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Kiss me

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I can’t quite get the topic of the week, josei manga, out of my head. Kodansha Comics has made a solid (if painfully protracted) start, and they scored about a zillion points for announcing Sailor Moon. That said, English-language manga publishers are thin on the ground, and if I’m going to nag one or two publishers about their shortage of josei offerings, fairness demands I nag them all. So here are two titles from Kodansha’s Kiss that intrigue me.

I’ve never made it all the way through Mrs. Doubtfire, but this doesn’t mean that I’ve got anything against nannies in drag. In fact, it’s safe to say that I would probably enthusiastically read Waki Yamato’s Babysitter Gin! It ran for nine volumes in Kiss starting in 1998, and it features a caregiver named Gin who fixated on Mary Poppins as a child and has wanted to bring joy to little ones ever since. As an added inducement, I would really love to see this kind of manga created by the woman who adapted The Tale of Genji into manga.

I know I’m not alone in my limited resistance to manga about people who see dead people, and I feel like I deserve the opportunity to confirm that I’d enjoy a josei take on the subject. This draws my beady eye to Madoka Kawagushi’s Shi to Kanojo to Boku. It’s a ten-volume series about a girl who can see the dead and a boy with supernatural hearing. They encounter mysterious forces and grow up along the way.

As an aside, it would also be awesome if Kodansha resumed publication of Nodame Cantabile. Just saying.

 

Oresama Teacher 1-2 by Izumi Tsubaki

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Sometimes, one just wants to read a silly, goodhearted comedy. And on that front, Oresama Teacher delivers admirably.

Mafuyu Kurosaki used to be the bancho of her school (though she didn’t realize it at the time) until she got nabbed by the cops and expelled. Her mother finds a school in the country that will accept Mafuyu, and ships her off for a fresh start. Although Mafuyu is a skilled and savvy fighter, the allure of life as a normal girl is appealing, and she embraces the opportunity to start over, full of self-assurance developed from her days as a gang leader.

Alas, she soon encounters her childhood first love (Tamaoki Saeki), who was responsible for steering her toward the path of delinquency in the first place. Worse, he’s now her homeroom teacher, and embroils Mafuyu and her lone-wolf classmate Hayasaka (another brawler) in his wager with the principal that he can boost the school’s enrollment by quelling the disciplinary issues arising from the lax admittance policy. Mafuyu and Hayasaka are the muscle to keep the other delinquents in line, essentially. Mafuyu is not very keen on this, especially because she’s enjoying how Hayasaka treats her like an ordinary girl, so masquerades as a couple of other people (a boy called Natsuo and Super Bun, a rabbit-mask-wearing girl whom Hayasaka idolizes) when administering the necessary smackdowns.

I almost wrote “hilarity ensues” at the end of the prior paragraph, because that’s just what one does after detailing a suitably wacky premise like this one, but the thing is… Oresama Teacher really is funny, and that’s got everything to do with the characters. I don’t care much for Saeki—mangaka Izumi Tsubaki resists the temptation to endow him with redeeming qualities—but he works as the instigator of over-the-top situations, and some of his interactions with Mafuyu are very amusing (like the scene in which they discover that neither of them can cook).

More to my liking is the relationship between Mafuyu and Hayasaka, which persists despite both of them frequently misunderstanding the other’s motivations. When she tries to find out more information about Saeki (in order to confirm he really is the same boy who used to live next door), for example, Hayasaka assumes she’s looking for material with which to blackmail him. At first, Hayasaka resists the idea that they are friends, but his prickly attitude gradually starts to dissipate. He’s incredibly dense and easy to fool with lame disguises, but Mafuyu, used to being looked up to by her followers/friends, likes the way he treats her as an equal. At one point, he begins to suspect that she is his idol, Super Bun, forcing Mafuyu to dissuade him of the notion just so he’ll stop looking at her all dreamy-like. It’s lonely being revered.

I never did read Tsubaki’s other Shojo Beat series, The Magic Touch, as general consensus seemed to be that it wasn’t that great, but I’m exceedingly glad I didn’t let that stop me from checking out Oresama Teacher, which is a genuinely entertaining read. Tsubaki herself doesn’t seem all that keen on the story—she makes several references in her author’s notes to the fact that various elements of the series were dictated by her editors—but you can’t tell while reading it. And anything that makes me snicker as much as these two volumes did is definitely a keeper.

Review copies provided by the publisher.

3 Things Thursday: Characterization & Emotional Truth

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Though I rarely wax nostalgic over flame wars, I’ll admit that searching for the comment I quoted in yesterday’s “Soapbox” post led me to revisit the material that inspired it. I won’t reiterate the entire argument here, or even my entire premise, but here’s a brief excerpt that I think expresses quite well what my purpose is in experiencing and writing about fiction:

“My focus as a reader/critic/human being is now and always will be discussion/analysis of a work’s emotional content. That is what I know about, and that is what I’m most interested in and qualified to write about. That is what my background prepares me for. That is what I care about in the world. The real purpose of fiction in my life is that it gives me the opportunity to interact directly with someone else’s inner life. This is not only what I find most compelling about other people, but I’d even go so far as to say it’s the way I best connect with the human race as a whole. It’s is a delicious smorgasbord of humanity. It’s where people communicate what’s most important to them, often even within formulaic structures and “fluff” pieces. It is, on a very basic level, a window into another person’s soul.”

Let me elaborate just a little on that. Like a lot of voracious readers, I’m a fairly introverted person. One of the side-effects of this is that I spent the vast majority of my growing years appreciating and cultivating my own inner life to a much greater extent than the one I physically shared with other people. This does not mean that I don’t like other people or don’t enjoy interacting with them. It does mean that I often find I understand other people more easily when I’m given the opportunity to examine their inner lives, and since I think understanding other people is a pretty vital part of life, I spend a lot of time doing that.

It is this, along with a number of other factors, that led to me spending most of my youth and a large chunk of my working adulthood as a singer and stage actress. As immersive as reading or watching fiction can be, there is nothing more revealing (and, frankly, thrilling) than exploring someone else’s inner world by actually becoming a player in it. It’s a transformative experience in every way, and I recommend it heartily, if not as a way of life, at least as an enlightening pastime.

I bring all this up, because I’ve previously mentioned that I think my approach as a manga critic is deeply informed by having been an actor, but I’ve never really explained what that means. What I mean when I say that, is that I think being an actor gave me some specific tools for understanding storytelling, particularly in terms of characterization and emotional truth (the two main elements I’m referring to when I mention “emotional content”), both of which are essential to effective, believable fiction, regardless of medium.

Now, to the point! All this has been a fairly long-winded introduction to this week’s 3 Things…

3 critical elements of characterization in storytelling I learned from The Theater:

1. Intention. I’m not here to argue acting technique, and frankly, I think a lot of it is pretty hit-or-miss, but I will say that out of all the various techniques I encountered during my years of study and professional work, the thing that consistently worked for me was a focus on intention. What do I want, and how do I get it? Nearly everything we do as human beings is motivated by intention, and this is true of fictional characters as well, at least the ones that are written effectively. One of the things I most enjoy looking at when I’m analyzing comics, is the intention of each of the story’s characters, and how consistently the author is able to maintain those intentions throughout the work. Certainly a particular character’s intention may change over the course of a series (and even within that, there is an intention in every moment that may actually, realistically conflict), but a strong writer will discover that her characters’ intentions are more important than her own when it comes to writing a believable story. Which brings us nicely to…

2. Truth. When asked if he preferred playing good guys or bad guys, Willem Dafoe is famously quoted as having said, “Ain’t no difference. Everybody thinks they’re righteous.” This is absolutely so, and a failure to recognize this fact is why so many stories that feature the concept of “good vs. evil” fail to ring true. People are masters of self-deception, and all of us will do what we convince ourselves is right, even if “right” translates as “right for us” or “the right way to avoid having to do things we don’t like.” Even if we say we did something we know is wrong, we’ve still justified to ourselves why we were “right” to do it anyway. That’s just what we do. It’s how we continue to go on. While humans as a society may strive (mostly unsuccessfully) to identify common truths, it’s clear to anyone who has spent five minutes watching the evening news that trying to lay out universal concepts of “good” and “evil” is beyond futile.

What’s not at all futile, however, is determining individual truth, and when it comes to characterization, this is vital. The best writers know how to separate their own personal truths (which may influence things like theme) from the individual truths of their characters, allowing each of them to exist truthfully and independently in the story. When something reads as out of character, most of the time it’s because the writer has forgotten this, or has tried to use a character as a shortcut to the writer’s own truth. This really never works. For an actor, this kind of writing is deadly, because it means she must take actions that are at odds with her intentions. This is no less deadly for a comic.

3. Show, don’t tell. But don’t “show” either. “Show, don’t tell,” is a pretty fantastic mandate. It instructs writers of all kinds to let both their own ideas and their characters’ intentions be revealed through action instead of narration or inner dialogue, and often an adherence to this directive is what makes the difference between a story that doesn’t work and one that does. But one thing actors learn pretty early on, is that sometimes “showing” can be just the same as “telling.” What I’m talking about here is what we’d refer to in high school acting class as “indicating.” When an actor is “indicating,” instead of doing something, she’s trying to show the audience that she’s doing something, essentially telling them what she feels by using familiar gestures or visual cues. For instance, instead of thinking, “I’m really sad,” and acting on her whatever her intention is from that point, she’s thinking, “I have to show the audience that I’m really sad,” and actually trying to make that her intention. You might think this works, but it doesn’t, because instead of watching the character, the audience is actually watching the actor, which is not the same thing at all, and will never read as true.

Comics creators can fall into the same trap, essentially using “showing” as “telling,” even without narration or dialogue. A writer may think he is carefully revealing his character’s thoughts and intentions in the manner of “show, not tell,” but because he’s so worried that the audience may not get it, he’s inserted some extra visual cues and emphasis, just to make sure, and before he knows it, he’s actually telling instead, even without using any words. This pulls us out of the character’s truth and into the author’s process, making the character less believable.

With a character’s truth and intention in place, any comic can be believable, whether it’s a deep look at the psychology of mountain climbers or a cracktastic boys’ love epic. Any type of story can be believable if it is rooted in emotional truth, and it is through these stories that we continue to understand and learn from each other as we struggle with the realities of our lives. Creating, distributing, and experiencing/interacting with art is the most powerful method we have for establishing human connection.

And that’s what I learned from the theater.

From the stack: Saturn Apartments vol. 3

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Hisae Iwaoka’s Saturn Apartments (Viz) is the only title that I’d read prior to its inclusion in the top ten list of the Young Adult Library Services Association’s 2011 Great Graphic Novels for Teens. I can’t help but compare this book to Kou Yaginuma’s Twin Spica (Vertical), which earned a place on the main list. I like them both a lot, but I tend to think I’d have argued for Spica to take Saturn’s place in the top ten.

This is mostly because Spica has a stronger underlying narrative. It’s got a clearer arc and digs deeper into its cast of characters. That doesn’t suggest failure on the part of Saturn, as the first two volumes clearly indicate that it has different aims, favoring episodic world-building rather than sequential storytelling. It’s easy to enjoy Saturn chapter by chapter, but it’s easier to become involved in Spica, if that makes any sense.

In the third volume of Saturn Apartments, Iwaoka seems to undertake the construction of some substantial subplots. Stand-alone chapters give way to small story arcs, and threads start to recur throughout the volume. This is welcome in a way, because it shows an intention to give the series more weight, but it also seems like this kind of plotting may not be Iwaoka’s strongest skill.

After two volumes of beautifully drawn, gentle glimpses into Iwaoka’s orbital world, the subplots feel rather clumsily wedged into the narrative. They aren’t unpromising, but their emergence feels abrupt. It strikes me that none of the supporting characters were yet able to carry that much purpose at the time it was thrust upon them. The eventual (and logical) inclusion of Mitsu in that thread may change that, but the sequences are still hampered by an imbalanced quantity of expository dialogue that’s out of step with the rest of the script.

One thing that does constitute a welcome development here is a slight shift in tone. Iwaoki is also expressing more interest in the class disparities that characterize the culture she’s built. There was nothing wrong with her initial approach, affirming the value of unglamorous work in a society, but it’s nice to see her underline some of the unfairness that keeps her fictional society ticking.

Overall, the series is still one of my favorites. Iwaoki’s graceful illustrations and fragile character designs continue to hold the eye, and the underlying concept is as sturdy and productive as ever. I just wish the shift to a different, more complex kind of story felt less awkward.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

 

Shonen Quick Takes – Arata, Nura, and Seiya

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Arata Volume 5 I think I’m really hampered from fully enjoying this series due to my familiarity with Watase’s other works. Modern Japanese Arata still is putting together the pieces of his quest in a fantasy world with an imperiled princess, while the Arata he switched places with is back in Japan navigating the difficulties of modern school life. Watase does do quest storylines very well, but there’s not much new here to someone that’s already read the piece/people collecting narratives of Fushigi Yugi and Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden. I continue to me more interested in the other Arata’s adventures in Japan, and in this volume he gets an unexpected ally when a classmate sees through his disguise. What disappointed me was the plot twist at the end, which seemed so reminiscent of the whole Miaka/Yui dynamic in Fushigi Yugi that it didn’t carry much suspense or dramatic tension for me.

Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan Volume 3

Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan continues with its well-executed story of a boy who happens to be the heir to a clan of demons. Nura confronts the rebellious Guyki, and comes up with some clever maneuvering with clan politics when his grandfather announces his intention to make Nura his formal heir. Nura’s classmate Kana is menaced by yokai, and when Nura’s older and stronger form comes to her rescue a little bit of a Lois Lane/Clark Kent dynamic develops when Kana suspects that her classmate and the powerful yokai boss might be connected. The volume wrapped up with a story where Nura’s grandfather meets the powerful exorcist Yura, who attempts to defend the old man she assumes is human from a yokai assassination attempt. There’s plenty of action in this manga, which is enlivened by all the off-kilter character designs used for the yokai. I think this is one of the more solid recent shonen manga series from Viz.

Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac #27

My favorite of this recent batch of shonen manga was by far Knights of the Zodiac. I don’t collect every volume, but I’m always happy to read it when I come across one. The over the top manly shouting and endless battles between gods ensures that it isn’t too hard to just pick up a ransom volume and enjoy it, without worry too much about the ongoing storylines. Basically I read Knights of the Zodiac for two things: crazy battle shouts and ridiculous moments of insanity. The Bronze Knights are about to battle the henchmen of Hades, but there are horrible complications that might prevent them from being effective in battle. Awesome battle cries were in evidence from the first few pages as Dragon fights a trio with their “Grand Axe Crusher!, Blood Flower Scissors!, and Annihilation Flap!” No! Not the Flap! The craziest image in this manga occurred when Thantos was describing to Seiya how he trapped Athena in a vampiric urn, which slowly turns red as it absorbs all of her blood, thus killing her. Athena is shown sleeping with her head sticking out of an urn, tendrils of hair spread out everywhere. Phoenix shows up, as does Seiya’s long-lost sister. Everybody is gearing up for the final battle in the next volume, which I am going to have to get. I certainly hope Athena manages to escape from her vampiric pottery prison.

Review copies of Arata and Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan provided by the publisher.

Soapbox: Women’s Manga

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Over the weekend, I participated in a discussion about josei manga (manga for women) on Ed Sizemore’s Manga Out Loud podcast, along with Manga Out Loud regular Johanna Draper Carlson and guest David Welsh. I was pretty surprised to be invited to this discussion since I’m not particularly knowledgeable about josei manga, nor have I written much about it here at Manga Bookshelf. In the end, though, I was quite thrilled to be there, as the topic resonated strongly with me in one way especially.

I’ve harped a bit on this before, in articles like Twilight & the Plight of the Female Fan at The Hooded Utilitarian, about fan perception of fiction for girls, and most recently in a mini-rant (scroll to item 3) about industry perception of boys’ love manga. One of the things that bothers me most as a fan of comics created for female readers is how little respect they command outside of their target audience (and often even within their target audience), to the point that we as an industry end up either apologizing for or deliberately concealing their intended demographic in order to try to make them palatable to others.

Publishers do it, and who can blame them? Would Ooku and Bunny Drop sell if they were marketed as part of a josei line? Would Wild Adapter have remained in print so long if TOKYOPOP had released it on their BLU imprint? Sadly, the answer is, “probably not.” Everybody’s research has proven to them that while women will buy books marketed for men, the opposite is simply not true. So who can blame them for trying to attract a broader audience, if all that means is that they simply decline to mention that a book was originally created for women? It’s still the same book after all, right? Do I want to see these things in print, or would I rather they just faded away, like all the books from Aurora Publishing and NETCOMICS, whose awesome collection of women’s manhwa apparently couldn’t survive even in digital form?

Readers do it, and it’s hard to blame them either. Who hasn’t been put in the position of having to over-explain to a skeptical friend, “I know the cover is pink, but it’s really good, I swear!” We explain because we think we have to, and we think we have to because we’ve been conditioned to believe that something specifically created with girls or women in mind is less well-crafted, less intelligent, and less universally relevant than something that’s not. I came down pretty hard on female readers in that earlier HU article for distancing themselves from “girly” stuff, but there are a lot of reasons why that happens, a lot of traps set for women to fall into, and it’s really quite difficult to avoid those traps since they’ve been in place for so long.

We’ve been told repeatedly (and many of us, recently) that certain traits most often attributed to works for women are inherently inferior to those valued by men, and it’s difficult to make an argument against biases that are treated as fact to begin with. Not all that long ago, for instance, after I’d taken the time to write a thoughtful, heartfelt explanation of what I look for in fiction, how I talk about it, and why I think that is important, a man commented with this reductive statement, “MJ: Your school of fiction was established over 200 years ago: sentimentalism. It had its virtues, but there are good reasons why sentimentalism is generally deprecated today.”

Well. How can someone argue with “facts” like those?

And the truth is, I’m far from immune to the traps, especially when it comes to talking about romance comics, and particularly boys’ love, which I’ve made the mistake of critiquing as a genre in the past. Take my writing for the recent Manga Moveable Feast, for instance. Though I think I should be able to say, “Wild Adapter is an excellent manga,” explain why it is excellent, and leave it at that, what I found myself saying (sometimes subtly) throughout all my features was, “Yes, Wild Adapter is BL, but you should read it anyway, because it’s an excellent manga,” or even “Yes, Wild Adapter is BL, but you should read it anyway because this really smart man says it’s an excellent manga.” It was desperate and out of character, but I could feel myself doing it, and I couldn’t stop because I felt so strongly that the series was being dismissed out of hand specifically for that reason.

So what can we do when the biases are so clear? What can we even ask for in an industry that struggles for readers regardless of demographic?

Maybe all we can do is continue talking about it, at least for now. So, readers, what do you think?

Download the podcast, “The Plight of Josei Manga,” at Manga Out Loud.

Speaking of josei…

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Ed (Manga Out Loud) Sizemore and Johanna (Manga Worth Reading) Draper Carlson were kind enough to invite MJ(Manga Bookshelf)  and I to participate in a podcast on the subject of manga for women. Johanna has also posted a handy timeline describing josei’s start-and-stop presence in the licensed manga market. I believe this is the first time I’ve participated in a podcast when you can’t hear my dogs barking in the background. I think they were napping.

 

Don’t Fear the Adaptation: Summer Special

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This month Don’t Fear the Adaptation brings you a summer one-two combo of series that span the anime/manga/light novel trifecta: The Story of Saiunkoku and Shiki!

The Story of Sainkoku | Novel: Sai Yukino / Kadokawa | Manga: Kairi Yura / Kadokawa / Viz | Anime: Madhouse / Geneon (previous) / Funimation

The Story of Saiunkoku is a classic shoujo series if there ever was one. Its heroine, Shurei Hong, is a strong, hardworking girl determined to overcome the position she was squashed into, both with regard to her socioeconomic problems and her gender. She’s intelligent, insightful, caring, civic-minded, and just sassy enough to get her way. Its main male character, the Emperor Ryuki Shi, comes from a tortuous family history and is in need of exactly the qualities Shurei has to offer. Though he truly appreciates, even loves, Shurei, there’s an obstacle or three that keeps him from expressing those feelings. Not to mention, he has other things to worry about — like how to keep the country running. Add in a childhood friend with a mysterious background who rounds out the love triangle, some kibbitzing side characters, the glorious half-fantasy rendition of ancient China that is the country of Saiunkoku, and you have a formula for a successful shoujo story that’s been perfected since Rose of Versailles.

I don’t use that comparison lightly. As much as Rose of Versailles romanticized revolutionary France, The Story of Saiunkoku romanticizes ancient China in a way that is deeply familiar to anybody who grew up watching Chinese TV dramas. This isn’t a bad thing. The Story of Saiunkoku‘s aesthetic fits the story perfectly — flowing layered robes in brilliant colors, intricate hairstyles for the women and long luxurious hair for the men, patterned window lattices, pagodas a plenty, and enough flower petals to drown in. It’s vibrant and feminine without exaggeration. Madhouse’s animation, like Kairi Yura’s artwork, is solid but uninspiring, almost to the point of being dull. But Saiunkoku‘s strength is the political intrigue and the character dynamics which, together with a hint of the fantastical and the core of a romantic drama, make for an entertaining story.

David, Kate, MJ, and Michelle have all written about The Story of Saiunkoku‘s charm. The anime does justice to their compliments. The Story of Saiunkoku does what it’s supposed to, and does it well: a cast of likeable characters develop interesting relationships with each other which are then pitted against a meandering but straightforward plot. Shurei is a classic spunky anime heroine, all the way down to her relationship with her father (like so many anime and manga heroines, her mother is absent and she’s had to take care of the family). But The Story of Saiunkoku is a great example of why tropes aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Shurei is loveable because she embodies all the right traits. She’s a strong young woman, someone with her own troubles but is always sensitive to the troubles of others, someone who isn’t above getting angry when her pride is hurt but also genuinely supports the people she loves. She never glamorizes herself as a martyr, even when she’s bullied to the point of exhaustion. She’s the kind of Mary Sue that you want to aspire to, instead of snarking, and she’s definitely one of the strongest anime heroines I’ve seen in years.

What I found most intriguing about Ryuki was his multi-faceted personality. In front of his older brother, he’s vulnerable and adoring; in front of Shurei, he’s a lovesick fool. But when it comes to beating down kidnappers or running an imperial inquiry into corruption, he’s every bit the model emperor, with only his country’s wellbeing in mind. It’s not that he’s manipulative. Rather, you can tell he’s only survived so long by being calculating. As the series progresses, his inability to win over Shurei with tricks and ploys (and hard-boiled eggs) exposes him for the 19 year old he is inside, enthusiastic and well-meaning and more than a little clumsy. Is it just that we like to see a man with so much power reduced to putty in the hands of a mere girl? I know that’s certainly part of my amusement. Here Shurei is never just a damsel in distress depending on Ryuki. She even gives up a life of luxury as Ryuki’s consort in order to pursue her dreams. Shoujo heroines often pay lip service to a life framed around something other than romance, but Shurei actually lives that life. She never wanted Ryuki to fall in love with her; she’d always wanted to serve her country in any way she could. It’s just that love happened along the way.

The other characters are hit or miss, but mostly hits. Split three ways between his fondness for Ryuki, his dedication to Shouka and Shurei as an adopted son, and the torch he carries for Shurei’s affections, Seiran is just as calculating as Ryuki and, without Ryuki’s natural bubbliness, is far scarier. Koyu Li, the assistant secretary of Civil Affairs, is tragic, hotheaded, and heart-meltingly endearing in turns, and in another series could have managed to be the main character. Here, he and his good friend Shuei Ran, whose ladykiller air hides a competent general, are the mocking peanut gallery, almost always on screen as a pair, whether it be as a pair of the Emperor’s confidants or a pair of troublemakers. The Story of Saiunkoku does at times come off as a reverse harem. Don’t get me wrong, I like reverse harems just as much as the next person, but none of the female characters in the first season even come close to matching up to Shurei. While I adored meeting characters like Reishin, the sneaky but overly doting Minister of Civil Affairs who doubles as both Koyu’s adoptive father and Shurei’s uncle, and Kijin Kou, the eccentric masked Minister of Finance, Sakujun — the second oldest of Enjun Sa’s grandsons– is basically a less nuanced version of Ryuki, even in appearance, and Kuro is the least interesting of the three Hong brothers for sure. With a cast this large, there were bound to be a couple of duds, but I just wish there had been more female characters like Kouchou, the courtesan who, with equal equanimity, teaches Shurei how to wear makeup and runs Kiyou’s entire red light district.

Like all the best shoujo stories, The Story of Saiunkoku throws in plenty of humor, and the anime manages to slip in a few extra jokes. One of my favorite episodes is when Shurei falls ill and all the characters come out of the woodwork to wish her well, including an extra silly Reishin who sulks over the implication that one day his beloved niece will get married. I’m especially impressed with the anime’s restraint — there’s not a single super-deformed face for all thirty-nine episodes.

I’ve only read the first two volumes of the manga, but from what I can tell, the anime and manga do have differences, even from episode one. Some characters are introduced early in the anime, and scenes have been both added and rearranged. For instance, while in the manga, Shurei is relatively unaware that she is in danger of being poisoned, in the anime Ryuki is forced to explain the danger to her after she’s almost poisoned at a banquet. As a result, Shurei in the anime learns both about Ryuki’s troubled past and Ryuki pretending to be stupid much sooner than the manga Shurei. It’s hard to compare the entire first season of the anime to just two volumes of the manga, but if I have to make some comparison, I’d say there just seems to be more stuff happening, and at a quicker pace, in the anime. Despite this, the anime does start dragging, in particular during the period after the imperial exams. While there are never any straight-out filler episodes, the series often picks the slowest, most tortuous methods to advance the plot, like episode 21, which is almost entirely superfluous except for an eleventh hour hint at a plot twist.

The Story of Saiunkoku is like Fushigi Yugi meets Dream of Red Chambers, as envisioned by CLAMP. This, actually, is a good thing. If you’re just the slightest fan of shoujo manga, and if you come across a box set of the first season for a reasonable price, I cannot stress how quickly you should snap up that deal. As it is, you can still get the early DVD sets relatively easy, but the later DVD volumes are nigh impossible to get your hands on. Thank goodness Viz is putting out the manga, or else we’d all be missing out. Now if only we could convince them to license the light novels as well!

(Note: I’ve used the Funimation names for this review. Shuurei’s family name is actually Kou, not Hong, but I’m guessing Funimation was worried we’d get her family mixed up with the other Kou family.)

Shiki | Novel: Fuyumi Ono / Shinchosha | Manga: Ryu Fujisaki / Shueisha | Anime: Daume / Funimation

Watch online at Funimation

I feel bad that I’ve been recommending stuff that you can’t buy or watch, or can only buy at ridiculous prices. So I thought I’d throw in a bonus review and recommend something you can watch easily. Shiki has vampires, “werewolves”, and a fascinating ensemble cast that will hook you faster than you can say “Twilight.” Plus, you can watch it for free on Funimation’s site now, and next year it’ll be released as DVD box set. What more could you want? (Well, other than for someone to license the corresponding manga and light novel as well, of course.)

Summer is the season for horror stories, and Shiki delivers in spades. The story is set in the small rural village of Sotoba, a place isolated from the rest of the world by mountains and forests. Sotoba is famous for burying their dead, and as a result the local folklore has plenty of stories featuring the undead, though no one takes that myth seriously. That is, until one summer, the villagers begin to die off an unprecedented rate, only to be seen walking the streets at night. Is it an epidemic? Is it a curse brought in by the mysterious Kirishikis, the eccentric family that builds a castle in the mountains and moved in during the dead of night? Or could there be some truth in the undead legend after all?

The closest Shiki has to main characters are Natsuno Yuuki, the surly teenaged son whose family moves from Tokyo to Sotoba in the beginning of the story, and Toshio Ozaki, the young head doctor of the Ozaki Clinic whose family has always served as Sotoba’s doctors. Ozaki, first frustrated by his inability to identify what the illness killing his villagers is, tries his best to convince the other adults that there are vampires — known as “shiki”, or corpse demons, in the series — walking amongst their midst. As a representative of the adult residents of Sotoba, his is a powerful story of how the rational can brainwash people just as much as the irrational. None of the adult villagers seem able to accept that something unusual is happening in Sotoba, much less that the cause is supernatural. As much as Ozaki tries to save the village, the village unconsciously repels his attempts, and it’s only a drastic eleventh hour sleight of hand by Ozaki that gets Sotoba to listen.

Natsuno’s problems are likewise complicated. He has no love for Sotoba, and in fact only has one friend in the entire village, a cheerful guy named Toru Mutou, but he isn’t willing to stand by and let the shiki kill off the village either. Still, how do you kill the undead, especially when the only allies you have are two middle schoolers who are just as clueless as you are? To make matters more complicated, one of the first victims, a teenaged girl named Megumi Shimizu, has an obsessive crush on Natsuno, and after she’s turned into a shiki, she’s hellbent on stalking him down and turning him into a shiki as well.

It’s not the kids that are interesting in Shiki, though the complications of the Natsuno/Tooru/Megumi relationship certainly make for one of the most dramatic twists mid-series. It’s really the ambiguities of the adult characters and the incredibly well-executed pacing of the narrative that elevates Shiki from a mere vampire horror story to a very complex and very human drama. Shiki is all about asking what it means to be or want to be alive, and what sacrifices are justified in the pursuit. Take Ozaki, whose obsession with hunting down the shiki is matched only by the shiki’s obsession with hunting down him. He wants to save the village from getting taking over; they want to keep him from killing their own kind. Is one really better than the other? The leader of the shiki, Sunako, was bitten when she was just a little girl, and all she wants is to give the shiki a place where they don’t have to hide, where they can have festivals and live as families and walk down the street just like people. It’s a noble enough dream, but to accomplish it, she needs to wipe out Sotoba’s living residents.

If Sunako is a charismatic villain who tugs at your heartstrings, Ozaki is a terribly unsympathetic protagonist who makes you question whether you should even be cheering for him. He’s callous towards the concerns of others, so one-minded that he thinks nothing of sacrificing his own wife to accomplish his aims. Towards the end of series, you begin to wonder whether he actually cares about the village at all, or if this is just a matter of pride for him. Then there’s Muroi, who as the head priest of Sotoba, should be on the frontlines driving away the shiki. But instead Muroi is entranced by the shiki as a way of escaping his stifling life, and you find yourself upset with Ozaki for not being more understanding, even though Muroi is, in effect, enabling the death of Sotoba. And all of this doesn’t even begin to touch on the feelings of the victims’ families, who are simultaneously repulsed and drawn to their shiki loved ones. Would it be better for someone you love to die and stay dead? Or is it better for them to die and come back as a murderous, blood-thirsty, but very animate shiki?

Shiki packs all this and more in crisscrossing plot lines that weave together to form a narrative about life and death that could be mined forever. You’ll find yourself changing loyalties, reconsidering sides, examining long-held preconceptions about how life should be and what rules should guide human interaction, simply depending on which character the episode focuses on. While the story can get a little heavy-handed, especially during Muroi’s dialogues with Sunako, the grand finale of the last few episodes handle the moral dilemmas of the remaining Sotoba residents so unflinchingly that you’ll wish for some sugar-coating. But if there’s one thing you could say about Shiki, it’s that it forces most of its major characters to look their choices in the face and stand up to them — sometimes with disastrous results.

The art in Shiki can be preposterous at times. Don’t get me started on the crazy hairdos, the physics-defying tears, and the inexplicable fashions; Megumi in the first episode doesn’t even come close to the worst of it. There’s a particular moment where one of the Kirishiki servants goes to visit Natsuno which just emphasizes how ill-suited Shiki was for comedy, no matter how hard the series would try to inject occasional jokes. But you forget that failing when you’re dealing with one of the spookiest soundtracks made for any horror anime. The sound effects– whispering choirs, eerie giggles, and almost fetid sucking sounds– will make you cringe and shrink back into yourself. The music ranges from forgettable melodies plucked out on guitar strings to an unassuming main theme that nevertheless ends up being associated with so many depressing events that you start dreading its appearance. The end product gives off the impression of being a demented music box — harmless during the day, but deeply unsettling in the dark.

Shiki is a feast for the fan of vampires or the supernatural. There’s something vaguely Stephen King-ish about its plot and premise, but the execution is something much closer to an HBO miniseries: you know it has a plan, you know it’s going somewhere, and the ending is satisfying and satisfyingly unexpected. The characters span the whole spectrum of unselfish, neutral, and reprehensible. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve watched a series that handled that spectrum as well as Shiki. Watch it now while it’s free, then grab a copy for those hot, terrible summer evenings where you need a little chill that only the undead can inspire.

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Either Natsume Yujincho or Chi’s Sweet Home will be next. If you feel strongly one way or another, as always, drop me a line!

The Josei Alphabet: V

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“V” is for…

Valentine Place Juuyon Banchi, adapted by Takako Hashimoto, based on a novel by Pamela Bauer, originally published by Ohzora Shuppan, one volume: A young man returns to his family after a long absence to find that a childhood friend has become a formidable woman.

Vashumira no Shihou, adapted by Karin Miyamoto, based on a novel by Susan Kearney, originally published by Harlequinsha, three volumes: A spirited American’s refusal to assent to an arranged marriage causes a succession crisis in scenic Vasmira.

Venus ni Arazu, written and illustrated by Yuki (Butterflies, Flowers) Yoshihara, originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Petit Comic, two volumes: A model loses her agency gig and can only find work with the creepy sculptor who got her fired in the first place.

Venus no Yabou, adapted by Tsukiko Kurebayashi, based on a novel by Colleen Collins, originally published by Ohzora Shuppan, one volume:  An ambitious young writer gets her big break when the author of the “Real Men” column runs off with a stripper. Unfortunately, she falls in love with one of her advice-seeking correspondents.

Virgin Road, adapted by Misuzu Sasaki, based on a novel by Helen Bianchin, originally published by Ohzora Shuppan, one volume: A wealthy Australian heiress chafes under family expectations and dreads the loveless marriage they’ve arranged for her.

Licensed josei:

  • Vampire Doll, written and illustrated by Erika Kari, originally serialized in Ichijinsha’s Zero-Sum Ward, six volumes, published in English by Tokyopop.
  • Voices of Love, written and illustrated by Kanae Hazuki, originally published by Ohzora Shuppan, one volume, published in English by LuvLuv Press.

What starts with “V” in your josei alphabet?

 

The Betrayal Knows My Name, Vol. 1

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For years, Tokyopop specialized in a particular genre — call it “forbidden bromance,” for want of a better term — in which two handsome, impeccably groomed young men teetered on the brink of a relationship. That relationship usually faced a serious obstacle: one might be a demon and the other a human, for example, or one may have killed the other in a previous life. Most of the story was devoted to uncovering the reason that fate united them, providing the heroes ample time for impassioned conversations and meaningful looks.

At their best, titles like Tokyo Bablyon, Silver Diamond, and X-Kai were silly but engrossing, with plot twists as gloriously melodramatic as an episode of Passions; at their worst, they read like bad slash fic, with purple dialogue and an abundance of poorly explained plot details. Yen Press’ latest offering, The Betrayal Knows My Name, has all the requisite elements to be a gas — pretty-boy leads, past-life tragedy, perfectly moussed locks — but never quite rises to the level of a great guilty pleasure.

Not that volume one wants for activity; every chapter is packed with action sequences, murderous demons, dramatic confrontations, and shocking revelations. What Betrayal lacks is the kind of tightly constructed narrative that made the best bromances such a treat to read. The characters barely rise above type, while script flirts with incoherence at every turn, introducing new characters and subplots at such a furious pace that the central love story is often in danger of being overshadowed. Even the dialogue sags; when the characters aren’t explaining things to one another, they’re so wrapped up in their own thoughts that their monologues become tedious. (Sample: “We can’t survive on principles alone. And everyone would like to live without getting tainted at all. But that’s not how things are.”)

That’s a pity, because The Betrayal Knows My Name looks a lot like my favorite bromances. The character designs owe an obvious debt to CLAMP’s high Baroque period, when characters wore trench coats and dog collars and always had windswept hair. And Hotaru Odagiri certainly knows how to draw brooding men; her heroes, Yuki and Zess, spend a great deal of time staring into space while wearing soulful expressions. (They also know how to pop a pose for readers, allowing us to savor the sheer ridiculousness of their outfits, and the artful way in which they leave their shirts unbuttoned to the waist.)

Yet the prettiness of the character designs can’t camouflage the fact that Betrayal is straining too hard for effect; what should be a great, emo-porn pleasure is something of a chore to read, thanks to its relentless pace, clumsy dialogue, and chemistry-free leads. Readers who can’t get enough of the forbidden bromance genre may find Betrayal an adequate fix; others are encouraged to hold out for Tokyo Babylon‘s return this fall.

Review copy provided by Yen Press.

THE BETRAYAL KNOWS MY NAME, VOL. 1 • BY HOTARO ODAGIRI • YEN PRESS • 368 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)