Yuki Kaori - Parfum Extrait 0 (Chi. trans.)

[oyceter]

Saikawa Kanade and his half-Japanese, half-French cousin Anais solve three perfume-related mysteries. I feel this plot seems deceptively simple compared to the tangles in Angel Sanctuary and Cain Saga/Godchild, but given that it's only a one shot, what can you do?

I was bored a little by Kanade, despite his angsty backstory rivalry with a fellow perfumer, but I love Anais. She is half-French so Yuki Kaori has an excluse to give her blond hair and blue eyes*, and amazingly, there are no incestuous vibes between her and Kanade, despite the fact that they aren't actually related by blood (she's his aunt's stepdaughter). She is grumpy and tall and beats people up and glares sullenly from the cover. I wanted to get more backstory about her childhood bond with Kanade, but only tidbits for me.

Sadly, the crack is not quite up to normal Yuki Kaori levels, though there are goth girls, dead bodies galore, lots of evil women, and an evil MTF to boot. Oh Yuki Kaori, why?

Still, the art is gorgeous and there are enough cracktastically insane bits to please me, but it's definitely not among her more memorable pieces of work.


* I do not understand all these half-Continental-European characters running around in manga and anime and how they all have blond hair and blue eyes. I mean, obviously there is no set way to look if one is half-Asian and half-European, but it'd be nice if one of these half-Continental-European characters had brown hair and brown eyes for once.


ETA: I am going to the comic book store tomorrow, so tell me what in Yuki Kaori's backlist I should get! (Besides the rent boy serial killer one, which is, uh, already on the list.) Bonus points for letting me know if the plot involves crazy terminology like "organic angels," which will be a little confusing in Chinese.

Comments

[la-vie-noire.livejournal.com]

I do not understand all these half-Continental-European characters running around in manga and anime and how they all have blond hair and blue eyes.

And the inverse happens in USA or European fiction.

I think that is exoticism playing. Like every Latin-american person has that typical 'not-so-dark skin with brown hair' look; even if European, Asian, and African descendants are as common as everyone here. I remember once reading someone saying that actors in telenovelas were 'all white people!' and I was like, "no, they aren't."

There is this need to define who 'the other' are. They can't look like 'us.'

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Yes, total agreement here! As an adult, I can see the problematic othering and exoticization going on with all the blue-eyed-blond Eurasian manga characters running about -- but as a child, it would have been really refreshing to come across a few of them; the rare representations of biracial characters I came across, in US/English media, ran towards the other stereotype you mention. (And as a half-Indian green-eyed blonde, it would have been kind of nice to see a little bit of media reflection that I wasn't a total freak of genetics; I got enough of that in real life when people were startled to find out that the dark-skinned, brown-eyed brunette lady next to me was my mother...)

but it'd be nice if one of these half-Continental-European characters had brown hair and brown eyes for once.

The one example I can think of off the top of my head is Ryo MacLean from Sanami Matoh's FAKE: in the color art his hair's shown in that nebulous zone between a very dark ash-blond or a light honey brown, and his eyes are a very dark brown, so dark they're almost black. Of course, the exoticism is swinging in the other direction here -- FAKE is set in New York City, Ryo's the only Asian character in the cast, and so the various other black and white characters constantly comment on his remarkable dark eyes, often using them to guess that he's half-Japanese. I vaguely seem to recall that same "black eyes=part-Japanese: trope for manga characters in a European or American setting in some other series, but I can't seem to recall the specifics at the moment...

[oyceter]

Definitely. And "others" all have to look alike; there's a lack of diversity in representation so there's a clearer stereotype. I get really annoyed with most Chinese characters in manga for the same reason.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

There's one called Neji/Screw, which is very early and sf; there are scans but I've never read it. And there's a very creepy, bloody, disturbing series of fairytale retellings about a sadistic prince named Ludwig or Leopold or something who is clearly modeled on David Bowie.

[oyceter]

I got Neji! And I almost bought the rent boy one but juuust didn't, though now I have an account at a manga rental store, bwahahahaha. I realized there were too many things I wanted to sample before deciding to buy, and you can't tachiyomi here because the manga is shrink wrapped. And I got the Ludwig one, because hey, Yuki Kaori + creepy blood disturbing + fairy tales!

I am certain there is tons of creepy bloody disturbing misogyny as well, sigh.

[shati.livejournal.com]

If you haven't read it, Gravel Kingdom is worth it for the proto-Yuki -- the art is SO MESSY and the prince has a loyal bodyguard and there's angst and betrayal and I think a water goddess. Totally get the rentboy serial killer one; it is the most bizarre. Ludwig Revolution is Kaori Yuki + Grimm's, which is on the one hand a match made in Heaven and on the other hand kind of overkill (esp. in terms of treatment of female characters ...). Also I feel the leads are like a less interesting Cain and Riff. Also also, have you read Kaine, which is not Cain? It's the music one. I can't remember Neji/Screw or Cruel Fairytales very well at all, but Blood Hound might be worth reading for having a female protagonist (sadly, I didn't actually like her, or the vampires).

I just found out that my local library has both Godchild and Angel Sanctuary in the YA section. I can't decide whether this is awesome, or likely to lead to a lot of traumatized kids. Or both.

[oyceter]

OMG I really wanted to get Gravel Kingdom when I read the plot description online. I ended up getting Ludwig and Neji, but I found a manga rental store and am going to try to read all her stuff!

My library did the same thing! Well, only Godchild because they don't have AS, but they also don't have Cain Saga. I talked to my librarian and was like, "Um. You might want to get Cain Saga because it's actually the first part, and you might REALLY REALLY want to put it in adult!"

The funny thing is, they have Emma in adult, and while it has some nudity, Godchild is so much more disturbing!

[shati.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten how disturbing it was, too! Then I read the first few chapters and was like "..."

I mean, I mostly do approve of kids reading disturbing material (I did, and I turned out ... er ... well, anyway), and of material being shelved in children's/YA/adult because of complexity/intended audience instead of sex and violence. And I loved Kaori Yuki in high school. But -- I still really wonder if the people putting all the manga in YA are aware of the content ...

[oyceter]

I know, I mostly do approve of kids reading whatever, but since the library has got Nana and Tramps Like Us and Cantarella and Monster and Fake all up in the adult section, I feel they probably wouldn't put Yuki Kaori down in YA if they knew what was in there...

[snarp]

(Repost because I fail at formatting.)

Neji is very uneven - I think there was some sort of big time gap partly through its publication, because there's a sudden huge shift in the art style. It is sci-fi and contains all the expectable Kaori Yuki things, like dead people coming back to life in ways that don't work out well for anyone, and evil women and dead girls.

it'd be nice if one of these half-Continental-European characters had brown hair and brown eyes for once.

I have found two (2) examples of dark-haired mixed-race manga people ever, one being Clow Reed (the CCS version) and the other being a guy in Yuu Watase's Sakura Gari. (Also I just wrote a big long meandering thing analyzing this phenomenon.)

[oyceter]

Oh, interesting! I just got it, but haven't opened it to flip through the art yet.

Clow Reed is mixed-race? Interesting! (I haven't read CCS.) I mean, I don't mind the blond hair and blue eyes, it's just... it would be nice to acknowledge that mixed-race people have a variety of looks!

I can't remember if Asuka in EVA is mixed race or not, but she has red hair...

[snarp]

CCS!Clow is English-Chinese, as you can totally tell from his name. Totally. CLAMP thinks you can tell. I don't remember how/why he was connected to Japan, which is where CCS takes place.

(Read CCS! Everyone should read CCS! It's great! Sometimes it's icky. But mostly it's great!)

[oyceter]

Bwahahahaha! Um. At least he is not named like the Death Note characters?