Loving the deeply flawed

". . . a lot of these will be titles I genuinely enjoy. Will I discuss their flaws? Of course I will. I like a lot of deeply flawed manga. I will also spend a good amount of time talking about why I like them so much and that is likely to influence the tone of the review overall."

 I liked this quote from Melinda Beasi at Manga Bookshelf.  In fact, all this talk about criticism and reviewing in the past couple of months has been fascinating and educational.  Some of the arguments and debates have been truly popcorn-worthy affairs.  Wow.  Smart, opinionated people discussing things they're passionate about: better than reality tv on every level possible!

I love a lot of deeply flawed manga and a lot of deeply flawed books and movies.  And a lot of deeply flawed people.  :)

Sort-of liking Love* Com the Movie

I saw the Love*Com movie recently, a couple of weeks after finishing the manga series.  It was . . . hmmm.  Well, I had some issues with it, but it was quirky, colorful, and somewhat enjoyable.

CASTING CHOICES

Ema Fujisawa--who played Risa Koizumi--pouted/sulked with appropriately fun, weird faces.  Even though she was about 24 (and playing a 16-18-year-old, she easily looked her character's age. 

Which is why it was so odd that Teppei Koike, who was 20, looked way too old for 16-18.  I'm slightly bitter that they couldn't find an actor who was actually as short as Otani was supposed to be.  I mean, come on, Japan is not famous for its ridiculously tall men.  You can't tell me there wasn't someone short enough with that kind of baby face in all of Japan. 

All that said, I found myself believing Otani more.  (This could have been because of the cute little story Love*Com's author put in the back of the last volume of the main story about Teppei Koike's life in the entertainment industry.  I'm not sure.)

Um, "Mighty" was pretty much just perfect.  So, so perfect.


PLOT/SCRIPT CHOICES  1-7

I think that this movie could have stood on its own quite well if it had been plotted a bit differently.  I would have enjoyed a streamlined story arc that covered volumes 1-7 with lots more short scenes.  I would have been willing to sacrifice Mighty for that.  Probably.  And Risa's "Older Sister," definitely.

I was sincerely baffled by a lot of the choices the movie creators made. 

The manga starts out with a fight and a dare, and Risa and Otani race to find significant others and end up uniting the objects of their respective affections (Chiharu and Suzuki) into a really cute couple with the help of their friends Nobuko and Nakao.  Great set-up and quick get-to-know the main cast. 

The movie beginning shows Risa and Otani confessing to their respective intendeds and getting rejected because of their heights.  Later, we're in a classroom, and there are two inexplicable couples (Chiharu & Suzuki and Nobuko & Nakao) that get some cute bits throughout the movie that make no sense if you don't know who they are or why they're there.

Another random change with no rhyme or reason was taking Nakao off the basketball team.  Why?  Like it would have mattered if there had been two decent high school basketball players against Mighty and his NBA goons?  Some things they kept for reasons obscured to me, and other things they changed for similarly obscure reasons.

Anyway, I got a kick out of watching it.  It could have been better, but it wasn't actively horrible.  And the Umibozu extras were pretty hilarious.

Check out some details and a decent review at the IMDB if you're curious.

Have you read the manga or seen this movie?  Your thoughts?

Anime with a message?

I liked this quote.  For those of you who find yourselves in conversations about anime as an art form as opposed to simple entertainment, you might find it interesting, too.

"I respect the inclusion of consequential themes in anime, regardless of the message, because this use of anime elevates animation from the realm of inconsequential commercial product into the realm of legitimate art and serious means of public discourse. Whether it’s anti-war messages in anime including Rain of Fire, Who’s Left Behind?, and Barefoot Gen; religious propaganda in anime films such as Laws of Eternity and Rebirth of Buddha; Japanese nationalism in Zipang and Gasaraki; social consciousness in films like Momoko: Kaeru no Utaga Ki Koeruyo and Goto ni Naritai; environmental awareness in Kawa no Hikari and Nausicaa; or educational encouragement in anime like Alice SOS and Arei no Kagami, anime that tries to deliver a message or encourage consideration or real world circumstances represents a more valuable, respectable, and praiseworthy goal for anime than merely providing time occupying entertainment."

The question was about "anti-war" anime, and the answer is certainly worth a read.  Thanks again, John.

So what do you think?  Even heavy-handed attempts are better than nothing?

Library Wars are coming!

I'm kind of giddy that a Library Wars manga has been licensed by Viz! 

This may be a good first step toward getting the rest of this property over here.  I think I might have preferred the "shonen" version more than the shojo, but if enough of the characters and action are preserved, I will be quite sufficiently thrilled.  Now I just have to wait . . .

If you don't know about this property, Library Wars takes place in the semi-near future when the government has passed strict censorship laws and formed a quasi-military/police enforcement group to destroy all books deemed unacceptable. 

In the name of freedom of speech/expression, the government also passed rules that made libraries the last safe harbor for these books.  This decision has turned libraries into battlegrounds protected by their own military/police enforcement group, which constantly clashes with the censorship cops.  There are secret raids, small wars when rich book-collectors pass away, mortal danger in the name of protecting books, and arguments with caring parents who don't want to see their children killed over freedom of speech/expression conflicts.

It's a sci-fi-reading bibliophile's dream.  Hee hee.  (Thank you, Viz!)  Be sure to check it out when it hits the shelves.  Be glad you can read most any book you want in this country.  It's quite an embarrassment of riches that I don't think we're consciously thankful for most of the time.

If such a future came to pass, would you be willing to give up your life to protect books, even books you don't particularly like?

Yawara and feminism

I talked about how I was getting a kick out of Yawara, but I didn't mention the one thing that was making it harder to get a kick out of it.  I am hardly a feminist, and I understand that this manga and anime take place in a different culture a couple decades ago, but come on.

From what I can tell, Yawara attends school, studies for college entrance exams, does all the cooking and cleaning, practices judo, and hones her passive-aggressive skills.  Her grandfather eats, invades her privacy, and manipulates her life (sort of from the shadows) mostly so he can get other people to buy him food.

One scene that made me genuinely mad included a few old men having a meeting in front of a TV several feet away.  When they wanted the volume turned up, they ordered the elderly wife of one of the men to turn the TV up even though she was further away and probably busy cooking or cleaning. 

My sister who taught in Japan confirmed that this last was not fiction and that it used to drive her and another teacher bonkers, to the point where they wouldn't even go to certain homes because they couldn't stand dealing with the chauvinistic crap.

I wonder if the girl who really did go on to win that gold medal in judo also attended school and did all the cooking and cleaning . . .  I can't think that's physically possible.

On the flip side, Yawara's mom leaves all the time to chase down her absentee husband when she probably should be cooking and cleaning and sitting on the grandfather.  That's independence, right?  Sort of?

So if this sort of casual, "traditional" Japanese male-dominance sends you clawing up the walls, you might not be able to enjoy Yawara as much, but there's still more I haven't seen, so maybe things change in the larger arc of the story.  (I am not holding my breath.)

Out of order publishing

For the record, I'd like to thank Yen Press, Tokyopop, ADV, Funimation, Geneon, and Viz for publishing things I can ponder, discuss, and complain about.

Apparently, some "fans" complain that they don't want to buy the same thing more than once.  Putting aside the question of how many versions of Evangelion (or DBZ) they have bought and trusting that their memories are so good that they can't stand the same content even in different forms (manga vs. anime vs. light novel), I would like to muse about this.


I've often wondered why publishers slavishly put things out in order even when the first X volumes are retreading the already released TV or manga series.  Take, for instance, Beck.  The anime was not completely slavish to the manga, but I know that as soon as the anime came out, there was a big market for the manga that picked up the story where the anime left off.  For whatever reason, Tokyopop didn't take advantage of that situation, and now . . .  Other (less law-abiding) citizens probably just read scanlations, even if they had intended to buy the manga because now it isn't available legally and may never be again.

Haruhi would be a great example.  After that first TV series was released with no sequel in sight, and the novels got licensed, I was surprised that the first novel was published first by several months.  I would think more of the fans might have been willing to plunk down cash for volume 2 or even volume 3 of the original novel series because it was stuff they hadn't seen/read yet.  Maybe that's not a good example because I think Haruhi is selling decently (even the manga, which most reviewers aren't too fond of, even though it's the same thing) because, you know, it's Haruhi.

Trinity Blood would be a bad example.  What with the two different series and the different story order and the different everything, this series did have to be published in order, but it's coming out so slowly, I wonder if those who liked the anime when it was broadcast and first sold possess the will-power to be patient.  Then again, maybe illegal light novel translations are scarcer online?  I don't know . . .

Another example that comes to mind is Kieli.  The manga covers the first light novel's contents pretty thoroughly.  Publishing the second light novel first might have been a better idea to keep the buzz and the story going after the Kieli manga made some popular lists.

I do love Kino no Tabi, and by the time the first light novel came out, it had been a long while since I saw the anime.  I didn't mind the retread of the content because that translation was awesome, and the nuances of what can be done in prose vs. what can be done in film made it well worth reading more than once.  Other people were probably just wanting the light novel volumes that picked up where the anime left off (or left out).

Kodocha (where the manga came out way before the [incompletely released] anime) and Kyo Kara Maoh (where the anime was released way before the manga) also come to mind.
It seems to me that in most series--especially an author's first series--the storytelling gets better as the story goes on and the artist/writer gains skill, so it seems to me that publishing later volumes might also help pull in people who might have been turned off by, say, the early (I hope) clunkiness of Spice and Wolf.

It may be that the American publishers/localizers don't get to make these choices.  I've heard some people say that the Japanese companies selling the licenses often have stringent contract requirements that make little sense in the American market.  Maybe this is one of them.  But if companies do have flexibility here, it might behoove them to take advantage of cross-marketing opportunities and give the whiner "fans" less to whine about by providing them with what they claim to want sooner.

Of course, as some have pointed out, some of these "fans" just want any excuse not to actually put their money where their mouths are (be it "bad" covers, "poor" translations, offensive back cover summaries, or whatever they're complaining about these days), so no matter what a publisher does, some fans just won't pay.  But I do like the idea of cutting their feet out from under them whenever possible. 

To be fair, there are fans who genuinely don't like retreading the same territory (though I can think of a lot of reasons why it's worth it to buy the Monster mangaand anime,) who would actually plunk down the money if, say, volume 13 of Beck came out the month after the DVD release ended.  I'd like to give them a chance to do so.

Any insights, knowledge, or arguments for, against, or about these ideas?

Yawara: a Fashionable Judo Girl

I am getting a bigger kick out of Yawara than I thought I would, which is odd since I'm such a Naoki Urasawa junkie.

I sort of started watching the show out of academic interest.   I figured:

• I should support this because the distributor is taking a big chance
• It's Urasawa
• A Japanese judo prodigy actually arose for real just after this and was called Yawara-chan by her numerous fans even though that wasn't her name.

I am definitely amused.  Of course the show is dated (clothes, music, frame-jitter), but its quirky charm has pretty much won me over.

Definitely closer to the lighter aspects of Master Keaton but much fluffier all around, Yawara is the story of a high school girl who's a genius at judo but wants nothing more than to be a normal teenager (who has fun, wears pretty clothes, goes to college, falls in love, etc.).  Her scheming old grandfather has been training her since early childhood, and he has a plan that won't end until she's won the gold medal at the olympics (even though judo wasn't a medal sport yet) and a National Merit Award.  He tries to set things up to go his way, and I pretty much hate him, but he has his moments. 

There's a bit of mystery here, too, because Yawara's judo genius father is missing.  There's some romance and heartbreak.  A former judo prodigy with competition-prohibiting stage fright becomes the object of her affection.  A reporter who was always a mediocre athlete and is now working for a trashy sports paper in the hopes of discovering a genius hero athlete just like the ones he always idolized wants to make her into a star. 

A lot of the humor comes from the situations that start out cliched but aren't.  Yawara's grandfather entices a talented-but-spoiled rich girl athlete to become Yawara's rival (I kind of hate her, too).  Yawara couldn't care less.  The reporter wanted to discover a genius athlete, but he never anticipated what life would be like for a genius who wants nothing to do with the spotlight.

It's light and fun and goofy and sometimes quite touching.  Just don't go in with any expectations above that, and you'll probably enjoy it, too.  If you've seen it, do let me know your thoughts about what made you watch it and what you liked about it.

Fan V. Critic: Why I will never be a critic

". . . just try and enjoy instead of being critical you might find you like it better that way."

This was the advice a fan gave to a critic, and it nearly made me snort milk out my nose. As a staunch non-critic, I agree that the sentiment makes sense, but good grief, what a silly thing to say to a critic. Critics do not get paid to like stuff. Critics do not get sent Advanced Reader's Copies for free so that they can enjoy them privately.

Critics are there to review the merits and drawbacks of whatever they're looking at and then communicate their opinions to others. How they do this differs greatly. Connie reviews her experience of reading the work in very conversational language. You can tell what ticked her off, what she really enjoyed, what she looked forward to, what met or disappointed her expectations, and what she's trying to be fair-minded about. Other reviewers give a brief, simplified summary of the contents and then some criticism about what was done well and not so well. Some use formal language. Some are vicious.  Some use ratings systems.  Some judge on set criteria.  (There are so many ways to review and critique!)

Some critics seem to live to hate everything, an understandable mindset when they have to keep cranking out reviews even when the last thing they feel like doing is reading another book. I'm sure if I even had to critically examine everything I read, I, too, would start to notice patterns and see similarities and long above all else for originality.  Since I don't have to review, and since I read so eclectically and widely and uncritically, I don't remember much of anything, so originality doesn't mean much to me. And if I don't want to read something, I don't have to.

My nephew can happily hear the same story every night and love it every night even as his parents go crazy and have it all memorized. (He's two.) How many times have I read my favorite books? It doesn't matter! I still love them!

I am not a critic. I don't like being a critic unless I don't like the book, and then it's nice to engage Critic Mode, so I can try to at least learn something from what I didn't like, thus giving it some sort of useful, redeeming value since it probably didn't have much entertainment value.

If I like something, I want to just like it. I want to focus on what was good, better, and best. I want to revel in the ways it brought me joy or pathos or whatever it brought me. I want to live in the moment where that one-liner was delivered perfectly.  Or that awful missed opportunity.  Or that scene with that twist!  I love being a fan!

I am not in school for this. I don't need to make the things I love justify themselves. If I did, I would kill them all. Reading would become a chore. I would hate that more than most anything else that could happen to me. I don't want that. Therefore, I made the conscious decision not to be a critic.

This resolution does not mean

• I don't see the point of critics.
• I brainlessly love everything about the books I read and like.
• I can't hold a reasonable conversation about books I love (if we have it soon enough after I finish).
• I never analyze at all for craft tips on pacing, setting, characterization, plot, or whatever. (Writers are thieves and plunderers, even when we are completely unconscious about it.  It's a spinal reflex.)

My decision not to be a critic means that I first read to enjoy. Anything else that happens is a bonus, an extra return for extra effort if I choose to make it. The glorious thing is that I don't have to make it, and I still get wonderful returns for my "effort."

This is why my dream job is reading books. Not reviewing them or criticizing them. Just reading books in a comfortable place somewhere. Of course, this idea is truly the literal definition of dream job because who would pay me to simply enjoy myself? No one. I don't have to be a professional fan. In fact, I pay for the privilege of being a fan. Ah, the freedom . . .

It's kind of a rush.


How about you? Fan or critic? Both? At different times?

A Call to Responsible Fandom

"This sense of possession leads fans to believe that their input means anything. In reality, all any fan of a series can do is buy or not buy a thing. By withholding their money, Fans think they are making a *statement.* All they are really doing, of course, is killing the thing they profess to love."

"In the long run, you only hurt yourself by refusing to buy the book. If it doesn’t sell well, Yen will cancel it. And what a Pyrrhic victory that will be for you and the other fans whose principal objection was the cover art."

Check out The Manga Critic's Few Thoughts About Fantitlement for the rest of the story and more comments.

I stayed awake in economics, and I am a squeaky-clean sort of person.  This means no searching the internet  for fansubs (or scanlations of books I don't own in Japanese) for me.  I have limited time and money, and I prefer to spend them legally supporting my hobbies and the things I like, etc.  There is more than enough bounty available legally through the library, Netflix, and even the internet to keep me busy.

When publishers were experimenting with light novels, I bought some I didn't love because I figured that the only way to get the ones I did want was to support the idea of light novels until they sold well enough that the ones I wanted got licensed and published.

Not many people think like that, so I only got one volume of Kino's Journey, a stunningly, hypnotically, beautifully translated book.

I didn't get all of Scrapped Princess, Seikai: Crest of the Stars, Good Witch of the West, Boogiepop Phantom, or Missing. I have gotten three volumes of Twelve Kingdoms.  (Thank you to everyone who bought this series.  Request it from your library if you didn't.)  I got Brave Story and some Moribito, too.  I'm hoping for more.

If enough of us behave wisely and in a fiscally responsible way, I think all of us will benefit.  Maybe (probably) we won't all get everything we want, but we might get more than we would have otherwise.  In this new year, I encourage you to support the manga and anime industries by voting in the economy with whatever dollars you can squeeze out of your budget (plan ahead and be ready for the sales at Right Stuf), by using your public library (shamelessly requesting titles you want to read), and by responsibly using the resources completely legally available on the internet.

It's that delayed gratification thing.  If we all do it, it will work for our benefits.

How to enjoy Honey & Clover

• Don't expect action, adventure, or a particularly linear plot right out of the gate because it's not about what happens but about who and how.
• Do expect stupid, crazy, random acts by quirky characters (kind of like the ones you perpetrated or witnessed in high school or college).
• Don't get scared away by the goofiness or the fact that nothing plotty seems to be happening at all.
• Do sit back and enjoy the moments.
• Don't give up too soon because this is a slow-burn story, a story about the marvelous everyday moments of happiness, hard work, heartache, irritation, and affection between friends, about the slow way we realize we have changed, been changed by other people, and changed other people.
• Do think about love in all its incarnations.
• Don't roll your eyes too much over the immature antics of the characters because you probably either knew people like them or were people like them once (or are people like them now).
• Do revel in the quiet, melancholy nostalgia and wistfulness, painful relationships, and beautiful, fleeting moments of clarity and thoughtfulness and truth.
• Don't bring your inner cynic.
• Do bring yourself, all your memories and experiences--painful or glorious--along for the bittersweet ride.

Have you seen Honey and Clover? How much of it? Any favorite characters or situations? Any memories it dredged up for you that you thought/wished you had forgotten?

Crayon Shin-chan: sarcastic, cynical, naughty fun

I suspect that Crayon Shin-chan is partly responsible for the low birth rate in Japan.

The original show (correct me if I'm wrong, S/T) is somewhat notorious in Japan for causing parental concern that children watching it will imitate Shin-chan (as if they don't already act like that) or that the show gives them naughty ideas (as if they don't already have them).  At least in the US, no one should be worrying about CSC negatively influencing children because there is NO WAY children should be watching this version.

Does this show count as a guilty pleasure?  It's full of offensive, inappropriate, wrong, and objectionable content that makes me laugh (a la The Boondocks) as much for what's exaggerated as for what's not.  It's like Baby Blues on drugs. 

You can tell the staff and cast had a hoot putting the US version of CSC together (especially if you can still find that bonus content they posted on Adult Swim's website).  The re-write isn't 100% awesome (your mileage will vary based on where your lines are), but what comedy material actually hits the target all the time?  It's funny enough, especially if you've worked or lived with small children, and that's what counts.  (As an added bonus, after watching this show, if you ever watch Oofuri, you may laugh at the first pairing of Shin-chan's parents I'd heard since.)

I think my favorite episode is the one where Hima (the baby) wants more juice.  This episode is almost completely free of crassness and features an impressive performance by an adult woman pretending to be a baby really well.  There is also some great baby logic.

If you want a more faithful translation/adaptation, please check out the graphic novels, which are also hilarious.

Consider Crayon Shin-chan as an addition to whatever birth control you use, or just enjoy it for the amusing, offensive, low-brow comedy entertainment it is.

If you've seen Shin-chan, do you have any favorite episodes?

A whole new year of anime and manga begins!

 I decided to start off this year with a quote I read.

"That could just be me, but I don’t look for anything more than entertainment. But, if I cry, laugh, learn something I didn’t know, envelope myself in someone elses imagainary world, then the manga/manhwa has done it’s job. It’s enriched my world and that’s all I ask."

I think I kind of agree with this (except the spelling and punctuation mistakes because I am an incurable grammar dork), and I think it explains why I get so much joy out of my hobbies.  I am not always seeking out the next classic.  It's nice when I find it, but I'm not sifting through the sands for it.  I am reading wide open, and there's a lot out there to like.  Here's to a new year full of new and old manga and anime that will enrich my world!

Are there any titles in particular that you're looking forward to in this new year?