Ryan - Angel Hair (orig. Chi.)

[oyceter]

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.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Just to make sure you don't forget to avoid Real Fake Princess; The basic idea is that there was a rebellion 15~ years before the story, and the infant princess was sent away with allies to be raised in secrecy. Now that things are calm again, they want her brought back, only no one knows where she is. Her adopted brother tells her, and takes her back to the palace, even though she doesn't want to be the princess. The "hero" is the official meant to weed out the fakes, and is suspicious of everyone claiming to be the princess. So far, it's pretty normal, but could be a decent shoujo for its 5 volumes length, as long as he doesn't behave badly. However about halfway through volume 1, he orders her hair to be cut. When she objects, he wrestles her, pins her to the bed, shoves the scissors in her face, and tells her that if she doesn't obey all his orders, starting with the hair, then he'll have her brother hunted down and he'll kill him by shoving the scissors in his chest. At which point, I quietly closed the file, said a brief word of thanks that I try to read at least a couple chapters online or in the store before buying a manga, deleted the file, and went off to reread some Tsubasa.

The Jo Chen books I hope to read soon.