Sakura of DOOM

Note: I'm reading these in the original Japanese, so I may be missing nuances and giant plot points.

( Spoilers are still worried )

No further spoilers please!

I really need to reread this in English, because I am certain I missed a ton of nuance. Still, reading first in Japanese and then in English is fun: it makes me feel like I have not completely forgotten Japanese and when I get new volumes in English, the reread uncovers new layers.

( Spoilers can't breathe )

Oh, series, I had forgotten how much I loved you. While this definitely follows the shoujo template more closely than Yazawa's later series, particularly in the extent to which Midori bends over for Akira's angst, it does some very interesting things with shoujo tropes as well.

( Spoilers )

Anyway, I am SO GLAD this lives up to my memories of it; I was a little afraid that it wouldn't, since I'd tried rereading before and the first volume didn't grab me as much. But it's really the latter volumes where the series finds its strengths, and I love all of the characters so much. They feel like people I wish I were; they are so human and try to be so kind even as they all stumble and make mistakes and hurt people. And the focus on the school reminds me a lot of Honey and Clover -- just that eventual reminder that graduation is always there, that you have to make those big life decisions in the end, that your school friends will eventually scatter and leave, but that that makes the time spent there more precious.

I've been not-so-subconsciously avoiding reading more in the series a bit out of fear -- I've pimped this series and this mangaka so much in the past, just based on four-year-old memories of first five volumes that I was worried that later volumes couldn't possibly live up to my memories. It also didn't help that I was a little underwhelmed rereading the first three volumes, but I suspect some of that is just because I have read them so many times already.

I was also worried that I had wrongly pimped this series and Yazawa Ai to pretty much everyone on the planet and that I would have to take Yazawa Ai out of my mostest favoritest mangaka list (currently Yuki Kaori, Minekura Kazuya and Yazawa Ai, and if I were forced at gunpoint to pick, I would have to pick Yazawa. And I should probably have Umino Chica there as well for Honey and Clover, except I've only read three volumes of it).

So when I say that these three volumes have surpassed my expectations, you will all know just how high those expectations were. And also keep in mind that I'm reading this in the original Japanese, which means I'm probably missing a ton of the nuances, and volume 9 still made me cry and flip back to the beginning to reread.

( Spoilers )

OMG I love this SO MUCH.

People! If you like authors like Sarah Dessen or anime like Honey and Clover, read this. Really. Even if you usually don't read manga. Because while the back cover copy makes it sound like it's all about fashion and punk bands and glamour, it's not. It's about friendship and romance and growing up and losing yourself and messing up, but really, it's about people and the connections between them and how we hurt and love and lie and weep and laugh and keep going.

And now I hit the extent of my Nana-reading. Everything else from now on will be new! How exciting!

( Spoilers for both vols. )

(Now trying to post this for the 18th time.... LJ, never leave me again!)

This is one of Yazawa's weaker series, and probably her weakest since before Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai, which is when I think she both found her art style and her voice. I am a little happier with it now that I've read the ending; while I can see why some people might dislike it, the end actually made me like the series more.

( Spoilers for series )

So. I'm still not quite sure what to think of the series as a whole; I don't think I'd actually rec it to anyone except a Yazawa completist, but if you've started it, it is worth continuing on to the end.

In which I finally talk in full about my very favoritest mostest bestest mangaka ever. Ok, maybe with the exception of Minekura Kazuya. Except Minekura has lots of people touting her and sadly only two of Yazawa Ai's series are out in the US.

Yazawa Ai writes and draws shoujo manga, usually of the non-fantastic sort. My friend first noticed her because of her very distinctive art style: long-legged, lanky characters with knobby knees and bony fingers, strong, clean lines and white space without much shading. Though her characters have the same big eyes that most shoujo manga characters do, hers have spiky eyelashes and a more realisitic shape. Also, unlike many shoujo manga characters, her noses are often more rounded and her characters actually have lips. I also adore their enormous smiles and the way they beam with happiness, or how their faces scrunch up and turn ugly when they cry.

TokyoPop and Viz's respective marketing departments continually emphasize the fashion and the glamorous lifestyle portrayed in her manga, and while her two series published in the US do have models and fashion designers and goth punk rockers, that's not why I like her so much.

I like that she tends to focus more on character development and growing romances and growing friendships. Everyone jokes that so much of manga is on crack, what with the pretty boys and the wings and the robots and the catgirls; what I find most refreshing about Yazawa's works is that there's an underlying realism to them. Granted, there's still the glamorous occupations that tend to be the norm in shoujo (fashion design, modelling, punk rock band), but the complexity of the characters really anchors the stories.

What I've read

Marine Blue no Kaze ni Dakarete (Embraced by the Marine Blue Wind), 1990-1991, 4 vols.

I read this in Chinese, and I don't remember much of the storyline. What I do remember is being thoroughly unimpressed. This is before Yazawa really started drawing in her own style; the art here is somewhat wispy and soft, very typically shoujo. It also looks like it was from the late eighties or early nineties, which doesn't help. I can see some parts where she is starting to draw much like she does later, but it usually clashes with the standard shoujo style and doesn't much work. The storyline is also fairly pedestrian; it's a shoujo story of falling in love and being emotional. Again, Yazawa has a few moments that remind me of later series, but the characters never really come alive.

Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai (I'm No Angel), 1992-1995, 8 vols.

Again, I read this in Chinese, and it's sadly not out in translation. This is one of my favorites, partly because it's the first Yazawa Ai manga that I read, and partly because it's just good. I flipped through the first volume when I was in Taiwan this year, and I have to warn you. The art in the beginning is horrible. The perspective is off, people look stiff and unnatural, and her lines veer between delicacy and boldness, and it's very odd. The story starts out like that as well, with the main character, Midori, who has a crush on the bad boy of the class, Akira. They end up on the same student council together, and shoujo plot ensues. Except, in a way, it doesn't.

There are the same dramatics that go on in most high school shoujo manga series, from the athletic competition to worries about college and graduation. What I love the most is that Yazawa focuses on all of the student council members, and then the generation of student council members after that. I like that her love triangles are sympathetic and believable. And I completely fell for Midori, who is the angel of the school in a non-schmoopy manner (she's the one in my icon). She's bright and cheerful without being too self-sacrificing; she's someone I would want as a close friend in real life.

In the end, I could go on and on about this, but what really matters is that I ended up loving every single one of the characters and really empathized with them as they went through their three years of high school, romance, and friendship together.

Gokinjo Monogatari (Neighborhood Story), 1995-1998, 7 vols.

Sadly also not available in translation. This is loosely set in the same world as TenNai, but only with a few brief, oblique references that add to the story if you pick up on them and don't detract at all if you don't.

It's another hard-to-summarize manga: Mikako and her friends go to the Yazawa School of Art (where Yazawa sticks in cameos of herself as the extremely odd principal). Mikako wants to be a fashion designer, her friend and possible crush Tsutomu wants to be a musician, and they meet others on the way. Again, it would be boring if I didn't like the characters so much. I don't like Mikako quite as much as Midori, though Mikako's probably a more complicated character. She's childish and stubborn, but also likeable in her own way. I also have a strange fondness for the extremely fashionable, chic girl whose name I forgot, who is high maintenance and neurotic, just because Yazawa manages to do it in a way that makes her human and real. She also seems to be a prototype of Komatsu Nana of Nana.

Last Quarter, 1998-1999, 3 vols.

Four elementary school kids find a young woman wandering about. She's forgotten her memories and her name; she only knows that she must find Adam, her handsome rock star boyfriend. The kids name her Eve and try to find out what's happened to the woman.

I am actually extremely fond of this little series, even though it's small and light. There's a poignancy to Eve's memories of Adam and wonderful, surreal atmosphere to the entire book. And once we find out what really happened to Eve, we feel horrible for her and for all the people involved, no matter how much at fault they might have been. I love it because, like all of Yazawa's series, the real heart is how everyone cares for each other even when they hurt each other.

Paradise Kiss, 2000-2003, 5 vols.

I've actually only read one volume of this, largely because when I first read it, it was in Japan and the manga didn't have furigana so I couldn't figure out a lot of the kanji. It's a sequel of sorts to Gokinjo Monogatari: the students who make up Paradise Kiss, a fashion design studio, all go to the Yazawa School of Art. One of them, Miwako, is Mikako's little sister. Yukari, a normal high school student, gets sucked into the world of design when they ask her to be their model. I don't actually know how things turn out, and I didn't like the first book as much as others. But since Yazawa Ai's series tend to get better as they go on, it's on my list for purchasing.

Also, I like looking at the crazy fashions she draws up.

Nana, 2000-present, 14 vols. so far

Finally! My very favoritest manga ever! Note: I've only read up to vol. 5. Nana is the story of two girls named Nana. Komatsu Nana is a normal girl from a normal town who is unfortunately obsessed with guys and a little shallow at first. Oosaki Nana is the vocalist for a punk rock band. Both of them end up in Tokyo, cute Nana to meet up with her boyfriend and punk Nana to make it big on the music scene. They end up rooming together, and even though they're incredibly different, punk Nana has her hidden soft spots and cute Nana has her hidden strengths.

I adore this manga, like most of Yazawa's manga, because I adore the characters. I like how they interact, and I adore the friendship between the two Nanas, which gets as much, if not more, time and attention as their respective romances.

I also love that they're both twenty instead of the usual high school setting, I love that they're both trying to make money and work in Tokyo. And while there is the standard glamorous occupation that most shoujo has (punk rocker band), I really like how cute Nana has to work at finding a job and budgeting, that they have to think about bringing home food and/or cooking, that they do ordinary, every day things. And I love that Yazawa makes these things interesting.

In conclusion

I make all of these sound horribly boring. The thing is, there isn't all that much that goes on plotwise. There's just this incredible depth of character that I enjoy. Yazawa never takes the easy way out of complicated relationships and love triangles; she doesn't villify people or excuse them. She simply portrays them as people making difficult choices. Sometimes these choices are bad, sometimes they're cowardly, sometimes they're selfishly motivated, but everyone lives with the consequences and grows with them. That's why I love the characters so much, and that's what keeps me reading.