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Ryan - Angel Hair (orig. Chi.)
AKA: My First Manhua
I've been trying to look for actual Chinese manhua instead of translations of manga, though it's been difficult. I suspect there's even more manhwa here than manhua, though possibly I'm looking in the wrong places. But given that a lot of the idol dramas in Taiwan are based on manga and manhwa, and given the prevalence of Japanese stores EVERYWHERE, I don't think I'm overestimating the prevalence of manga and the paucity of manhua, at least in Taiwan as opposed to other Chinese-speaking locales.
I did manage to find the recently licensed manhua Divine Melody, though I didn't get it because I didn't like the art that much. On the other hand, that was before I realized it had gender-bending, fox spirits, and reincarnation!
Angel Hair is a collection of three short stories. The frame story has two hikers coming across some ruins and a statue of the angel Nathaniel, who has a scar on his (zir? her? I am fairly sure he's coded male by the language, the story, and the art, but as we all know, it can be hard to tell) cheek and long hair on one side and short hair on the other. The three stories are all explanations of how he got the scar and the chopped off hair.
I find it rather disconcerting but not startling that the stories are all Euro-centric; I'm fairly sure the frame story is set in Europe, and all the characters have Western names.
The first story is about Princess Chantilly, her guardian angel Nathaniel, and the neighboring Prince Gouman (spellings are approximations). Chantilly wants Gouman to marry her because his country is richer and her country needs the money, but she has gorgeous long black hair and he hates black hair and loves blonde hair. The entire thing is about her begging her guardian angel to turn blonde. I found this story extremely frustrating and problematic for the obvious reasons.
The second story posits that Gouman and Nathaniel are actually close friends, and the third is Nathaniel's story. All of them star Chantilly, Nathaniel and Gouman, albeit in different capacities, and in all of them, black hair is abnormal or a sign of evil, while golden blondness is a sign of angelicness (literal and figurative). The final story does the most to argue with the simple black-blonde dichotomy, though still not enough for my taste. I'm not going to go into theories of self-hatred or wanting to be Western, because I think while that is a part of it, it is also too easy to blame it all on the person exhibiting the self-hatred and/or desire to be Western and to ignore fun things like cultural hegemony and cultural colonization.
In conclusion, really boring and problematic, with not-so-great art to boot. I think next, I will pick up the fox spirit one or one that was set in Song Dynasty China.
I've been trying to look for actual Chinese manhua instead of translations of manga, though it's been difficult. I suspect there's even more manhwa here than manhua, though possibly I'm looking in the wrong places. But given that a lot of the idol dramas in Taiwan are based on manga and manhwa, and given the prevalence of Japanese stores EVERYWHERE, I don't think I'm overestimating the prevalence of manga and the paucity of manhua, at least in Taiwan as opposed to other Chinese-speaking locales.
I did manage to find the recently licensed manhua Divine Melody, though I didn't get it because I didn't like the art that much. On the other hand, that was before I realized it had gender-bending, fox spirits, and reincarnation!
Angel Hair is a collection of three short stories. The frame story has two hikers coming across some ruins and a statue of the angel Nathaniel, who has a scar on his (zir? her? I am fairly sure he's coded male by the language, the story, and the art, but as we all know, it can be hard to tell) cheek and long hair on one side and short hair on the other. The three stories are all explanations of how he got the scar and the chopped off hair.
I find it rather disconcerting but not startling that the stories are all Euro-centric; I'm fairly sure the frame story is set in Europe, and all the characters have Western names.
The first story is about Princess Chantilly, her guardian angel Nathaniel, and the neighboring Prince Gouman (spellings are approximations). Chantilly wants Gouman to marry her because his country is richer and her country needs the money, but she has gorgeous long black hair and he hates black hair and loves blonde hair. The entire thing is about her begging her guardian angel to turn blonde. I found this story extremely frustrating and problematic for the obvious reasons.
The second story posits that Gouman and Nathaniel are actually close friends, and the third is Nathaniel's story. All of them star Chantilly, Nathaniel and Gouman, albeit in different capacities, and in all of them, black hair is abnormal or a sign of evil, while golden blondness is a sign of angelicness (literal and figurative). The final story does the most to argue with the simple black-blonde dichotomy, though still not enough for my taste. I'm not going to go into theories of self-hatred or wanting to be Western, because I think while that is a part of it, it is also too easy to blame it all on the person exhibiting the self-hatred and/or desire to be Western and to ignore fun things like cultural hegemony and cultural colonization.
In conclusion, really boring and problematic, with not-so-great art to boot. I think next, I will pick up the fox spirit one or one that was set in Song Dynasty China.
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(Also, I was somewhat confused to find his books under the wuxia category, even though there were non-translated Chinese books in the SFF section. My dad was like, "It's because his stuff is more classic?")
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I don't really know all that much about his stuff, to be honest. I've only read a little bit of it. And I suspect I'd be into the more hard SF things than you are. A lot of his stuff seems to skew towards Fortean happenings more than American SF. I guess I'd recommend anything that has lots of his short stories, so you can get a sampling of what he writes.
He also writes wuxia stuff. According to Wikipedia, him and Jin Yong are good friends. So his books in the wuxia section very likely are wuxia. He also writes mysteries and apparently other genres, too.
However, book categorization was very haphazard regarding SF&F in the bookstores I saw. I forgot, have I ranted to you how much the disorganization of Chengpin "Eslite" pissed me off? UFOlogy, Tarot, detective novels... Their SF&F section seemed to be a dumping ground for anything the clerks couldn't be bothered to put in the right place. And then I'd find a translation of Red Mars in the foreign literature section or something. Grr. I think it may be because the Chinese for "science fiction" and "fantasy" (科幻 and 奇幻) don't have as much history as the English words, but they also just have different meaning clouds (at least partially because of the writing interests of Ni Kuang). But I don't think mysteries belong in the SF section, regardless, you know? It once annoyed me so much that I actually volunteered to organize their SF&F section for them, but they weren't interested.
Do you know about Silex Books? When I was in Taiwan, their first floor was all kids' books, but their second floor was the best selection of SF&F on the island. I think most of it was in English, though. I don't remember how much was in Chinese. I also don't know if they're still selling SF&F on the second floor -- that may just have been a temporary thing. (I'd love to know for certain if they aren't.) They're worth checking out, anyway.
It might be good to check out my page about gaming in Taiwan; I've listed a lot of other good spots for SF&F-related materials there.
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