Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Blog

Bookshelf Briefs 9/10/12

by , and 1 Comment

This week, Sean, Kate, and Michelle look at recent releases from Seven Seas, Yen Press, VIZ Media, and Vertical, Inc.

Alice in the Country of Clover: Cheshire Cat Waltz, Vol. 2 | By QuinRose and Mamenosuke Fujimaru | Seven Seas – Ace, the cheery yet sociopathic character who’s quickly become my favorite in this series, tells Alice he finds her most attractive when she’s upset and stressed, as the conflict makes her pretty. That’s sort of how I feel about this series as a whole. When it’s talking about whether Alice and Boris will get over their fight and become closer and maybe even move in together, it’s just another generic reverse harem title. When it’s analyzing the mechanics of the world, putting Alice on a high wire act and pitting her friends against each other, and showing why leaving Wonderland and going back continues to possibly be horrible, it’s fascinating. Hence my favorite part of the book – Boris shooting at Alice’s vial and failing to even crack it, to his annoyance. -Sean Gaffney

Bamboo Blade, Vol. 14 | By Masahiro Totsuka and Aguri Igarashi | Yen Press – I was underwhelmed by the initial volumes of Bamboo Blade: I found the one-note characters and slapstick humor too familiar to be compelling. As the series unfolded, however, the artist’s ability to draw kendo matches improved steadily, yielding fight scenes that were fun to read and advanced the plot in a meaningful fashion. The final volume resolves the individual characters’ conflicts first, then features a lengthy, 100+ page epilogue in which we see the girls strut their stuff at a Burnish Academy tournament. It’s not brilliant by any means, but the matches are expertly staged, and the final pages of the story suggest that even Toraji is capable of growing up. -Katherine Dacey

The Flowers of Evil, Vol. 2 | By Shuzo Oshimi | Vertical, Inc. – Quite often I agree with MJ on matters of manga, but this series is one where our opinions differ wildly. She liked it and found the leads sympathetic; I pretty much hated it and found no one to sympathize with except Saeki, the innocent (though idealized) girl who has agreed to date Kasuga, a middle-schooler who’s being manipulated by a female classmate (Nakamura) into acknowledging his inner perversion. I know I probably should applaud the depiction of teenage sexuality and pretention, but this series is just so not my cup of tea that I can’t find anything good to say about it. It’s very disturbing to me that what Saeki believes is a sweet, if awkward, first date with Kasuga is in reality tainted by the fact that he’s been forced to wear her stolen gym clothes beneath his own. She’s being duped. To his credit, Kasuga hates himself for the ruse and the final moments of the volume find him on the verge of telling the truth in a horrible, messy way, but ugh, I just can’t see myself picking up volume three to see what happens next. – Michelle Smith

Is This a Zombie?, Vol. 2 | Comic by Sacchi, Character Design by Kobuichi • Muririn, Original Concept by Shinichi Kimura | Yen Press – Is This a Zombie? has the dubious distinction of being the worst comic I’ve read this year. The artwork is lousy, the jokes unfunny, the fanservice unrelenting, and the plot so nonsensical it often seems as if the characters themselves are confused by the rapid turn of events. In volume two, for example, there’s an extraordinarily silly fight scene in which we learn the identity of Ayumu’s killer. There are so many reversals and reveals packed into that chapter, however, that it reads more like something a six-year-old brainstormed than the work of a professional script writer. Add an unnecessary episode in which the characters go to the beach and participate in a food-eating contest, and presto! you have a recipe for a Manga Hall of Shame nomination. – Katherine Dacey

Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 8 | By Kiiro Yumi and Hiro Arikawa | VIZ Media – And now, at last, after eight volumes, we get some resolution, as Tezuka’s horribly smug brother jogs Iku’s memory and forces her to realize who her prince is. And so now she’s freaking out, which is fun and yet also a bit predictable. Hopefully they’ll talk about it next volume after dealing with a molester who haunts libraries. What really impressed me, though, is Shibazaki’s plot thread. There’s lots of revelations here, some of which I found rather unpleasaant – but then that was the point – and you hope that someone (coughTezukacough) is able to take a hold of her and get her out of this ‘no one can ever really love me for who I am’ spiral she seems to be in. In comparison, Iku has it easier, but then Iku is a less complex person – as Shibazaki knows and envies. Good shoujo fluff. – Sean Gaffney

Oresama Teacher, Vol. 10 | By Izumi Tsubaki | VIZ Media – Longtime readers should now by now how much I love the humor in this title, and how I think it’s at its best when everyone is being as thick as planks. That said, I was surprised that my favorite moments in this volume were the more emotional ones. Hojo, the new Student Council member introduced here (another female character? How did that happen?) is comparatively ‘normal’, and thus we empathize even more with her obsession/frustration with Yui, who continues to vacillate between being cool and intelligent and being the dumbest, most clueless guy ever. As for our heroine, Mafuyu’s reaction to Takaomi reaching around to tie up her hair shows that, despite Western fandom’s dislike of student/teacher relationships, she’s still got it bad for him. All this, plus the return of SUPER BUN! – Sean Gaffney

OreImo, Vol. 1

by

By Tsukasa Fushimi, Sakura Ikeda, and Hiro Kanzaki. Released in Japan as Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai by ASCII Media Works, serialized in the magazine Dengeki G’s. Released in North America by Dark Horse Comics.

After reviewing I Don’t Like You At All, Big Brother!, I have to admit that I was not particularly looking forward to OreImo, which does not quite swim in the same waters but is in the same general area, featuring a sister who may harbor closer feelings for her brother than most would be comfortable with. So readers may be pleased to know that I didn’t really hate this, it cleared the low bar that I had set it when I came into it. That said, there’s a lot here that I found awkward, overdone or creepy too. Japanese harem manga lately seems to not only find originality unnecessary, but positively revels in its cliches, and you can see that going on here.

The premise of this work, which is also translated as “My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute!”, is that our generic everyhero Kyousuke discovers that his pretty, popular and standoffish younger sister Kirino has a secret fetish for anime and otaku stuff. Specifically, she loves H-games. And even more specifically, she loves H-games based around older brother/younger sister incest. When confronted about this, she’s upset, but even more she’s relieved that she can finally talk to someone about it, even if it’s her brother. Kyousuke is (of course) a Really Nice Guy, so he tries to find ways to get her to make friends and be able to not repress everything until she’s unhappy. This is hard, as she’s a massive tsundere (see the cover image), but eventually she bonds with a grumpy goth and a busty Gundam fanatic, and all seems well. At least until their father finds her porn…

Let’s start with the things I liked. All the characters are more likeable than IDLYAA,BB. Kyousuke may be a generic everyhero, but at least he *is* the nice variety, trying to do his best for his little sister, bonding with his childhood friend who clearly has a massive crush on him (that he doesn’t see), and so forth. The emphasis in this title is clearly meant to be about the two kids growing closer and opening up as family, with the incest providing a plot setup but (I hope) not really the main thrust of everything that happens. It’s lower-key and sweeter, and the humor is more character based. I also liked the Gundam Girl, who seems poised to be this series’ Cool Big Sis, and who I suspect is hiding something behind those huge otaku-parody glasses.

Now for the bad. The art is terrible. This is not all that uncommon in light novel adaptations these days, but unfortunately it really caught my attention here. All the girls are 14 but look about 4-5 years younger, and the artist has this very odd habit of drawing smiling happy girls as if they’ve just been drugged. Also, I suspect someone took Ikeda aside after the first four chapters and said “Yo, tone it down”, as the overemphasis on asses and the incestual imaginings vanish rapidly when we reach the halfway point and things get less big brother-ey.

The other problem is simply that there’s not really much here that’s new and exciting. A harem comedy with a tsundere lead and a generic male who will, no doubt, get involved in all sorts of wacky misunderstandings, with the ‘gimmick’ being that the supposed cool and beautiful younger sister character is actually an otaku with a slight big brother fetish. The brother-sister incest thing is very big in Japan right now, as a quick look at the bestsellers charts may tell you, but in and of itself it’s not all that interesting. Indeed, I Don’t Like You At All, Big Brother! is at least upfront about its perversions. OreImo’s attempt to be the kinder, gentler incest title comes off as more boring than anything else.

Otomen, Vol. 13

by

By Aya Kanno. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Hana to Yume (“Betsuhana”). Released in North America by Viz.

Note that I say ‘serialization ongoing’ up there. One might be forgiven, after reading the final two chapters here, in thinking that Otomen ends with this volume, wrapping up on a high note where we finally see a bit more into Ryo’s psyche and see Asuka struggle with what he wants to do with his future. But fitting as it might be, it’s not the end – these chapters ran in early 2011 in Japan, and the manga is still going in Betsuhana, so we have at least three more volumes to go, including one Viz has scheduled for January.

This is not, however, to take away from what might be one of Kanno’s best volumes in this series. It was deliberately written to focus on Ryo, who also gets the cover, albeit disguised as a boy. 3/4 of the book has her meeting up with a judo club that’s being taught poorly by its physically skilled captain whose frustrations make him completely incapable of leading. After seeing him attack one of his students, Ryo throws him into a wall, where he “breaks his arm”. Now Ryo has to dress up as a boy and lead the judo team to victory against their opponents… who happen to by her own school. This means she will have to fight Asuka.

If this sounds incredibly cliched, clearly you haven’t read Otomen before, which specializes in taking the most hideously cliched plots imaginable and doing something with them. In this particular case there are two plots interweaving, both involving Ryo. The main one has her making the judo team into a force of awesome. They have skills, as Sakata (the captain Ryo took over for) has drilled things into them, albeit poorly. Seeing what she can make of them sends Sakata spiraling into despair and self-loathing (not helped by the fact that he doesn’t realize the boy teaching them is Ryo at first, so we get a standard ‘why do I have feelings for this guy?’ reaction) and declaring he’s quitting. Ryo, who can see the good guy underneath, asks if he’ll stay if Odo is victorious. Eventually we *don’t* get our expected Asuka vs. Ryo match, as Sakata breaks his cast (showing he was faking, as we suspected) and demands to fight Asuka himself.

Asuka has a smaller role here, but it’s important – Juta plants a seed of uncertainty in his head about Ryo, and Asuka can’t stop thinking about it. Even after he learns what Ryo is doing, he still puts on a false front in front of her. Because let’s face it, Ryo is not the most demonstrative of people. He’s said he loves her three times now, as well as dated her, and her reactions seems to be more of a cheery “Okee doke!” than anything else. Here, helped out by her father and Sakata, Ryo is starting to realize that her lack of direct expression is bothering Asuka, and she does something about it. THIS. This is what I wanted from this series all along – a direct, honest statement from Ryo that she is also in love with Asuka, as well as some insight into her inner thought process. Very well done.

Then there’s the last chapter. It’s Valentine’s Day, but this is Otomen, so naturally the guys are the ones giving out the chocolate. In between this, we see them all discussing plans for their future, as he’s expected to inherit the family business… but isn’t sure he really wants to do that. Making matters worse, everyone else seems to have a firm goal in mind – including Ryo, who is following in her father’s footsteps in becoming a police officer. This is another chapter that’s more about the heart than the laughs, though I did laugh at Asuka’s realization of what it is he truly wants – or more accurately, what he’s focused on when it happens (truly an otomen to the end). His response, however, is fantastic, and leads to that ending which I told you feels like the end of the series, but isn’t. I hope (and pray!) that finally we can move away from “are we truly a couple?” stories and show Asuka and Ryo growing and getting closer.

Of course, Asuka’s mother probably has a few things to say about this. We’re not done, and I will look forward to Otomen 14 in January. But this particular volume put its foot on the ‘heartwarming’ pedal and never let up, and finally gave focus to one of my favorite characters in the series. Very well done.

Also, anyone notice that the guys in Otomen blush constantly, and Ryo never does? There’s only one time in the volume we see her blush, and it’s not at either of the two places I expected.

Manga Artifacts: The Unauthorized Astro Boy Comic

by 6 Comments

In 1963, NBC acquired the rights to broadcast Tetsuwan Atomu, or Mighty Atom, an animated children’s show that had been a hit on Japanese television earlier that year. NBC executives renamed it Astro Boy and began airing it in September on WNEW, NBC’s New York City affiliate. Astro Boy proved a success with young viewers, prompting NBC to order fifty-two more episodes from Mushi Studios and syndicate the show nationally (Schodt 88).

Two years later, NBC licensed the Astro Boy character rights to Gold Key Comics . Gold Key was a brand-new subsidiary of Western Publishers, best known to consumers for titles like The Poky Little Puppy and The Saggy Baggy Elephant. The company had considerable experience selling its Little Golden Books through non-traditional outlets — supermarkets, drug stores — and wanted to apply that knowledge to the newsstand comics market, then dominated by companies such as Dell Comics.

Without the knowledge or approval of Mushi Studios or Osamu Tezuka, Gold Key hired an artist to adapt the Astro Boy show into a comic. (No artist is credited for Astro Boy #1.) The result was a four-color, two-story issue that used Osamu Tezuka’s characters but bore little to no resemblance to the comic that had been running in Shonen magazine since 1952.

“Gangor the Monster,” the first of the two stories, is based on an episode of the Astro Boy show. The plot is simple: Gangor, a centipede-like robot, terrorizes the passengers aboard an ocean liner on which Astro and Professor Ochanomizu (called Dr. Packadermus J. Elefun in the English version) are traveling. Astro Boy soon discovers Gangor’s secret — Gangor is actually comprised of forty-seven identical robots — and quickly defeats it in a battle that unfolds underwater and in the air. As in many Silver Age comics, word balloons carry the burden of the storytelling; though we see several panels of Gangor in action, most of what we learn about Gangor is revealed in conversations between the main characters:

The second story, “Attack of the Mud People” is original, with no obvious precedent in the the show. In terms of tone and plot, it reads like a rejected DC Comics script: a pair of evil scientists unleash a horde of mud monsters on an unsuspecting city, demanding five million dollars in ransom. (Better still: the scientists have mustaches. They also happen to be identical twins. It’s a trifecta of villainy!) Astro Boy is nearly defeated by the monsters, as their dirt clogs his joints, preventing him from flying. In a flash of inspiration, he realizes the best way to stop the monsters is to make it rain — a feat he accomplishes with the aid of a little dry ice. As in “Gangor,” very little actually happens; most of the story consists of characters’ reaction shots as they flee in terror, or watch Astro Boy go mano-a-mano with the monsters.

As the page above demonstrates, both stories look more like generic Silver Age products than shonen manga; small wonder Tezuka deplored it as a cheap knock-off of his work. Yet for all their flaws, both stories offer a fascinating window into the American comics industry in the 1960s.

For one thing, they attest to the the growing importance of television as source material for comics publishers. A quick glance at Gold Key’s catalog turns up comics based on The Addams Family, Dark Shadows, Lost in Space, My Favorite Martian, Star Trek, and The Twilight Zone. Animated shows were an important part of the Gold Key catalog as well. In the 1960s and early 1970s, Gold Key had a partnership with Hanna-Barbera Studios, cranking out comic book versions of The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, The Flintstones, The Pink Panther, and Scooby Doo. As former Gold Key writer Mark Evanier explains, there was a standard procedure for taking a new show and turning it into a comic. The first few stories would faithfully reproduce early episodes; after that, the artist was given greater creative freedom to do as he saw fit with the characters:

Chase [Craig, the editor] handed me a pile of storyboards and told me to read them all to get a feel for the property but to write an adaptation of one in particular… Anyway, I was assigned to adapt it and later on if the comic continued, there would be original stories conceived fresh for the comics. As Chase explained to me, he preferred to launch a new H-B book in this manner. The studio had approval rights and the people there could get pointlessly picky about the material…but they rarely bothered looking at any issue after the first few. Therefore, it simplified the procedure to do the first issue as an adaptation and maybe the second. They couldn’t very well complain that a plot taken from the show was inappropriate.

We can see this process at work in the Astro Boy comic as well, with one story based on the show and one story drawn from the artist’s imagination. Of course, no one from Mushi Studios was reviewing the work, as in the model that Evanier describes above; the primary reason for re-telling “Gigantor,” presumably, was to cement the connection between the show and the comic.

These stories also attest to a powerful Western arrogance about the source material; every effort was made to conceal its Japanese origins, from renaming the characters to adding color. More telling still was that Tezuka himself was never identified as Astro Boy‘s creator; NBC was listed as the copyright holder (Schodt 88-89). It never occurred to anyone at either NBC or Gold Key that the very foreignness of the original material — the action-driven storytelling, the frank presentation of difficult issues — might appeal more to kids than a bowdlerized version in which every conflict was neatly resolved in sixteen pages, and no one ever died. For that version of Astro Boy, American readers would have to wait another thirty-seven years.

Works Cited

Evanier, Mark. “Goodbye, Charlie!” News From Me. N.p., 25 Apr. 2006. Web. 07 Sept. 2012. <http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2006_04_25.html>.

“Gold Key Astro Boy #1 – Attack of the Mud People.” Magic Carpet Burn. N.p., 23 Mar. 2009. Web. 07 Sept. 2012. <http://magiccarpetburn.blogspot.com/2009/03/gold-key-astro-boy-1-attack-of-mud.html>.

“Gold Key Astro Boy #1 – Attack of the Mud People (Conclusion).” Magic Carpet Burn. N.p., 24 Mar. 2009. Web. 07 Sept. 2012. <http://magiccarpetburn.blogspot.com/2009/03/gold-key-astro-boy-1-attack-of-mud_24.html>.

“Gold Key Astro Boy #1 – Gangor the Monster Pt One.” Magic Carpet Burn. N.p., 21 Mar. 2009. Web. 07 Sept. 2012. <http://magiccarpetburn.blogspot.com/2009/03/gold-key-astro-boy-1-gangor-monster-pt.html>.

“Gold Key Astro Boy #1 – Gangor the Monster Pt Two.” Magic Carpet Burn. N.p., 22 Mar. 2009. Web. 07 Sept. 2012. <http://magiccarpetburn.blogspot.com/2009/03/gold-key-astro-boy-1-gangor-monster-pt_22.html>.

Schodt, Frederik L. The Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2007. Print.

Yen Press has Doubt; Barrage coming to an end

by

Yen Press has licensed Yoshiki Tonogai’s horror manga Doubt, which it will publish in omnibus form; the series is up to volume 5 in Japan.

The next chapter of Barrage to run in Weekly Shonen Jump will be the last, which means that the series will wind up for North American readers of Shonen Jump Alpha two weeks later.

Sean Gaffney takes a look at next week’s new manga releases.

Laura takes a look at the newest shoujo series heading our way in September at Heart of Manga.

Three Steps Over Japan continues its barrage of magazine posts with commentary on Weekly Young Jump and G-Fantasy.

News from Japan: Tachibana Higuchi is wrapping up Gakuen Alice, which has been running for ten years now; the final chapter will appear in an upcoming issue of Hana to Yume.

Reviews

Sean Gaffney on vol. 6 of Bunny Drop (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Kuchibiru Tameiki Sakurairo (Okazu)
Anna on vol. 1 of Lady Lady (Manga Report)
Drew McCabe on vol. 5 of Psyren (Comic Attack)
Ken Haley on vol. 6 of Rurouni Kenshin (VizBig edition) (Sequential Ink)
Alex Hoffman on vol. 1 of Soul Eater NOT (Manga Widget)

Manga the Week of 9/12

by

As always, Midtown, Diamond and Amazon can’t quite mesh together. My store and most Diamond shops have Hayate the Combat Butler, Arata the Legend, House of Five Leaves, and Loveless out on 9/12. On the other hand, my store got in the Seven Seas stuff on 9/5, but Midtown isn’t getting it till 9/12. Best to just smile and nod.

Kodansha debuts the new Genshiken volume. In Japan it’s just Genshiken 10, but Kodansha USA has made a break with the former series and started its sequel with a new subtitle and Vol. 1. Of course, you can’t get rid of the old cast that easily – Saki and Kousaka make cameos, and Madarame is still a large presence throughout. For the most part, though, this is Ogiue’s new club, with new members – and a shifting mindset, devoted less to typical guy porn and more to typical girl porn. It’s a must buy for fans of the series.

And Seven Seas has a troika of September releases. The 2nd volume of Boris spinoff Alice in the Country of Clover: Cheshire Cat Waltz. A new omnibus of killer loli series Gunslinger Girl, containing the Japanese 11 and 12. (The end of the series was recently announced in Japan, possibly as they’d simply run out of cast members.) And the 5th volume of Toradora!, still the tsundere series to read if you don’t like tsunderes all that much.

And that’s about it, really. A nice quiet week. Any plans?

No Duel Masters for you, North Americans! Also, no more Bandai!

by

ICv2 reports that Hasbro will not be releasing the Duel Masters manga in the U.S. in conjunction with its Kaijudo trading card game (which is a reboot of the original Duel Masters) because they want people to follow the new version, not the older one.

Bandai Entertainment, which announced it would stop publishing new manga and anime last January, has announced it will discontinue sales of manga and anime as of this fall.

Dave Ferraro and Patrick Markfort discuss two Shigeru Mizuki manga, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths and NonNonBa, in their latest podcast at Comics-and-More.

Three Steps Over Japan takes a look at Comic Ryuu.

News from Japan: Dance in the Vampire Bund is returning to Comic Flapper for a new mini-series, to be followed by a new second story arc. The series Dolls, by manga-ka duo naked ape (Switch) will end in the November issue of Monthly Comic Zero-Sum.

Reviews

Kate O’Neil on chapters 12 and 13 of Barrage (The Fandom Post)
Kate Haddock on Blue Exorcist (The Collegian)
John Rose on vol. 1 of The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan (The Fandom Post)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Kuchibiru Tameiki Sakurairo (Okazu)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 23 of Ranma 1/2 (Blogcritics)

Bunny Drop, Vol. 6

by

By Yumi Unita. Released in Japan as “Usagi Drop” by Shodensha, serialized in the magazine Feel Young. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Please do not discuss Bunny Drop beyond Vol. 6 in the comments. At all.

When I reviewed Vol. 5, I noted that I couldn’t wait to see what direction Unita would take things, even though I thought it would make me cringe. And I was 100% correct – this entire volume is like a giant train wreck, where both of the main ‘ships’ we could be rooting for are faced with tortured reality.

Last time around, we had been told about Kouki’s ‘bad boy’ period in middle school, and now we get to see it in the form of an extended flashback. Which is good, as it really gives us insight as to why Rin has decided that she’s no longer ‘romantically’ inclined towards him. The two of them walked that fine line between ‘like brother and sister’ and small crush last time, but seeing Akari’s wholehearted efforts to drive Rin away, you can’t help but feel horrible for her. Cyber-bullying isn’t just an American thing.

This is paralleled with the ongoing not-relationship between Daikichi and Kouki’s mother, who still doesn’t have a first name (and likely never will, sadly). Their conversation at the end of the volume is all about wishing things could be different but having to move forward anyway, and it almost feels like Nitani-san cares about Daikichi too much to get involved with him. They’ve been there for each other in order to raise their children, but this has perhaps led both of them to be too self-sacrificing – Nitani-san is marrying someone else so that Daikichi can move on and find anotehr as well. The whole scene is heartbreaking.

Rin and Kouki aren’t as sad, but they’re equally hemmed in by feelings that things have moved beyond a point where everyone can go back to how it was before. This is helped, of course, by Akari, who Rin confronts when she tricks Kouki into thinking she’s pregnant. There’s a nice effort to show Akari’s side of things, which isn’t sympathetic at all, but it’s quite understandable – and mercenary. Akari wants to be her own woman, and if that means abusing the love of a gullible high schooler for money, well hey. Unfortunately, all this seems to have done is shown Rin that she needs to get over Kouki, and she tells him so – though notably getting over him is not as simple as she thinks, judging by her red-eyed face the next day.

We all make bad choices in life, and wish that we could turn back the clock and do things better. But we can’t, and that’s what this volume is all about. There’s no going back in time so Nitani could meet Daikichi when she was younger. There’s no do-overs so Kouki isn’t sucked in by Akari’s schemes. And sometimes you can’t fix things, and you have to accept it and move on. Which is where we are now in this series that, while it still has a lot of quiet and cute moments, has come an awful long way from the saga of a young guy raising an adorable daughter.

It Came from the Sinosphere: Pinoy Sunday

by 5 Comments

Dado and Manuel are sitting down in a park

Before reading this review, maybe you should watch the trailer. Or maybe you shouldn’t – the trailer gives the impression that a lot of this movie is about Manuel acting creepily towards women, whereas in the actual movie that is just a minor theme.

So what is a Tagalog-language film, produced by a Japanese company (NHK), doing in a column dedicated to Chinese-language pop culture?

Fair question. Here is my answer:

– The director, Wi Ding Ho, is an ethnically-Chinese Malaysian
– The film is set and filmed in Taiwan, which is clearly a part of the Chinese-speaking world
– There are some scenes in Mandarin, as well as a little Taiwanese (English and Ilocano are also used in the film)
– My local DVD rental shop placed this film in the ‘Mandarin’ section, not the ‘Foreign Languages’ section

I picked to feature this film because one can learn a lot about a culture by observing how it interacts with outside cultures.

The Filipino Experience in Taiwan

I currently live only a block away from a Filipino enclave. Nonetheless I don’t know much about the Filipino experience in Taiwan, and I can’t evaluate whether this movie reflects it accurately. This what I do know.

There are a lot of Southeast Asians, including Filipinos, in Taiwan. Taoyuan City in particular has a large Southeast Asian population. I live not to far from a major Southeast Asian neighborhood, and it’s common for me to see signs written in 5+ languages. I often hear various Southeast Asian languages being spoken, and I also see a lot of older people accompanied by Southeast Asian caregivers. Aside from the caregivers, many of the Southeast Asians work in the various factories of Taoyuan county.

However, caregiver and factory worker are not the only experiences for Filipinos in Taiwan. I have also met a Filipino who studies Chinese at a Taiwanese university, a Filipina who owns and runs a pita bar in Taipei, and a Filipina waitress in a teahouse in Jiufen.

I have some things in common with the Filipinos in Taiwan, the most obvious being that we’re all foreigners. We have to work with the same immigration bureaucracy (when I go to the immigration office, I often wait alongside Filipinos and other Southeast Asians). We have to interact with Taiwanese people who make certain assumptions about us just because we’re foreigners. We have our own escapes to our native cultures.

At the same time, I recognize that I am more privileged than the vast majority of Filipinos in Taiwan. I have more education and make more money than the vast majority. I have a United States passport. Most importantly, I am in Taiwan because I chose to be in Taiwan, not because I need to make money to support my family (in fact, I don’t support my family, only myself). While it would suck to have to leave Taiwan due to immigration issues, it would not be a disaster.

I remember one time, while riding the train, I saw a Filipina have a mental breakdown, tears streaming down her face, while talking on a cellphone. Since she was speaking in a Filipino language, I didn’t understand most of what she was saying – but I did understand the words ‘passport’, ‘work permit’ and ‘visa’.

Maybe I Should Start Talking About The Movie…

The story of this movie is quite simple. Two Filipinos who work in a Taiwanese factory, Dado and Manuel, discover a nice sofa on their day off. They decide to bring the sofa back to their dorm so that they sit down and relax on it every day after work.

A reporter chases Manuel and Dado, who are pushing the sofa on a shopping cart

The sofa, of course, is a metaphor. Just as Dado and Manuel struggle to bring the sofa back to the workers’ dorm in the hope of having a slightly more comfortable life at the factory, they left the Phillipines in the hope of making enough money to eventually have a more comfortable life in the future.

The Actors

The lead actors, Bayani Agbayani and Epy Quizon, are both celebrities in the Phillipines. I’m sure Manga Bookshelf readers based in the Phillipines know a lot more about them than I do. I think they both performed quite well in this movie.

If you’ve seen Autumn’s Concerto, you’ll find a familiar face (Akio Chen) in this movie.

Epy Quizon and Akio Chen

Idol Taiwan vs. Ordinary Taiwan

I know this will come as a shock to you all, but the lifestyle shown in Taiwanese idol dramas is usually quite different from the way most people in Taiwan actually live. This movie gives a much more accurate impression of what the ordinary Taiwan is like (for everybody, not just Filipinos).

The Director from Malaysia

When I found out that the director is from Malaysia, not Taiwan, I thought ‘that makes so much sense!’

According to my observations, most Taiwanese people don’t really pay much attention to the Southeast Asians, at least not beyond a utilitarian sense. On the one hand, this means that they are not delivering zillions of hate-filled speeches about how the Southeast Asians are ruining Taiwan. On the other hand, this means that a Taiwanese person could spend years living just outside a Southeast Asian neighborhood and still know almost nothing about, say, Indonesian culture.

Foreigners (of all kinds) are much more likely to note and express curiosity about the Southeast Asian community. I know I was very curious when I first came to Taiwan, and I wish I had more time to satisfy that curiosity. Foreigners of all kinds also tend to end up in the same neighborhoods (my first residence in Taiwan had an Indonesian business in the same building, and as I have already noted, I am still physically close to Southeast Asian areas).

I am not, by the way, blaming the Taiwanese. I grew up in a mixed neighborhood with many Chinese-Americans, yet it is only now that I am discovering just how ignorant I was of that culture which had been sitting under my nose for most of my life. People visiting San Francisco are often more curious about the Chinese-American community than the non-Chinese people who grew up in San Francisco. I think the mere act of entering a new setting makes one aware of one’s surroundings in a more conscious way.

Wi Ding Ho himself is a foreigner in Taiwan. Moreover, he is from Malaysia. In Taiwan, about 98% of the population identify as huárén (ethnic Chinese), whereas in Malaysia only about 26% of the population identifies as huárén. Thus, Wi Ding Ho would have grown up being conscious of ethnicity in a very different way that most Taiwanese people.

A Global Experience (and Privilege)

Of course, this movie is not just the experience of Filipino people in Taiwan. It’s about the experience of people around the world who have left their homelands to sell their labor to the affluent in the hope of attaining a better life.

My family hired a Nepalese woman to take care of my grandmother. She left a husband and young child in Nepal. I know that her husband and child have asked her to return to Nepal, yet she has, so far, stayed with my grandmother. When her husband got injured, my family feared that she might return to Nepal to care for her … but it turned out that because her husband’s surgery required quite a bit of money, she had to keep on working for my family.

I am privileged. I presume the director, who graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts, is also privileged. I don’t know how this movie would have been different if it had been made by somebody less privileged, nor do I know what somebody less privileged would think of this movie.

Manuel's face shows that he has just experienced an unpleasant moment of truth

So, Is This a Good Movie?

The answer is yes. I enjoy watching this movie a great deal. It speaks to me. I think it represents something truthful about the experience of being a foreigner in general, and a foreigner in Taiwan specifically. However I think I would also like this movie very much even if I had never left the United States. Even though I did not analyze the movie that much, the fact that it drew this much discussion from me demonstrates how much it made me think.

It is a human movie.

Availability

This film is available on DVD with English subtitles. It also gets screened at various film festivals.

Conclusion

I’m just going to quote the director, Wi Ding Ho:

For two decades, I’ve lived as an outsider, first in North America where I studied, then in Singapore, and now Taiwan where I work. Like most, I always thought I could go back to a place of belonging. However on a recent trip home to Malaysia, I found myself alienated when I expected to feel most at peace. My long absence has rendered me a foreigner no matter where I go.

All over the world, more and more people are working in other countries. Some do it for survive and some do it for inspiration. Simple facts of life become more challenging and rewarding in a foreign country. Emotional needs become clearer, and sometimes that much harder to attain. For expatriate artists as well as migrant laborers, the sensation of living is more vivid in places that are home and far from home at the same time. Pinoy Sunday is an attempt to celebrate this dichotomy.

Next Time: The One (manhua)

Sara K. saw a really weird kind of mushroom today. She is too tired right now to say anything wittier than that. Thank goodness the draft of this post was already almost ready.

Wrapping up the MMF; Sherlock comes to manga

by

At the Eeeper’s Choice Podcast site, Phillip wraps up the Kurosagi Corpse Deliver Service edition of the Manga Moveable Feast with an overview of vols. 9-12 and a final roundup of posts.

And now on to the next one: Anna will host the next MMF, which will focus on Shojo Beat manga, at her site, Manga Report. And she’s kicking it off with a manga giveaway!

Erica Friedman brings us the latest Yuri Network News update and post what looks like the beginning of a series on the history of Yuri.

The Manga Bookshelf bloggers discuss their Picks of the Week, and Matt Blind counts down the latest Manga Bestsellers (online sales).

The Manga Villagers make the best of last week’s slim pickings.

With Japanese anti-piracy laws possibly threatening posts that include manga images, Three Steps Over Japan kicks into overdrive with inside looks at three manga magazines: Monthly Zenon, Monthly Comic Alive, and Comic Heaven.

News from Japan: Good news for fans of Sherlock: Young Ace will launch a manga series based on the BBC show.

Reviews: It’s Monday, time for a new set of Bookshelf Briefs at Manga Bookshelf! Ash Brown shares a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga.

Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 1 of Angelic Layer (Blogcritics)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 14 of Bamboo Blade (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Carlo Santos on vols. 44 and 45 of Bleach (ANN)
Matthew Alexander on vol. 20 of Claymore (The Fandom Post)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 6 of Durarara!! (Kuriousity)
Nicola on vol. 4 of Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll (Back to Books)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 6 of Itsuwaribito (The Comic Book Bin)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 3 of Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Drew McCabe on vols. 56 and 57 of Naruto (Comic Attack)
Lori Henderson on Olympos (Manga Xanadu)
TSOTE on vol. 7 of Saibara-Dake (Three Steps Over Japan)
John Rose on vol. 8 of Tenjho Tenge (The Fandom Post)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 11 of Toriko (The Comic Book Bin)