Once again, it’s time for Let’s Get Visual, a monthly column in which Michelle Smith and I take a stab at analyzing manga art.
This month, we look at two scenes with heavy emotional impact, one from Ai Yazawa’s rock n’ roll soap opera, NANA, and another from Eiichiro Oda’s shounen epic, One Piece.
What both of us found extraordinary is just how powerful subtle details like body language can be in conveying the emotional resonance of a scene, even with the author’s dialogue completely stripped away.
“And while one might think that it’s the dialogue that makes it romantic (Nobu does say “I love you” right at the end, of course), I think the real testament to Yazawa’s skill here is that, even if you take all the dialogue away, the scene reads the same.”
Check out this month’s column to see what we have to say, and please let us know how you think we’ve done!