Yun Kouga MMF: Link Roundup 1

The Yun Kouga Manga Moveable Feast is underway! Things have begun slowly, but here’s a quick rundown of contributions to the Feast so far:

I kicked things off on Sunday with an Introduction to Yun Kouga, including descriptions of all her series currently available in English and an ode to her gorgeously messy characterization and her insights into the human heart.

But if she leaves us unable to deny our darker impulses, she at least doesn’t leave us alone. There’s a sense, always, that Kouga loves her characters fully and without conditions, even when they’re at their worst. We’re all ugly and beautiful in Yun Kouga’s world, and there’s nothing to do but to try to navigate the mess as best we can. “Mess” is a key word here, and though Kouga-sensei’s artwork is a consistent highlight—genuinely gorgeous and a real treat to behold—one might say that her greatest talent is in making a mess. She writes messy characters in messy relationships, and if these are often accompanied by some messy plotting as well, perhaps that’s an unavoidable side-effect.

Also at Manga Bookshelf, guest contributor Sarah Ash gets some frustrations off her chest in A Letter to Yun Kouga:

Before the handsome new Viz volumes came out (and they are very handsome) I had resigned myself to never seeing a conclusion to Loveless. I had decided to appreciate the plus points and try to forget the minuses. I was ready to admire again the accurate way that you depict children on the verge of adolescence (and their teachers!) capturing the cruelty and the intensity of their interactions. Your damaged adults are just as fascinating: Soubi grimly painting the butterflies he says he hates so much because they’re stupid enough to let themselves be caught and killed. Shinonome-sensei breaking down in tears in class when one of her class answers back, unwittingly using the same words Soubi has used to reject her.

My frustration as a reader stems, I guess, from the fact that there was – is – such potential in Loveless that I can’t bear to see it being frittered away.

At his blog, Manga Energy, Aaron takes this opportunity to complain about Loveless and The Modern Misappropriation of Moé:

… with all of this being said it’s not so much Loveless as a series I’d like to write about. More an aspect of it’s fandom in particular the use of the term Moé by some fans to the discussion of Aoyagi as a charcter or his relationship with Soubi in particular, as I feel it’s a term that gets misappropriated too often now in Otaku circles. Loveless is just one of many prominent examples I’ve seen where the term is used I feel with out a real grasp of the term it’s self. And finally, back here at Manga Bookshelf, I delve into one of the primary themes of Kouga-sensei’s josei romance Crown of Love with Crown of Love: Hey Jealousy: Where Crown of Love differs is in its execution, specifically in the fact that it portrays its hero’s obsession as genuinely problematic, rather than romantic or cute. It is also completely up-front about the painful and unsatisfactory nature of unrequited love (and unbalanced relationships of all kinds). And though it is technically a love story, it could also be described as a story primarily about jealousy. And wow does Yun Kouga get jealousy.

A full list of the Feast’s contributions (updated as they come) can be found in the Yun Kouga Archive, with lists of older articles to browse through as well. More to come as the week continues!

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To submit your contributions to the Yun Kouga MMF for inclusion in this month’s archive, please send your links by email to mj@mangabookshelf.com or via Twitter to @mjbeasi between now and Saturday, July 20th. If you would like your contribution(s) to be hosted at Manga Bookshelf, please email them to MJ, along with any included images. Contributions to the Yun Kouga MMF will be archived here.