I’m thrilled to be a part of the Manga Bookshelf consortium, and just looking at the front page makes me happy. The only down side is that the nicely organized home site makes my individual blog feel kind of dowdy and difficult to navigate. It feels like I should find some better way to display regular features and new content. So for this random weekend question, I’d love to get your suggestions on how my blog can be improved from a design perspective. I’m leaning towards a magazine-style layout, but I’m absolutely open to any ideas you may offer.
Daily Chatter
Best Online Comics Criticism 2010
You may remember last year, when Johanna Draper Carlson pointed out the absence of both manga and female writers in the Hooded Utilitarian’s Best Online Comics Criticism 2009, featuring pieces chosen from throughout the year by a jury of five (male) critics. It seems likely that Johanna’s criticism was a factor in the selection of the subsequent jury, which included several female manga critics, one of whom was me.
Along with me, 2010’s jury was made up of Derik Badman, Johanna Draper Carlson, Shaenon K. Garrity, Tim Hodler, Chris Mautner and Bill Randall. Throughout the year, we submitted links to the group, pointing to comics criticism we found exceptional. At the end of the year, these links helped us each create a list of our top ten pieces, which were then compiled by the jury’s organizer, Ng Suat Tong. As Suat tallied the year’s votes, he suggested that multiple votes for the same author (on different pieces) be consolidated into votes for a single article, which ultimately gave me more spots on my top ten, and also helped to solidify some writers’ inclusion on the final list.
2010’s top picks among the jury were:
Jason Thompson: The Other Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name
Katherine Dacey on Ayako
Joe McCulloch: Essay on Thought Balloons (“The Problem with American Vampires Is That They Just Don’t Think”)
Craig Fischer on David Mazzucchelli (Born Again Again)
David Bordwell on Hergé (Tintinopolis)
Dirk Deppey: The Mirror of Male-Love Love
Ken Parille: Casper, Formalism, and the ‘Great’ Search Party
Before I reveal my own final list, I’d like to mention a couple of pieces that are not there and why. I must begin by confessing how disappointed I was to discover after I’d agreed to participate, that Shaenon Garrity would also be on the jury. One of the great injustices of the 2009 list, I felt, was that nothing of Shaenon’s appeared there, and her inclusion on the 2010 jury meant that I would have no opportunity to right this terrible wrong! In particular, this year, I raved about her wonderful piece on Cathy Guisewite’s Cathy, and nearly anything pulled from her weekly column at The Comics Journal, The Strangest Pictures I Have Seen. Also not on my final list, but one of my favorite pieces this year, was Ariel Schrag’s Queer identities in comics, the first of her articles to appear at AfterEllen.com.
Now for my final ten votes! These notes are mainly personal reflections on the pieces rather than profound statements on their critical achievement, and should be taken as such. Here they are:
Katherine Dacey on Sexy Voice and Robo/Harriet the Spy. I originally nominated both this and Kate’s Ayako review, with the first consolidation effort resulting in this single vote. Though later discussion between jurors led to all votes going for Ayako (fine with me, obviously), I wanted to put a little spotlight on this review as well, as it was one of my very favorite pieces of the year. Kate has a magnificent ability to make connections between works from different mediums and to express those connections with insight and clarity, and her Sexy Voice essay is a prime example of this talent.
Jason Thompson – To Protect and Kill: Morality in Action Manga: Again, this vote ended up being consolidated into a vote for Jason’s incest piece, both of which I nominated in my original ten, but since this one didn’t make the cut, I thought I should give it a boost. I always enjoy Jason’s writing, and as someone who first came to comics via shounen manga, this piece had special appeal for me.
Dirk Deppey – The Mirror of Male-Love Love: This honest, personal discussion of the writer’s own history as a foundation for criticism of Boys’ Love Manga is a perfect example of what makes compelling writing, online or anywhere else. I’m always most swayed by writers who are able to talk about their personal experience without losing their argument inside it all. Dirk Deppey does that astonishingly well.
Peter Sattler on R Crumb’s Genesis: What’s fantastic about this piece of criticism is how deliberately and clearly it is structured, making it an incredibly informative read even for someone (like me) who hasn’t actually read the comic being discussed. Oh, to be able to write like this. I can only dream of that day!
Karen Green on Pushwagners Soft City: There’s already been some discussion of the fact that our votes lean heavily towards positive criticism, but this piece is actually a wonderful example of why. Karen’s essay here made me feel truly excited about the book she was discussing–I mean really, truly inspired and excited. “This is why I read comics!” I thought at the time. Who doesn’t want to feel like that?
Deb Aoki, David Welsh, Sean Gaffney, Tucker Stone, David Brothers, Joe McCulloch, Ryan Sands, & Scott Green – “AXed” Intro | Part 1 | Part 2: Suat has already expressed his dismay at the inclusion of AXed in this year’s list of runners-up, but in my opinion, this collaborative criticism created entirely on Twitter best demonstrates one of the ways in which online criticism can actually be unique as online criticsm. In the hands of bloggers, concepts of journalism, criticism (and any other kind of writerly “ism”), have ceased to be the precisely distinct entities they once were, carefully controlled and meted out by the keepers of their mediums. Online platforms give writers the opportunity to mash these things up as they please, and to discover new ways in which to express critical thought. While some certainly see this as an assault on traditional criticism, I think it’s fantastic. And it’s not just the “isms” that are being challenged here. The writers who participated in AXed also challenged the platform they were writing on, utilizing Twitter for something far more ambitious than it was ever intended. The result? More of what I’m looking for in the places I frequent online: smart, thoughtful people talking about manga.
Joe McCulloch on thought balloons (“The Problem with American Vampires Is That They Just Don’t Think”): Thought balloons (or boxes, or pieces of floating thought text) are tricky business in my book, always endangering the directive of “show not tell.” But this essay gave me a new appreciation for representations of the inner monologue in any form. It’s a great read.
Phil Nugent on Doonesbury: My very first exposure to comics was by way of my dad. There were two comic strips he loved enough to collect in full, book by book. One, unsurprisingly, was Charles Schultz’s Peanuts. The other? Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury. I read all of my dad’s extensive Doonesbury collection multiple times over when I was a kid in the mid-seventies, despite the fact that I had little understanding of the politics behind it all. My early love for Doonesbury was no doubt the seed for my teenaged obsession with Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County, the only comic strip I ever followed as ravenously as my dad followed those he loved. Having not kept up with Doonesbury as an adult, I found Phil Nugent’s analysis of his eventual disappointment in the strip sad, but I can’t deny that it reads like truth.
David Welsh on To Terra… : Though this particular installment of the Manga Moveable Feast brought out quite a bit of interesting criticism from around the manga blogosphere, David’s discussion of the series’ shounen-ai undertones was probably my personal favorite. Eternally fascinated as I am by Japan’s system of manga demographics, this essay could have been written just for me. Thanks for that, David!
Tucker Stone on Blue Spring: Recommended quietly on Twitter by the awesome Kai-Ming Cha, this review simply enchanted me with its understated humor and insight. “… because youthful purpose is the single greatest murderer of youthful pleasure that I can think of,” is probably one of my favorite quotes all year. Also, this: “In the cult of comics blogging, I’m as guilty as many, with a long list of regretful moments of generous praise that strikes me now as being overly kind. I don’t think I’ll regret saying that this is the kind of comic that I would love to see more of, no matter who produces it. It’s eclectic and demanding, hysterically immature at times, and yet, from beginning to end, its viscerally entertaining, visually fascinating, and extremely unique. ”
As a sometimes-critic, that sentence rings startlingly true to my own experiences. And as a reader, what more can I possibly ask?
Upcoming 1/19/2011
One of the common complaints about shônen manga centers on the set pieces, particularly lengthy battle sequences where the hero demonstrates his resolve for the better part of a volume. This can be a fair criticism, especially when these long story beats don’t really reveal anything new about characters or advance the plot. I mention this objection because the second book of Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game (Viz) has shipped, and, while most of the two volumes collected there are about a single baseball game, it’s the opposite of a long and pointless set piece.
Adachi did the hard work of assembling a totally winning cast in the first volume. He’s also a wonderfully economical creator. By that, I don’t mean that he moves with unnecessary speed; what I’m saying is that he makes best use of his pages. So while a single baseball game can take a volume and a half, that single game is packed with humor, evolving relationships, growth, and, I say this as someone who could not be forced to watch an actual baseball game, excitement. The volume reads like the wind, but it’s fully satisfying, and the pacing is terrifically quirky.
For bonus points, Adachi takes pains to expand on the character of Aoba. She was already likable as the most clear-eyed skeptic when it comes to series protagonist Ko Kitamura. This time, she gets to demonstrate her considerable smarts, providing running commentary on the game while grudgingly realizing that her opinion of Ko may have to evolve. She’s no less formidable for that attitude adjustment, which is great.
It’s just a terrific comic. Adachi does every single thing right in creating a splendid, accessible entertainment that displays both sturdy craftsmanship and singular style.
So that’s a little more on my pick of last week, and here’s my pick of this week. It’s a slow one.
Follow Friday: The localizers
Server outages and related angst have given us a a rough week at Manga Bookshelf, so today seems quite an appropriate time to spread a little goodwill over the manga industry twitterverse.
One of the things I’ve loved about Twitter, is that it’s given me the opportunity to interact with the people who make it possible for me to actually read manga. I’m referring, of course, to the localizers–the translators, adapters, and editors whose work I rely on to enjoy manga in English to the greatest extent possible.
Twitter is teeming with manga industry folks, and though I can’t possibly list them all here, I’ll pick out a few I’ve especially enjoyed.
William Flanagan is not only one of my favorite translators around, he’s also a great conversationalist and one of my favorite twitterers. You can also find twin translators Alethea & Athena Nibley lurking around the twitterverse.
Adaptor Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane brings a smart, thoughtful presence to the discussion.
And for a look into the world of manga editing, don’t miss the Twitter feeds of Asako Suzuki, Nancy Thistlethwaite, and Daniella Orihuela-Gruber.
This is merely a handful, of course–just a peek into the riches Twitter has to offer. Who are your favorite manga localizers to follow?
Great Graphic Novels for Teens 2011
They just announced the results of one of my favorite awards programs, the Young Adult Library Services Association’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens list. Here’s the full roster. Here are the top ten from that pool.
The number of Japanese comics in the top ten has dropped from three last year to one this year (Hisae Iwaoka’s Saturn Apartments from Viz), and I suspect this is simply a reflection of the fact that the indigenous young-adult comic market seems to get stronger every year.
I’m very fond of a lot of the Japanese comics on the list: Natsume Ono’s House of Five Leaves and not simple, Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game, Yuki Midorikawa’s Natsume’s Book of Friends (all from Viz), and Nobuaki Tadano’s 7 Billion Needles and Kou Yaginuma’s Twin Spica (both from Vertical), and Kaoru Tada’s Itazura na Kiss (Digital Manga). I’ve also really enjoyed what I’ve read of JiUn Yun’s Time and Again (Yen Press), the only Korean title on the list.
Since I’m always looking for things that give a little structure to blogging, I think I’ll use the top ten list as an impetus. Just for fun, I think I’ll read and review everything on it that I haven’t already read and reviewed. Any suggestions as to where I should start?
And what are your thoughts on the list overall? Are you delighted by any particular inclusions or aghast at any omissions?
Links instead of lists
It’s a good thing that we use Midtown Comics for our Pick of the Week round robin, as the Diamond-focused ComicList is a barren wasteland this week. So, instead, I will look back through my Twitter archives to point you at some fun and enlightening things to read online:
- Two of my favorite discussions in Tom Spurgeon’s Comics Reporter Holiday Interview series were with Brigid Alverson and Dirk Deppey.
- Christopher (Comics212) Butcher celebrates Japan’s extremely advanced, even daring Kit Kat culture.
- Anna at Manga Report will be hosting the next Manga Moveable Feast starting Sunday, Jan. 15, and featuring Julietta Suzuki’s Karakuri Odette (Tokyopop).
- Jason Thompson takes a meaty look at a previous MMF topic, Yuki Urushibara’s Mushishi, in his latest “House of 1,000 Manga” column.
- At Robot 6, Kevin Melrose reveals his choices for the 50 best comic covers of 2010.
- I always enjoy Monkey See’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, and this week the participants have a bracing discussion of that Patton Oswalt piece on the death of geek culture, which is interesting even if, like me, you can’t be bothered to read the Oswalt piece that triggered the conversation. (There’s also some perfectly needless sports blather, which I always find disproportionately irritating in this context. Is it just me, or should there be more reliably sports-free zones, particularly when the focus is ostensibly pop and/or geek culture?)
Manga Bookshelf’s Ayako Giveaway!
As both a celebration of the New Year and of a new era at Manga Bookshelf, we’ll be giving away a copy of Osamu Tezuka’s Ayako, beautifully translated and produced in hardcover by Vertical, Inc.
Ayako has made quite a number of critics’ lists for Best of 2010, including mine and Kate’s. Both David and Kate have reviewed the book, and I’ll be doing so shortly.
TO ENTER:
Please submit your entry by using our fancy new contact form, with the subject line “Ayako” and your name in the body of the e-mail.
You must be 18 or older to enter and must be able to provide an address within the continental US for shipping if you win (this book is heavy).
The winner will be chosen at random on January 15th and announced here at Manga Bookshelf.
Good luck!
Changes at Manga Bookshelf
Happy New Year, everyone!
If you’re surfing by, you’ll probably notice that I’m no longer alone here at Manga Bookshelf. Two of my favorite bloggers, Manga Critic Katherine Dacey and Manga Curmudgeon David Welsh, have brought their blogs over to the Manga Bookshelf domain, via WordPress multisite capability. Their blogs will continue to stand on their own (David’s even got a shiny new domain name!), while also feeding content into the main page at Manga Bookshelf. The result? More reading for everyone! Also, we’ll likely be undertaking some collaborative projects now and then, so keep an eye out!
To take you through a bit of the updated front page, you’ll find several new features on the left-hand side, including David’s “License Requests” column and Kate’s feature, “The Best Manga You’re Not Reading.” In the center of the page, reviews and features will feed in from all the site’s blogs–same with the news and blog posts on the right-hand side. A list of the latest posts from all blogs on the network can be found on the right as well. If you’ve arrived at the main page with a clear destination in mind, the banners on the top right will take you directly to the blog you’re looking for. These links are also available in the top navigation menu for easy access from any internal page. We’ve also got a lovely new header image, thanks to Kuriousity‘s Lissa Pattillo!
Here are a few links to help you change your bookmarks & RSS feed settings. Keep in mind that if you follow the Manga Bookshelf RSS feed, you’ll see content from all the network’s blogs.
The Manga Curmudgeon Blog | RSS
To receive RSS feeds via e-mail, sign up using the form in the footer of this page or in the sidebar of the Contact Us page.
We also have a new Facebook page for the whole site. Please “like” us!
I’m thrilled by the possibilities offered by this new team effort and incredibly grateful to Kate and David for being willing to join me. Manga Bookshelf will, of course, continue to host regular collaborative content with Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith, as well as continuing group features, such as Breaking Down Banana Fish.
Here’s to an exciting 2011 for all!
Let’s Get Visual: Speechless
Once again, it’s time for Let’s Get Visual, a monthly art-focused exercise with Michelle Smith, hosted at her blog, Soliloquy in Blue.
This month, we respond to a request for discussion of nonverbal storytelling. My choice for the exercise is a scene from the fourth volume of Fumi Yoshinaga’s Antique Bakery. Though the scene does contain some minimal dialogue, I provided scans from the Japanese book in order to illustrate how profoundly the artwork does the talking.
Though we discuss only the scene as presented, and never reveal what is said between the two characters, thinking about this series made me want to start handing it out to gay teens as my version of an “It Gets Better” video. The way that Ono moves on from this moment to discover a new life, while Tachibana hangs on to his guilt for years after… it’s so close to the stories of many of my own friends who left high school to move on to things much, much greater, while their tormentors stayed behind, still mired in the world of our high school social scene.
As always, please remember that we’re asking for your help. We want to improve our ability to analyze visual storytelling and we’re anxious for feedback from those who know more than we. Though we’d prefer you be gentle, we’ll take what we can get!
So head on over to the latest Let’s Get Visual and let us know how we’re doing!
Evolution of a website & other stories
With this year’s New York Anime Festival (now combined with New York Comic Con to form one massive SUPER CON) just days away, I’m struck by what’s happened in the last year, and particularly the contrast between Where I Was Then and Where I Am Now in terms of web presence and mission.
Last year was only my second time attending NYAF, and my very first time as press. I was lucky enough then to be shepherded through the con by the likes of MangaBlog‘s Brigid Alverson and super-librarian/author Robin Brenner, who not only put up with my utter lack of know-how, but who also graciously introduced me around to publishers, editors, and other members of the press. I remember vividly Brigid’s restrained (but obvious) frustration as she attempted to explain to people who I was despite my pathetic lack of business cards or even a coherent website address. In those days, I called my blog “There it is, Plain as daylight” (a bit of song lyric borrowed from an obscure Frank Loesser musical) on a domain called eyeballman.com, originally created to promote a CD I released back in 2002. And not only was “manga” featured in neither the blog’s title or url, the main image spread across the top of the page was a photo of my dog.
The one thing I came away with from last year’s con (besides an overwhelming feeling of gratitude towards Brigid, Robin, and all the other kind folks I’d met in the press room at the Javits Center) was that my branding sucked, and my “professional” reputation along with it. A month or so later, I re-vamped my website, giving it a new, manga-centered design and a brand new domain, mangabookshelf.com. In December I had business cards printed with the new website name and logo, and I began the new year with the goal of establishing a coherent feel for the site with more weekly/monthly regular features and a distinguishable personality.
Whether I’ve achieved the latter is not something I can necessarily judge myself, but Manga Bookshelf is now home to several regular features, including Manhwa Monday (hosted at sister site, Manhwa Bookshelf), Pick of the Week, Off the Shelf and BL Bookrack (both with Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith), and the bi-monthly roundtable Breaking Down Banana Fish featuring a host of my favorite critics. Over the summer, I redesigned the site to better highlight its regular features (which have really become the heart of the blog), and just last night I finished a second redesign to refine that purpose (especially focusing on Pick of the Week) and to tweak the layout so that might have a more familiar feel for readers who are accustomed to a blog-style look. …
MMF takes on After School Nightmare
The Manga Moveable Feast, in a fairly last-minute vote this month, has taken on Setona Mizushiro’s After School Nightmare as its subject for September. The series, published in ten volumes by the now-defunct Go!Comi, was nominated for an Eisner award in 2007.
I reviewed volume one back in July of last year, and though I enjoyed the first volume very much, I was fairly stunned by how the series developed over the course of its full run. The story focuses heavily on gender identity and self-esteem, using horror devices in ways I’ve rarely found so interesting.
Here are some quotes from my review of the first volume:
Everybody has some kind of secret, though Ichijo Mashiro’s is bigger than most: he was born with a male upper body and a female lower body, something he has successfully kept from his peers for his entire life. Unfortunately, this secrecy can’t last once his school enrolls him in a special after-hours “class” in which he is placed into a shared nightmare with other students. In the nightmare, the students are reduced to their “true forms,” revealing their worst fears and deepest wounds to each other …
The issues of gender identification and sexuality addressed in the series are really compelling overall, though it’s hard to tell at this point just what the author is trying to say about them. It is clear that Ichijo associates being male with strength and being female with weakness which is a significant part of why he is so determined to live as male, but his ideas are being challenged from all sides which is terrifying for him but quite thrilling for the reader.
… The emotional intimacy forced upon them during the dreams really is every teen’s nightmare and though the full implications of that have yet to be explored, it’s something I’m anticipating eagerly as a reader. There is so much rich material here to work with, I can only hope the series follows through.
My response after having read the entire series? In short: It does.
I hope to have something new to offer for the Feast before the month is out, but whether I do or not, readers should head over to host Sean Gaffney’s blog, A Case Suitable For Treatment for both an introduction to the series and links to participants’ contributions!
Let’s Get Visual: Action Edition
Every day I’m reminded as I browse the manga blogosphere just how much I have to learn about reading and criticizing manga. So, last month, Michelle Smith and I launched a new feature, Let’s Get Visual, where we let our weaknesses show with a view towards growing as critics.
In comments to last month’s column, David Brothers asked if we might talk about more action-oriented scenes the next time around. Since Michelle and I aim to please, we decided to give it a go! The result? Let’s Get Visual: Annnnnd Action!
With Akimi Yoshida’s Banana Fish on the brain (for obvious reasons) I chose a few pages from volume eight of that series, while Michelle picked a sequence from Tsutomu Nihei’s BLAME!
Before you head on over let me remind you that we’re genuinely looking to improve our comprehension of and ability to analyze the visual aspects of manga, so if you know a lot more than we do (and I know many of you do), please teach us! We’d prefer a gentle touch, but we’ll take what we can get! Also, if you have particular requests, as David did, you can see we reward those who indulge us with comments.
So check out our brand new Let’s Get Visual and let us know how we’re doing!
New Tumblr: Mini Bookshelf
Because the thing we all most need is yet another social network, Manga Bookshelf has joined Tumblr!
Behold: Mini Bookshelf
My intent for the Tumblr is to chronicle my daily manga/manhwa reads & to collect those of others (should others wish to play). To share what you’re reading today, simply go to my Tumblr and click “What are you reading?” Then just write a little note or upload a photo of whatever you’ve pulled off the shelf today. Judging from the submissions I’ve received so far, you don’t have to have a Tumblr account to participate!
I’ve been on a Vertical kick this week, with both Chi’s Sweet Home and 7 Billion Needles so far occupying my time.
Linkblogging: Stuck on Shojo
So, just as I thought I’d satisfied my obsession with shojo-centric conversation in the manga blogosphere, Deb Aoki posts the transcript from her recent interview with Moto Hagio, rendering me fully obsessed all over again.
The transcript begins with Hagio’s panel appearance at San Diego Comic-Con, and moves into a private interview Deb was able to catch with her later on. Not only does Deb ask wonderful questions (along with SDCC panel attendees), but Hagio’s responses (interpreted by Matt Thorn) and her account of her own career are, frankly, inspiring. This transcript is a must-read for all manga lovers and any woman in the arts, in my opinion. Please check it out!
Now, for a brief recap of all the conversation that’s been happening online… comments exploded in response to David Welsh’s Thursday thoughts, inspiring this response from Brigid Alverson at Robot 6. Part of the premise of Brigid’s post was to refute my assertion that Fruits Basket and Boys Over Flowers have very little in common (an opinion I still hold, by the way, and which I’ll be happy to explain at length for anyone who cares).
Having been called out, I reacted pretty strongly in comments to what I felt was a pretty reductive argument. And though I stand by my reaction, after reading the discussion in comments, I don’t believe Brigid actually meant to dismiss shojo, and I’m distressed by the heat she’s taken for it overall. On the other hand, nobody’s taken as much heat as Chris Mautner, who received a scathing response to his review of A Drunken Dream and Other Stories from passionate editor Matt Thorn.
Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Erin Ptah takes issue with my post about female fans (though I think the argument she actually objects to is one I quoted from an earlier post), and Kate Dacey confesses (in comments) to her own internal conflict over wanting to defend shojo manga against dismissive arguments made by male critics while not really feeling the love for much of it herself. This comment (among others) inspired me to talk about why my love still stands strong.
Lastly, in comments to my original HU post, discussion with a reader named Tacto prompted me to provide a list of shojo and what I’m calling “youth-oriented josei” (focusing on older teens and twenty-somethings finding themselves and so on) from my personal collection, with a view towards illustrating the diversity and quality available in titles that have been translated into English. My collection is laughable compared to what I know some of you own, so feel free to add on!
In the end, though? Go back to Moto Hagio. If you read just one link about shojo manga today, that should be it. It will make your day, I promise.
Shojo manga: navel-gazing edition
With all the recent discussion of shojo manga that’s been going on, it should be no surprise that I’ve had shojo on the brain. Some of the comments that have struck me most in all the din have come from adult women who find themselves in the position of wanting to defend shojo manga and its readers, while being forced to acknowledge the fact that they’ve lost interest in most shojo (and its more persistent tropes) themselves.
While this doesn’t reflect my own experience, I can certainly understand how awkward that must be for them amidst the current discussion. And I have to admit that it’s led me to question why it is, at the age of forty-one, I’m not in the same boat. “Shouldn’t I be over shojo?” my inner adult asks. After all, I’ve publicly chalked up my disinterest in the Twilight series to cynical middle-age. So what exactly is it that’s got me going out on a limb to defend the honor of Fruits Basket?
One of the things that has astonished me most, as I look back at a life that includes several major moves (featuring a 9-year span or so in the middle that best resembles nomadism), a series of total career shifts, numerous relationships of many kinds, and a general lack of conventional stability, is really how little my life has changed over the years, or at least how little I have. While it’s true that I’ve learned a great deal throughout the course of my life so far, and have developed a few attitudes and opinions that could be considered jaded or even cynical, for the most part, my core personality has remained intact, year in and year out.
As a child, the trait I most tragically lacked was guile (and the ability to see through anyone else’s), so I spent most of my teen years utterly bewildered by the actions of my peers, who seemed able to make friends and drop them without so much as a thought, and whose skill with a cutting remark or personal insult often left me stunned and bleeding (figuratively, for the most part) on the hallway floor. Though I’ve developed somewhat more sophisticated social skills over the years, and a few simple methods of self-protection, overall, I’m still cursed with what Chris Mautner might view as an “overly sincere, heart-on-the-sleeve-style” personality.
With only that in mind, I think I can perhaps understand some of the reasons why shojo manga (and shonen manga, for that matter) might appeal to me, in particular, and why even some of the most melodramatic stories published for that demographic often ring very true to me. Even more to the point, however, I find that many of the struggles faced by the heroines of shojo manga (or the older-but-still-young heroines in series such as NANA)–particularly in terms of personal relationships and finding one’s place in the world–are struggles I still face daily in my adult life.
Who am I? Who do I want to be? Whom can I trust? Does this person love me? These are all questions that still loom large in the life of this forty-something. When I cried for a half an hour after reading volume four of We Were There, it wasn’t because it reminded me of the pain of adolescence. It was because it reflected pain I was experiencing right then at the time. When I see Shugo Chara!‘s Amu struggling to reconcile the variations in all her would-be selves, it speaks to my ongoing career angst and the many decisions I have not yet made, even at my age.
While there are certainly shojo series that win me over with nostalgia (Please Save My Earth, for example, which is practically a perfect imprint of my 12-year-old mind), many more are favorites because they resonate with the current me. And though there are seinen and josei series that stimulate me much more on an intellectual level, they rarely address the unresolved issues at the core of my own life. Who am I? Who do I want to be? Whom can I trust? Does this person love me? Ask me a question about politics, religion, philosophy, the arts, human rights–on these grown-up concerns I have hours worth of fully-formed thoughts, all ready for discussion and debate. Ask me the others… well, I’m still there with Amu, Nanami, Nana, and Hachi, struggling to figure it all out.
If my life was more settled into a normal “adult” groove, would I still find such resonance in these kinds of books? It’s hard to say. On one hand, I think remaining in close touch with my younger self may just be a part of my personality. Perhaps I’d still enjoy these series as nostalgia pieces, even if I was truly sitting at the grown-up table. But with this in mind, I can certainly understand why a lot of other women might have difficulty finding many of them compelling. And though I think that trivializing them based on that is fairly problematic, I have a great deal of appreciation for women who are trying really hard not to.
I’m well aware that there are plenty of adult women who still enjoy (or perhaps even enjoy for the first time) young adult fiction, including things like shojo manga, so I know I’m not alone. I also know that their reasons for connecting with it may or may not be anything like my own, so this little post can only serve as personal account and nothing more. Take it as you will.