Miscellaneous things make a post

[oyceter]

1. I am lazy and do not feel like writing things up, even though I am super behind on sequential art posts. On the plus side, Bride of the Water God is out to volume 5 here, which really beats waiting another EIGHT MONTHS for Dark Horse to release v. 3 in the US. Also, I have copies of Umino Chica's new manga, Yoshinaga Fumi's new food manga, a Mizushiro Setona series I have never read, and more Nan Kongyuu books! Also also, I have found another manhua I like! This one is called Fried Chicken Princess (Ji Pai Gong Chu) and is all about a girl who starts a club to appreciate fried chicken (the Taiwan kind, like fried chicken steaks, heavily seasoned)! What other unlicensed stuff should I be keeping an eye out for here?


2. Who is going to Wiscon? Does anyone have panel ideas? I want to suggest another one on shoujo manga but I cannot think of one outside of something like "Shounen Bodies: Women's and girls' bodies in shounen manga" which is clearly not on shoujo. Also, I probably have not read enough shounen to be a good contributor.


3. Dunkin' Donuts is now in Taiwan, and they are copying Mister Donuts' round mochi-esque donuts! I would be annoyed, except this means I can get my tasty round mochi-esque donuts at more places now.


4. I cannot find the old place that sold egg cakes, but the new one nearby is just as good. Yay!

Comments

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

I am going to Wiscon! I will go to any panels on manga!

Maybe we could explore women's agency in shounen manga - who is powerful, who is powerless, and why do so many ladies have exorbitantly large breasts with low cleavage?

We could also talk about shounen manga were women have lots of power (Fullmetal Alchemist, Claymore), and why they win at life.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

If I went to the con and attended a shounen panel, I'd reserve some time for ranting about Ral Grad, in which women's bodies and sexuality are explicitly said to be rewards for men's heroism. Yeah, the main character spouting the philosophy is 14, raised in a pitch dark cage, and totally overwhelmed by his hormones, but the plot doesn't question it and shows him to be right. With a side dose of the only women who take control of their own sexuality are EVIL or TRAITORS.

[oyceter]

WHOO! I really am dying to talk about Claymore at Wiscon, especially about monstrous bodies in shounen and how they tie in with physical power and the line between being really strong and powerful and being monstrous, which is one of the areas in shounen that I find really interesting.

Also, women's agency sounds good!

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

OMF! Can we also talk about limb-sharing? And how limbs are reattached with one's MIND?!

[oyceter]

Yes!!!

[wingstodust.livejournal.com]

1. I think Natsume Yuujinchou by Midorikawa Yuki is worth looking into. =D

2. for shoujo manga... has a panel on reverse harem been done already? ^^;; That could potentially be interesting, I think.....

[oyceter]

1. Thanks for the rec! I'll keep an eye out.

2. Oh huh! I don't think so, although we sort of touched on the prevalence of male characters in shoujo last year. That would still be interesting though.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I am going to WisCon. I have some panel ideas. I suppose I should post them in my LJ.

[oyceter]

Yes! Post! Also, yay I get to see you at Wiscon!

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

I'm not flying out to WisCon, but I have read a lot of shonen. We should talk sometime about it. More irritating to me (and, maybe as a male, I've normalized the problematic images) is the lack of agency, even in supposed heroines in some of these stories.

I've gotten way tired of the female character who exists to ask dumb questions and have the hero rant and rave to her about his AWESOMEFREEDOMPHILOSOPHY while rescuing her from doing something stupid, again. Not only from a fictional standpoint is it GARGH, but also it feeds into the myths of "women are incompetent", "women need to be saved", "women could be free if they just -tried harder" etc.

Also- KueiCon is Feb 14-16th, if you'd like to swing down and game a bit.

[oyceter]

Ah hahahaha, yes. Oh shounen. Sometimes you are completely made of win (Claymore!) and have awesome kickass female characters, and sometimes you are just made of fail.

Oh, I saw the KCon announcement! I may skip out, just because the gaming thing may not quite be my thing =(.

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

It's specifically gamers of color, and I'd be glad if you just stopped by, even if you don't get into the gaming.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I'm going to Wiscon, and I'm trying to think up panels that will be interesting to other people besides myself.

[oyceter]

Yay!

[nojojojo.livejournal.com]

I'm going to Wiscon. I *did* read a lot of shounen (specifically Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto before it got boring, Bleach before it got boring... hmm, I'm sensing a pattern here).

Not manga strictly, but I'd like to talk about anime and manga that seems to be aimed at a crossover shounen-shoujo audience. Code Geass, for example, which fits the tropes of shounen manga to a T... except that its character designs are by CLAMP. Inu Yasha, which is shounen, but drawn by a female mangaka. I'm wondering why more of these haven't caught on with Western audiences (we're still bombarded with mostly shounen here in the US, though, which could be the problem).

[oyceter]

Eeeee you are going! I will make you eat with me and talk to me (um, if you are willing of course)!

Oooooh, I like the crossover idea. I think the one I know best is Gundam Wing (mecha, but with woobie bishounen that inspired a huge female fandom). I wonder if talking about marketed-as-shoujo-but-published-as-shounen/seinen series would work too? Like Umino Chica's latest series and CLAMP's Tsubasa/xxxHolic (which is always shelved as shounen in Taiwan) and Emma (shelved in seinen/shoujo in Japan and Taiwan, probably aimed toward a shoujo audience in the US) and etc.

Hrm. I wonder if the anime industry in the US would do well to market the crossover anime, especially given the large female demographic interested in manga. Or if the old "anime is porn and violence" thing still has a foothold in the industry or among execs or something.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

I am going to Wiscon. And I vote for drunken late night BSG panel the sequel! With deepforestowl on it! :)

[oyceter]

Whoo! I sadly would not be able to contribute anything to BSG panel (have only seen hal fof S1), but am excited about people going!

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Haha, I wouldn't either! I was not last year! But somehow it was fun anyhow :).

[jiawen]

Are you going to do something about Chinese fantasy, or otherwise following up from "Not Just Japan" somehow?

[oyceter]

Oh that's a good idea! I was contemplating volunteering someone else (eh heh Vandana Singh) to do a lecture on Indian SF/F, since I don't think there would be enough knowledgeable panelists, and I'd rather have a lecture than listen to people who don't know anything about it. And I am debating suggesting a panel on HK wuxia fantasy movies, since I binged on those last year for Not Just Japan, but I am not sure how many people outside of me and possibly you (?) would be interested!

[jiawen]

A whole lot of people know about wuxia, at least in the RPG communities I tend to run in. (Many people pronounce it wrong, but they know what the genre is.) I bet interest would be higher than you'd expect.

It'd be cool to do something specifically about transgender issues (not general gender-bending, but specific transgender stuff) in manga, or East Asia, or something like that... Hmm...

[oyceter]

Yes, definitely! I would so go to that.

[jiawen]

But not be on that (she asked, carefully reading through the lines)?

[jiawen]

And: Should I suggest a panel? I'm almost tempted to suggest that I just do a presentation on transgender life in Taiwan, even though I'm not Taiwanese. I know a bit about manga, but it's not my forte -- I'd need other people to be on the panel with me (nudge, nudge) if it were going to go into that.

[oyceter]

Do suggest it! Or do a presentation! I would totally go to that, especially since I am guessing there's not a giant pool of people at Wiscon who know much about transgender life in Taiwan (sigh).

[jiawen]

I'm worried it might be cultural appropriation... I'll think more about it.

[oyceter]

Hrm. I would consider it? Though it's hard to say, because I'm trying to limit myself to being a panelist on only two panels just so I don't go nuts. But also, I feel like I'm not really educated enough on trans issues and politics to be a very good panelist, and have not actually read that much manga that is about an transgendered character (any recs very welcome! I am still trying to keep my eyes out for the one you mentioned last year), as opposed to the gender-bending that frequently goes son.

[jiawen]

Unfortunately, I don't think I know enough about trans manga either... I've read a few titles that had at least nominally trans characters (F. Compo, Futaba-kun Change!, Ranma 1/2, and one that I don't know the Japanese name of), but not enough to speak with any real authority. Hmm.