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Oresama Teacher Volumes 3 and 4

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Oresama Teacher is rapidly becoming one of my favorite shojo series due to the fact that it isn’t like most of the other manga in the Shojo Beat imprint. Instead of exploring teen romance, this manga focuses on dumb comedy. Even though many of the characters are idiots, they are also endearing because their idiocy stems from personality quirks that also make them strong. Mafuyu is going away for high school in an attempt to put her juvenile delinquent past behind her, but she finds out that her teacher Takaomi is her long-lost neighbor who trained her in all of her fighting techniques.

In the third volume of Oresama Teacher, Mafuyu goes home to visit her old gang. She’s curious to see how they’re doing without her leadership, and she misses her friends. Mafuyu gets caught up in her old school rivalries and winds up kidnapped with her two former sidekicks, the enthusiastic Kanagawa and the masochistic Maizono. There is nothing that better expresses the differences between Oresama Teacher and more typical shoujo manga than a great scene of Mafuyu lecturing her former lackeys about the proper way to position one’s hands when being tied up by kidnappers. She gives a full on mini-tutorial about techniques to escape binding, then realizes that her instructions are useless because the boys are already tied up. She breaks the boys out, only to be pushed aside as they face their confrontation with their rivals. Mafuyu wonders about the nature of their friendship, only to realize that everyone’s acting unconcerned about her help because they need to stand up for themselves on their own. This was actually a cute message, delivered with a light touch along with Mafuyu’s humorous MacGyver-like fighting techniques.

One of the reasons why I like Oresama Teacher so much is that there isn’t very much conventional romance in it. Mafuyu may be a hardened juvenile delinquent, but she has very little idea what to do about the opposite sex, other than registering that she may have confusing feelings for someone before she moves on to give an enemy a well-deserved beatdown. The fourth volume of the manga brings back Mafuyu’s gender swapped disguise as Natsuo when Takaomi announces that the Public Morals Club has to fight the Yojimbo club. Mafuyu is worried about Hayasaka’s fighting abilities. He’s good at fighting but is so single-focused that he lets himself get hurt. As Natsuo, Mafuyu tries to teach Hayasaka how to dodge and block and think more strategically in a fight. Hayasaka doesn’t seem to be clued in that Natsuo and Mafuyu are never in the same place at the same time, and look alarmingly similar.

One of my favorite moments in this volume was the depictions of torturous mental calculations Mafuyu does about Hayasaka’s fighting abilities while she’s thinking in class. She stares at him intently, throws her head down, bangs on her desk, mopes, and then indulges in an evil smirk when she hits on her training plan. Hayasaka looks mystified and then both confused and alarmed.

Both volumes end with a Mafuyu/Takaomi story. In one, she’s forced to stay over at his place when she accidentally gives her house key to the school’s bancho. In another, they go to the beach with complications as Mafuyu doesn’t even remember that she can’t swim until she’s floating on a swim toy in deep water. While the prospect of a student/teacher relationship isn’t a plot point that comes up very often in the manga that gets translated here, it is hard to picture anything happening with Mafuyu and Takaomi at this point in the series. Takaomi is so manipulative and evil, yet weirdly protective when it comes to Mafuyu actually suffering any harm.

I enjoy Oresama Teacher a lot more than other shoujo humor titles. There’s something about the juxtaposition of all the dumb, character based humor and violent fights that just has me much more invested in wanting to know what will happen to the characters even after four volumes.

Review copies provided by the publisher.

Flawless by Sara Shepard

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From the front flap:
In the exclusive town of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, where the sweetest smiles hide the darkest secrets, four pretty little liars—Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna—have been very bad girls…

Spencer stole her sister’s boyfriend, Aria is brokenhearted over her English teacher, Emily likes her new friend Maya… as much more than a friend. And Hanna’s obsession with looking flawless is literally making her sick. But the most horrible secret of all is something so scandalous it could destroy their perfect little lives.

And someone named “A” is threatening to do just that. At first they thought A was Alison, their friend who vanished three years ago… but then Alison turned up dead. One thing’s for certain: A’s got the dirt to bury them all alive, and with every crumpled note, wicked IM, and vindictive text message A sends, the girls get a little closer to losing it all.

Review:
In this, the second book of the Pretty Little Liars series, bad things continue to happen to the pulchritudinous prevaricators, often of their own making but sometimes not. Spencer risks her family’s wrath (and her academic standing) by sneaking off to see Wren, her sister’s ex-boyfriend. Emily tries very hard to not be gay, and ends up taking as a date to the big charity dance a boy who may have killed Alison. Hanna is desperate to earn her father’s love, but A (and a bitchy soon-to-be step-sister) sees to it that he finds out about her various transgressions. And Aria tries to derail her father’s extramarital affair while growing closer to the guy who dumped Hanna, like, eight days ago.

While I could never claim that this series is a shining achievement in literature, it certainly is entertaining (in the most crackalicious way possible). Each book seems to cover about a week in the lives of these four girls and, seriously, if I had this much crazy crap going on in my life, I think I would end up catatonic. As before, chapters alternate between the four girls as they each deal with their own secrets and various threats from A. This time, they’ve decided that A must be Toby, a neighbor who took the blame when one of Alison’s pranks resulted in dire injury to his sister. By the end of the novel, they’ve convinced themselves that Toby also killed Alison for revenge, though the revelation of the existence of an airtight alibi throws that into question.

I can’t help but come at this series from the perspective of someone who’s been watching the TV show. The differences between the two versions of the story are widening, and it’s interesting to me to see how the producers of the show decided to take the story in new directions. On the show, for example, Aria is still (as of the last episode I saw, anyway) hooking up with her English teacher. Here, she seems to have moved on, and with Hanna’s ex, to boot. Spencer never had sex with Wren on the show, nor was it ever mentioned that she used to be a chronic sleepwalker. In the books, the girls have not resumed their friendship as enthusiastically. Most importantly, though, someone dies in this book who is still very much alive on the show!

This makes me happy, because I accidentally spoiled myself on the identity of A in the books. This robs me of some suspense while reading, unfortunately, but at the same time all these changes suggest that A could very well be someone completely different in the TV version, and that I can’t necessarily expect people who are benevolent in one format to be the same in another. That’s pretty neat.

For me, Pretty Little Liars is the epitome of a guilty pleasure.

Saturday Spotlight: Yoshinaga

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The Manga Moveable Feast is nearly upon us once again, this time co-hosted by Comic Attack!‘s Kristin Bomba and Animemiz Linda Yau. The subject this month is the ever-glorious Fumi Yoshinaga, which brings us to this week’s Saturday Spotlight!

Just over a year ago, I hosted a week-long celebration of Yoshinaga’s work here at Manga Bookshelf, including reviews, essays, and roundtables on series like Flower of Life, Antique Bakery, and Ooku: The Inner Chambers. So, in the spirit of next week’s Yoshinaga MMF, I offer you the index to that celebration.

Also, within that week, I’d like to direct special attention to both the Yoshinaga edition of BL Bookrack, co-written by me and the lovely Michelle Smith, and a roundtable on Gerard & Jacques, again featuring Michelle and me, along with David Welsh, Robin Brenner, Danielle Leigh, and Eva Volin. As someone who is often critical of some of the genre’s most pervasive tropes, I think it’s worth noting that Yoshinaga is the kind of writer who can make even my least favorite of these work, proving that there’s almost no hurdle good writing can’t overcome.

Please enjoy these year-old thoughts on Yoshinaga, and keep your eyes peeled for new ones as the Yoshinaga MMF gets underway!

License request day: 7 Seeds

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While composing this week’s final installment of The Josei Alphabet, I was shocked to realize that I’ve never formally requested Yumi Tamura’s 7 Seeds. This is one of those situations that must be rectified as quickly as possible.

The series launched in Shogakukan’s Betsucomi, a shôjo magazine, before moving to josei anthology Flowers at some point during its still-ongoing run. Betsucomi has always seemed like it skews a little older than the average shôjo magazine, so this was probably a fairly easy transition. Flowers is one of those anthologies that seems positively fecund with license-request fodder. It’s home to the much-loved Kaze Hikaru (in glacial current release courtesy of Viz’s Shojo Beat line), and it had the privilege of publishing Moto Hagio’s “Iguana Girl,” one of the many highlights of A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. It was also the serialization home of Hagio’s much-praised, much-wanted Otherworld Barbara. So basically, if psychologically complex fantasy is published in Flowers, chances are good that the I-want-now factor will be high.

And 7 Seeds certainly sounds like Tamura isn’t stinting on the psychological complexity. It’s about Japanese youth who were placed in cryogenic suspension by the government as they prepared for the imminent, potentially apocalyptic collision of a meteor. Groups of teen-sicles were planted up and down Japan to ensure that the population would be able to rebuilt when the Earth’s environment was once again fit for habitation.

But, you know, humans in general and teens in particular rarely behave in ways we might expect, especially when we leave them a to-do list that we aren’t around to enforce. Our survivors, or “seeds,” have dramatically new circumstances to manage and old baggage to tote, which is bound to make survival and repopulation fairly complicated, wouldn’t you think? (The series is at the 20-volume point, so I’d hope things would be complicated.) The cast seems fairly huge, which is always a good sign, and the general nature of the series seems to be dramatic-episodic, combining lots of emotional nuance with neat, speculative world-building.

You knew without me having to tell you that it’s being published in French, right? Pika has slowly made its way to the 10th volume, and while a slow release schedule isn’t ideal, I always feel it’s better than not getting a series at all, which is where we are right now. And Pika allows you to see gorgeous sample pages from the first eight volumes.

Tamura is hardly unknown to English-reading audiences. Viz published her 27-volume Basara. That series is frequently described with dreamy fondness by its partisans, and I’m sure 7 Seeds would engender the same kind of fondness and loyalty if someone is kind enough to publish it already.

 

Roundtable: On Fanfiction

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MJ: So, I’ve been blogging in this general location about manga since late 2007, and this has long been my “professional” venue for writing about the things that make me fannish. I’ve met nearly everyone I know in the manga blogging community through this blog, including both of you. But what I don’t talk about much here are the many years before that I spent blogging on LiveJournal, in a subsection of fandom focused mainly on fanfiction.

Up until recently, I was the only blogger here at Manga Bookshelf with a real history in fanfiction, but with Sean now on board things have changed, and I admit I’m kinda thrilled to have the opportunity to talk about this aspect of fandom that was once incredibly important to me. To that end, I’ve invited Sean, along with Michelle (whose interest in fanfiction is new and somewhat tentative), to join me in a roundtable discussion on fanfiction.

Now, I have a lot of highfalutin’ ideas about fanfiction, why I wrote it, and why I think it’s important as a form of meta discussion and even criticism, but let’s start by talking a bit about how we got into fanfiction in the first place. Sean? Michelle?

SEAN: As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I am that sort of person who got into fanfiction, and indeed started writing it, before he got into anime and manga. Barring the usual Battle for the Planets/Speed Racer as a kid, my first exposure was in 1995, when I started reading Stefan Gagne’s Ranma fanfics. This quickly led me to John Biles’ fics, and from there I was hooked. I began writing Ranma in early 1996… and started reading it about mid-1996. XD

I was hardcore Ranma for about a year and a half, but then started branching out to more fandoms. At last count, I’d written for a good 30 or so fandoms, including some Buffy and Phoenix Wright fanfics in the non-anime world, with my last fic to date being in the world of Strawberry Marshmallow. I’m semi-retired (the fancy Internet way of saying lazy), but you never know what will pop into my head.

As for why I wrote it? The ideas get in your head and won’t let go. Or you want to finish the story before the author does. Or you’re rebelling against the preferred pairing. Or you want to see if you can do something people tell you is impossible. Or you want to expand on a minor character’s motives. Or you want to bash. I mostly avoided that last one. Mostly.

I still READ fanfiction constantly, of course.

MICHELLE: And then there’s me. I have read three fanfics so far and written about half a dozen drabbles.

MJ: Yeah, but you did a lot of RP writing, right? That doesn’t seem all that much different to me.

MICHELLE: Oh yes, tons and tons, mostly in the Harry Potter realm. I suppose it’s not that different. Though the way we did it—picking a point in chronology and continuing on from that point—didn’t set off my “canon is sacrosanct!” alarms as much as it would’ve if we’d been trying to wedge our original characters into the official storyline or something.

MJ: Like Sean, I got into fanfiction long before getting into manga, and in fact, I’ve written relatively little in manga fandoms. Though my first formal attempt at fanfic was in 2003, in retrospect I realize I’ve been writing it since I was a child, one way or another. From the epic Zenna Henderson-inspired stories my little sister and I acted out with our Barbies to the Buffy/Angel song from my singer-songwriter days, I’ve always felt the impulse to interact with fictional universes by finding ways to create within them.

With that in mind, I must embarrassingly admit that what actually pulled me into writing real fanfic was the world of LOTR RPS (Lord of the Rings Real Person Slash aka “Lotrips”), where the “canon” was basically movie industry gossip, blown up into a fully-fledged fictional world by the fanfic writers themselves. My friend Jaci lured me in with her own wonderful writing, and before I realized what I was doing, I was participating regularly in the LJ multi-fandom slash community contre la montre, which offered up weekly speed-writing exercises for anyone who cared to join.

For a while, I felt too intimidated by real fictional canons to try writing publicly in them, but reading the fifth Harry Potter book got me over that, and thus my proper fanfiction career began. Though my heaviest writing years were spent in Harry Potter fandom, I also dabbled as a writer in fandoms like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, and then much later in manga fandoms like xxxHolic, Hikaru no Go, and Banana Fish.

For me, writing fanfiction was mainly a means for participating in what I perceived as an ongoing meta discussion between writers, as well as a vehicle for interacting with the text in a very personal way. Though as I say that, I realize that a huge percentage of my fanfiction was written for either organized challenges or as gifts, some of which certainly seemed impossible or at least difficult at the outset (Neville/Oz, anyone?) so apparently I liked that aspect of it too. Fandom was a tricky place for me at times, partly because I was an omnivorous reader, with an interest in slash, het, and gen, and partly because my concept of an OTP is very, very… loose.

That last point, Sean, reminds me of something you said in your “thoughts on fandom and shipping,” specifically item two: “You can ship more than one contrasting couple at the same time, and not be betraying anyone.” In fact, both of your first two points there made me think, “Aaaaah, here’s someone I can actually talk to about fanfiction.”

MICHELLE: I’ve now gone to that link of Sean’s and returned, feeling rather illuminated about various fanficky conventions that have puzzled me. I must say I haven’t got much of a passion for “shipping,” but there are definitely a few pairings here and there where I think they’re genuinely in love with each other (Remus/Sirius in Harry Potter, Fai and Kurogane in Tsubasa RESERVoir ChroNiCLE) even if I don’t believe they’re actually getting it on.

I think I thought that fanfic writers all did genuinely believe these characters were getting it on, and part of the reason I’ve opened my mind lately is the realization that, for some (perhaps many), it’s a kind of writing challenge or, as Sean puts it, a “what if.”

MJ: Actually, Remus/Sirius is one of those pairings I feel strongly that the author actually wrote into the story and then hurriedly covered up later on when she realized what she’d done. And I stand by that, because clearly Alfonso Cuaron agreed with me on the first bit.

But yes, though there is sometimes generous subtextual support, generally I think non-canon pairings are pulled from our imaginations.

SEAN: As I’ve noted, I don’t WANT shipping in One Piece itself, but love it in the fandom. For one thing, the lack of canon romance leads to less yelling in the fandom. Sure, there’s some arguments between shippers and non-shippers, and the occasional rare slash v. het thing, but it’s mild and easily ignorable. Compare this to Bleach, where you simply CANNOT ignore the shipping. It was fine for about 25 volumes or so, but then Orihime told a comatose Kurosaki that she loved him. (As if this wasn’t obvious before.) FOOM! Made even worse that the two lead females are of almost complete opposite personality type, and you have a situation that simply cannot resolve easily. As a result, even in chapters where neither character appears, the debate tends to rage about them. (Let’s not mention Hinamori right now, that’s another kettle of fish.)

Some worlds are fun to read about, but I wouldn’t write in them, simply due to wanting to avoid arguing. Harry Potter is an excellent example. My ship of choice, Harry/Luna, is a fun one, and I can give you endless reasons why I think it’s best. But one of the biggest would be: “It doesn’t get into the H/Hr vs. H/G wars”. H/L fans tend to sit on the side and eat popcorn while those go on. Before Book 5, I didn’t really ship Harry with anyone, as Ginny was poorly fleshed out, and while I liked Hermione, her fans were insane. This has not changed with the release of Books 5-7 and the movies. :)

MICHELLE: Is there much fic written anymore where there isn’t boffing? I’m fairly smut-averse, myself…

SEAN: There is, but no one reads it. :) Seriously, lots of people write what is called “gen fic,” but with FFNet now providing sorting by pairing, many folks never see it as they sort for the ships they like and it floats by. It also gets far less reviews and attention than a hardcore shipping fic does. A lot of what writers want, especially young writers, is other people reading and saying “You are correct, that is awesome that you wrote that!” It’s easier to get comments if you write romance. Sadly, this is the nature of the Internet Beast

Another problem with fandom being “serious business” is that people start to take their own writing seriously. Yes, many fanfics were written for a need to see deeper characterization, or an epic that spans generation. But other folks wrote a fic as they thought “Wow, those two would be really hot if they screwed each other.” And that’s EQUALLY valid. I can pick apart your characterization, spelling, or lack of attention to basic anatomy, but I can’t attack your desire to write porn. That’s a valid choice, and I approve of it. God knows I’ve done it. A Phoenix Wright fic I wrote was a deliberate attempt to write a ludicrous porn story, with the title “Turnabout Orgy”. It’s not remotely my best work. Hell, it doesn’t even have much detailed sex. But it achieves what I wanted.

MICHELLE: Well, you can do romance without boffing! :) I should note that I don’t, in principle, object to people writing explicit stories or anything. I just don’t particularly want to read them. :)

MJ: Very little of mine involves boffing! Though I will always love a love story. And, y’know, I’m not averse to smut. Some of the most fun writing I ever did was for the recurring multi-fandom challenge, “Porn Battle,” and though even my smuttiest writing tends to be tamer than most, it can feel very freeing and, yeah, sometimes genuinely erotic.

Sean, I have to say if there’s one thing I’ve never understood about fandom, it’s shipping wars. Fortunately, it’s less of a big deal in slash fandom, where I spent most of my time, even when I was reading & writing non-slash. I think maybe because slashers never expect their favorite pairings to turn up in canon, they’re less likely to fight over it. At least that was my experience in Harry Potter fandom. I do recall knowing about some massive flamewars related to Prince of Tennis slash ships.

Also, Sean, to comment on your Harry Potter preferences, I think I tend to be partial to Neville/Luna more than Harry/Luna, but then, I pretty much ship Neville with everyone, so it’s not much of a stretch for me. Even back when I thought I ‘shipped Harry/Draco, my heart always belonged to Neville. ;)

SEAN: I do wonder how xxxHOLIC fans felt about the one or two threesome fics I saw that involved Himawari with the two guys.

Most likely, “Who is she again? Oh right.” :) It’s easy to not have a shipwar when your ship has a monopoly.

MJ: Actually, I think that’s a pretty popular OT3! True, though, there’s only one major pairing in xxxHolic fandom, though I’ve seen some Yuuko/Watanuki fic out there.

SEAN: How did xxxHOLIC fans react to the ending, out of curiosity? I know I had one experience with a fandom, School Rumble, where the manga ended SO badly that the fandom basically completely died. It was stunning to see. Everyone stared, bitched for about 2 weeks, then… stopped. And then the silence. And it never recovered (which is likely why Kodansha hasn’t picked up the remaining books).

MJ: Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve been waiting for the US releases, so I stopped hanging around xxxHolic fandom so as to not get spoiled. I will say, though, that I think Harry Potter fandom has never fully recovered from the Epilogue. It’s still alive—fandoms that big never die—but it’s not what it was.

MICHELLE: Aside from Remus/Sirius, which might as well be canon as far as I’m concerned, I can’t imagine shipping anybody in Potter, really. Like, I love Snape very much. I mean, really really love him. But I don’t want to read about him hooking up with anybody.

SEAN: Remus and Sirius are up in Heaven shagging right now. With Tonks. (runs away fast)

MJ: I can go with that.

MICHELLE: Ugh. :)

SEAN: Part of the reason I’ve always associated fics with shipping is my initial fandom: Ranma 1/2. In many ways, it was the perfect breeding ground for fanfic writers. The series was popular and dubbed in the mid 90s. The manga was coming out in Japan till 1996, but we had no access to Japanese volumes at that time, so theorizing was king. The characters were highly interesting types who were nevertheless two-dimensional, so they inspired fanfics that ‘deepened’ their characterization. The basic premise had implications almost entirely ignored by the author. Again, perfect for fanfics. (What would pregnant Ranma be like? What if Ranma gets a period?) It was an action-oriented comedy harem series, perfect for male writers, with strong female characters and hot guys, perfect for female writers.

So if you wrote Ranma in the 1990s, and you weren’t trying to simply duplicate the series with your own plot, you tended to write continuations (providing your own ‘resolution’ to the romance), the genre ‘For Want of a Nail’, where you change one plot point and see what happens (what if it was Kasumi who was cursed?), darkfics (what if Akane had a genuine mental illness and start to seriously injure Ranma?), or lemons (what if everyone finally got it on?). All of which either involve the romantic pairings, or in some ways are biased towards one or the other.

There was an entire GENRE of Ranma fics circa 1998 called ‘The Bet’, the basic premise of which was similar to For Want of a Nail but with the proviso that Akane was treated poorly or written out. The creator hated her, and said anyone could play in his pool, basically, if they observed the rules and did not pair Akane with Ranma. Likewise, I believe Sailor Moon had many, many ‘Mamoru must die’ fanfics written in the late 90s as well. Which just goes to show, I guess, that the more things change the more they stay the same.

And before anyone asks, no, I was never in the Pokemon fandom, so missed ALL of that.

MJ: Despite my deep enjoyment of gen fic, I admit I tend to associate fics with shipping, too, and for similar reasons, actually, since the bulk of my writing was done in Harry Potter fandom. Romance is one of the things JK Rowling writes the least well, so it’s hard to write in that fandom without wanting to do better, no matter what characters you’re writing about. I think, too, as an adult writing in a universe created for kids, there’s a real impulse to want to grey up some of its more black-and-white concepts, if that makes sense.

MICHELLE: There certainly was lots of adultifying and greying up of Potter going on on the RP game I played. Of the genres Sean mentioned (I admit that “For Want of a Nail” sounds really cool to me, by the way) our game was like a continuation. Everything up through Goblet of Fire (the latest book at the time) was canon, and then we went from there. We defeated Voldemort in our own fashion, and it was fun to see what we actually got right when the official books came out.

MJ: One thing I feel like I should say here is, that in my experience, almost any romantic pairing can work in fanfiction, if it’s written well enough. That’s one of the reasons I never understood shipping wars. Sure, I had my favorite ships, but a good writer could make me like almost anything. I have a couple of issues that are non-negotiable, but for the most part, I’ll give myself over to any writer who can make me believe, even just in the moment.

SEAN: I’d take that further: almost anything can be used in fanfic if it’s written well enough, romance or no. You want to write hot hot fic showing the forbidden romance between Remus Lupin and a potato? Is it well-written and reasonably in character? Sure, I’ll go with it. (Also, the potato totally tops.) If you’re writing a crossover between 270 series, and can make readers keep track of it all without the need for huge charts? Congratulations. Want to kill off the entire cast in a plausible, believable way that’s not just an excuse for gore? Knock yourself out. Want to write a self-insert where you become immortal and end up in Crystal Tokyo running a radio station and married to Sailor Saturn? Well, OK, that one’s been done.

The difficulty, of course, is in making it good. Which is why one needs pre-readers/betas. Sadly, they’re harder and harder to get these days. But they can, if they’re good prereaders and not just “Looks good, write more!” types, tell you when you’ve lost the reader. Why are you quoting your entire record collection in this fic? Why are you devoting 20 pages to saying how horrible this person is? Why is Hermione using an iPod at Hogwarts? For the last time, it’s you’re, not your! That sort of thing. A good spellchecker is not the same thing.

MICHELLE: I get where all of those things you mention would be fun to write and even an admirable accomplishment. I’m just not sure I’d want to read any of them, except the killing the cast one, perhaps. Personally, I still balk at things that challenge canon too much. Like, the first fanfic I ever saw was on a Battle of the Planets mailing list. So I am, like, “Oh, what’s this? Is it a story? What’s going… oh my god! Ken and Joe, noooo!”

SEAN: One other type of fanfic I forgot about, mostly as it’s a fairly recent development that wasn’t around when I was really active, is the Peggy Sue fic. No, not Mary Sue – those have been around much longer. In Peggy Sue fics, the characters go back in time and inhabit their earlier bodies, usually reliving their lives to ‘do things properly’ this time. Yes, this usually involves shipping too, but it doesn’t have to – there’s a fantastic Harry Potter fic called Oh God Not Again where a happy and content Harry in the future accidentally goes back in time – a one-way trip. He decides to simply screw around with everything for his own amusement. No ships whatsoever. This genre is especially prevalent in Harry Potter and Naruto, but I’m starting to see it elsewhere too. (It’s highly variable, as much of the time it’s an excuse for character bashing – ‘if only I’d known Ron was a pedophile rapist wife-beater, I’d never have befriended him!’ etc etc etc.)

MICHELLE: Oh, that sounds like fun. Having some kind of construct like that in play would probably nullify any canonicity issues by virtue of it technically being a continuation. Happily wedded to Ginny, Harry goes back and time and thinks, “Hm, what would’ve happened if I’d invited Luna to the ball that year?”

MJ: I agree with Sean on all points here (including the potato), and I think Michelle, where our view of fanfiction really differs here, is that I don’t actually consider any of this stuff to necessarily be a challenge to canon, or at least that’s not at all the way I think about my own writing. Sure, there are times when one might write a fic specifically with the purpose of “righting” canon, but most of the time, even when there’s a strong urge to diverge wildly from canon or just to seek out nuance the original author didn’t take time with, it’s about exploration, not contradiction.

Often, I’ve taken the smallest detail about a character and formed an entire universe around it, not because I think that’s what should have been in canon, but because it allows me to examine that aspect of the character more fully. For instance, I once basically created an entire piece of fanfiction based on the fact that Remus Lupin once encouraged Neville Longbottom to fight a boggart. I thought about how important that moment might have been for Neville, who generally was treated like a squib, and how that might have affected his feelings and actions over a long period of time, even into adulthood. None of what I wrote actually happened in canon, of course, but I didn’t write it to challenge canon. I wrote it to more deeply explore the potential ramifications of something that was already there. On one hand, it’s sort of an abstract exercise, but on the other, it also serves as way of expressing my thoughts about that one moment to a whole slew of other people more effectively than I could by any other means.

This is where, for me, fanfiction serves as an ongoing discussion between the people who read and write it. Since most of us are doing both, reading and writing, we’re constantly listening to each other and responding in one way or another, even if the conversation itself is completely unconscious.

MICHELLE: I am realizing more and more than “exploration” is the key here, but I spent a lot of time believing that fanfic writers believed what they were writing was true, or at least better than canon, which is the fuel for a lot of my lingering hesitancy. I mean, I’m sure there are people who would argue that The Doctor really is schtupping his companions off-camera, but perhaps they’re not the norm?

SEAN: I don’t. In fact, I was in Who fandom from almost since I could walk, and didn’t even realize there was a possibility of sex in the TARDIS till 1994 or so when I got on the Internet in college. And even then, there was very, very little of it. The sex came with the new series, and in particular the new fans, who saw 9/Rose (and 10/Rose) and had no preconceptions of “The Doctor has no sexuality, he’s above such petty human things” the way old-school fans had. I ship 10/Donna, but not canonically – I just think it’s fun and that they’d be hellaciously sexy in bed (10/Rose not so much, though I get the hurt/comfort value there.)

Another thing to note is that we three are, in Internet years, senior citizens. When I got into fics, most were college age writers and above – they started writing when they got the ‘net at college. Now that everyone has the internet, the age level of fic writers has dropped drastically, and you do sometimes see ‘Sorry, AFF readers, had to delete all my 10/Master porn, my mom found it.’ Not to mention the 12-year-olds writing fics at 7th grade grammar level (or well above, to be fair, but…)

MJ: Also, fandom as a whole is gigantic, and it’s spread all over cyberspace. I was already in my thirties when I started writing fanfiction, but because I had friends from other parts of my life who had already been writing for a while, it was pretty easy on Livejournal to find myself a fandom community of other likeminded adults who wrote thoughtfully and were interested in fanfiction for the same reasons I was. We were all on each others’ friends lists, and we tended to use the same community spaces, so we basically made our own subsection of fandom that worked the way we wanted it to. And there were probably a million other fandom corners on the internet just as specific.

The sprawling nature of the internet can seem overwhelming and unnavigable if you’re just trying to find one good Snape fic, because there isn’t any single, central depository for it all (though plenty of sites have tried to be that), especially in a big fandom like Harry Potter. But there are also real advantages to building small communities with their own group standards, because it means that once you’ve found your community, you can be pretty sure that you’ll enjoy the majority of what it produces.

MICHELLE: Yeah, the “sprawling nature” issue has been another discouraging factor for me. Like, I really don’t want to read something crummy if I can help it. The stories you two have sent me have been works you’ve been proud of (and deservedly) and therefore I enjoyed reading them ‘cos they were legitimately good. I don’t relish the idea of wading through a bunch of dreck. Maybe I am a “private corner” sort of person, too, who will just write my little Buffy things off by myself somewhere. :)

MJ: Of course, one way to pretty much ensure yourself a small fandom corner is to write in a very small fandom. On one hand, you’ll never receive the amount of feedback you might in a big fandom, but small fandoms tend to attract interesting, experienced writers who aren’t in it just for the squee. One of my favorite fandoms to write in was Banana Fish, which I think has something like five people participating in it at any one time. Actually, five may be a very generous estimate. It can be hard to handle the fact that your friends outside the fandom might have little interest in reading your fic, and you won’t get pages of feedback, but what you do get will be really heartfelt. And you have the opportunity to provide that in turn.

That said, big fandom does offer some rewards that small fandom can’t provide. My initial entry into Harry Potter fandom was via Harry/Draco, which was at the time by far the most popular slash pairing in HP fandom (and thus, the wankiest, but that’s another story entirely), with a huge catalogue of fic already written, including a hefty number of established “classics,” and thriving communities on Livejournal, FF.net, and FictionAlley, among other places. The whole thing was a bit intimidating, so when I decided to attempt writing in H/D fandom, I spent over two months planning and piecing together my fic with feedback from four beta readers (including one UK reader to specifically check my Briticisms) and three H/D-loving friends, finally posting it on Livejournal with the pessimistic subject line, “The dreaded HP fic.” I was completely unknown in that fandom, but thanks to a rec from one popular HP writer on my friends list, the thing spread like wildfire, and before I knew it, I had a couple of pages full of comments and recs popping up everywhere. That can never happen in small fandom, even for an experienced, well-known writer. To this day, that “dreaded HP fic” is the most popular I’ve ever written. And while I’d never say that I wrote fanfiction for the feedback, it can certainly be gratifying, especially for a new writer.

Sean, I’d be interested in your thoughts on big vs. small fandom, especially since we ran in completely different fandom circles, from what I can tell.

SEAN: It can help, but it depends on how much you’re looking for an audience. The most responses/reviews I’ve ever gotten were for a) A Kodomo no Omocha fic which I wrote in 1 hour for a contest, which was basically a ‘hit the giant emotional button’ fic, and b) my Sailor Moon self-insert, which is mostly along the lines of “I can’t believe you wrote a self-insert I didn’t hate!”. So one small-ish fandom and one large there. To be honest, though, most of my major writing was in the pre-LJ, pre-FFNet days, so most of my C&C came from mailing lists or on USENET. Remember them? :)

To a degree, we all want our fic to be read and praised (or panned), but a lot of the time when I write a fic, the primary audience is me or my close circle of friends. So while I do appreciate the larger number of reviews I get for, say, writing Sailor Moon or Buffy, I’d argue I feel even better when I get the 1 or two responses I get for my Sol Bianca The Legacy or Ichigo Mashimaro fics. I’m not expecting any audience for those.

So the question them becomes, are you writing primarily to satisfy an urge to write, or for the enjoyment of others? I’d argue most of us do both, but then how do you find a balance? I’ve sometimes taken good honest criticism and not listened to it, simply as while I see the point I want my story to go this way because it’s what I want.

MJ: I agree that I think we mostly do both (writing for ourselves and for the enjoyment of others), and honestly I’ve found some people’s insistence that there’s something wrong with seeking an audience to be pretty disingenuous. If we were truly only writing for ourselves, there would be no reason to post our work publicly, or even just to our friends. But I think do think people who get into fanfiction primarily for the feedback often end up disappointed. And to your last point, I also agree that while there is a lot of value in constructive criticism, it really is okay to listen to it and then still go your own way.

Ah, mailing lists… I think I pretty much missed the peak days of USENET as a means for fanfic distribution, but I was a member of a few mailing lists, particularly in my Lotrips days. Overall, I’m glad online archives and journals moved a lot of fanfic away from mailing lists, partly because I’m one of those writers who never feels finished with anything. I frequently go back and edit older stories, or at least I used to do that when I was writing actively. But also, mailing lists are so transient. It’s hard for someone new to fandom to access older works that way.

MICHELLE: What is “C&C”? Actually, there’s been a bit of lingo bandied about that I’m not very familiar with. “Hurt/comfort,” for example. Does that mean “You are hurt, therefore I shall comfort you?” Or is it, like, I hurt you then I comfort you? What’s an “AFF reader”? Are there more terms I should know?

SEAN: C&C is ‘Comments and Criticism’, as you would get from a beta reader. They read your fic before you publish it and give you advice, which can range from spelling/grammar to telling you to scrap everything as it makes no sense and treats the characters poorly. Ideally, the C&C is pointed and useful without being cruel. And is more than just “Wow, this rocks!”.

AFF is AdultFanFiction.net, which is pretty much what it sounds like. The fanfics there are of a much lower quality than most archives, though there are scattered gems, as always.

As for Hurt/Comfort, just go here. Your first choice is essentially correct.

You know about self-inserts and Mary Sues, right?

MICHELLE: Yes, I know what those are. And also what OTP means. :) Thanks for defining the rest.

MJ: On the topic of self-inserts and Mary Sues, I’d like to state my conviction that they are totally valid and occasionally even awesome approaches to fanfiction. Also, I think most people write one at some point or another, even if they can pretend they haven’t. Any one of us who has written a character we identify with strongly will eventually write something that’s essentially a self-insert, and actually I think those can often be people’s very best work, because they connect with it so strongly. Most of the original authors did this, too, after all. People write what they know.

MICHELLE: In a way, the Potter game I played lent itself to self-insertion. Players could apply for a Feature Character (involving answering a series of questions about the character and their background followed by an audition) or they could create original characters of their own devising who would (when Harry and crew were still young enough) get to attend Herbology lessons alongside the main characters or just otherwise inhabit the wizarding world.

It occurs to me, too, that I made a few crossover characters in my time there, since I had some based on manga characters, like the one who started off based on Minako from Sailor Moon but eventually grew to act more like Harmony from Buffy.

MJ: So, one of the topics I’ve been eager to get back to here is the plight of gen fic. I love gen fic (when it’s great, which it often is), and I’ll agree that not only is it difficult to find an audience for it as a fanfic writer, but it’s sometimes even difficult to get people to agree what the term really means.

One of the types of fic I used to write a lot, was the sort that focused on relationships (sort of) but wasn’t romance. For instance, one of my early HP fics featured a version of Draco Malfoy who was obsessed with maps. He was a little obsessed with Harry Potter, too, but though the two interacted in the fic in ways that might be said to contain homoerotic subtext, there was no overt romance or sexual content involved. Still, given its “universe of two” feel, I figured it read closer to slash than gen, so I originally posted it as slash… only to have quite a number of people complain that it clearly wasn’t. Later, I changed it’s genre to “gen,” only to be told by another batch of readers that it wasn’t that either.

So tell me, in your opinion, what exactly is a gen fic?

SEAN: In general, I regard ‘gen’ fic as being what used to be called, back in the day, ‘Original Flavor’, which is to say it’s using the canon universe to tell a story without resolving or changing much. So, for example, if you write a fic set during OotP which involves a day in the life of Harry going around being angry at everything, that’d be gen. If he thinks about Ginny and his awkward feelings about her, still gen. If he decides to go shag her in a broom closet to do something about it, you’re into het. Likewise, If your fic *technically* doesn’t have any romantic resolution, but the entire plot is Harry realizing that Ginny is a horrible person and that Hermione is the one he has awkward feelings for, that’s het as well, as you’re changing the canon to match your ship.

To sum up: Are you using the universe as close to canon as you judge possible? Are you not resolving anything? If so, I’d call it gen. But, as you noted, many will disagree with me and say gen should have no romantic feelings whatsoever.

It’s especially difficult with the Potterverse as so many people have not only their own biases, but also biases they try to avoid. If you say a fic is gen but it has Weasley bashing, Dumbledore bashing, and the ever popular dark!grey!independent!Harry, even if you don’t pair Harry with Hermione, Luna or Fleur, it’s not gen in my eyes, but an AU. If I see gen, I want a fic that’s sort of what J.K. Rowling could have written (only with deeper characterization, better plotting and thinking out her ideas more).

MJ: Actually, Sean, your response here reminds me that we should talk about… “community standards” (for want of a better term) and how drastically they may differ from one fic community to another. I’ve definitely seen the term “gen” used exactly as you describe it here, yet, within the fanfic communities I most often was a part of, “gen” tended to be a term slapped onto anything that didn’t contain sex or romance, regardless of whether or not it was AU or speculative in nature (which would describe a great many of the Harry Potter fics from my day, since the books were unfinished at the time). Truthfully, I prefer your definition, but in a way, it doesn’t matter what definition I like best, since what really matters in terms of labeling your fics for readers is whether or not the community you’re writing in will get what they expect when they click.

Now, I’ve never quite understood why it’s so horrible to go into a fic without knowing half the story first, but as I’m sure you know, reactions can be downright violent should should readers encounter such horrors as an unexpected ship or, say, character death that wasn’t warned for ahead of time. And while I do recognize the importance of some of these labels (yes, non-con can be a really damaging emotional trigger, I totally get that) others seem… really kind of silly.

SEAN: Tags can be very, very tricky, especially ship tags. If you’re writing a fic that’s all about Orihime’s love for Ichigo, but it ends with her seeing Ichigo married to Rukia, is it an IchiRuki fic? Rukia wasn’t in it except at the end, and it was all about IchiHime. But if you label it IchiHime, you’ll have a lot of angry shippers.

I wrote a Maison Ikkoku fic years ago (I reposted it during the Takahashi MMF as an old shame), where I avoided tags as they gave the game away. If you want to surprise the reader, tags are automatic spoilers, so tagging it ‘Darkfic, multiple characters deaths, OOC’ would have led to a) no one reading it, and b) it losing any impact it had.

That said, as I grow older my reading habits are far more conservative. I have my ships, and like them, and don’t always like being forced out of my comfortable little box. In that case, sorting by pairing or length is something I do quite a bit. (I do wish that FFNet would allow single character search, so that you could search for ‘Harry P.’ without a second person and get fics with only Harry as the character tag.)

Oh, in case Michelle doesn’t know about interro!bangs, from Wikipedia: ‘In fandom and fanfiction, ! is used to signify a defining quality in a character, usually signifying an alternate interpretation of a character from a canonical work. Examples of this would be “Romantic!Draco” or “Vampire!Harry” from Harry Potter fandom. It is also used to clarify the current persona of a character with multiple identities or appearances, such as to distinguish “Armor!Al” from “Human!Al” in a work based on Fullmetal Alchemist. The origin of this usage is unknown, although it is hypothesized to have originated with certain Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures, for example, “Football Player! Leonardo”, “Rockstar! Raphael”, and “Breakdancer! Michelangelo”.’

MICHELLE: I encountered interrobangs used thusly in the RP world, so I’m familiar with them. I feel like I have probably busted out some interrobangs in at least one Off the Shelf column, too.

I’m not qualified to give any definitions of gen fic, but I must say that Sean’s interpretation of “original flavor” fic sounds exactly like the sort I’m most drawn to and how my few drabbles could be classified.

MJ: So, I think I’ve mentioned that I don’t write fanfic anymore, and it’s really for lack of time than anything else. The more serious I got about manga blogging, the more it became clear that in order to be able to successfully maintain my (very) full-time job, my private teaching, and my marriage, I pretty much had to choose between Manga Bookshelf and fanfiction (even reading it), and Manga Bookshelf won. I don’t actually regret that decision, but it’s interesting to note the differences in my “fandom,” now and then. Now, of course, I spend a lot of time engaging with fiction by way of reviews, roundtables, essays, and other types of straight-up meta. Yet there are ways in which I feel that fanfiction is a more effective (and certainly more immersive) form of criticism than any of those things, or at least a form that comes out of a deeper interaction with the text. When I was writing and reading fanfiction, I carried the canon with me in my mind all the time, turning it over and over, considering its strengths and flaws, examining every crevice, and discussing it all through my writing, generally from multiple angles. And while straightforward discussion is certainly simpler to digest, I’m not sure it’s as thoughtful.

Sean, I know you’ve expressed a distaste for people taking their fanfic too seriously, and I don’t mean to suggest that I think my own fanfiction was the most brilliant criticism known to humankind. But if I don’t necessarily take the product seriously, I do highly value the process. Any comments on this?

SEAN: It will come as no surprise to find that my own most active period of fanfiction was when I was either unemployed or working a non-time intensive job. Real life tends to take over, doesn’t it? As for fanfiction as a criticism, I definitely agree. Sticking with good old Harry Potter as an example, I have a lot of issues with Rowling’s books. One of my biggest is the lack of any example of a ‘good’ Slytherin – at the end of the day, I still don’t think Rowling gave any good reason that they shouldn’t imprison them right after sorting for life. And given that’s a horrible prospect, I certainly approve of fanfics that explore ‘good Slytherins’ and the value of ambition.

The difficulty is when criticism becomes ‘bashing’. Disliking Ron and wishing he hadn’t ended up with Hermione is fine. Saying that Ron has all the hallmarks of a future wife beater is another (and yes, I’ve seen writers say that). And while one might blame some of this on the youth of the writers (the trouble with all ‘teen’ fandoms), I’ve seen just as many rabid 40 and 50 year olds saying such things. Finding a balance between analysis of a work and OVERanalysis of a work is a difficult thing to do, and can especially become hard when you’re not arguing a point but lecturing or harping on it instead. And it’s even worse on the anonymous Internet. When does analysis or criticism become an ATTACK on the work or a character?

At the end of the day, if you argue with someone who disagrees with you, can your mind be changed? If not… why are you arguing at all? (Yes, I know, because THEY’RE STILL WRONG. Welcome to the Internet.)

MJ: Poor Ron! I’m happy to say I haven’t had the displeasure of reading any such fic.

As you say, Sean, there’s always the risk of over-analysis, particularly when there’s a pet theory involved, though I’m not sure that risk is mitigated by engaging in only standard modes of criticism. I’ve seen arguments I consider just as wrongheaded from prominent critics in the comics blogosphere, many of whom I expect would consider fanfiction beneath them.

Don’t get me going on Rowling and Slytherin, though. This roundtable might drag on forever.

MICHELLE: Seriously. But know that we both agree with you, Sean. :)

MJ: Speaking of dragging on forever, I suppose we’ve talked everyone’s (virtual) ears off by now. Any final comments you’d like to make on the subject?

SEAN: Just that I’m always surprised when I learn how few reviewers and bloggers in our ‘manga sphere’ are heavily involved in fandom. Leaving aside fanfics and fanart and the bias they can lead to (I try to avoid obvious shipping in my reviews, as I’ve noted), this may also explain another reason (besides the ethical correctness) that bloggers are so anti-scans – they aren’t reading fanfics based off of last week’s chapter, they aren’t getting spoiled constantly in newsgroups/LJ groups/forums, they don’t care that they have to wait 15 months for the chapter to come out in the States. Being involved in fandom means either a) you learn to love spoilers, b) that you avoid reading ANYTHING that’s not marked as being safe to read if you haven’t read ‘xxx’ yet (and still get accidentally spoiled constantly), or c) that you quietly read the scans and simply don’t tell the other bloggers about it.

Fandom means being INVOLVED. It means that you love to talk about things, and argue about things. Hopefully with an open mind. You can’t be in a fandom for something that you only think is pretty good. If you’re outlining an idea for a fic, or chatting on a forum about whether a character is too powerful… you’re there, whether you admit it or not. It’s only a short hop from that to your awesome epic Doctor Who/Stargate/Bleach/Harry Potter/My Little Pony/Elric/Huntley-Brinkley Report crossover, where the tortured spirit of Chet Huntley returns from the grave to demand blood and souls.

MICHELLE: As someone who only recently made a conscious effort to be open-minded about this whole fanfiction thing, I would simply urge others to do the same—turns out it’s not all pr0n.

MJ: … and sometimes when it is, it’s still awesome.

SEAN: So you don’t want the link to my Sailor Moon 10-senshi lesbian orgy fic, then? :)

MICHELLE: Well, I have been considering also making a conscious effort *not* to be so smut-averse, but I don’t think I’m quite ready for that. :)

MJ: Thanks, both of you for indulging me in this roundtable! I secretly hope we’ll continue in comments.

Seiho Boys’ High School!, Vol. 7

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By Kaneyoshi Izumi. Released in Japan as “Men’s Kou” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Comic (“Betsucomi”). Released in North America by Viz.

We’ve almost finished with this short and enjoyable shoujo series. As we hit the penultimate volume, the main boys (well, the main straight boys) all have girlfriends of some sort or another. So we’re left with doing plots on side characters we haven’t seen much of till now, and working on seeing how well those relationships with the girls are being maintained. As always, communication is the key.

The first chapter shows us a girl who goes through guys like kleenex, and her platonic best friend who has tried going to Seiho to get away from the drama that is her life. Of course, ‘platonic’ in this case turns out to be as platonic as most other shoujo manga cute friendships. Maki manages to step in and show the two what everyone but them can see (and honestly, the girl gets it too), with that special blend of being a complete jerk for the right reasons that he does so well. Given that it’s all too easy to peg Maki into the ‘sweet’ hole, I like seeing him when he’s a bit of an asshole.

Next we’re back to Kamiki, with what was likely my favorite chapter of the volume. He’s come down with a bad cold, and is starting to lose the image that he projects so hard under a feverish glare of ‘you know what? I just don’t care anymore’. We see some shots of him as a child dealing with his somewhat scatterbrained mother. He acts the strong, always in control boy so he can please her… but then she worries he’s too stoic. Finding a happy medium is tough, especially when you’re busy burying most of your emotions. (Suddenly it’s easier to see why he might have fallen for his stepsister.)

It’s even harder when your girlfriend is acting a bit too clingy, and your best friend is trying to get a bit too involved in your life as always. Kamiki and Maki’s brief fistfight is not as startling as what he says, and despite it being due to a fever, I think Kamiki with the filter off is great at telling those little annoying truths. Maki’s dating a girl with the same name and a similar personality as his dead crush. Why wouldn’t anyone be wary of that? Heck, I’ve mentioned myself I keep waiting for it to blow up in my past reviews. Still, Maki’s rationalization is a good one, and I’m starting to think I may not get the full confession I was hoping for.

There then follows a weak chapter with a student teacher inspiring Maki to be an idiot. The chapter after that, however, tells Miyaki and Erika’s side of the Kamiki chapter, and shows how the two, despite being dissimilar, have become such good friends. It shows both of them not at their best – Miyaji overreacts to everything, and is constantly fretting, which Erika’s ‘I don’t need anyone or anything’ persona sometimes blinds her to when Miyaji needs a hug more than a kick in the pants – but the dynamic is excellent. I like that Miyaji, during their fight, can immediately tell that she hurt Erika, and how it gnaws at her. It makes her less of a giant flake, which she’s had a tendency to be in this series.

There’s another cliffhanger ending, this time playing on Miyaji’s insecurities, but given Vol. 6’s ending didn’t apparently do much I’m not sure if this one will either. Still, it’s another great volume of an underrated shoujo series, and with the next volume being the final one I hope that all our leads find some measure of happiness. Bittersweet endings can be nice, but I like sugary sweet better.

Off the Shelf: The Ugly & the Beautiful

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MICHELLE: Miss? I say, excuse me, miss?

MJ: Hmm?

MICHELLE: Can I get a little manga discussion over here?

MJ: Oh, well, I guess so. It’ll cost ya, though.

MICHELLE: What attitude! I’d like to speak to your supervisor! Or, barring that, you could tell me what you read this week!

MJ: My supervisor’s pretty scary, so I guess I’ll go for the second option. I’ve spent my week reading a couple of different shoujo manga based on games (not exactly the most reliable source for great fiction) with drastically different results.

First, I caught up to the end of Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution, a series whose first two volumes were once the subject of a Failure Friday column, “Fat girls have faces too.”

From that post, “I have to wonder, is there anyone involved with this manga (or the game it was based on) who has struggled with overweight? It seems impossible that there could be … the entire thing reads like a thin person’s perspective on obesity. The series exists in that stereotypical mindset where physical fitness is as simple as a balanced diet and exercise, and fat people are lazy gluttons who simply lack willpower (and possibly basic intelligence). It’s simplistic, insulting, and just blatantly not true, which begs the question, who is this manga actually for? Surely not fat girls, or at least not real ones.”

I’d love to report that my feelings about the series have changed after reading volumes three and four, but unfortunately, they really haven’t. In these volumes, Hitomi’s diet and exercise plans continue along, easy as (sugar-free) pie, with the most dramatic setback being the discovery that failure to consume enough carbohydrates makes it difficult for her to concentrate on her studies. Her harem of boys fawn over her, helping her along towards her goal, and though one even tries to hold her hand, Hitomi has little emotional reaction to it all. And why would she, when she’s so happy-go-lucky and simple-minded? There’s no exploration of how being overweight might affect her self-esteem (especially with boys), and no social repercussions, outside of a group of girls who are jealous because she’s so popular with the school hotties.

And okay, I know I’m harping. I realize this is a hot-button issue for me. But only thin people believe that losing weight is as simple as realizing that sweets are bad for you and “exercise is fun!” which is basically Hitomi’s journey. And only real fat kids can know how unrealistic and insensitive it is to suggest that committing themselves to a health regimen will win them the support and admiration of all the most popular boys (or girls) in their class. There’s nothing in Hitomi that reflects what really goes on in the world of an overweight teen, even just in terms of their own self-loathing, never mind what seeps in from the outside. There’s some passing reference at one point to Hitomi’s battle to avoid buying sweets, as one of the boys mentions watching her gazing longingly at them through the bakery window, but that’s the closest to an internal struggle we ever see in Hitomi. As a result, when she does lose the weight (and win herself a face!) it feels unearned, because the problem never seemed real in the first place.

Oh, and the best part? After Hitomi’s lost weight, she’s still as clumsy and hopeless as always, only now it’s super-cute ’cause she’s thin!

I have issues. Can you tell?

MICHELLE: I have so many reactions to this I hardly know where to begin. At one point I thought, “Man, I’d like to see a realistic story about a heavy teen trying to lose the weight,” but then I realized that, no I really wouldn’t. I have lived that quite enough, thanks.

Really, it makes me sad that The Stellar Six of Gingacho will not be completed in English, thanks to TOKYOPOP’s closure. As you might recall, one of the six friends is an overweight girl—with an actual face!—whose weight does not factor into the plot or her personality at all. I recently acquired volume ten in Japanese, just to see how it ends, and lo, there is a moment where the chubby girl gets to smile one of those beatific smiles that warm boys’ hearts and then the boy thinks about how cute she is. I won’t tell you which boy, but I must tell you it’s the one I predicted. *buffs nails on lapel*

I guess what I’m getting at is, “Don’t lose heart! There are manga out there who treat overweight characters with respect. We’re… just… not going to get to read them.”

MJ: And, you know, I’m struggling a little to decide why what you just described feels awesome and not insulting at all, while what I just described feels the opposite… but it really does. I guess it is because that story isn’t about her losing weight, and just about her living life, which overweight people actually do get to do (believe it or not, thin society), when they’re not struggling with feelings about their bodies.

So what do you have for us this week, Michelle? Anything with less rage attached?

MICHELLE: And it doesn’t treat her like she’s some project in need of fixing. If she decides to do it herself, fine, but she doesn’t need some bishounen swooping in with platitudes about diet and exercise.

Anyway, lest I work myself up into a froth over something I haven’t even read, I will instead relate my experience with the first volume of Deltora Quest! This is a new series from Kodansha Comics, based on a series of children’s fantasy books by Australian author Emily Rodda. Sometimes adaptations from Western novels work well, but sometimes they don’t and unfortunately, Deltora Quest falls into the latter category.

The plot—possibly pared down for the manga like the Harlequin releases we’ve discussed in this column in the past—is incredibly generic. In a kingdom called Deltora, Prince Endon and a boy named Jarred—whose father gave his own life to protect the king—are best friends. When Endon’s parents suddenly pass away, his obviously villainous advisor (Prandine) easily convinces him that Jarred is a suspect. Jarred flees to a neighboring village and seven years pass in the space of a panel. Endon eventually finds a note Jarred left him and, realizing Prandine’s treachery, his faith in his friend restored. He summons Jarred back to the palace just as the Shadow Lord (much easier to spot villains when they have names like this as opposed to, say, Brad) attacks. Jarred protects Endon and his pregnant wife, and they pledge to find the seven jewels that have been stolen from the Belt of Deltora, which protects against invasion by the Shadow Lord. About the only unexpected thing in the plot is that, at this point, sixteen more years pass and it looks like Jarred’s son is actually going to be the one going on the jewel quest.

Everything about Deltora Quest feels incredibly superficial, and this isn’t helped at all by the cartoony art, which at times resembles something out of Saint Seiya. I’m not sure why the book is rated Teen instead of All Ages, actually, because I think the most likely audience for it would be kids who’ve already read and enjoyed the book series. I certainly like a good dose of escapist adventure, but this is just too insubstantial for my liking.

MJ: That does sound generic, as you say, and you know, I’m not even really fond of stories like this for very young children, because seriously… they are smarter than grownups usually think. I realize I shouldn’t rush to judgement on the source material, when I’ve seen how poorly novels can be adapted into manga, but… ugh. That’s my general reaction to what you’ve just described. “Ugh.”

MICHELLE: With the way Prandine is drawn, I would be surprised if any kid—like, even a preschooler—couldn’t identify him as the villain within three seconds. There are no surprises here, no twists, no cleverness. It’s just some trite story about questing for jewels. I can only hope the original novels are better. I certainly won’t be reading any more of the manga.

I hope your second offering didn’t fill you with rage!

MJ: It didn’t! Which perhaps should be surprising, but I’ll do my best to explain why it’s not.

My second game-based manga this week was the fourteenth volume of La Corda d’Oro, also about a teen girl surrounded by a harem of bishounen who are in a position to teach her about something. In this case, the subject is music, which honestly is not presented with any more realism than the diet and exercise lessons going on in Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution, yet, thanks to an array of nicely-developed characters and a little shoujo magic, the process is so much more satisfying.

Of course, it helps that while Kahoko’s bishounen are teaching her about music, she’s teaching them how to be better people—something a few of them sorely need. What’s more, the boys’ transformations are slow and imperfect, making them feel passably real, unlike anything in Ugly Duckling. And though each of the boys is a manga stereotype of one kind or another, their characterizations deepen in later volumes, providing some genuine romantic thrills.

In this volume, tension ramps up as conflicted pianist Ryotaro admits he loves Kahoko, while cutie-pie transfer student Aoi asks her to the school dance. It’s basic reverse-harem stuff, of course, but executed with genuine charm, mainly thanks to Kahoko’s increasingly spunky attitude that’s capable of whipping even secret bad-boy Azuma into a real person. Though it’s hard not to cringe at student violinists repeatedly choosing “Ave Maria” as serious concert material, even the series’ most egregious errors can be ignored in favor of a little heart-pounding romance.

I should mention too, that despite the fact that my background as a music student makes me just as aware of the ludicrousness of La Corda d’Oro‘s take on musical studies as I am of Ugly Duckling‘s horrifying portrayal of teenaged obesity, the effect is simply not the same. It’s one thing to misrepresent someone’s passion, and quite another to misrepresent their pain.

MICHELLE: Someone needs to grab that final sentence and put it on a book cover somewhere!

I was definitely wary of La Corda d’Oro at first, especially as concerned the fairness of a girl who comes by her musical ability magically competing against those who had worked hard for their attainments, but you’ll be happy to know that, based purely on the strength of your love for the series, I have actually now acquired all the available volumes! It’s just a matter of finding the time to read it.

MJ: If it makes you feel better, she definitely learns the hard way later on. Heh.

So what’s your final offering for us tonight?

MICHELLE: That does make me feel better. And speaking of disciplines in which long hours of practice pay off (hopefully) in a competitive realm, my final pick tonight is Takehiko Inoue’s Slam Dunk, specifically volumes sixteen and seventeen. I should admit right up front that I love this story to pieces, so forgive me if I get a little incoherent.

Hanamichi Sakuragi was just a delinquent until a crush on a girl inspired him to check out the basketball team at his school, Shohoku High. Turns out, though, that he’s got natural talent, if he can only quell his ego enough to actually bother learning fundamentals and teamwork. He’s come a long way by volume sixteen—Shohoku is playing in the Kanagawa Prefectural tournament, and has just lost a close game in which their captain sustained an ankle injury. In penance for a costly mistake, Sakuragi turns up at school with a shaved head and devotes himself to intensive practice so as to not let anyone down next time around. Volume seventeen ends just as Shohoku begins the game that will determine whether they proceed to Nationals.

I will be the first to admit that Sakuragi is hard to like at first, but his confidence soon becomes endearing rather than annoying (“Talent and drive! I am the total package.”) and his transformation from someone who thinks he’s hot stuff to someone who realizes that he’s got a lot to learn and is serious about accepting instruction is believable and rewarding. Now, when he achieves a moment of triumph in a game, I actually get verklempt. Inoue has also assembled a terrific cast of teammates and rivals, and it’s to his credit that the chapters dealing with a match-up between two teams that aren’t Shohoku are still quite exciting. I think what elevates this above other some other sports manga is the emphasis on the team dynamic, especially Sakuragi’s rivalry with the gifted Rukawa. If they would only work together, they could be amazing, but they’re not quite there yet.

There’s one drawback to reading Slam Dunk, though. One volume at a time is simply not enough. Even two volumes are not enough. Five or six volumes at a time might be sufficient, but do you know what that works out to in real-world time-to-accumulate? A year! I can’t go a whole year without reading Slam Dunk! I was just looking at the solicitations for future volumes on Amazon, and it looks like the game that starts in volume seventeen doesn’t wrap up until volume 21. It would be ideal to read the entire game in one sitting, but do you know when volume 21 comes out? I will tell you: April. That is 8 months away! Oh, the torment.

MJ: If I can’t quite relate (yet!) to your love for Slam Dunk, as a big fan of Real, I certainly can to your love of Inoue and basketball. Oh, the pain of shounen sports manga, though! So sorry about that 8 month wait! You’ll have to spend your time catching up on his other works!

MICHELLE: Yes, I do have nine volumes of Real (volume ten coming in November!) and ten VIZBIG editions of Vagabond to sustain me. Ooh, and the anime is streaming legally in a couple of places. *strokes imaginary goatee*

MJ: I suspect you’ll make it through, then.

MICHELLE: Yes, I am two minutes into the first of 101 anime episodes and already I am feeling much better.

MJ: *pats*

Manga the Week of 8/17

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After the huge pile of the last two weeks, I was waiting for a quiet week, and thank goodness that’s what I get. Only Viz is shipping this week (yes, not even any invisible Kodansha releases this time around), so we have far less to talk about.

First off, somehow coming out a week late, we have Vol. 3 of Itsuwaribito, a Shonen Sunday series about deception. Then we’ve got the elite Viz Signature titles. Vol. 4 of Bokurano: Ours, which is heartwarming and soul crushing all at once, I hear. Vol. 4 of the awesome Dorohedoro, which I will ramble on about more when Pick of the Week comes around. A new 20th Century Boys, which will no doubt have plot twists (though surely it must be up to the point of tying things together by now…). And the 2nd omnibus of Tenjo Tenge, which will have lots of fighting and fanservice. And possibly plot. But probably not much.

So what are you getting?

Show Us Your Stuff: CJ’s Awesomely Organized Manga Shrine

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I have a confession to make: I’m a compulsive organizer. I’ve carefully arranged my CDs by genre, composer, and opus number; I’ve divided my library into fiction and non-fiction, separating the musicology books from the historical tomes; I’ve even alphabetized my spice rack. (No, I’m not taking any medication. Why do you ask?) So when long-time reader CJ began describing her manga collection to me, I knew I’d found a kindred spirit, someone who viewed her role not as a consumer, but as a librarian or curator. CJ has generously agreed to share pictures of her collection with us, as well as to tell us a little more about herself and her manga-reading habits. Take it away, CJ!

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What's Butters?!

Hello, I’m CJ! I recently graduated from college with a Bachelor’s in Biology. Other nerdy things I’m in to include anime, RPGs, South Park and Doctor Who. I’m currently living with my roommate/sweetest cat ever Butters while job hunting! Please enjoy pictures of my manga collection, I take quite a bit of pride in it!

My first manga: Tokyo Mew Mew, which I no longer have because I no longer like it. I don’t tend to keep things I no longer like or have no plans of re-reading; I try to sell them to get money for more manga. As for the oldest series I have on my shelf (in terms of when I started collecting it and is still on my shelf), probably Maison Ikkoku.

My favorite manga-ka: Osamu Tezuka and Fumi Yoshinaga — they’re the only two mangaka whose work I actively collect everything of, and they both have mini-shrines dedicated to them. I think I have every Yoshinaga work published in English so far, but doing the same for Tezuka is proving to be much more of a challenge. However, they’re both the only two manga-ka whose work I will buy without even reading the back of the book. I already know I want it.

Ode to CJ's Tezuka Collection, Vol. 1.

Ode to CJ's Tezuka Collection, Vol. 2.

How long I’ve been collecting manga: 9 years or so.

My favorite series: Banana Fish, easily, though there are many worthy contenders in my top 5, which are Maison Ikkoku, Hikaru no Go, Firefighter Daigo, and Please Save My Earth.

More of CJ's awesome collection.

Behold: the full run of Monster and volumes of MBQ!

Clearly, this woman has good taste.

The size of my collection: If I counted correctly, about 670 manga, though this is not counting the few non-manga I have and some omnibuses are counted as three, some are counted as one, so it’s a bit fuzzy.

The rarest items in my collection: Some of those volumes for Tezuka’s Phoenix are extremely rare; volume 4 of Fumi Yoshinaga’s Flower of Life quickly became rare right after I got mine; the earlier volumes of What’s Michael? are a pain to find; and just random volumes of some of my favorite series have rare volumes, like Banana Fish, Maison Ikkoku, Firefighter Daigo, and Please Save My Earth. I’ve been extremely lucky in keeping all of my organs while getting some of these. Since I got Monster and Maison Ikkoku as they came out, I never ran into that problem with those two series. The most I’ve ever paid for a single volume of manga though? $60 for volume 20 of Firefighter Daigo.

Rarities from CJ's collection. Style points for owning Club 9!

The weirdest item in my collection: Joan is a full-color manga. I don’t think it’s particular good as a manga; it feels like a sequel to a more interesting prequel that never was, but it is gorgeous as a full-color manga. I was also fortunate to meet a friend online who was living in Japan for a while and she got me the two Please Save My Earth and the Banana Fish artbooks for dirt cheap. I can’t read Japanese in the least, but you don’t have to read artbooks! The only artbooks I want were never released over here, sadly. I’ve also been having trouble finding volume 1 of Tezuka’s Adolf in English at a good price so I bought it in German. I might have to do the same for volume 5. I’m not fluent in German, but I can still get the gist of the story.

More rarities from CJ's collection.

Series that I’m actively collecting right now: Kekkaishi, Maoh: Juvenile Remix, Blue Exorcist, Arisa, Twin Spica, Venus Versus Virus, Cirque du Freak, Fullmetal Alchemist, Bokurano: Ours, Saturn Apartments, House of Five Leaves, Bride’s Story, Wandering Son, and whatever Tezuka manga Vertical pushes out next is expected on my shelves very soon. I’m up to date on some series and a good bit behind on others.

CJ's Shelves of Sorrow.

The Shelves of Sorrow Continued...

Book Girl and the Famished Spirit

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Author: Mizuki Nomura
Illustrator: Miho Takeoka
Translator: Karen McGillicuddy
U.S. publisher: Yen Press
ISBN: 9780316076920
Released: January 2011
Original release: 2006

Book Girl and the Famished Spirit is the second book in Mizuki Nomura’s sixteen-volume light novel series Book Girl, illustrated by Miho Takeoka. Originally published in Japan in 2006, the book was released in English in 2011 by Yen Press. Once again, Karen McGillicuddy serves as the translator for the series. I read the first volume, Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime not too long ago and absolutely loved it. The book more or less made me an instant fan and so there was no question that I would be picking up Book Girl and the Famished Spirit. I am still quite fond of the premise of a “book girl,” a yōkai that devours the written word instead of food. Even though this story element is often relegated to the background, it is still important and I find it to be utterly delightful. Because I enjoyed Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime so much, I was really looking forward to reading Book Girl and the Famished Spirit.

Despite insisting she doesn’t believe in them, Tohko, the self-proclaimed “book girl,” is afraid of ghosts. Normally this wouldn’t be such a problem, but someone has been leaving encoded messages in the literature club’s mailbox. Messages that seem to be similar to the ones rumored to be left all over the school by a wandering ghost. But whether a prank pulled by a classmate or a legitimate spirit (book girls exist after all, so why not ghosts?), one thing is clear—the notes are asking for help. Tohko intends to investigate the incidents, assuming that Konoha, her underclassman and the only other member of the literature club, will be willing to assist her. But he’s reluctant, especially as the notes become more threatening. He hopes that she will just leave the whole matter alone.

While Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime was heavily influenced by Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human, Book Girl and the Famished Spirit takes its inspiration from Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. In some ways the story is actually more cruel than the original. If you’ve never read Wuthering Heights, don’t worry. If there’s one thing that Tohko likes to do besides eating literature, it’s talking about it and she provides a very nice summarization of the novel. Throughout the series she frequently launches into tirades about books, even at seemingly inappropriate moments. This is part of her charm although it can come across as tangential. Nomura is constantly dropping references to various works and authors, some more well known than others. But my favorite thing about Book Girl and the Famished Spirit was the introduction of Ryuto. I almost hope that he also turns out to be some sort of yōkai, but I’d still be happy even if it turns out he’s just simply a masochist.

For the most part, Book Girl and the Famished Spirit can stand fairly well on its own and it’s not absolutely necessary to have read Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime. The main mystery is almost completely separate with only a few minor references to the previous one. However, more information is given about Konoha and Tohko. To be honest, it is their backgrounds that intrigue me the most at this point. Konoha’s past in particular is slowly being introduced, piece by piece, within the context of the incidents he and Tohko get caught up in. It’s an interesting but effective technique. Although I enjoyed Book Girl and the Famished Spirit, I didn’t like it nearly as well as I did the first book. I’m not really sure why; maybe it’s just that I happen to prefer No Longer Human over Wuthering Heights. Regardless, I still intend to continue the series with the next volume, Book Girl and the Captive Fool.