to others (Majima!) but also how that love is so wonderful as well.

[jain]

I stopped reading Flower of Life after the second volume, almost certainly because of that one plot point you mention disliking. You're the second person on my flist who's recommended the third volume, though; I should probably check it out.

As for other Yoshinaga series: you won't want to read Gerard and Jacques, which has both non-con and huge power differentials. Ichigenme, the law student series that therck mentioned, was enjoyable enough in the first volume, but I really didn't care for the second. If the second volume is in fact the end of the series--which seems to be the case--then it's completely lacking in anything I'd consider a resolution. Also, while the first volume's pretty mild on the non-con/power differential scale, the second one is considerably less so.

[oyceter]

I love the third volume Christmas party and the little bit on the manga artist going shopping so much! So much! It made me warm and happy and fuzzy on the inside.

On the other hand, the disturbing plot element gets more disturbing, so... yeah. I am mostly trying to pretend it doesn't exist.

Thanks for the notes! I was eying G&J too, so I will avoid it now, though law student series sounds potentially interesting.

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

I am a huge Yoshinaga fan; I own everything of hers that's been published in English. So, I can give you a thorough run-down. For calibration purposes, I am not a fan of nonconsensual sex and big power differentials, when they are presented as desirable or "romantic" or whatnot, but I don't object to those elements out of hand if they result in a good story. (Of course, "good" is subjective, and mileage varies.)

Anyway:

The Moon and Sandals: is probably the one you'd enjoy the most, judging from your parameters. I avoided it for ages, because the jacket copy for the first volume makes it sound like a "student-teacher romance" story (which is one of my MAJOR turn-offs). But, that jacket copy is completely misleading. There is a student, and there is a teacher, but they have their own relationships, and are never in any danger of getting with each other in Standard Manga Fashion. I give it bonus points for a sympathetic portrayal of a girl who is in love with (and rejected by) one of the gay male protagonists.

Solfege: This one *is* about a student-teacher romance, with abuse of power and dodgy consent issues. Avoid.

Gerard et Jacques: This is my personal Manga of Feminist Shame. I love it for the characters (even the bad ones) and the humor, but it's got abuse of power and nonconsensual sex out the wazoo. Avoid at all costs.

Ichigenme: This is the "law students" one. The first volume is a well-written self-contained story that has romance in, but is as much about friendship, and self-knowledge, and finding one's place in the world as it is about dudes getting it on. I really like it. The second volume is probably less to your taste; it's a series of vignettes featuring the characters from the first volume, and some completely new ones. Some of them are cute, some are decidedly not, and there isn't really an overall plot.

Lovers in the Night: Relationship between a naive young French aristocrat and his older butler around the time of the French Revolution. Lots of sex. I'd rank it as only so-so, so you would almost certainly not enjoy it.

Don't Say Any More, Darling: A collection of very well-written short pieces, most of which are kinda twisted.

Truly Kindly: Another collection of shorts, most of which may been deliberately written to trigger a "O YOSHINAGA FUMI NO" response.

Garden Dreams: The title is well-chosen; it's kind of a dreamy fairy-tale (without fairies)--not much plot, vague characters, not much to it at all, except for atmosphere. This is my least favorite of her books.

Now, I am really, really looking forward to somebody publishing Ooku in English. (AU shogunate Japan, where a majority of men have been killed off by a disease, and women have taken the reins of power.)

[oyceter]

Bwahaha! I had to struggle to not laugh out loud at your descriptions. I think Moon and Sandals and Ichigenme definitely sound good. How is Don't Say Any More Darling twisted?

Also OMG! I know! Why is Ooku not out here? Why why why?

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

How is Don't Say Any More Darling twisted?

Well, the stories all share a common...structure? theme? something like that; where the reader is led to believe one thing is going on, or that the characters' relationship is some particular way, and then it is revealed to be something different. Sometimes surprisingly so.

One of the stories (of 5) is really magnificently twisted in a O YOSHINAGA NO manner, but the rest are okay. Apart from the vague "surprise the reader" similarity, the stories themselves are quite diverse. I'll quote from myself (http://desdenova.livejournal.com/227137.html): it does a great job of showcasing Yoshinaga's versatility as a storyteller. The stories in this volume range from romantic comedy, to twisted scifi, to slice-of-life character studies reflecting on the gap between fantasy and reality. You probably wouldn't like *all* the stories, but I think you'd like some of them.

[oyceter]

Oh, that does sound very interesting. I will have to check that one out, thanks!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I did the English adaptation of Truly Kindly, and I completely agree with your take on it. Except for the samurai locksmith story; that was sweet.

[sarasusa.livejournal.com]

Works I've enjoyed of Yoshinaga's: Ichigenme (particularly the first volume), Antique Bakery, Flower of Life. Her explicit doujinshi featuring the Antique Bakery characters leave me cold, though, and I'm with you in being squicked by some of her kinks (yep, non-con and power-differential stuff are decidedly not my thing).

What I love about her work are her human-interaction vignettes, and the tragicomic, wistful feel to some aspects of the plot in these stories. I also really like the time she spends on her female characters: Harutaro's relationship with his sister; the female friends who meet again in the first volume of Antique Bakery; the way that one female classmate felt about Harutaro's defense of Shota; the plot arc in Ichigenme devoted to the hero's good female friend.

Garden Dreams was pretty but a bit depressing for my tastes.

Gotta admit, I fell in love with Antique Bakery's baked goods, and the rhapsodizing the characters do over them, as much as anything. (And it's not every day you come across a manga series with scratch-n-sniff covers!)

Does the plot point you don't like in Flower of Life intimately involve Majima and someone else from school?

[oyceter]

Does the plot point you don't like in Flower of Life intimately involve Majima and someone else from school?

YES OMG YES.

Also, yeah, I really love that Yoshinaga a) has female characters and b) likes them! I particularly loved the shopping trip in v. 3 of Flower of Life. Thanks for the recommendations!

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I really want Ooku in English. Really really.

I do not know whether you personally would like Gerard and Jacques, but it is my favorite Yoshinaga; however the reasons it is are not reasons that may apply to most people. Basically the entire thing is a riff on tropes of eighteenth-century philosophy, as applied to yaoi; which means that yes, there is a lot of non-con and a lot of abuse of power differentials, but it's entirely self-aware. I mean, the book name-checks both de Sade and Rousseau, and I am absolutely one hundred percent certain that Jacques is named Jacques as a reference to Denis Diderot's Jacques the Fatalist and his Master, given that Yoshinaga did the cover for the Japanese edition of that. And I thought Gerard and Jacques managed to say some fairly biting things about both eighteenth-century philosophy and yaoi.

So I don't know whether you personally would like it, but I do feel I have to mention that what it is doing is very interesting and complex and really not what it initially looks like.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Also, if you're referring to the plot thread in Flower of Life that I think you are, I hate that as much as you do and wish it would stop.

[oyceter]

OMG yes. The Majima one? I hate it so much. So much!

[oyceter]

I want Ooku SO MUCH.

I may end up avoiding G&J anyway, just because I sadly do not have the philosophical background to pick up on all that! But that is very interesting and I greedily encourage you to do super-spoilery posts so I can read and enjoy vicariously!

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

I really loved Antique Bakery, but don't like the explicit doujinshi for it (in which she seems to me to be trying to prove her assertion that Ono is a bad (or at least not good) person - I'm quite happy with his character in the manga. Ichigenme is sweet, I think - as desdenova says, it's very much about friendship. Lovers in the Night . . . I can remember absolutely nothing about, which is probably pretty damning for a book.

Gerard et Jacques - hmm. I share your squicks, but I loved it and its take on redemption through cross-class romance. I also liked its insistence that living through a revolution is not happy fun times.

[oyceter]

Thanks for the recs!

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

This is a weird question, but how central is the leukemia?

[oyceter]

It's not very central—I liked how they treated it as a part of Hanazono's life, but not as the defining part. It's basically in remission by the time the manga starts, and it's mentioned (his sister is like, "Stop yelling at me! I gave you a kidney!") but not what the manga is about. Er, I don't know, did that help?

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Yes, it did. My grandfather died of leukemia not long enough ago, and if the plot twist you didn't like involved its reemergence I wouldn't make it through the book.

[oyceter]

The plot twist definitely doesn't involve its reemergence! There are some scenes in which Hanazono goes to the hospital and gets check ups, and also a mention of a friend he made at the hospital who died, but the series very much doesn't read like a "cancer narrative" to me.