manhua

It Came From the Sinosphere: Shadow of Visions

August 6, 2013 by Sara K. Leave a Comment

Example Scene

When I first picked this up and browsed through it, this was the scene that caught my eye.

Wanxiang’s dream is to win the beauty pageant so she can win the prize, return to her hometown, marry her childhood friend, and live comfortably ever after.

However, a seer has told her that it’s best for her to forget about the pageant and just return to her hometown now. But without the prize, she will be poor. And she’s certain she will win.

The pageant has started, and Wanxiang is as confident as ever.

It is the most beautiful, splendid, glorious moment of her life …

… and the end of her life.

I was struck by the contrast of her beauty and the serenity all around her, and the fact that she has just been murdered.

The Story

Yingshuang has a dream: the freedom to wander and go where she wants. Strange, I know. However, everybody expects her to marry the son of her wealthy neighbor, Wen Moyan. Though Moyan has been sweet on Yingshuang since childhood, she doesn’t have the slightest interest in being his wife.

Then one day, an apparently blind man, Shan Yumu, appears in the village. He is said to bring bad luck. In fact, he’s not blind – he’s merely tired of seeing the future. And he sees that, unless Yingshuang gives up her dream and marries Moyan, her family will soon be destroyed.

Well … not long afterwards, her home is set on fire, and Yingshuang is the sole survivor of her family. It is eventually revealed that the arsonist/murderer is … Moyan, who is so in love with Yingshuang that, after her repeated refusals of his marriage proposals, was driven to destroy her family so that she would be completely dependent on him and finally agree to marry him (note: if this is “love,” then I hope nobody ever “loves” me).

After Yingshuang frees Yumu (who had been arrested as a suspected arsonist), they start wandering together. But Moyan does not give up so easily…

Background

This is yet another Star Girls title (I have written about StarGirls before). Sheau Giun (she seems to prefer her Taiwanese name to her Mandarin name) is a regular contributor to Star Girls – she has a series running in the magazine right now.

Artwork

Can you tell this is from Taiwan and not Japan just by looking at the artwork?

I can’t. Sure, the visual sensibility is certainly informed by Chinese traditions, but that’s also true of Japanese manga set in historical China.

Of course, this is what I expect from Star Girls, which tries to be as much like Japanese shojo magazines as possible.

And this manhua can be just as bloody as Japanese shojo manga.

I like the artwork. First, it’s very effective at telling the story. It’s also clean, and pleasing to the eye (or at least my eye).

While I could go into a detailed analysis of how the artwork works, this time, I think I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Choice vs. Predestination

Well, the premise of this story is: are our fates determined, or can we choose our fate? (the answer: both, because our choices are predetermined)

The story adds a feminist slant, in that society defines women’s fates more narrowly than men’s. Yingshuang *should* just go ahead and marry Moyan, who will “love” her and spend many happy years with her, while her family can continue to prosper. All she needs to do is give up on her dream of having some freedom.

And when Yingshuang refuses this path, and Moyan decides to burn her family because he “loves” her so much, it’s *Yingshuangs’s* fault that her family is gone and that Moyan is now a criminal. No, not Moyan’s fault at all. In the real world, this victim-blaming happens all the time when men punish women for exercising autonomy.

The thing is: it’s humans who determine this. There wasn’t any supernatural force which makes Moyan act as he does; Moyan, in spite of his claims that Yingshuang’s rejection of his love “forced” him, actually chooses his own actions. However, society assigns the blame to Yingshuang because she has rejected the status quo, whereas Moyan is acting in accordance to the status quo. We later learn that, though Yumu is male, his personal circumstances are more like Yingshuang’s than Moyan’s. This is why, repeatedly throughout the story, people trust Moyan but not Yingshuang or Yumu – Yumu looks like a bum, Yingshuang is a teenage girl, but Moyan is a “charming” man from a “good” (re: powerful) family.

The story puts a neatly ironic twist in Yingshuang’s ‘fate’, but that would be a spoiler.

My History With This Manhua

When I was first nursing a curiosity about Chinese-language comics, there was precious little information available. I could piece together some bits of information from the internet, but it was not very newbie-friendly. I did, however, learn about Star Girls, and lacking better guidance, I went to a Taiwanese comic book shop and picked up the first volume of every Star Girls manhua they had in stock.

This manhua was one of them.

Some of the manhua I picked up from that grab-bag were so terrible that I am grateful that I’ve already forgotten them.

This, however, made the deepest impression. It was one of the few which I bothered to track down in its entirety.

One of the reasons I write this column is so that it will be a little easier for the next person who becomes curious about Chinese-language comics. While this column is not a comprehensive guide, I hope it’s more useful than what I was working with when I started exploring.

Availability in English

This manhua has never been licensed in English *Sara K. experiences a coughing attack*.

Conclusion

This is overall a solid read. While I can quibble about its faults (for example, that plot hole left wide open in the last volume), overall, it’s competent storytelling. I also have fond memories of it being one of the first manhua I liked.

Yet, somehow, it falls short of being so wonderful that I simply MUST SHARE WITH EVERYONE!!!! But perhaps that’s just as well. I’m fine with it going on being the manhua which I like, but which nobody else reads (not that anybody reads the manhua which I enthusiastically recommend either).

Next time: Laughing in the Wind (TV show)

Hail. In Taiwan. In JULY. Sara knows it snows in the mountains in winter, but she sure did not expect the summer to be this cold. After spending three nights at temperatures of about 12 degrees C with only a sleeping bag to keep her warm, Sara was even looking forward to returning to humid, 30+ degrees-C weather. Well, one of the reasons she went to the mountains in the first place was to get away from summer heat. In that respect, the trip was a resounding success.

It Came from the Sinosphere: Island, End of Nightmare (Manhua)

July 2, 2013 by Sara K. Leave a Comment

The cover of the manhua, featuring Luonian (blue) running towards the reader, and Huaizhen (orange) taking up most of the background.

Why couldn’t I find this image in a bigger size?

Hello, everyone! I’m back.

The Story

During a trip to an island in the South China sea, a teenager called Luonian has an encounter with a phoenix, and then a giant dog (a demon?) pins him to the ground. Then Luonian wakes up in a hospital in Taiwan. Was it just a nightmare?

Back in his hometown, Banqiao, Luonian gets attacked by a demon … which gets taken down by some fellow senior high school students. Apparently, a number of teenage demon hunters attend Luonian’s senior high school, but demon hunters are generally pretty discreet about their work, so he wasn’t aware of their activities before. Now that he knows, their offer to train him and let him join their demon-hunting club.

To make matters worse, that “dog,” who is actually a nine-tailed fox and is called “Huaizhen,” comes back. Huaizhen had waited 3000 years to get the “aura” of that phoenix … and Luonian had “stolen” that opporunity by getting the “aura” of the phoenix instead.
Therefore, Huaizhen wants to eat him. However, they strike a deal – Luonian lets Huaizhen suck his phoenix-aura-laden-energy (note: this might not be the best way to translate this from Chinese), and Luonian will let him live. Furthermore, since demons are attracted to the phoenix-aura, Luonian should expect a lot more demons in his life from now on.

In case you’re not familiar with Chinese-mythology, men are supposed to feel extreme sexual attraction towards nine-tailed-foxes. In Huaizhen’s experience, this is generally true … with the notable of Luonian, who doesn’t have the least bit of sexual interest in Huaizhen. Huaizhen finds this … intriguing.

Finally, Huaizhen urges Luonian to join the demon-hunters because a) they can help protect him from the demons (and if the demons get him, she can’t suck his energy) and b) she wants to know more about the demon-hunters. But Huaizhen makes a point of hanging around Luonian a lot, pretending to be Luonian’s teenager sister, and if the demon-hunters learn about her true nature…

Background

This manhua is adapted from a series by a very popular online novelist called Moren. Moren is known for mixing fantasy, wuxia, and science fiction together. I myself have only read the first couple volumes of Island, End of Nightmare, and I would call it fantasy with elements of wuxia and science fiction rather than blend (I feel it has a lot more in common with the YA fantasy I’ve read than the wuxia or science-fiction I’ve read).

The artist YinYin with Han Baobao, who did the writing for the manhua adaptation.

The manhua edition is drawn by YinYin, who also drew the illustrations and book covers for the original novels. YinYin is a regular contributor to Crative Comics Collection, and has produced her own original manhua.

The Artwork

YinYin says in the interview at the end of the volume that, when drawing for manhua, her first priority is to communicate the story, and aesthetic considerations (i.e. is the artwork pretty) are secondary. I think this is a good set of priorities since comic books are storytelling media, and there are many other media for artists who want to put aesthetics first.

SURPRISE! Fellow senior high school student nabs demon. There is a big, clear panel showing the main action, with supporting panels with reaction shots. Also, notice that the demon hunter is erect and vertical, while the demon is horizontal, making a nice right-angle.

And I think YinYin gets the “storytelling” part down. The artwork does an excellent job of clearly communicating the story. Though the plot summary above may seem a bit complicated, it’s actually quite easy to follow in the manhua itself, and I think the artwork definitely helps. It took much less effort to follow the manhua than the original novel, and the novel itself is not hard to follow.

I also don’t think putting the story first costs the aesthetics anything.

First of all, the more I look at it, the more I like the cover illustration of the novel. I really dig the blue/orange theme – and it’s very appropriate that Luonian is blue, and that Huaizhen is orange, since they act as opposite personalities. Come to think of it, this is a beautiful example of storytelling and aesthetics coming together.

This ‘big main panel with supporting reaction panels’ composition really works.

The artwork clean and smooth. I think the trick is that YinYin makes sure there is enoguh detail to give the artwork meaning, yet it stays simple enough that everything is focused and the reader’s eye is not distracted by minutiae. And YinYin knows how to make a page pop with a simple, striking image. Most pages are not like that, but then again, if they were, then they wouldn’t pop.

Getting nabbed by a giant dog definitely pops.

And some of the images are simply, well, graceful.

I like this page for some reason.

In fact, I think this is the best work I’ve seen from YinYin.

The phoenix, of course, is lovely.

YinYin also says that, while obviously there is a strong Japanese influence on her work, she tries to express her own style rather than try to make her artwork look like Japanese manga.

Where Have I Seen This Before

If you have read a significant amount of general manga – heck, even if you’re just reasonably familiar with YA fantasy – this should seem like familiar territory. The question is: what sets this tale of teenage demon-hunters apart from other tales of teenage demon-hunters?

One way to stand out is to have superlative writing. Though this story is well-written … and there are definitely touches I like (for example, the fact that Luonian’s senior high school just happens to have a demon-hunting group, and of course he didn’t know about it since there was no reason for him to know about it) … the storytelling alone is not exceptional enough to make it stand out from the other well-written stories in this genre.

Alas, the story’s attempts at puberty/sexual humor is not one of the things which makes it stand out.

The thing which does make this story stand out is that it is set in Taiwan.

All other things being equal, people are usually more interested in stories about their own society and themselves than stories about other societies and other people. Taiwanese people are no exception. While Taiwanese people love Japanese manga, all other things being equal, they find things even more interesting if it’s about Taiwanese people in Taiwan than Japanese people in Japan.

While it’s not apparent in the first volume of the manhua (though I’m sure this will come through in future volumes), this story really does run all over Taiwan, and I think that is on purpose. There is such variety in Taiwan itself that one can find quite a variety of interesting locations without ever going abroad. As someone who has travelled extensively in Taiwan, I really enjoy this aspect of the story.

Availability in English

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Conclusion

I have no intention of continuing with this manhua, or with continuing the original novel series. It’s good enough that I don’t mind reading it, it’s just that there is so much more out there that I’m much more excited to read.

This manhua seems to be part of a campaign by the publisher Gaea to promote local manhua, particularly manhua which is distinctively Taiwanese. Making one of the first manhua an adaptation of a popular novel series is probably a good move, at least as far as getting readers’ attention. Considering the recent successes of movies made in Taiwan, I think there is definitely an audience out there for good, distinctively local manhua. The main thing needed to build that readership is to create and publish consistently high-quality manhua to attract and, more importantly, keep them.

However, though this volume was first published last August, volume 2 has yet to appear. That conceivably could be because the artist is too busy … but I think it’s a sign that the manhua has not been selling well.

Next time: The Iron-Crane Pentalogy (novels)

So much has happened in the past few weeks, where can Sara K. begin? Well, she is now one of rare people in the world who can honestly say that she has soked in an outdoor seawater hotspring in the middle of a thunderstorm. There are only three seawater hot springs in the world, and considering her geographic location, Manga Bookshelf readers can probably figure out that she did not go to the one in Sicily.

It Came from the Sinosphere: The Wushe Incident

May 14, 2013 by Sara K. 3 Comments

Practically everybody in Taiwan knows about Seediq Bale, the most expensive Taiwanese movie ever made. During my entire time in Taiwan, not a single other movie, Taiwanese or not, has made as much of a stir as that one. What few people know is that it was adapted from a manhua, The Wushe Incident (台灣第一部霧社事件歷史漫畫), which is gratefully back in print thanks to the success of the movie.

The Story

Deep in the central mountains of Taiwan, 1930, the Japanese relentlessly inflict suffering on the Seediq people. Many young Seediq men are anxious to strike back at the Japanese, but their leader, Mona Rudao, stops them, and always placates the Japanese whenever a young Seediq man loses his temper. Of course, Mona Rudao himself hates the Japanese, as they killed his father, ruined his sister’s life, and continue to exploit his people. However, Mona Rudao has also travelled to Japan, and personally witnessed just how powerful the Japanese military is, so he dares not provoke the Japanese … before there is a good opportunity.

Background

If I had to sum up Taiwan in two words, those two words would be “mountain island.” Those two words alone explain a great deal about Taiwanese culture, history, politics, geography, agriculture, economy, weather, etc.

For example, Taiwan is difficult to conquer/unify because it’s a mountain island. That’s why the indigenous peoples speak over 20 different languages – travel was so difficult that most people would never went far from their birthplace.

During my various trips to Taiwan’s mountains, when I didn’t have to deal with road closures, landslides, fog so thick that the driver can’t see more than a meter or two ahead, buses that got cancelled because the road collapsed, etc., I was lucky. To read about the condition of what until recently was one of Taiwan’s most important mountain roads, click here. Right now, I reckon at least half of the major mountain roads in Taiwan are closed or have major obstruction, and there hasn’t even been a typhoon recently. This is why Taiwan has been politically united for less than a hundred years.

Conifers and high-mountain grasses are cloaked in lots of fog.

I took this photo near Wushe, where the story takes place.

Astonishingly, some of the “Japanese” mountain trails are still intact. I’ve been on a couple sections of the former Japanese Hehuanshan trail, which is one of the trails used by the Japanese to send reinforcements to Wushe. Along the trail there are the remains of Japanese police stations, schools to teach the indigenous children how to be more Japanese, and the graves of Japanese police/soldiers who died along the trail (most of them were killed by Mother Nature). Here is a description of an epic Japanese mountain trail running through Taiwan.

The manhua starts with a set of detailed color drawings showing various scenes of Seediq life.

The creator of the manhua, Qiu Ruolong, got stranded in Wushe (which is near Wuling pass, Taiwan’s highest mountain pass which is car-accessible – though I personally wouldn’t want to drive through it) when his vehicle broke down. While he was stuck in Wushe, he stayed with the local Seediq people, who gradually shared their history with him. This is how he first learned of the Wushe incident, and it fascinated him so much that he did more and more research – for example, he spent six months sewing traditional Seediq clothing. Eventually, he made this manhua.

The Wushe incident is historically significant as the last act of armed resistance to Japanese rule in Taiwan.

The Artwork

I love it.

First of all, Qiu Ruolong manages to capture a bit of the majesty of Taiwan’s high mountains. Just flipping through the pages brings up memories of my trips to the mountains.

It’s not just that he draws spectacular scenery – he populates it with the characters, making both the people and the scenery look solemn and magnificent.

Sometimes, I just have stop and let my eyes rest on a page for a while.

I love that halo of light around Mona Ludao as he walks through the dark forest, as the diagonal rays of sunlight frame him from above.

Which brings me to another point – Qiu Ruolong is great a compostion.

Take this page, for example. Here, Qiu Ruolong explains the way the Japanese treated Seediq women. These two pages can be split into about four parts – in the top-right, we see the Seediq women in their native village before any Japanese men bother them, in the bottom-right, we see the Seediq woman marrying the Japanese man and adopting a Japanese hairstyle (she does not look overjoyed), in the top-left we see the Japanese husband beating her, and in the bottom-left we see the Seediq woman weeping, isolated in the midst of Japanese architecture. Notice that the last section is the biggest, and the image of the weeping woman is the single biggest thing on these two pages. That makes that the center of this scene, and all of the other, smaller drawings are supports which explain the existence of this central image.

In the picture below, notice how all of the Seediq warriors with their backs facing the reader circle around Mona Rudao, whose front faces the reader.

And in this picture (below), notice how the simple image of the stare, surrounding by black, contrasts with the detailed drawings around it.

Qiu Rulong is a master of drawing violence. The way the Seediq warriors chop off Japanese heads is both silent and chilling.

However, possibly the best part of the artwork is he really brings the Seediq people (and to a lesser extent the Japanese people) to life. This is partially because the drawings are so detailed, but it’s mainly because he puts a human in every figure.

This is How You Make a Historical Graphic Novel

One of my biggest criticisms of In the Fires of 2/28 is that it didn’t focus on any specific characters, so it didn’t make the historical events feel personal. Qiu Ruolong does not make this mistake. While he often goes into digressions about Seediq life, historical background, etc., he centers the story around Mona Rudao and his family. Watching their personal journeys makes the story that much more powerful.

That said, I would have liked to have seen a bit more about the Seediq characters who adopted a Japanese lifestyle. The graphic novel shows just enough about them to intrigue me.

Exploited Resource vs. Sovereign Agent

While the Japanese did various bad things to the Seediq people, all of the awful behavior stems from a single root – the Japanese regarded the Seediq people as a resource to be exploited, not as agents with which one should establish mutually beneficial relationships. Some people would phrase this as “the Japanese did not see the Seediq as fully human.” which would be accurate … but I’d like to emphasize that the Japanese had the exact same attitude towards the Seediq people as they did to the other “resources” in the mountains. For example, the Japanese saw the mountain forests as a way to make money quickly (that was one of the main reasons the Japanese wanted to control the mountains), rather than as an ecosystem to steward and preserve.

The Seediq people knew that the Japanese were treating them as objects, not as agents. They could feel it. The Japanese were constantly rubbing it in. And passively accepting it was destroying their psyche.

The graphic novel does an excellent job of getting the readers to understand why the Seediq act as they do. First, the manhua patiently describes humiliation and humiliation suffered by the Seediq at the hands of the Japanese, making the reader angry. The worst is when the Seediq have to bow their heads and plead for forgiveness from the Japanese, even when it was the Japanese whose behavior was wrong. It’s like a rubber band slowly being stretched until it … snaps.

The Seediq knew that they were not strong enough to drive out the Japanese and restore their independence. But they felt they had to attack anyway. They had to prove to the Japanese, and to themselves, that they have some agency, and that they could not be oppressed without consequences. Suicidal action which proved they still had some power was better than powerlessly submitting to the Japanese.

Availability in English

This manhua is totally unavailable in English. And that’s a shame. This is a downright excellent graphic novel, and it’s only about 300 pages long – would somebody please publish it in English?

Conclusion

This manhua definitely exceeded my expectations. It brings out so many feelings … from relatively benign nostalgia of my trips to the mountains, to the horror of the humiliation and violence, to passionate desire of the Seediq people to assert power over their lives.

Though the Seediq did not drive out the Japanese, they did shatter the Japanese perception that they were just passive objects to be used however the Japanese pleased. And today, the Japanese are long gone, while the Seediq are still there.

This manhua would not have been possible, or at least not as good, without Qiu Ruolong’s passion for the subject. I know the film Seediq Bale has been criticized for historical and cultural inaccuracies, and I cannot judge to what extent this manhua is or is not accurate. Accurate or not, it is clearly something that Qiu Ruolong cares about deeply.

Next Time: Khóohái Lúsînliông (TV show)

Sara K. has had far more fantasies about living in the mountains that living by the beach. She is upholding the San Francisco tradition of disliking beaches (the beaches in San Francisco are at best unpleasant, and at worst life-threateningly dangerous). She is no doubt also influenced by her family – her father, who was born and raised in southern Florida, also has a distaste for beaches, as does her mother, who grew up on the coast of the Mediterranean. That said, it is still good for her to go to beach instead of the mountain once in a while. Heck, last week she went *swimming* for the first time in over five years.

It Came From the Sinosphere: Burning Moon

April 9, 2013 by Sara K. Leave a Comment

It’s about time I said something about Selina Lin, one of Taiwan’s most popular female manhua artists. Though she’s sometimes called the “queen” of girl-oriented Taiwanese manhua, all of her works are quite short. Burning Moon, her longest work, is only five volumes long.

The Story

The emperor’s concubine wants to maintain her status by bearing a son. The problem is that she bore a girl, so she wants to swap her newborn daughter with her sister’s newborn son, Duan Chengfeng. To prevent him from getting kidnapped, Duan Chengfeng’s mother poisons him. His father intervenes, but to fend off future kidnapping attempts, Duan Chengfeng has to live as a sick child.

Duan Chengfeng gets pretty tired of this, so as a boy he sneaks out to experience a bit of freedom. That’s how he meets a girl called Yue Shuchan. Realizing that their son doesn’t want to live the rest of his life with his freedom confined, his parents decide to drop the illness ruse and arrange a marriage for him…

Background

All of the explicitly girly manhua I’ve covered so far came from Star Girls magazine. That’s because it’s the only magazine dedicated exclusively to girly manhua put out by a major publisher. However, there is also Mon-mon magazine (the name in Mandarin is “mèngmèng,” and “mèng” means “dream”). Most of the comics which run in Mon-mon magazine are shojo manga translated from Japanese, but they also publish original material from local artists, of whom the most popular is Selina Lin.

The latest issue of Mon-mon.

Selina Lin’s work has been translated into quite a few languages, but the only two works that I could find which have been officially published in English are:

1) White Night Melody (the first volume was published by Tokyopop, and I suspect this will never be license-rescued)
2) Manga Tarot, which technically is a card deck, not a comic book.

This was originally supposed to be only three volumes long, but readers felt that the original ending was too tragic, so Selina Lin wrote two more volumes set in the present day, featuring the reincarnations of the original characters, and made a happy ending.

The Art

I do not like the art style of shoujo manga currently coming out of Japan, unless it’s retro, and that’s one of the reasons my interest in current shoujo is … limited. What I love is a) Showa 24 group artwork and b) late 80s-90s shoujo artwork.

Selina Lin’s art is very much like current shoujo styles in Japan … but somehow, she gets me to actually like it.

Take this picture for example. Though it features the “cute” glass-eyed look which I dislike, it’s got lots of nice round curves, with nice crisp folds in the dress and dark ribbons to add some visual structure. I can dig this.

And even when it’s being “cutesy,” it also manages to have a bit of a crystal quality a well—the pearl-like roundness, the crisp patterns—which neutralizes my usual distaste for this style.

Of course, in a storytelling medium, it’s not enough for art to look nice; it also has to tell a story. Is the artwork a little too busy? Perhaps. However, I think it does a good job of letting the characters express themselves, such as in the following picture:

I can feel the warm, light-hearted joy.

Now, speaking of the storytelling…

Underdeveloped Storytelling

One of the reasons I’ve waited so long to discuss Selina Lin is, well, I think her stories are boring. I was hoping that, as her longest work, this might be better, but …. well, it’s not much better.

It’s not that the ideas are bad. For example, Duan Chengfeng could have been a really, really interesting character—someone who is forced to pretend to be ill for his own safety as he itches for adventure can be the basis of a really engaging story. However, this potential was wasted. The manhua covers too much plot in too few pages, so there’s no room to explore the inherent conflict in Duan Chengfeng’s situation. As soon as the love triangles come into the story, Duan Chengfeng’s problem with having to feign illness get dropped, which makes it seem like it wasn’t important in the first place.

And the romance … I actually do believe that love at first sight can happen (or at least, that people can fall in love with each other at lightning speed). But even when the bond is established instantly, it still has to grow and evolve. In all of the romantic relationships in this story, I felt there was no growth. Instead, the storyteller just said, “Okay, these people are in love with each other,” and didn’t offer much more. That makes the whole romance angle of the story feel empty to me.

Normally, I would have been stubborn and read all five volumes. However, considering my previous disappointments with Selina Lin, I did not feel inclined to read beyond Volume 3. After reading a plot summary of Volumes 4-5, I feel even less inclined to finish the series.

I don’t know much about how Mon-mon magazine works, so perhaps there are editorial constraints which make Selina Lin limit most of her manhua to three volumes. But even if the length of her work is being limited by her editors, she should tell a story which fits a three-volume length, instead of telling a story with much plot and little substance.

Availability in English

Well, it’s never been licensed in English… and to be honest, I don’t think it should be.

Conclusion

Selina Lin makes me like an art-style which usually turns me off, which is an accomplishment. That said, I dearly wish her storytelling was as good as her drawings. Her stories aren’t even bad, they’re just poorly executed.

I don’t get why she’s so popular. Sure, the art is nice, but her manhua simply bores me.

Maybe she should team up with somebody who is a much better storyteller.

Next Time: Love in the Rain / Yanyu Mengmeng (TV drama), which most certainly is NOT boring

Since her last post at Manga Bookshelf, Sara K. has soaked in one of the only three mud hot springs in the world, visited a bat cave, walked a trail with a 60 degree gradient (downhill, thank goodness), seen fireflies for the first time in her life, had her blood sucked by wild leeches, seen trees that are over 2000 years old, visited the “forgetting sorrow” bamboo grove, saw a wild male Swinhoe’s pheasant, went to Taiwan’s highest automobile-accessible mountain pass, dealt with her computer going haywire, bought her first new computer in over two years, went hiking above 3000 meters with someone who grew up in Soviet Russia and someone from South Africa, learned how to play Perudo, ate a wonderful meal of mountain vegetables she had never knew existed at a restaurant over 2700 meters above sea level, saw a bunch of beautiful waterfalls and forested hills, saw the beginning of the Matsu Pilgrimage (with over a million participants, it’s one of Asia’s biggest religious pilgrimages), and much more. It was way, way, WAY more interesting than this manhua.

Special Post: In the Fires of 2/28

February 28, 2013 by Sara K. Leave a Comment

Today is “Peace Memorial Day,” a national holiday in Taiwan. Though every other national holiday I can think of in Taiwan is also celebrated in other parts of the Chinese-speaking world (even Double-Tens day is somewhat recognized in China), “Peace Memorial Day” is Taiwan’s and Taiwan’s alone. It is a memorial to the “2/28 Incident” (AKA “2/28 Massacre”) which happened in 1947.

In the Fires of 2/28 is a manhua by Du Fu-ann published last year which describes the events which led to the “2/28 Incident,” the “incident” itself, and the aftermath.

TRIGGER WARNING: This manhua describes violent conflict, including sexual assault, and I have decided to include some graphic imagery. Also, because of the graphic imagery, this post is NSFW.

So, What Happened?

Here is a summary of what happened, as told by the manhua.

After WWII, Japan had to cede control of all overseas territories, including Taiwan. Whereas many Asian countries (such as India, Korea, and the Philippines) got independence after WWII, The Allies decided to transfer Taiwan to the administration of the Republic of China. At first, the Taiwanese people were really happy about this, since China was their ancestral land and they considered this to be the equivalent of independence. It would be a little as if world leaders had decided make Quebec a part of France.

However, once the Republic of China actually took control of Taiwan, the people were bitterly disillusioned. The Chinese soldiers were poor, shabby, and greedy. The economy went down the tank, with rapidly rising unemployment, hyperinflation, and grain shortages. The Kuomintang (KMT), who controlled the Republic of China government, was far more corrupt and discriminatory than the Japanese administration, promoting Chinese people without qualifications to well-paid positions while forcing qualified Taiwanese people to do low-paid work, looting left and right, and sexually assaulting people with impunity. By 1947, the Taiwanese people were seething with fury, and all that was needed was a match.

The match was lit on February 27, 1947, when government agents hit a woman selling tobacco on the street on the head with a pistol. Other people in the street came to the woman’s support, and then one of the government agents fired a gun and killed somebody in the crowd. This sparked a huge spontaneous protest, which the government did not respond to.

The next day, Feburary 28, was the beginning of a violent uprising by people all over Taiwan. In some places, the Taiwanese stole weapons and formed their own armies to drive out the Chinese, and many Taiwanese people were organizing to form their own government, independent of the Republic of China.

The army of the Republic of China brutally repressed this uprising. After they took back control of Kaohsiung (Taiwan’s second largest city), they brutally punished the residents. The KMT also rounded up many intellectuals, even ones who were not part of the uprisings, and executed them, lest they form an independent government. Tens of thousands of people were murdered this way. The forces of the uprising were driven deeper and deeper into the mountains, until finally, they were defeated. After this, the KMT imposed martial law on Taiwan.

Meanwhile, the KMT was losing the Chinese Civil War, and eventually their army (as well as well as many Chinese citizens) had to retreat to the islands of Hainan, Kinmen, Matsu, Zhoushan, and Taiwan. Then the islands of Hainan and Zhoushan also fell to Chinese Communist control, leaving only Kinmen, Matsu, and Taiwan under the control of the Republic of China.

In the epilogue, the manhua mentions that martial law was finally lifted in 1987, and ends with an image of Lee Teng-hui, then president of the Republic of China and leader of the KMT, officially apologizing in 1995 for the 2/28 incident and offering compensation to the victims’ families.

So, how does this work as a comic book?

This manhua is only about 150 pages long, so it has to simplify things and leave some aspects of the “2/28 Incident” unexplored. I’m okay with that, since it’s intended to be an accessible introduction, not a thorough account.

In my first draft, I expressed my discomfort with the way the Chinese are depicted as two-dimensional villainous caricatures, not because I excuse their crimes (the looting, corruption, rape, and murder are inexcusable), but because it rings false—all of those heinous crimes were committed by people. However, upon reflection, I realize that from the victims’ point of view, they may very well have been caricature villains, and the manhua is primarily interested in the victims’ perspective.

However, I still think the lack of personalization of the Taiwanese people makes the story feel too dry and didactic. Since this is a story of many people, focusing on a few characters would also be artificial on its own way, but I think the manhua would have benefited from putting a little more emphasis on individual stories instead of mostly telling the story from the point of view of the masses. Comic books draw strength by appealing to feeling, and the best way to draw feeling is to tell stories of individual people.

There is a Taiwanese family which plays the role of Greek chorus but … something about them feels too didactic to me.

The closest the manhua comes to showing the Chinese point of view is the inclusion of a political cartoon from a Shanghai newspaper.

In this cartoon, the Republic of China/KMT are worms which have infested the big apple (China) for a long time, and have just started infesting the small apple (Taiwan). It shows that, as intense as the suffering of the Taiwanese people under the KMT was, the Chinese had been suffering worse for a longer period of time. I think this is a really important point. Even though the poor Chinese soldiers did commit a lot of crimes too, it was the KMT elite, not the non-elite Chinese, who were ultimately responsible. And, in some ways, the suffering that the KMT imposed on the poor Chinese soldiers was worse than what they imposed on the Taiwanese.

What makes the manhua work, however, is the artwork.

The Artwork

While I criticize the narrative for not being sufficiently personalized, the artwork does partially make up for this by making the events come alive through is lively movement, such as in this page where a soldier breaks in and shoots an older man:

However, I also think the artwork is the main reason I’m uncomfortable with the depiction o the Chinese. Looking carefully at it again, there’s not much in the text which dehumanizes the Chinese. It’s mainly the artwork which makes the Chinese look like caricatures.

Truman makes the KMT cry.

On the one hand, I recognize this may represent the victims’ point of view. However, I am especially bothered by the way the Chinese, particularly the KMT, are depicted as being humorous. I know that it’s artistically a good idea to balance tragedy wit humor, but even with my warped sense of humor I don’t think any part of this story is remotely funny, and making the criminals look funny just feels … wrong.

The Chinese are stealing everything they can, how funny … not.

The manhua also makes use of various metaphorical imagery. One image which is repeated again and again is this flower … I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the flower’s significance is, by it generally accompanies a block of text describing historical details.

The flower above KMT leaders acting like spoiled brats.

Some of the imagery works very well, such as this image of the Republic of China (represented by the hands) wringing Taiwan dry.

I do applaud the manhua from not shying away from gruesome imagery. It doesn’t dwell on the graphic stuff too much—the purpose is to tell a story, not to revel in violence—but I think drawing out some of the horrors is necessary for the reader to feel a tiny bit of how terrifying the “incident” was.

The Republic of China forces round up, shoot, and rape the people of Kaohsiung.

Students are rounded up, blindfolded, shot, and their bodies are thrown into the sea.

The Republic of China forces gouge students’ eyes, castrate them, and then behead them.

There are some drawings which are beautiful in a horrifying way, such as this scene:

Dead bodies lie across a blank page.

These gruesome images make a stark contrast to the almost expressionless “leaders” who seem oblivious to the horrors around them.

This, in my opinion, is a more powerful way to show how monsterous the KMT elite were than making them look like cartoon villains.

The Slant

This is one of the most politically charged sections of Taiwanese history, and as such, people have very passionate views on this story. Just as black people, southern whites, and non-southern whites tend to have different interpretations of the U.S. Civil War, so do different groups in Taiwan tend to have different interpretations of the 2/28 “incident,” and it tends to reveal one’s political bias.

The slant taken by this manhua is that General Chen Yi, who was put in charge of Taiwan immediately after Taiwan passed into Republic of China control, is the big bad guy. This is a relatively non-controversial position to take, since almost everybody agrees that he was horrible. Not much is said about Chiang Kai-shek, though the manhua does compare him to Koxinga (the Ming dynasty general who fled to and took over part of Taiwan after the Ming dynasty was driven out of China).

Of course, the very act of making a manhua about this at all is a political statement. For decades, anything referring to the “incident” was heavily censored, and one of the big fights of the Taiwanese democracy movement was making it possible to discuss the “incident” in public. This manhua is exercising the freedom won by the democracy activists.

Availability in English

As far as I know, this manhua is totally unavailable in English.

While it is primarily targeted at a young Taiwanese audience, I think people all over the world have something to learn from the “2/28 Incident,” and this is an accessible introduction. However, I have no idea who would translate this into English.

For those who want to know more about the “2/28 Incident,” Formosa Betrayed by George H. Kerr (who appears in the manhua) is available online for free.

I do wish the people who put the manhua together had consulted an English editor.

I think the real George Kerr spoke grammatically correct English.

Conclusion

This “incident” was so formative of Taiwanese politics and identity that I don’t think it’s possible to have a deep understanding of Taiwanese society without knowing what happened.

I think it’s also helpful for getting a better understanding of Taiwanese media. For example, in Fated to Love You, Xinyi (the lead female character) comes from a family which was on the victims’ side in the 2/28 “incident,” whereas Cunxi (the lead male character) comes from a family which was on the aggressors’ side. I don’t think the audience needs to know this to appreciate and enjoy the drama … but this is a fact which is very apparent to Taiwanese audiences.

Sara K.’s grandfather was actually in China when World War II officially ended. According to her father, when WWII was declared over, from her grandfather’s point of view, that was the end of the war. But for his companions, who were in the Republic of China army, the war was not over—they knew that the Chinese civil war was going to restart almost as soon as Japan was defeated. Sara K. does not know what happened to her grandfather’s companions, but most likely they switched sides to the Communists, fled to Taiwan, or were killed.

It Came from the Sinosphere: Lee Chi-Ching’s The Laughing Proud Wanderer

January 22, 2013 by Sara K. 11 Comments

An Example Scene

Linghu Chong notices that the young woman whom he is still very sweet on, Yue Lingshan, is unhappy.

Furthermore, he notices that her father and husband don’t care that she’s unhappy. He tries to think of a socially appropriate way to cheer her up.

Linghu Chong remembers that, when he was a part of Yue Lingshan’s family, he could always cheer her up by losing to her in a sword fight (without letting her know that he lost on purpose). Therefore, he figures the best way to cheer her up is to challenge her to duel.

Notice how the artwork first shows Linghu Chong and Yue Lingshan’s intense gazes, then goes back to show how the fight looks to the crowd – i.e. Linghu Chong and Yue Lingshan have now entered their own world, oblivious to everyone else.

The crowd notices that, while the fight is intense, the feeling is not of intense enmity, but a feeling of intense love. Somebody even remarks that it seems like they are dancing rather than fighting (ha, I am *not* the only person to consider the fights in Chinese martial arts fiction to be a kind of dancing).

I love those flowers. Methinks the artist has been exposed to shoujo manga.

This fight is bringing back Linghu Chong and Yue Lingshan’s memories of practising swordplay at Mount Hua, which was the happiest period in both of their lives. In fact, they are using the sword technique that they themselves made up together.

And this is why Jin Yong writes the best fights. Anyone who invests the time it takes to be a good martial artist has pretty strong feelings about it, and in Jin Yong stories, the fights are a key means by which characters express their feelings, grow, and mature. I have yet to encounter another storyteller who so thoroughly integrates combat and the characters’ emotional journeys.

Yue Lingshan’s husband is jealous. Personally, since he doesn’t care about his wife’s happiness (or lack thereof), I think he has forfeited his prerogative to feel jealous.

A sword has been launched into the air!

And it lands on Linghu Chong’s back (Linghu Chong let this happen so that Yue Lingshan would win).

Everyone, especially Yue Lingshan herself, is shocked that she injured Linghu Chong, except Linghu Chong, who is busy enduring the pain of having a sword in his back.

The reader knows that purposefully losing this duel is a potential disaster for Linghu Chong and the people he is responsible for, but it would take at least a paragraph to explain the context, so I’ll just say that the reader should feel an impending sense of doom at this point.

Background

The Laughing Proud Wanderer is, of course, one of Jin Yong’s more famous novels. It should not come as a surprise to anyone who read my post about Lee Chi-Ching’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes that I would eventually review the other manhua adaptation of a Jin Yong novel. This novel is also special to me for a personal reason, but I plan to discuss that in a future post.

The Laughing Proud Wanderer was written during the Cultural Revolution in China, and it’s pretty obvious that Cold War politics strongly influenced the novel. Some people even go so far as to say that it’s a political allegory. I prefer not to interpret it as an allegory, but allegories are fun, so I’m going to describe the story in allegorical terms using the most common interpretation (Five Mountain Sword Sects = Soviet Union, etc.)

Story

Linghu Chong is a disciple of the Hua Mountain Sect, which is part of the Soviet Union. He a bit of a loose cannon. He tries to do the right thing, but this sometimes gets him in trouble. Furthermore, in situations when most Jin Yong heroes would run away, he says, “Bwa ha ha ha ha ha, I am Linghu Chong, I’m NOT SCARED OF YOU! HA HA HA HA HA!” even when he is clearly no match for whatever he’s facing, which leads to him getting bashed up a lot and spending at least half of the story recovering from injuries he could have avoided by running away. It’s a bit astonishing that he manages to survive all this.

Anyway, the Soviet Union is sworn enemies with the Chinese Communist Party, led by Mao Zedong, and has a … tense relationship with Shaolin, Wudang, and Emei, which belong to NATO.

Linghu Chong gets kicked out of the Hua Mountain Sect, which causes him much angst because he has been brainwashed by the Soviet Union, and is in love with his shifu’s daughter, Yue Lingshan. During his wanderings, he encounters another young woman, Ren Yingying, and slowly develops a relationship with her, but then it’s revealed that she is part of the Chinese Communist Party. which, according to the Soviet Union, is totally evil.

Of course, the intrigue gets thicker. Joseph Stalin, who already leads the most powerful sect in the Soviet Union, wants to bring the entire Soviet Union under his control, and Mao Zedong has imprisoned Ren Yingying’s father and taken over the Chinese Communist Party. Linghu Chong does not want to deal with this, but he has a clue of what’s at stake and, unfortunately for him, NATO, the Chinese Communist Party, and especially the Soviet Union want to deal with him.

Artwork

Many of the comments I made about the artwork in Lee Chi Ching’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes also apply to this manhua, though there aren’t nearly as many tears in this one. Linghu Chong is the *laughing/smiling* proud wanderer, not the weepy proud wanderer.

Lee Chi-Ching is still a master of depicting movements of the human body.

Lee Chi-Ching’s style, of course, is heavily influenced by Japanese manga, but he also draws upon the long history of Chinese brush-ink paintings, which makes the manhua feel more distinctively Chinese (this was, if I remember correctly, one of the reasons Jin Yong was interested in having Lee Chi-Ching adapt and illustrate his novels).

Additionally, this manhua has a few color pages, like the ones below.

The palette is quite muted, unlike the palettes seen in most Hong Kong manhua, or Japanese manga (or American comics for that matter). It most resembles the color palettes found in traditional Chinese paintings. Since the color is used to highlight particular moments, I wouldn’t want the entire manhua to be in color, but I would have definitely liked more color pages (perhaps having the manhua be 10% in color).

Two characters who I think Lee Chi-ching did a particularly good job of depicting are Yue Lingshan and Yue Buqun.

Yue Lingshan is upset

Lee Chi-Ching says Yue Buqun is one of his favorite characters, and I can see that in the artwork (one of the color examples above shows Yue Buqun). I also think he got Yue Lingshan just right. This manhua deepened my appreciation of both of these characters.

However, comparing this to The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, I find that the art in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes is ultimately more striking. I think this mainly due to the differences in the stories. The Eagle-Shooting Heroes is a story where characters are constantly wearing their hearts on their sleeves and feels like an epic folk tale, whereas The Laughing Proud Wanderer is a more intellectual story in which characters do a lot of thinking and often don’t reveal their true feelings, and the plot is much more complicated, so it simply does not lend itself as well to striking artwork (unless one wishes to distort the story).

Adaptation

This time, I read the novel before reading the manhua.

On the one hand, I’m a bit disappointed that it removed one of my favorite scenes. On the other hand, I recognize that this story is so long that Lee Chi-ching almost had to abridge it, and that the scene is not essential to the main story.

Impressively, Lee Chi-ching did manage to keep most scenes from the novel, but he often slimmed them down—I often notice that specific bits of dialogue I remembered were not present in the manhua. It is a compliment to Jin Yong’s writing skill that I was able to remember so many bits of dialogue more than six months after having read the novel, yet at the same time I think slimming down the dialogue was the right choice; having too many words would have bogged down the manhua’s pacing, and people who really want that should read the bloody novel.

While it’s not identical to the novel, I feel this is faithful to the spirit of the novel, and while it’s always possible to find something to complain about, I still think this is, overall, an excellent adaptation, and I don’t think anybody else would have done it better.

Dongfang Bubai

Dongfang Bubai and his/her lover

It would take an entire post for me to describe what I think about the depiction of Dongfang Bubai and certain other characters, so let’s just say that I think it’s transphobic, homophobic, and sexist.

Given the source material, I think Lee Chi-ching’s depiction was as inoffensive as it could be while staying faithful to the original … with one exception.

In both the novel and the manhua, Linghu Chong says that it’s laughable that a sect leader would dress as a woman. First of all, there’s Huang Rong in The Eagle Shooting-Heroes who is a sect leader and usually dresses like a woman, but maybe she doesn’t count because she’s cis-female. And for some reason, people don’t think it’s shameful for women to dress as men (which happens quite often in Jin Yong stories).

However, in the novel, Linghu Chong later on ends up dressing like a woman himself, demonstrating that masculine heroes are just as capable of dressing like women as anybody else. This is one of the things which ameliorates the transphobia in the story. Unfortunately, this scene is cut in the manhua. I am almost certain this was in order to make the story move faster, but I still wish it had been kept, if only to counteract the transphobia/sexism.

Lee Chi-ching’s Afterwords

Each volume of this manhua ends with an afterword from Lee Chi-ching, and these were actually quite interesting. Almost all of them contain a sketch of himself, like this one:

He sometimes talks about Hong Kong current events (such as the transfer to People’s Republic of China rule and the SARS epidemic), he sometimes talks about the personal meaning The Laughing Proud Wanderer has for him (it’s his favorite Jin Yong novel, which is why he was so stoked when Jin Yong asked him to adapt it), and he talks about his artistic ambitions, as well as the other projects he’s working on (such as illustrating all of Jin Yong’s novels for the large-print edition).

Of particular interest to Manga Bookshelf readers are his comments about Korean manhwa. I knew one reason Jin Yong licensed manhua adaptations of his novels was to counter the influence of Japanese manga, but I hadn’t realized that the Hong Kong manga industry also feels invaded by Korean manhwa. Lee Chi-ching tries to see the competition with Korean manhwa as an inspiration to try harder.

Availability in English

I wish.

Conclusion

Whenever I return to an artist I love, I always wonder if the artist is as great as I recall, or whether a given work will fail to meet my high expectations. Sometimes I am disappointed, but this time I was not. Instead, this manhua reminded me why Lee Chi-ching is one of my favorite comic book artists in any language.

Next Time: Sword Stained with Royal Blood (TV series) (yes, it’s a Jin Yong double whammy)

When you like going outside and live in Northern Taiwan, that means the weather has a great deal of control over your schedule. The weather has been unusually good lately (by local standards), so Sara K. barely finished this post on time.

It Came from the Sinosphere: Angel Hair

December 25, 2012 by Sara K. Leave a Comment

So it me a while to figure out which Lai An (aka Ryan) manhua I wanted to talk about this week, but as soon as I re-read Angel Hair, I realized that this was the one.

The Story

A couple of travellers visit the grave of an angel somewhere in Italy. The travellers exchange the stories they have heard about the angel’s death. Then a stranger comes and tells them his version of the story.

The travellers find the tomb.

This manhua is mainly a collection of three stories about an angel called Nathaniel and how he died. The three stories all feature characters with the same names, and has some common element (for example, each story features hair turning from black to blond or from blond to black, and all three stories are set during the Italian Renaissance), and of course, each story ends with the death of the angel Nathaniel, but otherwise they are different stories.

Background

Sometimes her name is written in English as ‘Lai An’ and sometimes as ‘Ryan’.

Though there are other magazines which have published Taiwanese manhua aimed at a female audience, Star Girls is, as far as I know, the only magazine to have ever focused on Taiwanese manhua aimed at a female audience. When Star Girls debuted in the 1990s, when Taiwan was transitioning to democracy and aspiring manhua artists suddenly had a lot more freedom (technically, the Taiwanese manhua revival started in the late 1980s, but whatever) this magazine served as a venue for many brand new artists inspired by Japanese shojo manga. Based of what I’ve seen of the 90s material, much of it was dreck. However, it was in the 1990s that Yi Huan (who I’ve discussed before), Nicky Lee (who I’ve also discussed before), and Lai An got their start in Star Girls, and became Star Girls’ three most popular artists. All three of them are still producing shojo-inspired manhua.

Now, Star Girls has a much smaller group of artists than the 1990s, and it’s much harder for new talent to break in since the magazine editors apparently favor talent which has already proven successful. However, my impression (granted, this might be skewed by the samples I’ve encountered) is that the overall quality of the magazine is higher now than in the 1990s.

Anyway, as far as I know, Yi Huan, Nicky Lee, and Lai An are the only Star Girls’ artists who have ever published their own artbooks (please correct me if this information is wrong).

This manhua is a collection of three stories published in Star Girls magazine in the late 90s.

About Lai An’s Art

Since Star Girls is modelled after Japanese shojo magazines, all of its manhua are heavily influenced by Japanese shojo manga … but some are only heavily influenced, for example the work of Yi Huan, and some are so heavily influenced that I can’t stop myself from comparing it to extremely similar Japanese material, for example the work of Nicky Lee. Lai An also falls into the latter category. Her art style in the 1990s is basically just like the dominant shojo art styles of the 90s, and her current art is much like current shojo art.

The thing is, I love 90s shojo art. I dislike current shojo art, which is one reason I don’t read much current shojo (and what I do read of the current stuff, such as 7Seeds, tends to have a retro art style).

As it so happens, I love Lai An’s early art, but I don’t love her current art. I think it is partially because she is following contemporary Japanese styles. Yet I don’t think that completely explains it.

Here are some pages from an early Lai An manhua, The Royal:

First of all, I love the 90s style, in fact, it even seems to hark back to glorious 70s shojo (I can tell that many Star Girls artists love 70s shojo). There is an abundance of wavy lines, a jewel-like beauty, as well as the daring emotionally charged panel compositions which I love to see in shojo manga.

These are some pages from Lai An’s currently running manhua, Close to You:

Okay, the art’s not bad. Actually, it’s good. It’s even more anatomically accurate. It looks the work of a more mature artist. But, to me, it lacks the creative energy of her early artwork. It doesn’t make me pause so I can let the art penetrate my eyes. And I don’t think this can simply be attributed to a change in vogue.

Anyway, maybe I should start talking about…

The Art in Angel Hair

Flowers! Feathers! Swirly lines! Expressive use of panels! Super-long legs! Wheee!!!

About the only thing it would need to become even more like 70s shojo manga art is the sparkles, but that’s okay, I think the flowers and the expressive use of panels are better than sparkles.

And of course, girly art which does not constantly burst into flowers can also be wonderful too, but hey, I heartily approve of girly comic books which burst out into flowers.

It should be apparent by now that Angel Hair is a work from Lai An’s early period, in other words, from when her art was actually beautiful instead of merely being good.

However, it’s not just the 70s-shojo-esque (and authentically 90s) Asian-style girly comic book art.

In order for complex panel compositions to work, there need to be simple compositions to balance them out, and in fact, these simpler compositions will often have the greatest impact because they can be understood the most immediately. Lai An includes a sufficient number of single-panel or otherwise simple pages as well. Of course, when the panel composition is simple, there needs to be a compelling subject. Lai An takes care of this too.

And of course, her characters can be very expressive, and not just in a melodramatic way.

However, I think my favorite thing about the artwork is the use of contrast. Most of this manhua is very light, colorwise – lots of white space between the lines, not too much screentone, etc.

That means when black space is used, it really stands out. These are some of my favorite images, but partially because they contrast with the overall light-levels of the manhua as a whole – in isolation, they would not be so striking.

And it supports the stories. All of the stories include as a plot element blond hair vs. black hair. In all of the stories, blond hair represents goodness, purity, and beauty … as well hypocrisy and deceit, whereas black hair represents evil, pollution, and ugliness … as well as truth and integrity. By keeping most of the art looking light, the dark parts truly feel heavy, serious, and like a stain on the appearance.

This is an opportunity to talk about…

The Stories, Again

All three stories are fairy-tale like, of course. And we all know what a fairy-tale should feel like. And that’s why the first two stories feel wrong.

In the first story, for example, (spoiler warning) the princess kills the angel to get his hair so her hair would be blond forever and she could win the love of the prince. The innocent angel dies and the princess marries the prince and lives happily ever after.

Lai An said she got a lot of complaints about this story when it first ran in Star Girls magazine. It flies in the face of the ‘just world hypothesis’ (which, strangely, I have discussed before) and fairy tales just don’t work like that.

The second story also feels unsatisfying, though I don’t want to spoil that one.

However, the point is that these first two stories are supposed to feel false. Lai An says that she didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed by the magazine readers’ reactions. That is so that, when the third story is told, the reader will feel that the third story is the true story of how the angel died (and I am definitely don’t want to spoil that one).

The mere fact that the first two stories are, essentially, false, demonstrates that one shouldn’t trust everything one hears.

I think I hinted at the moral of the three stories while I was talking about the art. Basically, the message is “don’t judge people based on their appearances.” Or perhaps more broadly, “do what you feel is just, not what other people say you should do.”

All in all, I think the stories, collectively, work quite well.

Availability in English

There is no legal way to read this manhua in English. That’s too bad. It’s only one volume long, so I can’t imagine that it would be too much of a financial risk to license and publish this (digitally, or even on paper) in English.

Conclusion

To be honest, I am not a Lai An fan. But this specific manhua is an exception. It was among the first manhua I ever read, and it left an impression on me. It uses the story structure expertly to make its point. And I am most definitely a sucker for the artwork.

Next Time: Full Count (idol drama)

Last week, Sara K. attended the “Global Sinophonia” conference at Academia Sinica. Though she was just an observer, she had never been to an academic conference before, and in some ways she thought getting a peek at that world was more interesting than the presentations themselves. Of course, some of the presentations were very interesting, and will no doubt have their influence on this column. It was also the first time she ever identified herself as a blogger in the offline world (hey, what was she supposed to say when people asked her “what university are you affiliated with” or “what do you research”?) Sara K. is very grateful to Yen Yen Woo and Colin Goh of Dim Sum Warriors for inviting her. Speaking of that, you can now admire the technological marvel of a 3-year old reading a bilingual comic on an iPad.

It Came from the Sinosphere: North City, Book of a Hundred Drawings

November 27, 2012 by Sara K. 4 Comments

Would you like to sit down for coffee? Actually, I prefer tea myself. Let’s compromise and order a manhua instead.

The Stories

This manhua is a collection of three short stories, all of which are set in the year 1935. Each story include a young Japanese man who owns a cafe, “Hall of a Hundred Drawings,” in the heart of Taipei. He can detect the supernatural, and has a crow as a companion, called Ian.

The first story, “Soaring Boy,” is about the little brother of a waitress who comes to Taipei to visit her. At first he doesn’t understand why his sister wanted to leave their hometown to work in the city … but in the city, he sees an airplane for the first time.

In the second story, “Pantomime and Song,” the cafe owner encounters the ghost of an Atayal girl (the Atayal are one of the indigenous peoples of northern Taiwan). I’ve mentioned the Atayal before, and Vic Chou, one of the stars of Black & White, has Atayal heritage.

The third story, “Room of Memories,” describes how the young Japanese man acquired the building where he set up his cafe (hint: the building was haunted).

Background

This is a color illustration for the story ‘Soaring Boy’.

All of the stories in this collection were originally published in Creative Comics Collection, which I have previously discussed.

Akru is a regular contributor to Creative Comics Collection, and is one of my favorites. This is her second published manhua (and the first one collecting her work in Creative Comics Collection).

History

Taiwan was ruled by the Japanese for 50 years. Taiwanese people have mixed feelings about this period.

On the one hand, the Japanese did a great deal to improve Taiwan’s infrastructure, which was the foundation for Taiwan’s later prosperity. The train system was practically built by the Japanese, and more of Taiwan first became electrified under the Japanese. The Japanese spread modern medicine through Taiwan and greatly improved public health (a big deal in a densely populated tropical island). Many advances in gender equality also happened under the Japanese—they banned the practice of footbinding (even though their purpose was to suppress Chinese culture, it was still a plus for women), and the Japanese era was the first time it was feasible for a girl who was not from a rich family to get an education. Overall, governance under Japanese rule was considered quite good.

The problem was the inequality.

There were two education systems in Taiwan—one for Japanese people, and one for everyone else (guess which one got more and better resources). Japanese people were preferred for government jobs, particularly well-paying government jobs, etc. Though there were Taiwanese people who wanted independence, based on the histories I’ve read, most of the population would have been okay with Japanese rule if they had been treated as equal citizens.

Though the manhua doesn’t directly address the equality, it makes references to it. For example, it mentions the segregation of Taipei into Japanese and Taiwanese districts, and it’s worth noting that the owner of the cafe is Japanese, not Taiwanese.

Another legacy of Japanese rule was increased contact with the outside world, particularly the world beyond East Asia. While various European powers had colonized parts of Taiwan, none ever got deep control over the island, and it was actually Japan which spread many European and American ideas in Taiwan (baseball, for example).

1935 was probably the peak of the Japanese era in Taiwan. It was the year that the exhibition to celebrate 40 years of Japanese rule was held (which is featured in “Soaring Boy”). Taiwan had already become much more developed and wealthier, and was relatively peaceful. Yet that was before World War II make things turn for the worse.

Anyway, here is some footage of Taipei in the Japanese era.

Fashion

When it comes to 20th century fashion, the 1930s is definitely my favourite decade. What I like about 30s fashion is that it is so mature. It can be simple, severe, and practical, and still look great (little black dress FOR THE WIN). 1930s fashion can also look stunningly gorgeous … without losing its sense of proportion.

Taiwanese fashion in the 1930s has the distinction of blending Chinese, Japanese, and European influences.

Akru researched specifically how waitresses dressed in 1930s Taipei. Notice that it looks both a little Japanese and a little European.

Akru clearly loves 1930s Taiwanese fashion, as she features clothing very heavily in most of her stories for Creative Comics Collection. She says that one reason she is so interested in fashion from the Japanese era is that there are so many historical TV shows set in the Ming and Qing dynasties that everybody is familiar with the clothing from those eras … but most people are not familiar with the clothing of the Japanese era.

And it’s not just Akru. Dihua street, which was a key commercial street in the Japanese era (specifically, it was the main commercial of Dadaocheng, which some of the characters visit in “Soaring Boy”) is now turning in a hub for young Taiwanese fashion designers. I’ve seen some of their exhibitions, and they certainly seem to be drawing from the neighborhood’s historic roots.

Artwork

Akru’s artwork is like good Chinese calligraphy – elegant, yet vigorous, yet balanced lines.

Let’s look at this picture. First of all, it’s got a nice hint of sepia while still being in color (this looks better when my cheap camera is not involved). And is has nice composition. We have the girl on the left as the focus. The round circle featuring the city makes a nice background—it adds “weight” to the right side of the picture, making it feel balanced, but without any object standing out it doesn’t take focus from the girl (it’s a good background, heh heh). There are some nice electric poles on the right adding more vertical lines to balance out the girl’s “weight,” but since they are nice and black, they don’t take away focus.

I like this composition too. The lack of objects in the center really conveys the openness of the sky.

Notice how on the right the swimmers seem to dive down on to the page. Notice on the center left how there is that panel (or un-panel?) which shows just the sister, brother, and white space. If that’s not a visual pause, I don’t know what is.

But I think one of the things I like most about Akru’s artwork is that she can make the ordinary seem wonderous. For example, the act of reading:

Availability in English

Well, it’s not available in English. I think that’s too bad. I think that if any digital comics publisher showed an interest in licensing manhua, this would be a good choice—since it’s just one volume, it can’t be that great of an economic risk. Alternatively, since Creative Comics Collection is partially non-profit, it might be nice if they put forth a free English version online to promote Taiwanese culture.

Conclusion

The theme which binds all of these stories is that one has to step outside one’s comfort zone to really get to know the world. It might mean a boy from a rural town who visits the big city for the time, it might mean an Atayal girl who leaves her village to learn reading, writing, and Japanese, is might mean a young man from Japan who comes to Taiwan to open a cafe … and it just might mean a Manga Bookshelf reader moving from the city where she grew up to the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

This building is still around, in fact, I have spent a *lot* of time around this building.

No, seriously. The first and the last stories are set in they very same neighborhood that I lived in when I first moved to Taiwan. Okay, so I was there more than 70 years later, but still. I lived in a Japanese era building. I wandered the same streets the characters wandered, and the Japanese era left a very strong mark on the area. In fact, the same neighborhood is shown in Cheerful Wind.

I love this manhua because it taught me some news things about Taipei history. I love this manhua because it brings back memories. But most of all, I love it because, even across the gulf of time, I can identify with the characters.

Next Time: A Deadly Secret (TV series)

Sara K. is participating in this month’s Carnival of Aces. You can find her first post here … and yes, it just happens to be about a certain Chinese-language novel which she has previously discussed at Manga Bookshelf.

It Came From the Sinosphere: The 8th Bronze Man of Shaolin (Manhua)

October 30, 2012 by Sara K. 6 Comments

So our protagonist, Qisuo, grew up hearing stories about heroes. Naturally, he wants to become a hero. Where do you become a hero? Shaolin Temple of course (see my previous post about The 36th Chamber of Shaolin).

Qisuo manages to get to Shaolin Temple. Being Buddhist, the monks of Shaolin temple are supposed to be celibate vegetarians. What does Qisuo find at Shaolin temple?

Why, it’s monks eating meat and hanging out with prostitutes! What gives?

Shaolin Temple started accepting any rich kid as a student in order to get generous donations, and the rich kids don’t really want to give up on meat and sex, and … well it influenced the whole institution. Shaolin Temple is now a school for anti-heroes.

Note 1: this is an example of truth-in-fiction; the present day Shaolin Temple does allow the consumption of meat, and according to one martial arts master I know, has become a tourist trap which has lost its traditional way.
Note 2: It is very common, at least in the wuxia fiction I read, for Shaolin (or other Buddhist) monks to somehow break their vows of chastity. They actually seem to be more likely to get laid than the lay unmarried male characters.

Anyway, WHAT IS QISUO SUPPOSED TO DO?! He is so naïve that even this isn’t enough to break his rose-colored glasses.

Don’t worry, he gets to study some marital arts … after getting bullied at the Shaolin Temple.

Oh, and childhood friend, Hongzhong, also leaves the village to learn martial arts. She’s not going to let Qisuo have all the fun.

About Giddens Ko

Giddens Ko is nobody important. He’s just Taiwan’s most popular active novelist.

About Online Novels

It’s a bit hard to describe the world of online novels, partially because I don’t know it as well as I should.

On the one hand, for aspiring Taiwanese novelists, online is pretty much the only way to start these days. Even novelists who prefer the traditional publishing route have to go there because the traditional publishers would rather work with writers who have already proven themselves online.

Fortunately for the aspiring novelists, Taiwan has a vibrant and unique online culture, which I actually am not too familiar with since I spend most of my online hours in the English-language net (hey, I already live in Taiwan offline, I don’t need to live in Taiwan online too, at least not yet). One of the distinctive features of the Taiwanese internet is that bulletin board systems (BBS), which are considering a relic in most of the world, still flourish (another reason I’m not too familiar with the Taiwanese internet – while I’ve learned thousands of Chinese characters, I still haven’t learned how to use a BBS!). Anyway, it is in the BBS-world that aspiring novelists show their stuff.

Now, there are traditional-style novels which first reach readers through the internet. For example, Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero was originally published online. If these novels get a traditional publishing contract, they will generally be listed under a traditional genre (in this specific case, “wuxia”). However, a new style of novel writing has emerged from the labyrinths of the Taiwanese BBS world, and if these novels get printed, they will be listed as “online” novels.

Giddens first became famous in the BBS world, and I know about half of his novels originated there. I have not confirmed whether The 8th Bronze Man of Shaolin is one of them. Nonetheless, pretty much all of Giddens novels get shelved under “online novels,” regardless of the story’s genre. And while this story is in some sense a wuxia story, the novel is written in an online style.

Oh wait a minute. I’m not discussing the novel. I’m discussing the manhua. So I also need to talk about…

James Khoo

So, if Tony Wong (whom I’ve discussed here and here) and Ma Wing-shing (whom I discussed here) are the two top Hong Kong kung-fu/wuxia manhua artists, then James Khoo is around number four. He actually started as an assistant for Tony Wong, and later left to make his own name.

Artwork

Unsurprisingly, James Khoo’s style is a lot like Tony Wong’s style. On the one hand, his artwork doesn’t pop the way that Tony Wong’s does, nor does it compel me to flip back through the pages after I’ve finished a volume. On the other hand, it’s more grounded—and I don’t think it’s any less lovely. I haven’t seen James Khoo display Tony Wong’s skill in telling a story visually, though this might not have been the right story in which to do that (NOTE: the artwork looks way better in print than in these terrible photos).

Seriously, was it necessary to expose Ling Xue’s belly like that? She’s a flipping martial artist! None of the male martial artists wear such impractical clothing…

Original Tragedies and Monkey Wrenches

Most wuxia novels (or at least the ones I’ve read) follow the original tragedy/monkey wrench pattern. To me, it’s more essential than the martial arts. The “original tragedy” is something horrible that happens to the protagonist early on and propels the protagonist into embarking on a journey, literal and/or metaphorical. The story is basically about the protagonist coming to terms with the “original tragedy.” But the path is not straightforward, because at some point, a monkey wrench is going to hit the protagonist on the head (and sometimes there are multiple monkey wrenches).

To make this clearer, let me use the wuxia novel Pingzong Xiaying Lu as an example. The protagonist is Yun Lei. In the prologue, we learn that her grandfather had been exiled in Mongolia for 20 years, her father had been killed, and she had been separated from her mother, all because of somebody called Zhang Zongzhou. Shortly before his death, her grandfather commanded his offspring to grow up and get revenge by killing any member of the Zhang family, young or old, that they may encounter. At the time, Yun Lei was seven years old. This is her original tragedy.

Ten years later, Yun Lei is a teenager who knows how to wield a sword. It is time for her to actually go about getting revenge for the wrongs done to her family. She intends to reunite with her brother, whom she hasn’t seen in more than ten years, so they can get revenge together. Of course, traveling alone isn’t fun, so she travels with a young man called Danfeng. He’s also pretty good with a sword. They have adventures together and fall in love. Then it is revealed that Danfeng is Zhang Danfeng and … well, I think you can guess who his father is. He is Yun Lei’s monkey wrench.

This is the most common setup—somebody killed the protagonist’s parent(s), so the protagonist must work hard to be powerful enough to get revenge—but then ZOMYGOSH THE PROTAGONIST FALLS IN LOVE WITH THE CHILD OF WHOEVER KILLED THE PROTAGONIST’S PARENT!!!!!! There are, however, plenty of other ways to set up original tragedies and monkey wrenches. And of course, original tragedy/monkey wrench setups can be found outside wuxia too (in manga, for example).

Why did I go into this long digression? Because this is why the story of The 8th Bronze Man of Shaolin doesn’t quite click with me. Qisuo does not have an original tragedy—he left his village because he wants to be a hero. Okay, he does get bullied a bit at the Shaolin temple but a) Qisuo doesn’t seem to be hurt enough for that to work as an original tragedy b) it doesn’t change Qisuo or inspire him to take a particular course of action.

Now, Jubao does have an original tragedy, but a) he’s not the primary protagonist and b) it … I just don’t feel enough pain coming from Jubao for that to quite work either.

Wuxia stories don’t absolutely need original tragedies but this story doesn’t really work without one. The lack of monkey wrenches also does not help. This story feels to me like it’s just about youths learning martial arts, improving, and defeating increasingly powerful enemies … all without growing or maturing as people.

And the thing is, I don’t even think the fights are that good. I have no issue with James Khoo’s artwork—to the extent that the fights are interesting, it’s thanks to him—it’s just that the fights aren’t written to be very interesting. On a technical level, most of the fights lack any elements of puzzle-solving or surprise which can provide intellectual stimulation. On an emotional level there is … little impact.

In other words, this story fails for me.

Availability in English

The artwork is available to anybody who has eyesight. The story (in both manhua and pure prose form) is only available to readers of Chinese, but I don’t think that’s a big loss.

Conclusion

I don’t think Giddens was trying to write a classic wuxia story at all. I think he was trying to indulge in wuxia geeks’ fantasies. Qisuo—who grew up listening to stories of heroism—is basically a cipher for the reader. He gets to be best friends with Zhang Sanfeng, the legendary creator of Tai Chi and a character in many wuxia stories, help him develop Tai Chi, and eventually marry his sweetheart.

Well, it did not work for me. But the idea is good. In fact, Giddens tries the same thing in another novel, and in that novel it works so well that it is my favorite Giddens novel so far (I will discuss it here eventually, I am sure).

I do like James Khoo’s art … and I find it a bit disappointing that he choose to adapt this novel when there are so many better novels out there he could have adapted (Pingzong Xiaying Lu for example).

Next Time: Bump Off Lover / Ai Sha 17 (idol drama)

What was Sara K. doing while this column was on hiatus last week? Last Tuesday she was visiting Little Liuqiu Island, where they burn boats (they weren’t burning any boats while she was there though). Anyway, Sara K. is going to do a lot less running around Taiwan now, which means this column will regain its regularity. Hopefully.

It Came from the Sinosphere: The One

September 11, 2012 by Sara K. 3 Comments

I have a recipe for you.

Ingredient List:

1/2 cup of Paradise Kiss by Ai Yazawa
1/2 cup of a BL comic (the more cliched and/or melodramatic, the better)
1/2 cup of Mars by Fuyumi Soryo
1 cup of a shoujo manga so trashy you are a little embarrassed to admit that you like it
1 tablespoon of Taiwanese culture

1. Put all ingredients in a food processor.
2. Set the machine to “Chinese language”
3. Blend thoroughly.

Voila! You have The One, a manhua by Nicky Lee.

I think there isn’t much point to trying to describe the plot, since it’s mostly ridiculous, but I’ll try anyway.

The Story

Lele’s parents were both fashion models, but they died when she was young, so she was raised by her grandmother and aunt. Her aunt, a modeling agent, is keen to get Lele into the business as soon as she is old enough, but Lele hates the idea of becoming a model. Then she sees photos featuring Angus Lanson, the Chinese-European-American model who is taking the world by storm. Lele then recognizes that modeling can be an art form. Oh, and Angus has a twin brother, Eros Lanson (you read that right, his name is “Eros”).

I don’t think that’s enough to convey the true ridiculousness of the story, so here’s what happened in volume 14 (spoiler warning). Another model, Feidna, had taken Lele’s place in the modeling world to get revenge for Lele taking Eros from her. Eros says he will break up with Lele if she doesn’t take her place in the modeling world back, so Lele goes to Paris. In order to get back her position. she has to work with a very feminine male model, and she has to become very masculine in order to accompany him. Oh, and they have to spend a couple of weeks together as “girlfriend and boyfriend” (he is the girlfriend, she is the boyfriend).

Background

The One is a Star Girls title (I have discussed Star Girls previously). Specifically, it’s currently the best selling Star Girls title. In fact, it currently the best-selling Taiwanese manhua aimed specifically at a female audience, period.

Nicky Lee has been making manhua for about 20 years. Aside from The One, her best-known work is Youth Gone Wild, which is 14 volumes long.

The Surfacing of Taiwanese Culture

I’ve said before that Star Girls manhua tends to follow Japanese shoujo very closely, but Taiwanese culture can surface in interesting ways.

For example, the super-gorgeous twins have both Chinese and European ancestry. In Taiwan, people of mixed Chinese and European ancestry are considered to be more beautiful than people of purely Chinese or purely European ancestry.

Also, though I can’t find it right now, there’s a reference to how scary Taiwan is due to all the stray dogs (something that is also noted in Pinoy Sunday). It is true that Taiwan has lots of stray dogs, and they used to scare me a lot before I got used to them. Supposedly the only place with even more stray dogs is Thailand (at least, that seems to be the only place with more complaints about stray dogs than Taiwan).

There are enough Taiwanisms in this manhua that I don’t think anyone who hadn’t lived in Taiwan could have written it.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a manhua with a bunch of subtle Taiwanisms is also one of the best-selling manhua in Taiwan. In the Taiwan market, being able to feature Taiwanese culture is one of the clearest advantages local manhua artists have over Japanese artists.

Art

I think Nicky Lee has read something by Ai Yazawa.

However, the Ai Yazawa influence is most apparent in the early volumes, and less apparent later on. In fact, in the most recent volumes, the Fuyumi Soryo influence is much more apparent, at least to me.

Some pages from volume 14, the most recent volume

My favorite parts, art-wise, are the cinematic sections without dialogue. They really show that Nicky Lee can tell a story visually. For example, there is a beautiful sequence (which, due to technical difficulties, I cannot get pictures of – sorry!) in which Lele leaves Eros. In the rain. In the heart of New York City. And not a word is said. Both the composition and the way the characters’ expressions are drawn in that scene are exquisite.

On Queerness

The way queerness is depicted in this story is a mixed bag.

On the one hand, there are queer characters. And, unlike some BL, homosexual identity is acknowledged – some characters actually do identify as gay.

On the other hand, pansexual/bisexual identity is NOT acknowledged. There are some characters who, to me, are clearly behaving in a bisexual/pansexual way … but nobody identifies as pansexual or bisexual. Instead, they are straight, or gay, or a gay going straight, or a straight going gay. Argh.

One of my favorite characters, Leo, actually identifies as gay. He is a bit of a stereotypical gay man … on the other hand he is also black (in my experience of mainstream American media, the vast majority of gay men depicted are white). He is also one of the most likeable characters in the entire story.

What bugs me most, however, is a story arc in which a woman woos away a man from his boyfriend. As far as I could tell, these two guys were not in an open relationship, therefore I think trying to woo one of them away is, at best, extremely questionable behavior. But Nicky Lee tells the story as if there is nothing questionable about this. I cannot imagine Nicky Lee telling this story the same way if the relationship involved were a heterosexual one. The only explanation I can think of is that Nicky Lee thinks that homosexual relationships are not as worthy of respect as heterosexual ones. And I strongly disagree with that.

My Take on the Story

I think the story is too ridiculous to take seriously. Okay, occasionally I can take it seriously but … not often.

Nonetheless, I have read all 14 volumes, and I enjoyed it. What gives?

Well, first of all, the story is not boring. The breezy style keeps things moving along.

In spite of all the cliches, I don’t know what is going to happen next, because the cliches are deployed in an unpredictable way.

The Lanson twins—they are so over the top it’s funny. For example (spoiler warning), in order to rescue Eros, who basically being kept prisoner by their father in Europe, Angus sells himself to another male model, agreeing to be his sex slave for two years. Months later the male model complains that Angus hasn’t given himself to him, and Angus answers that he’s fulfilled his every request and had lots of sex with him, and the male model replies that what he really wants is Angus’ heart. Just thinking about that arc makes me giggle.

There are also some moments which are just plain fun. For example, at one point during a shoot, Lele imagines tormenting Eros Lanson in a BDSM fashion (whip included) … and her feelings come out in the way that she touches the other models in the shoot. The director of the shoot finds Lele’s attitude incredibly hot.

And, as someone who has read more than a few shoujo manga, I am actually impressed by Nicky Lee’s ability to use so many melodramatic shoujo/BL tropes while keeping the story comprehensible.

Availability

This manhua has never been licensed in English, or any other European language.

Conclusion

Since I figured the most popular Taiwanese manhua aimed at a female audience couldn’t be the worst place to start, this was actually the first manhua I ever read. So it will always have some nostalgic value for me.

I think it’s a pity it hasn’t been licensed in English because, even though it’s not a masterpiece, I think hard-core shoujo fans might appreciate something like this. It’s strangely appealing in its own way.

Next Time: Black & White (idol drama)

Sara K. is going to be quite busy in the next month, so her posts might become fluffier than usual (though the next post will definitely not be fluffy). Nonetheless, she hope readers will enjoy them.

It Came From the Sinosphere: The Celestial Zone

August 14, 2012 by Sara K. 5 Comments

Example Scene

I think this page is rather beautiful.

There is Chi Shuang, standing over the pool where her twin sister, Chi Xue, is wading. Meanwhile, Chuyi is bringing Xing Ling to see what is happening with Chi Xue and Chi Shuang. Previously, Xing Ling and Chi Xue were in a nasty fight. Xing Ling’s wounds have already been treated, but Chi Xue was so badly injured that Chuyi did not think she would make it. When Xing Ling said that Chi Shuang had some special method to cure Chi Xue, Chuyi decided an intervention was urgently needed.

Chuyi and Xing Ling approach the chamber where Chi Shuang prepares to heal Chi Xue.

And they see Chi Xue. I should note that Chi Xue is usually veiled and vicious, so to see her exposed and vulnerable is quite a contrast.

This is another lovely page.

Chi Xue is reluctant to be healed by this special method. Perhaps, like Chuyi, she know this healing method’s terrible secret.

And the healing process begins.

Terrible secret or not, it’s quite lovely.

Maybe I Should Start at the Beginning of the Story…

Xing Ling is the finest sword fighter wandering around jianghu. When she’s up against 10+ rogues, it’s bad news—I mean bad news for the rogues. She uses her exceptional skills to bully the bullies and provide relief to the common people.

Xing Ling smiles at a bunch of rogues she just pwned.

One day she encounters an opponent who she can’t cream within minutes. In fact, the fight is actually a struggle for her. She doesn’t understand why her opponent is not being reduced to a pulp. The thing is, all of her previous opponents were human, whereas this opponent is … not.

By exhausting all of her strength—and sacrificing her hair—Xing Ling manages to take down this non-human opponent. Then his non-human friends show up.

Just when Xing Ling appreciates the deep shit that she is in, two young men show up—one who mows down the non-human friends in minutes.

It turns out that the non-humans—as well as these two young men—come from the celestial zone, where people and creatures develop spiritual powers than ordinary mortals can barely imagine. She is the first ordinary person they ever saw beat a denizen of the celestial zone and … they notice that she is a bit like a certain special person.

Eventually, Xing Ling enters the Celestial Zone herself, cultivates her own spiritual powers, and joins the war between the Righteous Way and the Evil Way.

Background

This manhua is by Wee Tian Beng, who is the most commercially successful manhua artist in Singapore. To the best of my knowledge, no other Singaporean manhua artist has been published in Taiwan (which means it would me much more difficult for me to acquire copies). I have previously discussed Wee Tian Beng’s adaptation of the Jing Yong novel Return of the Condor Heroes.

The Celestial Zone is his signature work. It has attracted fans in many countries and its success has led to two sequels so far.

Female Characters

In a world where gender justice was the default, it would not be remarkable if a fighting/action oriented comic book featured many female characters and consistently gave them as much substance as the male characters, where they feel like they are there for their own sake, not to accompany the male characters. We do not live in a world where gender justice is the default. Therefore it is remarkable that The Celestial Zone is a fighting/action oriented comic book with many female characters who feel like they are there for their own sake and not to accompany the male characters.

This manhua passes the Bechdel test with flying colors. There are lots of female characters, they talk to each all the time, and they talk to each other about spiritual powers, demons, medicine, friendship, battle … in fact, they rarely talk to each other about men.

The one criticism I can make—and this a fairly minor criticism—is that Wee Tian Beng sometimes sexualizes the female characters in ways he does not sexualize the male characters. Nonetheless, even in this he is a mild offender, as he never goes farther in sexualizing the characters than he does in this illustration:

It’s partially because men like Wee Tian Beng get female characters (mostly) right that I do not give male creators slack for getting female characters wrong. If Wee Tian Beng can get this right, all other male creators can get female characters right too. The question is, do they want to get female characters right?

The Artwork

As I read this manhua, I kept on wondering if Wee Tian Beng would run out of his bag of artistic tricks, and the art which I found so fresh and exciting would be reduced to tired visual tropes.

That did not happen. Right to the last volume, Wee Tian Beng kept on drawing things in new and exciting ways which titilated my visual senses. He does all this while staying true to his own distinct style.

I have found few comic book artists who can so consistently delight my imagination with their artwork.

Can I break this down a bit? Maybe.

First of all, Wee Tian Beng often juxaposes detail with simplicity, such as in the page below. It provides a rest for the eyes, and makes the page more dynamic than if there were merely detailed linework or merely simplicity.

Also, Wee Tian Beng plays a lot with shadows, in different ways. Look at the following pages.

And then there is the way that Wee Tian Beng draws movement. It it utterly graceful. I don’t know how he does it (perhaps that’s why I’m not a visual artist myself). Look at the movement in the following pictures:

He also juxtaposes the action with natural scenery. The way he draws and incorporates nature is very much in the tradition of millennia of Chinese art. See how he uses images of nature in these pages:

As I’ve noted before, he uses panels in a very cinematic way. I love this following page where you can see how the characters expressions change on the beat.

Not to mention these cinematic pages:

Notice how the above page not only demonstrates his cinematic style, it also shows a) shadow play b) the way he draws human movement and c) images of nature.

And … he manages to infuse a solemnity into his compositions. Observe these pages.

And the composition in these following pages makes me squee. Especially the second page—instead of simply have a center panel with the two opponents squaring off in the distance and the side panels showing their faces, Wee Tian Beng combines the three panels together by having the opponents stand like chess pieces on their respective close-ups. Not to mention that a) the diagonal line between the opponents is dynamic and b) the long panels set up a nice set of parallel lines.

While the characters are rarely warm and bubbly (it’s not that kind of story) when warmth and bubbles are called for, he can draw that too.

But, more than anything else, Wee Tian Beng chooses compelling subjects to draw. Such as a dragon’s head suddenly emerging from the water:

Or this special healing technique with candles:

Or one of the baddies suddenly deciding to kiss one of the goodies in mid-fight:

Chinese Culture

This comic is steeped in traditional Chinese culture, especially Taoism (note: I actually do not know much about Taoism). I’ve already mentioned the influence from traditional Chinese paintings. I also learned why the word for “thing” in Mandarin literally is “east-west” (and I am a little curious how they would try to explain that in English, since it would be very difficult to explain to somebody who doesn’t know some Chinese). It does not feel didactic; on the other hand, I can tell Wee Tian Beng cares a lot about this and wants to pass it on to the readers.

More on the Characters

It should be apparent by now that the story has a lot in common with shounen battle manga.

I rather liked the twist on training the newbie hero(ine), in which Xing Ling, who is used to pwning her enemies, has to go back to square one once she enters the Celestial Zone and trains her spirit powers. However, once she got used to the Celestial Zone, I found her character less compelling. Wee Tian Beng sensed this too, as he shifted the story away from her to Chi Xue.

While I generally support using transliterations instead of translations of Chinese names, I almost wish the English language edition had made an exception for Chi Xue since her name, which means “Scarlet Snow,” is even more beautiful in English than in Chinese. “Xue” can also mean “blood”…

Even though Chi Xue is officially with the Righteous Way, she hunts demons so ruthlessly that, on the surface, she doesn’t feel like a good guy. Of course, it turns out that she is extremely tender-hearted, and that she fights so coldly partially because she is heartbroken (her heartbreak, by the way, has nothing to do with a man).

And … Xing Ling and Chi Xue make for a good friendship. Their relationship is opposites-attract, but in a non-romantic way. Xing Ling is generally cheerful while Chi Xue is generally moody, Xing Ling is inexperienced, while Chi Xue has experienced a bit too much … and so forth.

Good stories are generally about characters suffering and growing (or not) from it. Suffering doesn’t stick very well to the upbeat Xing Ling, which is why Chi Xue ultimately ended up being a much more interesting character. Other people must have agreed, because there is a spin-off manhua called The Adventures of Chi Xue.

Availablility

This entire comic has been published in English—in fact the original edition was simultaneously published in English and Chinese. Many volumes of the English-language edition are available at Mile High Comics—unfortunately they don’t have all volumes, but the volumes they do have in stock are reasonably priced.

In Chinese, this comic book has been published in both simplified and traditional characters.

European readers might find it easier to acquire the French edition than the English-language edition.

Conclusion

I would have loved this manhua to pieces as a little girl. I enjoyed action/fighting stories, doubly so if they featured main characters, triply so if it was pretty (it’s worth noting that my gateway to anime was Sailor Moon, and my gateway to manga was Inuyasha).

And, obviously, I do love the artwork in this manhua. And, darn it, artwork is important. Liking comics for the artwork is not superficial, silly, or otherwise to be looked down upon. I didn’t actually become truly visually literate until my college years, but to the extent I was visually literate before then, I can partially thank my father—he would often remark on the artwork in the comic books we read together (or anything else that caught his eye). In the modern world, where people are constantly bombarded with images, visual literacy is important, and visual literacy also makes life more fun. One of the advantages that comic books have over certain other storytelling media is that it can nuture one’s visual literacy. This manhua, in my opinion, is excellent for that.

I am okay with the story. I am not in love with the story. I cannot pick out any major flaws. I was interested in the arcs of some of the characters, and was occasionally moved. Nonetheless, the story did not grab me. I could speculate on why it didn’t grab me … but to be honest, I don’t know why it didn’t grab me.

I do recommend this manhua to people who like fighting comics, particularly if they want fighting comics with good female characters.

Next Time: Fated to Love You (idol drama)

While the topics of Sara K.’s personal blog are mostly not related to Asian culture, Mangabookshelf readers might be interested in reading her latest post: “Language Learning and Perpetual Childhood”.

It Came From the Sinosphere: Creative Comics Collection

July 17, 2012 by Sara K. 8 Comments

Pretty, isn’t it? Before you learn more about it, here’s some history for you to read!

A Brief Demographic History of Taiwan

Tens of thousands of years ago, Taiwan was not an island, and stone age people walked from Fujian to Taiwan. Then, when sea levels rose, Taiwan became an island. Thousands of years ago, Austronesian people showed up in Taiwan. It is unknown what relationship they had with the people already living in Taiwan, but the most likely scenario is that they married each other and had kids.

In the 17th century, Europeans (primarily the Dutch and Spanish) colonized Taiwan. They never arrived in sufficient numbers to have much direct impact on Taiwan’s demographics. But the era of European colonization was the first time Han Chinese (mainly from Fujian and Guangdong) arrived in Taiwan in large numbers. And since the vast majority of the Han Chinese migrants were male (at least during the early waves of migration), if they wanted to marry or have babies, pairing up with the women who already lived there was often their only option. The same applied to the few Europeans who showed up in Taiwan, of course—at all points in Taiwanese history there have been far more white males than white females present on the island (including today).

The next time a different outsider group showed up in Taiwan was when Japan took over Taiwan in 1895. Strangely, unlike all previous migrations, the Japanese did not have lots of babies with the people already living in Taiwan, though they did of course have a few babies, which is why some Taiwanese people claim Japanese ancestry. After WWII, almost all of the Japanese people living in Taiwan left.

Then after WWII many people fled from China to Taiwan, and unlike previous waves of Han Chinese migration, these immigrants were not primarily from Fujian or Guangdong. They brought a new language, Mandarin, to Taiwan (previous Han Chinese migrants spoke Minnan or Hakka). Like most immigrants to Taiwan, they married the local people and had babies.

The most recent wave of migration to Taiwan has been coming from Southeast Asia—Phillipines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia. And I recall reading somewhere that 20% of all marriages in Taiwan today are between a Taiwanese person and a Southeast Asian immigrant. It seems the Southeast Asians are carrying on the old Taiwanese tradition of immigrants having babies with locals.

It should be apparent by now that Taiwan is really different from Korea and Japan. Korea and Japan can point to centuries of unified, independent rule, whereas Taiwan has never been an independent and unified nation, not even today (at least not officially). If you ask a Korean or Japanese person what ethnicity they are, they will answer “Korean, obviously” or “Japanese, obviously.” If you ask a Taiwanese person what ethnicity they are, the answers can get really complicated.

And this raises the question … what is Taiwanese culture? Is there something unique about Taiwanese culture which cannot be found in any other culture, or is Taiwanese culture just an extension of some other culture?

I cannot tell you what Taiwanese culture is, and I have heard Taiwanese people answer this question in many different ways. But I see a lot of parallels between Taiwan today and the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. Much of the work of artists in the United States from that era was to hash out what exactly the culture of the United States was. And today, many Taiwanese artists are hashing out the question of what Taiwanese culture is. Which finally, finally brings me to the main topic.

Creative Comic Collection

Creative Comics Collection is Taiwan’s best-selling manhua magazine-anthology. By “best-selling” I mean “it sells a lot more copies than the Taiwanese edition of Shonen Jump.” I am not sure there are any American comic book magazine-anthologies which out-sell the American edition of Shonen Jump (please correct me if I’m wrong). While I don’t have sales numbers, I heard that Creative Comic Collection even out-sells the collected volumes of some of Shonen Jump‘s flagship titles, such as Bleach (though I must note this not mean there are more Taiwanese people reading Creative Comics Collection than Bleach—the vast majority of Taiwanese manga-readers would rent, not buy, Bleach, whereas Creative Comics Collection is generally not available for rent).

And, I will say this for Creative Comics Collection—it is unlike any other comic book magazine-anthology I know about. Star Girls, which I discussed in a previous post, is clearly modeled on Japanese shojo magazine-anthologies. However, Creative Comics Collection is not modelled on anything I know of. It is an entirely different beast than the entire universe of Japanese magazine-anthologies (at least based on reading Magazine no Mori—I suppose there might be Creative-Comics-Collection–esque magazines in Japan which Erica simply has not discussed).

So what is this model? It’s very simple—presearchers at the Academy Sinica team up with young artists and illustrations, and make illustrations and manhua together.

How an Issue is Set Up

Each issue of Creative Comics Collection (which from now on I’m just calling CCC) has a theme—for example, Myths and Legends, Labor, Seasonal Festivities, and so forth. Most or all of the content of that issue uses that them.

The first section of an issue of Creative Comics Collection is dedicated to color illustrations and various articles about the theme. Often, there is a color manhua or illustrated story followed by a collection of illustrations from different artists around a theme. This is actually my favorite part of the magazine because of the color, the variety of styles, and the various ways they express the themes. For example, there was one color feature where the artists had to depict various historic sites in Taiwan as comic book characters.

This is Fort San Domingo in Danshui as a comic book character:

Fort San Domingo was used by the Spanish, Dutch, and British … in other words, it has European colonization written all over it (in fact, the two puppets the character is holding represent Holland and Spain fighting each other).

This is a residence built for the Japanese imperial family in Taichung:

The writing and the diagrams explain the drawing and which aspects of the drawing represent which aspects of of the original building.

After the comics comes the bulk of the issue—black and white comics accompanied by articles from the Academic Sinica.

The academics present some research to the artist, and then the artist bases a short manhua story on the research. The academic writes a short article to follow the short manhua. The manhua stories generally run about 30-40 pages long, and the articles run about 2 pages long. They explore various aspects of Taiwan—ecology, Austronesian heritage, Chinese heritage, Japanese heritage, and so forth. Each issue has about 8 manhua/articles.

Artwork

It is rather difficult to discuss the artwork, because even though there are some regular contributors, each issue has a different set of artists. However, there is a heavy Japanese influence everywhere. This is not surprising. Since Taiwan’s earlier manhua tradition was suffocated to death by censorship (ah, martial law), today’s manhua artists only have Japanese artists, not their Taiwanese predecessors, as their role models. Unlike the manhua found in Star Girls, which tends to track Japanese art styles so closely that I can date a Star Girls manhua by looking at the same things I would use to date a Japanese manga, the artists in CCC do not seem to be bound to following Japanese styles. Instead, they are exploring their own style.

Looking through the issues, I do notice a trend.

These are all from the first issue:

Notice that there are a variety of styles, with an experimental vibe running beneath most of them.

These are all from the most recent issue:

Not as much variety in style as in the first issue, and certainly not as much of an avant-garde atmosphere. It might be inevitable that as a magazine-anthologies matures, the art style settles down.

Overall, I prefer the art of the early issues because of the greater variety and the freshness, but I also appreciate that the magazine is building a stable of maturing artists—some of whom I like a lot—while still keeping room for more artists to come on board.

Stories

And …here is CCC‘s weak point. The stories are not terrible. They are generally just not, well, very memorable. The typical CCC story is ordinary person finds unusual thing, learns more about unusual thing, and then has an ephiphany (the unusual thing, of course, is the subject of the academic’s article). Even though I don’t particularly like Kokai’s drawing style (Kokai is one of CCC‘s regular contributors) I generally like her storytelling more than the other artists because she at least puts a little pizazz into the plot. But generally, I prefer the manhua where they throw the story to hell and just focus on drawing up Taiwanese esoterica in imaginative ways.

That said, the stories (being short) go by quite quickly and balance out the academic articles nicely. Light manhua – academic article – light manhua – academic article, and so forth, makes for a better reading experience than pure light manhua or pure academic articles.

Still, my favorite section is the still the color illustrations in the beginning because they often don’t bother with storytelling in that section, instead focusing on CCC‘s strengths—a variety of art and … Taiwanana? What am I supposed to call the Taiwanese equivalent of Americana?

Availability

Availability in English … ha ha ha.

Well, a few of the manhua stories don’t have dialogue, so I suppose somebody literate in English can read them just as well as someone literate in Chinese. Some manhua stories are “available” online at the CCC website, but the resolution is so bad that I can’t read them, so if you want to look, it does not matter what language you’re literate in (or not).

CCC is quite easy to acquire in Taiwan. I’m sure it’s harder to acquire elsewhere.

Conclusion

Like I said, this is a strange beast, so I am not going to say it should be licensed, at least not in the traditional sense. Nonetheless, I think it would be nice if they translated some of the manhua and features into English and put them online on the offical CCC website so that people outside of Taiwan could get a taste of what it’s like.

It is no secret that Japanese manga dominates the Taiwanese comic book scene, and most Taiwanese people are hardly aware of local manhua (this is partially because the most commercial Taiwanese manhua packages itself just like Japanese manga, so the casual reader may not notice the difference). However one thing Japanese manga cannot do for Taiwanese readers is reflect Taiwanese culture. While I think Star Girls manhua sometimes reflects Taiwanese culture in interesting ways, it’s generally subtle and would not satisfy somebody who really, really wants to see Taiwan embodied in comic book form.

And that is the craving that CCC fills. It is Taiwanese in your face. Taiwan practically drips from its pages.

An avant-garde depiction of a Formosa magpie in a sailor suit

Like this page, which depicts a badass Formosa magpie (the Formosa magpie is often used as a symbol of Taiwan).

It might be difficult for relatively privileged people to understand this. However, if you have had trouble finding stories which reflect people like you and the culture you live in, the craving for such stories can be quite powerful.

So, I have a question for you:

Would you like to discuss specific artists from CCC in future columns?

Next time: Autumn’s Concerto, AKA Next Stop, Happiness (idol drama)

One of the reasons Sara K. enjoys living in Taiwan is that it is the crossroads of East Asia. Japan, Korea, China, Phillipines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand … it all comes together in Taiwan. She thinks it is not a coincidence that Taiwan is both the crossroads of such different cultures … and is the most queer-tolerant and least-sexist place in Asia (that has more to do with Asia generally being homophobic and sexist rather than Taiwan being wonderful in that regard … but Sara K. does not know of any other place in Asia where the head of state publicly attended a gay pride parade).

It Came from the Sinosphere: Divine Melody

June 19, 2012 by Sara K. 4 Comments

Overview

This is going to seem weird and complicated, but take my word for it, this all makes sense when you read the manhua itself.

The story starts with a tribe of húli jīng, which means “fox spirits.” These fox spirits were born as ordinary foxes, but by magic they had been transformed into yāoguài. If that seems similar to the word ‘yōkai’, it’s because the Japanese borrowed the word from Chinese. The fox spirits now have the shape of beautiful human maidens and a lifespan of 500 years. But after 500 years, they will disappear. For this reason, they want to have children so that their tribe will last forever. Yet … they are all female, which makes reproduction a little tricky. If they use human males as studs, their children will only have a human lifespan. However, they have a special child in their care—Qin Caisheng, a fox spirit with xiān blood (xiān, is usually translated into English as “fairy” or “celestial,” but since this manhua is based on Chinese, not European, mythology, I am going to stick with the word “xiān“). Qin Caisheng is currently a girl, but in 200 years will have the ability to change between female and male forms (from this point forward, I am going to refer to Qin Caisheng with the pronouns “ze” and “hir”). The fox spirits looks forward to having Caisheng’s babies so that their tribe can last into perpetuity.

Caisheng, however, at the beginning of the story is just a young child. Caisheng feels that the only fox spirit who actually loves hir and does not see hir as just a future stud is Huiniang, who practically raises Caisheng. Huiniang is one of the tribe leader’s favorites, along with Yuniang. Yuniang is determined to be the one to bear Caisheng’s babies. Caisheng sees and talks to some of the human boys Yuniang captured, and decides to leave the fox spirits’ mountain to see the places the boys talked about. While in the human village, Caisheng meets a human boy and girl and plays with them. When a wolf attacks, the boy and girl bravely defend Caisheng’s life. When Huiniang comes to rescue Caisheng, she recognizes their service and puts a mark on the boy and girl so that they can later repay the kindness. Yuniang, meanwhile, is expelled from the tribe.

Two hundred years later, Caisheng finally has the ability to turn into a male, yet ze is hiding the truth from all but Huiniang. Caisheng only wants to have children with hir one true love, and ze is not in love with the fox spirits. Huiniang, meanwhile, fell in love with a human, and left the tribe to marry him and have his children. Caisheng figures that Huiniang is the person ze loves the most, so Caisheng wants to have hir children with Huiniang once Huiniang’s husband has died. Huiniang, on the other hand, wants to become human so that she can grow old with her husband.

On a trip to visit Huiniang in the human village, Caisheng meets the reincarnations of the boy and girl who saved hir from the world two hundred years ago. One of them, Han Yunshi, is an apprentice to a Daoist priest who tracks down and kills yāoguài (hmmm, is there some potential conflict there?). The other, Su Pinger, is a girl from a noble family who is afflicted by some kind of yāoguài. Caisheng expels the yāoguài and discovers it is a cat spirit called Gu Mao.

A xiān called Wei Ziqiu comes looking for Caisheng. His task is to bring hir back to the place where the xiān live to make hir a full xiān. Wei Ziqiu was originally human, but transformed into an immortal after suffering great tragedy. If Caisheng has children with the fox spirits or with a human, ze would be unable to ever become a xiān.

It also turns out that Gu Mao is in the service of none other than Yuniang, the outcast fox spirit who has since turned into a yāomó (which is like a yāoguài but more evil).

This is only the beginning of the story, but it is actually not that hard to keep track of what it going on.

Background

This is a 9-volume work by Yi Huan, one of Taiwan’s most delightful manhua artists. It ran in Star Girls, Taiwan’s girls’ manhua anthology, from 2003 to 2009.

Star Girls is a manhua anthology which is heavily, heavily influenced by shoujo manga. Even though I generally have little trouble distinguishing from Korean sunjeong from Japanese shoujo, I cannot distinguish between Star Girls manhua and Japanese shoujo until I recognize a specific artist’s style (for example, Yi Huan’s style is very distinct). Taiwan’s local manhua tradition was pretty much killed by censorship (by “censorship,” I mean “people did not dare create/publish manhua because they were afraid of going to prison”). After the democratization of Taiwan, Taiwanese manhua experienced a revival, but the new generation’s role models are from Japan, not from the golden age of Taiwanese manhua. Some artists are trying to piece together a new distinctly Taiwanese tradition of manhua, but those artists are not the artists who get published in Star Girls.

Artwork

I’ll start with the obvious—THIS MANHUA IS PRETTY!!!

The style is defined by long, vertical, slightly curved, lithe lines. Long flowing dresses, long flowing hair, long flowing flourishes, and so forth. The artwork consists of fine lines without much screentone—which means it is really hard to take good pictures of it with my cheap camera, but on paper it looks really nice. I dig it. I can even forgive it for having jewel-eyes (note: I am not a fan of jewel-eyes).

The costumes are one of the most detailed parts of the artwork. Yi Huan clearly has fun with the clothing. Of course, just as clothing is a way humans express themselves, costumes done right ought to express the characters. Yi Huan does costumes right.

Look at the dresses of the fox spirits. Notice how the waistlines are so high. When a woman wears clothing with a high waistline, it makes her look a bit pregnant. Considering that the fox spirits are obsessed with making babies, it is appropriate that their attire would have such a high waistline (it’s also appropriate that Caisheng has such attire, since throughout much of the story ze is wondering who to make babies with). Of course there is more that could be said about this, but this is comic book criticism, not a discussion of costume theory.

I actually did not realize that the later volumes were so crowded with talking heads and reaction shots until I actually started thinking about the artwork from a critical point of view. But the later part of the story is pretty much an angstfest, and angstfests tend to look pretty busy, artwork-wise.

The manhua is punctuated with pages like this which show off the characters’ graceful figures.

These pages are meant to make the reader sigh. And it works. I am trying to come up with more insightful observations about the artwork, but as I’m flipping through the pages, all I am thinking is “pretty … pretty.”

More On the Story

The story sets up a world based on Chinese mythology. I bought into the alternative logic. Indeed, I got caught up in the love polygons and the drama and all that angst.

This story is ultimately about choosing between love and longevity. If Caisheng gets the fox spirits pregnant, the tribe will live on forever. But Caisheng does not love the fox spirits. Huiniang does not want to live without her beloved husband, so she seeks to become human so they will die together. Wei Ziqiu has become immortal, yet he is losing the passionate feelings he had as human, and trying to hold onto them might cost him his immortality. Caisheng wants both love and longevity, but having both is impossible—either the lovers will change so much that they will no longer be the people they fell in love with, or they will stay the same forever, and that would merely be death of a different kind.

When I put it that way, it makes the story seem really deep. So I am wondering why I didn’t have a deeper experience.

Hmmm.

I think it’s because the second half of the manhua is too rushed. I sometimes do not understand why characters make certain choices because their motivations have not been sufficiently illustrated for me. And I think that’s it—the second half of the story needs more supporting plots to illustrate its points. While the point of Huiniang’s subplot in the early part of the manhua is quite clear, the point of the subplot around Huiniang’s clone is not. So while I understood the plot … understanding the plot is not the same as being moved by the plot. The last part of the manhua is less moving than the first part.

That said, the story overall is still good. My main complaint is that, even though it could have been a masterpiece, it is not.

Availability in English

The first 5 volumes were published in English by Dr Master. While it is a pity they did not publish the full run, at least the volumes they did publish are the better volumes.

They can be obtained for low prices at many websites. At the Cubic Mall Manga Outlet, they can be obtained at 2 USD per volume. At that price, it’s worth buying just for the artwork alone. Buyers can also pick up some volumes of The Legendary Couple at the same time, which was previously reviewed here.

Conclusion

Good artwork and good story. What more can one ask for?

Okay, I ask for great stories and great artwork. On the other hand, I’ve read Divine Melody twice, and enjoyed it both times. It held up well on the second reading, something which cannot be said of many comics.

The most important thing is Yi Huan’s distinctive style, both the drawing and the storytelling. I have not read any other comics quite like hers. That is why you should read Divine Melody.

Next Time: My Queen (idol drama)

Sara K. is listening to birds right now. Yes, even in the heart of a industrialized Taiwanese city, there are songbirds, though it is remarkable that she can hear them more clearly than the scooters. Sara K. is impressed with how few pigeons there are in Taiwan – possibly because Taiwan has a zillion birds, so there is not much room for pigeons. Some people come to Taiwan just for bird-watching. Taiwan also has the world’s prettiest butterflies (well, at least the prettiest butterflies Sara K. has ever seen).

The Condor Trilogy in Manhua: Introduction

March 27, 2012 by Sara K. 16 Comments

Xiaolongnu and Yang Guo embracing at the bottom of the gorge

This fanart was made by Dy Martino.

The three novels in Shè Diāo Sānbùqǔ, or as it is known in English, The Condor Trilogy, are the most popular Chinese-language novels of the 20th century. Due to their popularity, the novels have been adapted into TV shows, movies, video games, and of course, comic books (manhua). Because everybody has read the novels or at least seen one of the TV adaptations, the trilogy needs no introduction and I can jump straight to talking about the manhua.

Maybe not.

Even though asking somebody in the Chinese-speaking world “Have you heard of The Condor Trilogy?” would be like asking somebody in the English-speaking world “Have you heard of Harry Potter?,” The Condor Trilogy is strangely obscure outside of Asia. When I discuss the manhua, I want to discuss the manhua, so before we get there, an introduction to the trilogy is in order.

Background

The books in the Condor Trilogy are wuxia novels – wuxia being a Chinese genre which lies in the gray area between historical, action, and fantasy fiction. The term “wuxi a” comes from “wǔ” (which means “martial” as in related to the military or martial arts) and “xiá.” “Xiá” is often translated into English as “chivalry,” but I think that translation is wrong, because xiákè are very different from knights or samurai. Knights and samurai generally belong to the gentry and try to uphold their society’s social hierarchy, whereas xiákè generally belong to the peasant class and are often opposed their society’s corrupt ways. A xiákè has a lot more in common with Robin Hood than Sir Lancelot. Nonetheless, the xiákè are trained fighters and do have a code of conduct referred to as the way of the ‘xiá’.

The Condor Trilogy was written by Louis Cha under the pen name Jin Yong in the 1950s and early 1960s. Jin Yong is considered the top wuxia writer of the 20th century, possibly of all time. The novels were originally published as newspaper serials in Hong Kong, and later collected as books. They had been banned in Taiwan and possibly China too (I know some of Jin Yong’s other novels were banned in China). The bans did not work, because pirated copies were widely distributed. Nowadays, the Condor Trilogy is available unabridged everywhere in the Chinese-speaking world.

The General Story

The plot of the trilogy spans over a century—from the late Song dynasty to the very beginning of the Ming Dynasty. In between the Song and the Ming eras, China was ruled by the Mongol empire, and Mongols play a major role in all three of the novels. However, the Mongol invasion is usually in the background, not foreground. The heroes sometimes choose to collaborate with the Mongols, and the Song and Ming are not exactly depicted in a flattering light. While the Mongols are considered particularly bad because they destroy towns, massacre people, and are not Chinese, there is a general sense that all governments are corrupt and dominated by the power-hungry, and that the common people suffer no matter who is in charge. The trilogy is much more concerned with the lives and relationships of individual characters against the backdrop of such historic events.

Some people say that the trilogy is a martial arts soap opera. They are correct, mainly because there are many scenes like this:

Character #1: (Oh no! Six groups have joined forces to kill off the faction that my maternal grandfather and maternal uncle belong to! I must save them!) “I won’t let you all hurt a single person in this faction”
Crowd: “Who the hell are you?”
Character #1: (If I reveal my true identity, they will force me to betray my godfather) “I am [fake name]. Each of you, send a champion. If I can beat every one of your champions in a duel, then don’t kill anybody from this faction.”
Crowd: “Fine”
[Long elaborate fight scene]
Crowd: “How come this nobody is such a great martial arts fighter?!”
[Long elaborate fight scene finishes. Character #1 won, but is in a bloody heap and, without medical attention, will die soon]
Character #2: “I must kill that person over there!”
Character #1: “I won’t let you hurt a single person from that faction!”
Character #2: “But he kidnapped and raped my fiancée!”
Character #1: “Before you can hurt a single one of them, you must kill me first.”
Character #2: “Even though it is not honorable to kill people who are already bloody heaps, I must get vengeance for her!”
Character #1: “Then kill me, dear uncle.”
Character #2: “You said that just the same way my brother’s son used to call me uncle. My poor nephew, he died years ago… could it be… you are…”
Character #1: “Yes, it’s me!”

In the process of simplifying and de-spoilering this scene, I also significantly downplayed it. The actual scene is vastly more melodramatic.

However, the story of the Condor Trilogy feels as much like a fairy tale as a soap opera to me. There is the constant use of the number three. For example, after a princess saves the life of the hero’s comrade, the hero must fulfill whatever three things she requests as long as they are not against the way of the xiá, do not threaten his faction, and do not threaten his own position (actually, the mere presence of princesses makes the trilogy feel more fairy-tale like). And there are the almost-magical elements, such as a boy getting sword lessons from a giant eagle, or someone seeing what looks like a fairy approaching him on a lake, or a character being pursued by someone who looks so much like the girl she murdered that it cannot be anyone else. The supernatural is never directly invoked, but much of what happens seems almost supernatural.

Furthermore. the novels are also filled with a human-bites-dog, or rather, human-bites-snake logic.

A snake gets a human-bite.

Example 1: In order to climb an un-climbable mountain, the characters pull out a flock of sheep, chop off the sheep’s legs, and use them to create a ladder (when the blood in the legs freeze, they stick to the side of the mountain so hard that people can step on them).

Example 2: There is a boy who follows a girl and keeps on provoking and harassing a girl so that she will yell at him. Why? To him, being yelled at by a woman is the sweetest sound in the world—in fact, he considers the times he has been scolded and punished by a certain woman to be the best moments of his life.

Example 3: There is a scene where a girl is talking about how a boy bit her and she never forgot him. Said boy and a different girl are eavesdropping. The second girl then bites the boy. Then the second girl asks the boy if she bit him as deeply as he had bitten the first girl. The boy asks her why does she want to know. The second girl answers that she never wants him to forget her, so she wants to make sure that the bite is just as deep.

These off-the-wall moments make me love the trilogy that much more. It’s engaging to not be sure what bizarre thing will happen next and to constantly blurt out (in my mind) “What the hell was THAT?!” Most of all, the off-the-wall-ness makes the relationships feel that much more real. Some of the things that the characters do together are so just odd. In my mind I often treat them more like real people than fictional characters, offering them advice while reading the story, giving them a high-five when they are being awesome, and yelling at them when they frustrate me.

Unfortunately, all of the manhua adaptations tone down the off-the-wall-ness – I suppose nobody wants to draw martial artists urinating on live, venomous snakes.

Since each novel feels distinct, here’s a basic overview of each novel.

First Novel: Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn

English Titles: The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, Legend of the Condor Heroes

More so than the other books in the trilogy, this is an adventure. A Chinese boy who grew up in Mongolia travels south to take care of unfinished business, and in the process he makes friends, makes enemies, falls in love, and of course, learns many martial arts techniques. There is plenty of swashbuckling fun for everyone—getting shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, hiding in a secret room, riding giant eagles, meeting the great martial arts masters one by one, running around a palace, and so forth.

However, in the last fourth of the story, fun and games are over. All of the relationships built up in the first three-fourths of the story are ripped apart. Tragedy strikes again and again. And our humble hero is forced to ask some tough questions.

This was the first novel I ever read in Chinese, and for that reason alone it will always have a special place in my heart. I grew very fond of the characters. Some—such as Huang Rong and Yang Kang—I liked right away (okay, maybe I do not “like” Yang Kang, but I really like reading about him), whereas it took more time for other characters, such as Guo Jing, to grow on me. To me, the plot is of secondary importance. Whenever I experience this story again, it is like spending time with old friends.

Second Novel: Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ

English Titles: The Giant Eagle and Its Companion, Return of the Condor Heroes, Divine Eagle, Gallant Knight, Condor Hero

When you heard or read the story of “Sleeping Beauty,” did you ever think “This story needs a Mongol invasion, a bunch of characters from Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn, and tons of violence and kung fu?” No, me neither. But having read Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ, I think the story of “Sleeping Beauty” is much improved with these additions.

At heart, Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ is still a “Sleeping Beauty” story. However, rather than eliminating all of the spindles in the lands, in order to protect her from having her heart broken, the guardian of “sleeping beauty” instead trained her to kill all emotions to the extent that she is indifferent to the prospect of her own death. So successful is “sleeping beauty” in withdrawing from life that her body does not age—she looks indefinitely like a 16-year old even though she is significantly older. Yet because “sleeping beauty” is not literally sleeping, she has agency and makes choices—that makes her a much interesting character. The story of Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ really belongs to ‘prince charming’—he has a history, he has a personality, and it is not love at first sight—he has to spend time falling in love with ‘sleeping beauty’ only to lose her. “Sleeping beauty” and “prince charming” represent two approaches to the hardships of life: to escape, sacrificing joy to avoid pain; and to expose oneself to the cruelties of the world in pursuit of fleeing moments of happiness.

I would say, of all the novels, this one has the worst plot. But that is unfair, because the plot is not supposed to be good. This novel is all about exhilarating, intense moments. The plot is there to make those moments happen, no matter how much it has to contort itself. Between the amazing fight scenes, beautiful imagery, complex relationships, and of course, the passion, this is my favorite novel in the trilogy.

Third Novel: Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì

English Titles: The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Sabre, The Tale of Relying on Heaven to Kill the Dragon

While Chinese society is falling apart in the first two novels, the society has already collapsed in this story. The Mongols have been ruling China for almost a century. Violence is widespread, even between commoners. The Dragon Sabre and Heaven Sword were created so that the Chinese would eventually be able to drive out the Mongols for good. Ironically, the struggle for the Dragon Sabre, which supposedly contains the secret to dominating the martial arts world, polarizes the martial arts world and inspires the various sects to continue the internecine fighting which prevents them from uniting against the Mongols.

The main character, Zhang Wuji, is constantly defending people who I consider to be scum. I think the characters are scum because of the horrible things they did. One reason there is so much fighting is that, when Character A finds out that Character B did something terrible to Character C, Character A figures that it is okay to to horrible things to Character B. Then Character D finds out about this, and figures it is now okay to do terrible things to Character A. Zhang Wuji, on the other hand, insists on seeing people at the best, not their worst … and that’s how he manages to make things slightly better. When I finally realized this, I was quite humbled to realize I had the same attitude as the characters who were escalating the violence. In addition to being a great martial artist, Zhang Wuji is also a great doctor, and I think this represents that his true role is not to fight the Mongols, but to heal his scarred society.

This is my least favorite novel in the trilogy, mainly because the story does not really get going until halfway through the book, and it has a relatively high percentage of characters I do not like. Of course, even the first part of the novel has its gems—Chapter 10 made me cry. And, while I did not enjoy this novel as much as the other two, it has been no less thought-provoking.

Availability of the Novels

If you can only read European languages, you are out of luck. The only novel which has ever been published in a European language is the first novel, Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn, as La Légende du Héros Chasseur d’Aigles. There are fan translations into English, floating around the internet, but they are 1) in violation of copyright law and 2) incomplete. Three other Jin Yong novels, on the other hand, have been published in English: The Book and the Sword, The Fox Volant of Snow Mountain, and The Deer and the Cauldron.

Availability is much better in Asian languages. The entire trilogy has been published in Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Malay. And of course, if you can read Chinese, you’ve already read the novels, right?

More TV adaptations have been made of the Condor Trilogy than I can keep track of, and some of them are available on DVD with English subtitles. While I have not watched any of them yet, many people say that the 1980s TVB adaptation is the best, and it also happens to be the only TV adaptation which is entirely available with English subtitles on DVD. For people who cannot read the novels, this is how I suggest experiencing the complete trilogy.

And, surprisingly, some of the manhua adaptations—specifically The Legendary Couple by Tony Wong, Return of the Condor Heroes by Wee Tian Beng, and The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre by Ma Wing-shing—have been published in English.

What’s next?

Many people who have never tried wuxia before find the fights confusing. Thus, in the next post, I am going to break down how they work.

Then, I am going to review every manhua adaptation of the Condor Trilogy. There is a manga adaptation—Shachou Eiyuuden Eaglet—which I have not read and will not review.

For each post, I will pose a discussion question. And the question for this post is:

If you do not know the story of The Condor Trilogy, based on this post, which manga/manhwa do you think is most resembles? If you know the story of The Condor Trilogy, which manga/manhwa do you think are not most like it?

I have my own answer, which I will post in the comments section after a few other people have weighed in.

Sara K. has previously written for Manga Bookshelf: Why You Should Read Evyione Part 1 & Part 2, Mary Stayed Out All Night, and The Geeky Heart of Taipei. Her personal blog is The Notes Which Do Not Fit, though there is not much about comics or East Asian pop culture over there. She grew up in Jiujinshan – meaning the city in Jiazhou – and currently lives in Peach Garden County, Ilha Formosa.