Features & Reviews

The Condor Trilogy in Manhua: The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Sabre

April 10, 2012 by Sara K. 7 Comments

This is part four in a series of posts about the Condor Trilogy in Manhua. The previous posts are Introduction, Fighting, Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, and The Legendary Couple.

This manhua is by Ma Wing-shing, who is Hong Kong’s next most significant wuxia manhua artist after Tony Wong.

Whereas the other novels in the trilogy have been adapted multiple times into manhua, this is the only manhua adaptation of Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì. Poor Zhang Wuji, nobody loves him. Well, maybe my friend loves him. She kept on asking me what I thought about him as I read the novel (“Isn’t he wonderful?” “Ummm, he’s still twelve years old” “Just wait until he becomes a man!”)

Speaking of Zhang Wuji and female attention, let’s check out his wedding.

Example Scene:

The young couple is getting married. And they love each other. They really do. This must be a happy scene where nothing goes wrong…

… aside from a Mongolian princess barging in.

The Mongolian princess asks the groom to jilt the bride. The groom says that if he did that, he would be a jerk.

The Mongolian princess seems to have something in her hand. Whatever it is, it makes the Chinese groom change his tune.

Hey, Chinese ~~people~~ bride, it’s time to PROTECT YOUR ~~COUNTRY~~ MAN FROM THE MONGOL ~~INVASION~~ PRINCESSS!

Go Chinese ~~people~~ bride, go!

*sigh* Bride, you’re not going to score any points if you beat up a helpless princess who … poisoned and kidnapped a bunch of the world’s most powerful martial artists … is the best schemer in the story … can get Zhang Wuji to crack a joke (before the Mongol princess showed up, I was under the impression that Zhang Wuji didn’t have a sense a humor) … okay, bride, if you take down the princess, you score ALL the points.

Given a choice between a Mongol princess who is trying to ruin his wedding and previously tried to kill him and his companions, and a woman that he loves and wants to marry, the groom is of course siding with the Mongol princess.

You know, I think most weddings would be improved if the bride and groom decided to break out into a kung-fu match in the midst of the ceremony. Too bad that this couple seems to be fighting for real.

Apparently the wedding is now messed up beyond all repair.

Game over. Mongol ~~empire~~ princess: 1; Chinese ~~people~~ bride: 0.

Adaptation

The manhua is paced very differently from the novel. Even though this manhua is 25 volumes long (Taiwan edition), the first 75% of the novel gets covered in the first 5 volumes, though some of the early scenes in the novel appear later in the manhua as flashbacks. Considering that the first half of the novel is about as brisk as rush hour traffic, this is not exactly a bad thing. Even so, the sheer speed did make me a little dizzy. The last three chapters of the novel, however, are covered in about 6 volumes, which allows much more room for nuance. While I will not say that the last three chapters are the best three chapters, the last fourth of the novel is certainly the best part, so I cannot exactly argue with this either.

However, while the pacing of the manhua is completely different from the novel, the plot is pretty much the same. Like every other adaptation of the Condor Trilogy, some details are left out. Yes, some of the moments which are missing are my personal favorites, but that’s always going to happen and I can always re-read the novels if I so wish.

Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì has less humor than the other parts of the trilogy, but whatever humor the story has, this manhua manages to kill it. For example, the socks scene is utterly serious—and I don’t mean that it is done deadpan style. It simply is not funny in the manhua. The only humor in this manhua is unintentional—such as the wedding scene described above (to be fair, I thought the wedding scene was quite funny in the original novel too, and I do not think that was Jin Yong’s intent).

The manhua is based on the second edition of the novel and has the second-edition ending (different editions have different endings). I also happened to read the second edition of the novel. My first reaction to the ending of the novel was “what the [expletive]!” and then I chose to be amused. Ma Wing-shing has a very different take on the second-edition ending—he presents it as being creepy and scary. (Which just goes to show how open-ended the second edition ending is.) Whereas I took the most light-hearted interpretation possible, Ma Wing-shing took the darkest interpretation possible. The line between comedy and tragedy can be quite fine.

Generally, out of all of the Condor Trilogy manhua, this was the hardest one for me to get involved in the story. There were points when I got involved, but it felt like I was recalling how a given scene made me feel in the original novel rather than re-experiencing the scene anew. I think this is mainly an art issue, because aside from the pacing, timing, and some simplifications, the dialogue and the plot of the manhua are not that different from the novel.

Artwork

Ma has a more gritty-realistic style than Tony Wong. Though he can use an abundance of flourishes when he wishes, they do not have the eye-candy feel of Tony Wong’s visual flourishes. While the characters in Tony Wong’s manhua often seem to have a light spring to their steps, Ma’s characters move in a more grounded manner. Overall, where Tony Wong’s art expresses exuberance, Ma’s art expresses restraint—a restraint which sometimes bursts into an explosion of glory. And to be honest, I have trouble imagining a Tong Wong adaptation of Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì. While Tony Wong expresses excitement—whether of joy or angst—quite well, he is not so adept at expressing solemn, heavy feelings. Thus, I feel that the right artists were chosen for the right adaptations.

Because the manhua tries to cover the first three-fourths of the novel so quickly, the art is in rapid plot-exposition mode—which means there are a lot of talking heads. In the hands of an artist who is great at drawing talking heads, that would be sweet. Ma Wing-shing is not that kind of artist. Not only do the characters constantly seem to be wearing the same stoic expression, but they often look just like each other. I think that depicting the characters as constantly having a stoic expression is an interesting way to interpret Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì—but when you’re mostly seeing talking heads, it looks really monotonous.

Zhang Wuji is thinking about a certain Mongol Princess.

This moment is supposed to be full of feeling, but because the faces look just the same as they do in pretty much every other moment, I find it hard to feel the feeling.

However, while Ma is not good at expressing character through face or body, he can express the character’s inner life through composition, color, and motion.

For example, you can tell by the blues, the rain, the way the figure’s back is turned as his body fades into the storm, that this a sad, solemn moment.

But to express things through composition and color, one needs a high-page-to-plot ratio. Such a ratio does not exist in the first half in the manhua. There were flashes of Ma’s visual genius, even in the first half, but they were quickly buried in a sea of talking heads.

But when the page-to-plot ratio goes up? Ma demonstrates why he is one of Hong Kong’s most celebrated manhua artists. The last 8 or so volumes are GORGEOUS. When I say they are gorgeous, I mean they are full of pages like this (click to see them in larger size):

And this:

I am tempted to say that if Ma had expanded this story over more pages, the entire manhua could have been visually amazing. But I suspect Ma needed to be inspired to show his true capabilities, and that the first part of the story did not inspire him.

Please forgive my poor digital camera – it does not do the artwork justice.

More Thoughts on the Adaptation

This is my least favourite of the manhua adaptations of the Condor Trilogy.

The last fourth of the original novel kept my jaw fixed in a state of drop until it was over. When the manhua adaptation made my jaw drop, it was always because the art was stunning, not because the story swept me up again.

Perhaps the art and the story failed to connect because there was no focus. I would have been happy to read a manhua adaptation of Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì which threw the story to hell and focused on fantastic fight scenes—and I think Ma could have delivered such a version. I might also enjoy a manhua adaptation which focuses on the romance—as one can probably tell by my commentary on the wedding scene, I would have a lot of fun with that version.

The manhua adaptation I would really like to see is one which delved into the commentary on society and politics. Hong Kong wuxia manhua uses plenty of visual metaphors and flourishes to flesh out the battles. Why not use those visual metaphors and flourishes to flesh out the socio-political allegory? Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì would be the perfect story for this treatment. The title literally means “Relying on Heaven to Kill the Dragon Tale” and is usually interpreted to mean that when the emperor (dragon) is bad, the people who support justice (heaven) will remove him. And there are two blades—the Heaven Sword and the Dragon Sabre—which carry this metaphor throughout the story. Why not build on that? I think sequential art is the perfect medium for examining this side of the story. Alas, this manhua does not try to go there and mostly takes the story at face value.

And I think that might be the thing. This adaptation sticks too close to the surface. It is reasonably faithful to the letter of the story—more so than the Tony Wong adaptations. But it does not try to dig into any aspect of the story—not the battles, not the romance, not the camaraderie, not the social commentary, not the tragedy, and so forth. I already know the story, so I am not terribly interested in a shallow overview.

Availability in English

11 volumes of this manhua were published in English by ComicOne. They are out of print, and seem a little harder/more expensive to get than The Legendary Couple, but are apparently not too difficult to acquire. I do not know how the ComicOne volumes correspond to the Taiwan edition. Having only read the Taiwan edition, I also cannot comment on the translation.

To continue the story in English, Chu Yuan’s The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre Part 1 & 2 (1978), The New Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre (1986), and The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre (2009) are all available on DVD with English subtitles.

Conclusion

I think the only people who should read the ComicOne edition are people who really want to experience the story of Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì in a printed medium and cannot read the novel. It is actually not a terrible adaptation, and can give one a sense of the story, even though it cannot replace the experience of reading the novel.

Everyone else—Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì fans, Ma Wing-shing fans, and so forth, should go straight to one of the Chinese-language editions, regardless of one’s Chinese reading ability or lack thereof. If one wishes to invest money in this manhua, there is no reason to deny oneself the splendor of the late volumes.

Speaking of gorgeous art, the question is:

Whose art style do you prefer, Tony Wong’s or Ma Wing-shing’s?

Sara K. has tried martial arts herself. She has taken kickboxing and Tai Chi (Chen style) classes, and has gone up to green belt in Tae Kwon Do. She is slow and her arms are weak. She is flexible, has a good sense of balance, and has powerful legs. If she found herself in hand-to-hand combat, she would use her arms mostly for defense and use her legs mostly for offense. Her bones have an unusual structure, which means that certain arm twists which work on most people do not work on her (and would offer her an excellent opportunity to send her opponent a surprise elbow jab), however her unusual bone structure also makes her more prone to injuries in general. If she were to study a new martial art, she would choose archery.

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Vol. 12

April 10, 2012 by Sean Gaffney

By Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki. Released in Japan as “Kurosagi Shitai Takuhaibin” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

It’s been a long, long wait, but it’s great to see a new volume of this horror/comedy/workplace series. The reasons for the long wait are many: first off, I imagine Carl Horn was quite busy, as he also edits all the Oh My Goddess and Evangelion titles for Dark Horse, and OMG was on a ‘speed-up’ release schedule. He also had Excel Saga 22 and 23 in there somewhere. But mostly I suspect it’s due to poor sales, as Carl admits in the liner notes. This is why the cover for Vol. 12 is now a normal manga cover as opposed to that cardboardey-feeling cover we had for 1-11. Luckily, the content inside is still excellent.

That cover image above comes without the little ‘Parental Advisory: Explicit Content’ sticker partially obscuring Sasaki’s face, but the sticker is most definitely needed, as this particular volume has explicit sex to go with its explicit gore. No, Karatsu hasn’t gotten it on with either Sasaki or Kikuchi – though he and Sasaki are absent from the last story for a “trip to Hawaii” that’s apparently in Vol. 13. Instead the first story deals with the dangers of virtual reality RPGs, and also trying to sell your identity – or buy another one. As you can imagine, when unscrupulous people get a hold of something shady that needs marketing, bad things happen. Note this is not only the most sexually explicit in the volume, with both sex and nudity, but it’s also the goriest – “Talk about loss of face!” is a grotesque pun here. It also has the most unpleasant of this volume’s villains. Luckily, she gets hers as our heroes make another of their grand entrances. And as a bonus, Sasaki gets to wear another ridiculously impractical outfit, even if only in VR.

The middle story was my favorite, even though I knew it would end poorly. It features a washed-out comic and a club hostess who meet cute, immediately fall for each other, and are basically adorable. In *this* series? You know how long they’ll last. That said, the adorable is there, and it’s refreshing seeing Eiji Otsuka writing the closest this series will ever get to romantic comedy. This story deals with both discorporation – the talent of the hostess girl – and the Japanese housing market, which proves to be as bloody and cutthroat as anything else in this series. It’s also a rather cynical take on the world of showbiz comedians, with the villains here giving off a very seedy, sub-Jerry Lewis vibe. It also has the happiest of the three endings – well, as happy as you’re gonna get.

Lastly, we have a story about a dollmaker longing for his dead sister, who passed away during World War II. Unfortunately, this also ties in with both Korean politics (which the authors have gone into before, possibly as it makes Japan very uncomfortable, and they love pushing buttons) and realdolls (complete with many creepy otaku and some cameos of dolls based on Ayanami from Evangelion and Yoko from Gurren Lagann). It’s the weakest story in the volume, possibly due to Karatsu and Sasaki’s absence (Makino is there but doesn’t do much, as per usual, but that does leave the bulk of things to the “goofy” characters), but not without merit, and has a morbidly cynical punchline. Plus there’s some more Makino/Yata ship tease, which pleases me.

For those wondering about the small fragments of plot that have been going through previous volumes, well, there’s none of that here. What we get is a strong horror manga, with dark veins of comedy and a few heartwarming spots (OK, very few). It’s a solid series that needs more love.

Bookshelf Briefs 4/9/12

April 9, 2012 by Sean Gaffney, Katherine Dacey and Michelle Smith 1 Comment

This week, Sean, Michelle, and Kate look at recent releases from JManga, Viz Media, Dark Horse, and Vertical, Inc.

Ekiben Hitoritabi, Vol. 2 | By Jun Hayase | JManga – If you read volume one of Ekiben Hitoritabi, then you know what to expect from volume two. In this volume, middle-aged bento shop proprietor Daisuke Nakahara continues to travel around Japan by rail, acquiring two new companions who are initially reserved but eventually succumb to his relentless enthusiasm for railway facts and train station bentos. It’s fairly formulaic, but the panoramic vistas and detailed food drawings are still enjoyable, and dialogue like, “This whole shrimp is pretty lavish! It’s large and filling” inspires indulgent amusement rather than mean-spirited snickering. I even got a little verklempt during the chapters where Daisuke takes a boy on the train journey promised by his now-deceased father. It may not be the most exciting manga ever published, but it’s certainly got its own unique, leisurely charm. Thank you, JManga! – Michelle Smith

GTO: 14 Days in Shonan, Vol. 2 | By Toru Fujisawa | Vertical, Inc. – After unexpectedly enjoying the first volume of GTO: 14 Days in Shonan, I was really looking forward to the second. Happily, it did not disappoint. In fact, I liked it even better than the first as, aside from a gag wherein our protagonist’s nether-regions are the target of a swarm of ants, it’s more serious, focusing on Onizuka’s attempts to not only rescue Miki Katsuragi, the rebellious teen who’s caused him so much trouble, from a kidnapper but to get her police chief dad to realize that she’s been acting out in a desperate bid for his attention. Because we are privy to Onizuka’s more bumbling moments, his clear-eyed, rule-defying pursuit seems even more impressive and heroic by comparison. Okay, maybe there’s a little blatant heartstring-pulling here, with the whole “all of us worked as one” search party, but you know what? I don’t care. It’s effective. Bring on volume three! – Michelle Smith

GTO: 14 Days in Shonan, Vol. 2 | By Toru Fujisawa | Vertical, Inc. – For all that GTO can be moralistic in its “life isn’t as bad as you think it is” ways, there’s no denying that it shows life can be pretty damn bad. These kids aren’t just cynical teenagers with no worries – they deal with abuse, gang culture, and as we see here, kidnappers drugging them into online prostitution. That said, the basic theme of “children act up as the adults have abandoned them” reappears here, and we see how “The Girl Who Cried Wolf” isn’t as much fun when taken seriously. Luckily we have Onizuka, who can be a complete idiot much of the time but has the strength to back it up, both physically and mentally. Gang culture is so omnipresent in Onizuka’s world as it’s the closest thing to family for most of these kids, and seeing that family rally to save one of their own is heartwarming. Plus, car chases! –Sean Gaffney

Kamisama Kiss, Vol. 8 | By Julietta Suzuki | Viz Media – The beauty of Karakuri Odette was twofold: it was a medium length series of six volumes, and its romantic focus was small. These end up being a weakness, unfortunately in her new series. Much of the recent volumes of Kamisama Kiss have been taken up with wondering how long we can drag out the on-again, off-again romance/servant relationship between Nanami and Tomoe. It can be frustrating. On the up side, we do see Nanami’s cleverness here in escaping the World of the Dead, and she has improved greatly as a God. The big emotional drama in this volume, though, is saved for the end, where Nanami meets Mikage once more, who shows us why Tomoe has gaps in his memory – and why he wants Nanami to fill them. If you accept this is taking forever, it’s a good fantasy romance series.-Sean Gaffney

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Vol. 12 | Story by Eiji Otsuka, Art by Housui Yamazaki | Dark Horse – In the latest volume of KCDS, the Embalming Gang — as I like to call them — enter Second Life in search of a corpse, match wits with a girl who can leave her own body, and help a dollmaker say good-bye to the sister he lost during the 1945 Tokyo Fire Raids. The first story is the weakest of the three. Though Eiji Otsuka makes a game effort to explain how the gang’s powers work in virtual reality, the material never gels; the story feels like an grab bag of plot points from The Matrix, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and a furry snuff film. The other two, however, are more successful, offering just the right mixture of morbid jokes, spooky surprises, and poignant moments between the living and the dead. As always, Carl Horn’s exhaustive editorial notes are a boon to the curious reader, explaining cultural references, in-jokes, and sound effects in detail. –Katherine Dacey

The Story of Saiunkoku, Vol. 6 | By Kairi Yura and Sai Yukino | Viz Media – As you would expect, just because Shurei has passed the exam to become a civil servant (which she does, in a quickly elided few pages) doesn’t mean that she gets accepted by one and all. Resented for being female, she is quickly assigned to the worst tasks in the ministry go to her (we’re talking cleaning the toilets here), and those who were bullied in school may find this volume disquieting. Like most Japanese manga dealing with bullying, it rides a fine line between “she must get stronger on her own” and “why aren’t we stopping this?”. On the bright side, I like the relationship between her and the Emperor more and more, and his sneaking off to ‘be her bodyguard’ is very clever – especially since it’s becoming harder and harder to see her otherwise. With this series, the long, drawn-out romance is justified by history and events.-Sean Gaffney

Skip Beat!, Vol. 27

April 9, 2012 by Sean Gaffney

By Yoshiki Nakamura. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz.

We left off last time with Ren and Kyoko posing as siblings – and all of the awkwardness that comes from this, including having to share a room. Volume 27 does now pull back on this at all, but makes things a whole lot worse, as we get to see, for once, Ren lose control rather than Kyoko.

Before that, though, we have some highly amusing scenes in which Kyoko finds, once again, it’s hard to act method when you have no idea what something is like – in this case, being spoiled. You can tell Ren is having an absolute ball with this, and Kyoko’s faces throughout as a picture – especially as she realizes that seeing Cain acting like a petulant child is actually sort of a turn-on for her/Setsu.

This cuteness is just a setup, though. The real meat of the volume is what happens next, where Kyoko is accosted by a gang of young guys looking for “a good time”. She, naturally, sics her “brother” on them, which is fine, as Ren is quite good at dodging, and these thugs are nothing special. At least until they start pulling out weapons. When one of them knocks Kyoko to the ground, the sight of Ren losing control is rather scary. If not for us (we’ve had flashbacks spoiling us for Ren’s traumatic past for some time), then certainly for Kyoko, who is stunned. It’s made worse by the fact that she can’t break character, but has to break up the fight. Strong stuff here.

Afterwards, in the hotel room… well, we’ve done comedy. We’ve done drama. Now it’s time for some romance. Well, quasi-romance, that is – it’s only Vol. 27, after all, you shouldn’t expect any real development just yet. But Kyoko gets into character too easily, which means that if she’s worried about her brother drowning in a tub, she’s gonna walk in on him. What follows is both hilarious and sexy, showing the depth of feeling Ren has for Kyoko (and his complete misinterpretation of her reaction), as well as Kyoko’s growing love for Ren – which she’s oblivious to, of course. The highlight here has to be Kyoko upset that she didn’t see “all” of Ren… so that she could make her doll more realistic.

Meanwhile, just because Kyoko’s doing Setsu doesn’t mean she’s not also still involved in Box R. Indeed, her two roles are bleeding into each other, and it can be hard to switch. I like the way that Skip Beat! shows us that, even though Ren and Kyoko are prodigies, acting is still a difficult profession – and that even if you’re method acting, you still have to keep your head in the game. Which is definitely something Ren is having trouble doing. He begs Lory to have Kyoko “fired” as Setsu, as he worries he won’t be able to control himself around her. Lory agrees – provided Ren fires her himself, saying he “doesn’t need her”. Oh Lory, you’re such a wonderfully manipulative ass. XD

I mentioned this volume is Number 27, so it seems appropriate that it ends with everyone realizing just how much Kyoko has grown up recently – and how gorgeous she’s becoming. Poor Ren. He’ll have rivals before you know it. In the meantime, one of North America’s longest shoujo series continues to show why it’s so popular. Lots of fun.

Comic Conversion: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

April 7, 2012 by Angela Eastman 10 Comments

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz| Novel: L. Frank Baum / W. W. Norton Norton & Company | Graphic Novel: Eric Shanower and Skottie Young / Marvel Comics

When Dorothy’s dog, Toto, hides under a bed during a twister, she follows in an attempt to save him. As a result, both are trapped in the house as it’s carried away by the storm. Dorothy wakes up to find herself in a new land, and discovers that she has just killed a Wicked Witch. She’s a hero to the Munchkins, but Dorothy only wants to go home—and the only person who can help her do that is the Wizard of Oz. As she travels to see the wizard she meets a talking scarecrow, a man made of tin, and a lion who’s afraid of everything, but when they reach the end of the road will they all be able to get what they wish for?

L. Frank Baum published the first Oz book in 1900, and it became a success almost immediately. He went on to write 13 more novels in the series, and even produced a stage adaptation of the original book. And we all know that Oz has inspired movies, including one written and directed by Baum and, even more famously, the MGM movie starring Judy Garland.

It’s safe to say that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is universally recognized as a classic novel and a staple of American culture, but Baum’s great aspiration was simply to create an enjoyable story for children: “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz … aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out.” And that’s just what Baum created. With simple—but still lovely—language, Baum has carried generations of children through his rich, fantastical world full of characters that are entertaining as well as deep and real.

Baum’s story is pretty straightforward, but Dorothy and her friends experience a number of adventures both before and after they meet the Wizard (certainly many more than in the MGM film). Shanower and Young manage to find a way to fit all the adventures from Baum’s novel into the comic—but that’s not necessarily a good thing. Dorothy’s three friends are given more room to expand as characters in the side adventures, but in context of the comic, these feel like wasted time. Bits like the Lion jumping a gorge feel unnecessary, taking up little enough time to seem unimportant, but enough page space to disrupt the flow.

The comic also fails to escape the problem of using too much of the book’s original narration. Much of it is helpful for establishing the setting, but sometimes the narrative is contradictory to the illustrations, such as when Dorothy and the Scarecrow are described as walking through a “dismal country” while the art shows a bright, friendly-looking forest. Luckily the comic doesn’t rely as heavily on the narration as other, less well-crafted adaptations, such as when we first see Dorothy’s home in Kansas. Baum aptly describes the monotony of the scenery in the original novel: “Dorothy … could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side … The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass … Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color …” As imagistic as that prose is, Shanower wisely chooses not to put any of the description in his novel. Instead, Young and colorist Jean-Francois Beaulieu give us a sweeping view of the gray plains with Dorothy in her pink dress as the only spot of color.

The art works in favor of the characters as well. Adding his own touches, like a mustache on the Tin Woodman, Young inserts his own vision into the designs rather than simply copying Denslow’s original art or redrawing the actors from the movie. The personality Baum gave his characters shines through, like his roly-poly lion and his viciously cruel Wicked Witch. Young’s illustrations also increase the intensity in some scenes, such as one in which the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman fend off the Wicked Witch’s beasts. Wolves are given bright red eyes, and we see the sketchy shadows of their heads flying as the Woodman chops them apart. A silhouette of the Scarecrow snatches descending crows and crushes their necks.

It seems almost impossible to escape the over-narration problem with comic adaptations, at least those of classic novels, but Shanower manages to reduce it enough so that you’re not constantly wincing at artwork clogged with text. Shanower may have also kept a few too many of the off-shooting scenes, but he does offer those with no Oz experience outside the MGM movie a glimpse of the true depths of Baum’s characters. Young’s art is what really makes this adaptation worthwhile. His illustrations enhance the whimsical fairy tale feel of the original book, giving the comic its own life and a leg to stand on amongst the many adaptations Baum’s work inspired. Baum’s book is a classic that all fans of children’s literature should read at some point (I’m ashamed to say I didn’t read it until adulthood), but Shanower and Young’s adaptation is still a fine means for jumping into the world of Oz.

Have any graphic novel adaptations you think do a good job? Or a comic you want me to check out for you? Leave suggestions for future columns in the comments!

The Earl & The Fairy, Vol. 1

April 6, 2012 by Katherine Dacey

Meet Lydia Carlton: she’s a so-called “fairy doctor,” a healer who acts as an intermediary between the spirit and human worlds. The rapid advance of technology in Victorian England has made Lydia’s job obsolete; most people no longer seek magical remedies for their ailments, and view Lydia as a relic of a less enlightened time, someone who steadfastly clings to the belief that she can see and talk to these mischievous folk. Lydia knows better: not only are fairies real, but they continue to wreak havoc with humans, even in an age of railroads, telegraphs, and steam-powered ships.

Lydia’s predicament would make a swell basis for a manga, but her abilities are more a plot contrivance than a central element of the drama — at least in volume one of The Earl & The Fairy. The initial chapters focus on Lydia’s fraught relationship with Edgar Ashenbert, a dashing young man who claims to be descended from the Blue Knight, a legendary warrior. Edgar ~~enlists~~ kidnaps Lydia because he needs someone to help him find the Blue Knight’s sword, the location of which is inscribed on a coin that can only be read by a fairy doctor.

If you’ve read more than five or six shojo manga — or, for that matter, five or six Harlequin romances — you can guess what sort of chap Edgar is: he’s handsome, possessive, and smug, with a tender side that the heroine’s beauty and decency helps reveal. Lydia is a similarly predictable character: she’s feisty and conflicted, simultaneously drawn to and repelled by her captor. Lydia also happens to be one of the duller knives in the Shojo Beat drawer, placing her trust in anyone who approaches her; she’s kidnapped not once but twice in the very first chapter of the story.

For a grumpy old lady like me, stale, silly lead characters would usually be a deal-breaker. The lively supporting cast and lovely artwork, however, drew me into the story, even when Edgar and Lydia’s conversations inspired eyeball rolling and hair pulling. (In later chapters, Edgar narrates his tortured personal history in comic detail — it’s courtship by information dump.)

The best character in The Earl & The Fairy — so far, at least — is Nico, a magical being who assumes the form of a fussy talking cat. On one level, Nico is a standard animal sidekick, providing much-needed comic relief: in one running joke, for example, he bristles with indignation every time he’s served a bowl of milk. (He prefers wine.) On another level, however, Nico is a reader stand-in, giving voice to our frustration with Lydia’s naivete; in essence, it’s like watching a horror movie in which one of the characters says, “Don’t open that door, dude, the killer’s in there.” You don’t say.

Ermine and Raven, a sister-brother duo in Edgar’s employ, also add depth to the cast. Their backstory is pure manga: both were enslaved by a wicked “prince” working out of the sewers of an unnamed American city. After Edgar rescued them, Ermine and Raven became his most devoted servants, waiting on him hand and foot, defending him against enemies, and wooing Lydia on his behalf. To be sure, henchmen/servants are a standard manga type, but Ermine and Raven have enough idiosyncrasies to make them interesting; Ermine, in particular, is an unusual figure, a melancholy cross-dresser who seems caught between the male and female worlds.

The Earl & The Fairy‘s other saving grace is the artwork. The character designs are crisply executed; though none of the characters are especially distinguished looking, artist Ayuko draws elegant, well-proportioned figures that are pleasing to the eye. The settings are rendered with even greater care, capturing the technology and landscapes of mid-nineteenth century England in convincing detail. (Well, minus the ships: when viewed from a distance, they appear to be eighteenth-century sailing vessels, while their interiors suggest a Cunard ocean liner.) Ayuko pays similar attention to lighting; in several nocturnal scenes, she does a fine job of suggesting the meager, irregular quality of candlelight, using delicate crosshatching to mark the boundary between light and shadow.

If the parts of Earl are greater than the whole, it’s still an entertaining series. I don’t know if moody landscapes and talking cats are enough to justify my investment in all four volumes, but I’m certainly willing to read another before declaring this nice-looking romance a dud.

THE EARL & THE FAIRY, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY AYUKO, ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY MIZUE TANI • VIZ MEDIA • 186 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

The Condor Trilogy in Manhua: The Legendary Couple

April 6, 2012 by Sara K. 9 Comments

To see an example scene, please refer to the second post in this series, The Condor Trilogy in Manhua: Fighting.

The Legendary Couple is Tony Wong’s version of the second novel, Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ. Even though it’s the second novel, Tony Wong adapted this novel before he adapted the first novel.

Art

The style of The Legendary Couple, unsurprisingly, has a lot in common with Tony Wong’s Eagle-Shooting Heroes, but is less spectacular than the latter. The fights in The Legendary Couple are simpler and shorter—yet they are more confusing. There is less contrast to help readers quickly distinguish the various elements. That’s a pity, because I generally find the fights in Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ to be more engaging than the fights in Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn.

Sure, there are lots of swirls—but they are not as pretty as the ones in Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. There are also visual metaphors, but they are not as abundant or exciting as the visual metaphors in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. There are diagonals and slanted views, but not nearly as much as in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. There are also some sweeping vistas … but they are not as plentiful as in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes.

Almost everything in this manhua seems to happen at sunset or in the early evening. That’s rather appropriate. More than the other two parts of the trilogy, the second part is about things falling apart. Song China is collapsing under the weight of Mongol invasion. The main characters’ personal lives are constantly tottering on the brink of collapse, more so than in the other parts of the trilogy. The sunset and evening colors do help pull out the angst and melancholy.

Something that really comes through in this adaptation is how well Tony Wong can express characters through art. Comparing this with The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, I don’t think the characters are actually drawn better in The Legendary Couple … but because the other elements of the art draw less attention, there is much more focus on the characters. Their movements are lively, but most importantly, the drawings clearly expose the characters’ feelings.

As soon as Huang Rong has finished giving birth, Xiaolongnü prompty kidnaps her newborn daughter. If that's not melodrama, I do not know what is.

What Tony Wong really does better in The Legendary Couple than in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes is hitting the high notes of the drama through art.

I particularly like the collages Tony Wong draws when characters are remembering earlier events.

And there are various visual gems throughout the manhua—for example, this use of color vs. black and white to show how these two characters only see each other and are unaware of their surroundings.

And this is one of my favourite pages in the entire manhua because it really lets the reader put the scene together—but first, this page needs some labels.

This page so perfectly captures the tension of this moment. The captive’s mother and sweethearts want to rescue her … but they also do not want her to get hurt, which is why they are staring at the Tibetans instead of attacking them. The Tibetans know that they are being stared at, but are confident that they have the upper hand. Everybody is too preoccupied to notice the people in the top-left corner of the page … but the wildcard characters are watching everything, unsure of what they want. Suffice to say, when the tension reaches a breaking point and the weapons come out, it’s the wildcard characters who decide the outcome.

While I prefer the art of Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes for its sheer majestic sweep, I have to admit that the art in The Legendary Couple does a better job of supporting the story itself.

Adaptation

Whereas I was not able to quite lose myself to the story again in Tony Wong’s Eagle-Shooting Heroes, I did get involved in the story of Legendary Couple. It’s still a streamlined version, with some parts of the story changed and many bits removed. Some of the changes bother me (I cannot describe them without spoiling), but most of my quibbles are minor. Overall The Legendary Couple is a more complete version of second novel than Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes is of the first novel. And I think that makes the difference.

It’s still not nearly as rich an experience as reading the original novel. The details left out in The Legendary Couple often come at the cost of the pathos and the depth of the characters. This adaptation is generally quite good at conveying the melodrama itself, but it is often not so good at conveying the other aspects of the story. The soft moments do not feel so soft, the quiet sad moments do not seem so quiet and sad, and in the joyful moments the joy feels a little muted. To be fair, the silly moments—at least the silly moments which were not cut out—are still quite silly in this adaptation. I think it is not the lack of drama which makes this adaptation feel a little thin—it’s the lack of the things which nuance the drama. Nonetheless, Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ is such a passionate novel that even a watered-down version of it can still hold its own against, say, 70s shoujo manga.

Availability in English

ComicsOne published 7 volumes of The Legendary Couple in English. They are now out of print, but apparently not hard to acquire. I do not know how the ComicsOne edition corresponds to the Hong Kong or Taiwan editions, so I am not sure how far into the manhua it goes. Based on the covers, the ComicsOne edition seems to cut off somewhere in the Hong Qigong/Ouyang Feng arc. There is another manhua adapted from Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ which has been fully published in English—not to mention that the 1983 live-action drama, the 2006 live-action drama, and the anime are all available with English subtitles—so it is certainly possible to continue the story in English after the ComicsOne edition cuts off.

Conclusion

If you want a good comic to read, I would definitely recommend The Legendary Couple over Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. This manhua can definitely stand on its own, whereas I am not sure Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes would work for anybody who was not already familiar with the story.

Yet, I personally prefer Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. While The Legendary Couple is much better at capturing the spirit of the original and certainly has its moments, I feel that I did not get much from The Legendary Couple which I could not get from Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ—and the novel Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ has much more to offer. Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, in spite of its flaws, stretched my imagination. The Legendary Couple, for the most part, did not.

Discussion Question:

Which would you rather read, Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes or The Legendary Couple?

Sara K. has been travelling for the past few days (these blog posts are canned), so she has not been terribly responsive. She is now back in Taoyuan county, and should finally be replying to whatever comments people left. Currently, she is reading Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (the novel, not the manhua, which also happened to be drawn by Tony Wong).

Manga the Week of 4/11

April 4, 2012 by Sean Gaffney

THERE IS ONLY ONE MANGA OUT THIS WEEK. BUY EXCEL SAGA 23. THAT IS ALL.

…OK, there are a *few* other manga besides Excel Saga. Hrmph.

Dark Horse has the sequel to Magic Knight Rayearth, with our heroines returning to a Cephiro much changes. Expect ship wars between Ascot and Clef fans, lots of cute fluffy romance between Fuu and Ferio, and one of the few workable threesomes in all of manga with Hikaru. Guaranteed to be good CLAMP-y fun! In the genuine way, not the postmodern ironic CLAMP fun way

DMP seems to finally be releasing the 8th volume of Itazura na Kiss, with … did Vol. 7 ever come out via Diamond? They skipped it, didn’t they? God. Anyway, enjoy your favorite shoujo couple be prickly and worried at each other. There’s also another mini-manga of Moon and Blood. And for yaoi fans, Vol. 2 of Countdown 7 Days and Vol. 2 of Replica.

Kodansha has the 7th volume of shoujo thriller Arisa, and the 14th – and possibly final – volume of Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei. Please don’t Gintama this series on me, Kodansha. I will nag you hard.

NBM is releasing a single volume manga called Rohan at the Louvre, which I know nothing about but which I hear has some amazing art.

Udon is releasing the first volume of Sengoku Basara Samurai Legends, which sounds like it’s related to the series of video games based around feudal Japan.

Aside from EXCEL SAGA 23, Viz is releasing a bunch of other stuff. We get the penultimate volume of Cross Game, which I understand may have some baseball in it. A new Case Closed, a new Itsuwaribito, a new Kekkaishi. The final volume of Maoh: Juvenile remix (this last volume remixed by Junior Vasquez) (hey, if you’re going to tell a joke, tell it all). Vol. 8 of Nura, which did not ship last week for some weird reason. And Vol. 20 of 20th Century Boys, which no doubt will confuse some bookstores.

So, yeah, some other stuff. But mostly EXCEL SAGA 23.

The Drops of God, Vol. 3

April 4, 2012 by Sean Gaffney

By Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto. Released in Japan as “Kami no Shizuku” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Morning. Released in North America by Vertical.

The third omnibus of Drops of God sees the first major plot advancement in the series. After spending so long trying to guess which wine was described in the will, one of our heroes finally gets it right. Of course, that does leave eleven more. And there’s still a few other problems to solve along the way…

(Incidentally, my cover for V. 3 is different from the one above. Last minute change? Or multiple designs?)

Once again, we have a plotline about how wine is far more than just an alcoholic beverage. We left off at the end of the last volume with an amnesiac woman who only had a description of wine to link her to her forgotten past. The trouble is, she’s now married – and both she and her husband are worried that if she recovers her memories, she’ll remember she was in love with someone else. Even though it relied on a contrived coincidence (two car accidents in the past leading to tragedy?), I really enjoy the way the authors used this, showing that it doesn’t necessarily take amnesia to avoid the past. And indeed, that the future can also shape the past – when Kaori recovers her memories and discovers her old love, we see that she and her husband are not the only ones whose lives are shaped by the tragedy. Throughout this plot, wine comes into play, acting almost as a mnemonic in order to be a gateway to prior events.

We then get the battle for the first apostle, which comes down to a very interesting point: these are not ‘the 12 best wines’ that Shizuku’s father has been describing, but 12 wines that he wanted to describe. This means that the first apostle revealed here depends on it not being an outstanding wine, but rather a wine that you have to work at to enjoy. Not only can I empathize with this, but of course it opens the playing field of wine even more to the cast. As with previous volumes, we get lovingly detailed depictions of the scene they’re imagining (and that his father described), which allow you to see the similarities and differences between the two wines picked, which differ only in the year made. It’s a good scene.

Characterization of the regulars continues to be the weak part of the series, but to be fair this is a manga about wine, not about Shizuku and Miyabi. We do get a little more development of her character here, showing her first love from high school returning and shocking her by being a cold businessman, but honestly I thought the best part of the manga for her was her superdeformed jealousy of Shizuku having lunch with Sara. Any love story that happens in this series will take even longer than Oishinbo’s did (and that took 47 volumes!), mostly as when it comes to love Shizuku seems to be thick as a brick. Something lampshaded by the other cast members. Speaking of the rest of the cast, the Italian wine snob, Chosuke, gets a rather sweet little backstory showing why he dislikes French wine so much.

The volume ends with the first half of the story I mentioned above with Miyabi’s old love. It involves trying to show that brand name doesn’t always mean quality, but to do that they have to note that in terms of wine, it frequently does. Lafite and Rothschild aren’t the top names in wine just due to marketing and publicity. They’re the cream of the crop, and I liked the scenes where Shizuku and Miyabi realize what a big hurdle they have to overcome. In the meantime, they’re also searching for the second apostle. Given this is a manga series, I have a sneaking suspicion Shizuku is going to fail hard at finding it, but we shall see.

This continues to be a good solid foodie manga. The broad points (p;lot, characters) are cliched, but the writing is what makes them stand out, and shows the work of two long-standing professionals. Definitely one for your shelves… though maybe the drinks cabinet instead?

50 Shades of Morally Unambiguous, Part 4 (The Final Post I Swear!)

April 4, 2012 by Aja Romano 3 Comments

Hello, MB! This is the last post in a series of posts rebutting last week’s Dear Author series on fanfiction. (That is, I think it’s the next-to-last. Either way, I just really like saying ‘penultimate.’) It’s also the 4th and final of a sub-set of posts responding to one DA post in particular: “Fanfiction: A Tale of Fandom and Morality.”

(I know, right? you thought it was never going to end and I was never going to move on from rebutting that post. WHAT KIND OF COLUMN IS THIS, you wondered. That makes two of us, guys, that makes two of us. WELL. THIS IS THE LAST ONE, I PROMISE.)

Before I dive in here, let me just issue, once again, the disclaimer that everything I write here is based on my own experiences and encounters with many different elements and aspects of many different kinds of fandoms. I have what I believe is a pretty broad perspective on fandom in general, but none of my thoughts on fandom should be taken as declarations of universal truth. If anyone wants my full and complete fandom bibliography I’ll happily provide it, but you really don’t want it because it’s long and boring and also includes this really awkward year where I was in the Kevin Spacey fandom. Trust me, let’s just not go there.

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world to JOIN MY CULT :DDDDD

J/K, Boy-o, it’s cool.

In the previous three posts, I talked about the ways in which trying to police how influence works itself out in fiction is nearly impossible, and ultimately bad for the works on either side of the equation. I also talked about how it’d be a bit hypocritical for us to do that in the case of 50 Shades of Grey, our current controversial work of fanfic-turned-pro, given that one of the things publishers want writers to do is to appeal to the audience who shelled out for Twilight. In my last post I also discussed the potential for remix culture to change the way we think about creativity and the origins and ownership of creative ideas.

Now. There are a couple of potential negative aspects to this admittedly warm-fuzzy and optimistic scenario of industry free love. One of them Has mentions in her original post, and others I’ve had conversations with fans about throughout the past couple of weeks. They seem to boil down to the following arguments:

pro-fic can threaten fandom by damaging the implicit “no profiting off fanwork” code between fans and creators, thereby causing authors to be, as Has puts it, “more proactive in protecting their books from fanfiction.”

pro-fic can damage the quality and kind of fannish output, because instead of writing in order to critique specific canons, writers will come to fandom purely to exploit it and gain fanbases for their original works. We have already seen a bit of this in the Twilight fandom, according to Twilight fans themselves.

pro-fic can alter the nature of fandom by jeopardizing the free-exchange and alternative profit structure that fandom has going for itself.

I think these are all really good points, and there’s precedent for each of them. However, the construction of each argument removes autonomy from fans–millions of fans–who have been operating within their own spaces long enough to know exactly what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Take, for instance, the case of Fanlib, which was an infamous site begun in 2007 which attempted to exploit fan creativity in order to make money for corporate creations. The backlash from my corner of fandom against the whole idea of Fanlib was so strong that it partially fuelled a movement within fandom to create multiple platforms, blogging communities, archives, and even the non-profit organization for fan advocacy that would become the Organization for Transformative Works. All because many of us realized that if we didn’t create our own spaces that people outside of fandom would be all-too happy to exploit it. Former Fanlib user aurimyonys has a great post about realizing what was problematic about the site she loved:

In the end, what is niggling at me here is the idea of corporate invasion into fan fiction – making the things we write fit their molds rather than ours (there was indeed a brochure from the Fanlib company referring to the fan scripts and contests they ran, separate from the Fanlib website, that said fans’ creations were made “to fit in the lines, as in a coloring book”). That basically destroys fan culture. Fan culture allows fans to play with worlds in unique ways. If what we are permitted to do suddenly is assigned a strict formula, that kills fandom. Really and truly.

And that, my friends, scares the hell out of me.

Fandom has a proven track record of withstanding attempts by outsiders or TPTB to take it over, shut it down, or dictate to it. But is professionally written fanfic a kind of corporate invasion? I don’t think so, and the main reason I don’t is because the overlap between pros and fans, as I’ve previously discussed, has always been there. Policing the interplay between them is literally impossible whether the policing is coming from fandom or from copyright holders. The other main reason is that just like with every other creative field, one or two breakout successes don’t suddenly create an entire overwhelming trend of for-profit fics. The reason 50 Shades is getting this much attention is because its success is so unprecedented; there have been plenty of other bestsellers based on fanworks, absolutely, but always tacitly so. Fanfiction that was openly converted into original work which then became a bestseller? This has never happened before. To me, the far more amazing and phenomenal fact about all of this is that members of Twilight fandom actually built and created their own publishing houses in order to truly bypass the gatekeepers of publishing; but that aspect of 50 Shades’ success isn’t really being talked about in the media to any degree. And even when you look at the dozens of dozens of Twilight fics that have been converted into original works, they’re absolutely nothing against the millions of Twilight fanfics that are happily co-existing for free alongside them. Literally, millions. I haven’t actually counted the number of Twilight fanfics over on FF.net, but it’s probably at least 3 million or so. Probably much more. One bestselling fanfic-turned-original work, balanced against all of the others that are still being produced within the culture of free exchange that the majority of fandom is happy to uphold? That’s just simply not a threat to fandom, any more than it is to Stephenie Meyer.

This is also the part where I point out that nearly half a million people on Tumblr alone know what “OTP” stands for. Fan culture is evolving and changing all the time, but it’s converging with mainstream culture in ways that actually strengthen it, not weaken it. Tumblr fascinates me because the whole site is so synonymous with fandom at this point that you really can’t extricate fans who identify themselves as being part of “fandom” from all of the other fans who simply reblog, like, and participate in fandom jargon and culture without realizing that’s what they’re doing. And when you consider that all of this fandom activity is directly supporting the creators, it becomes clear that outsiders don’t need to exploit fandom, because fandom is already a juggernaut of profit-making for any creator with sense. If it wanted to, fandom could prove a formidable enemy to copyright, but it clearly doesn’t want. Its own internal resistance to the idea of for-profit converted fic makes that abundantly clear. (I am telling you, thank goodness Sherlock Holmes is public domain, because if he wanted to, Benedict Cumberbatch could probably summon his own mini-army of fans to overtake copyright and leave it squirming on the floor begging for mercy. )

Once we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must JOIN MY CULT

(Twice.)

What’s more, fandom’s respect for its canons actively works to protect creators from those who actually would infringe upon their copyright. Anyone remember Kaavya Viswanathan? When fans of Megan McCafferty got their hands on copies of the book, they instantly twigged that there was plagiarism afoot, and they helped document passage similarities while the story was still breaking. The irony here, of course, is that Viswanathan herself was a huge fan of McCafferty; and not to apologize for her plagiarism, but if we take her statements–that she unconsciously internalized McCafferty’s novels and reused her language accidentally– as being true, then I can’t help but feel that if she’d been a part of a fandom where there was a community around McCafferty’s language and story concepts, then she would have been more self-aware when writing her own works, less likely to plagiarize whole chunks of language and scenes from McCafferty, because that impulse would have been channelled into the creative transformation that fanwork affords.

There’s one final thing that I’ve not yet touched on in each of these posts, and that is the basic question: is for-profit fanfiction ethically wrong?

I say no, and here’s why. I have written numerous articles and blogged many times about how the publishing industry does all of the following things to books because they think it will make them more marketable:

whitewashes book covers
tries to erase queer and genderqueer characters from narratives, and often succeeds
queerwashes book covers to make butch, trans, or androgynous characters appear more binary gendered
thinwashes narratives and book covers
puts most of its financial and marketing support behind primarily white narratives
perpetuates the idea that minorities and women will read stories about white men, but white men won’t read stories about minorities and women, which turns into an awful catch-22 of a self-fulfilling prophecy that has nothing to back up a compelling contrary prevailing belief, because none of those other stories get told.
contributes, generally, to the danger of a single story

I believe that all of these extremely common occurrences within the publishing industry are immoral. I also believe that reclaiming heteronormative narratives, making them our own, and diversifying them, offering up alternatives to them, is far more ethical than supporting a hoary traditionalist system that wants to erase me, my friends, and other cultures besides my own. Which is why I believe that taking narratives out of the hands of the gatekeepers of traditional publishing–agents, editors, publicists, book-buyers–and putting them directly into the hands of people who want to read them can only ever be a good thing.

It doesn’t matter that most people wouldn’t find a book of BDSM erotica like 50 Shades of Grey particularly progressive or groundbreaking. To me, its function as a response to a literary phenomenon, its creation entirely within a fandom community, and its being placed directly into the hands of people who wanted to read it are all hugely progressive events. I believe every 50 Shades that a fandom produces actually paves the way for us to have more voices telling more stories, doing more things with narrative and modern technology, and telling more stories to more and more people. I believe that all of these things work to diversify our existing pools of literature, whether we’re writing the next Wide Sargasso Sea or the sixth millionth iteration of a SasuNaru fic where one of them gets turned into a bunny.

I tried to find a more descriptive picture of Naruto as a Bunny, but I got sidetracked by wondering whether or not Benedict Cumberbatch would want to be part of my cult. Ben, if you're reading this, please know that you're very welcome to do so. We've already established Colin Firth as a minor deity, which tells you we're very Brit-friendly! Join us! Also we could use the membership boost that your presence would inevitably accompany. Just saying.

Source: Pixiv.Net

Plenty of people within fandom disagree with me, incidentally: there are many people who feel that trying to prove that all fanfic is transformative or empowering is a snooty and constricting activity, and I think that’s a valuable viewpoint too. To me, fanfic that is just produced for purposes of escapist entertainment is still transformative, because it’s still free work that’s being published for love and joy, and that still is a kind of response to established traditional means of producing literature. What gets me really excited is the idea that the millions of fanworks that exist can be all of these things at once: dialogic, monologic, pure porn, escapist, profound, literary, shallow, something in-between, or none of the above. And it’s still, all of it, working to increase the number of perspectives that get heard, the number of voices that get to speak. Fanfic that gets converted and published is still helping to do all of these things.

And what could be more “moral” than that?

The Condor Trilogy in Manhua: Tony Wong’s The Eagle Shooting Heroes

April 3, 2012 by Sara K. 7 Comments

This is part three in a seven part series about the Condor Trilogy and its manhua adaptations.

Example Scene (be sure to click on the pictures for a bigger size!)

The theme of this round of the contest Huang Yaoshi is hosting between Ouyang Ke and Guo Jing is music, and – oh, who cares? I didn’t pick this scene because of the plot. I picked this scene because it’s pretty.

I really like the presence of swirling things in this manhua. The music coming from Huang Yaoshi’s flute is no exception.

This manhua is occasionally punctuated with a page which is meant to pop. The “pop” pages usually are done in pastel, and consist of a single panel. However, even though the left page is the “pop” page, my favorite panel here Guo Jing on the right, as he stops worrying about the fact that he knows squat about music and just listens. It helps that there is yellow fog/music/something swirling around him in that panel.

One of the things that helps keep the action clear is the alternation of panels showing close-ups of the characters faces and panels showing the action.

Yes! I love the copious use of visual metaphors to represent the action! Here, the sea represents the music. And notice how the orange sound waves contrast with the blue sea waves. The blue-orange color theme continues for the rest of the scene.

Look at the bottom-left panel. Not only has the sea metaphor been expanded to include a whale, fish, and dragons, but the way Huang Rong’s face pops in close up and at an angle makes this panel perfect. Her face connects the turbulence of the sea and Guo Jing’s tranquility.

Notice how in the top-right panel, the sharp-pointed, orange, concave diamond Guo Jing is inside contrasts with the blue sea swirling around it. Guo Jing’s extended arms reinforce the pointy nature of the diamond, while the mer-people’s curved tails reinforce the wavy nature of the sea. It’s the multiple layers of visual contrast which makes that panel so dynamic—of course, it’s also pretty.

There are many things I can say of the page where Huang Yaoshi is dancing and playing the flute around the seated Guo Jing, but I’ll stick to the colors. Notice that Guo Jing is blue, which is the opposite color of the orange swirls around him—maximum contrast. Huang Yaoshi, of course, is green, which does not constrast quite so much with either blue or orange, so, colorwise, he forms a soft border. And to reinforce the theme of the blue/orange contrast, in the background there is a blue/orange yin-yang.

By now, you should appreciate how wonderful the swirls, color contrasts, and visual metaphors are. And yes, Guo Jing wins this round.

About Tony Wong and his adaptation of Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn

Tony Wong is called “the godfather of Hong Kong comics.” He has been publishing manhua since the age of 13, and has since become an institution of Hong Kong culture. More Jin Yong novels have been adapted by him than any other manhua artist.

This manhua, first published in 2007, is a relatively recent Tony Wong work, and he definitely had an army of assistants help him make this. That doesn’t matter. What matters is how good is it to read.

The Art:

Once in the while, I have the pleasure of reading a comic where the art is so good that, after finishing a volume, I am compelled to immediately go back through the pages so that my eyes can rest some more upon the pictures. This manhua is one of those pleasures.

I am impressed by the way that the art manages to be detailed and complex without looking too busy. I am not completely sure how Tony Wong pulls it off, but I do have some ideas. First of all, this comic is in color. Tony Wong uses colors to increase the contrast between different things, which increases the level of detail each panel can sustain without losing the reader. Look at this page (and click on the picture to see it in full size!).

In this page, the main color theme is green against red-orange, two colors with a high contrast. This helps my eyes figure out quickly where one object begins and another one ends. While I didn’t notice it while casually reading the comic, looking through the pages again, I see than most scenes have 2-3 key colors which form a theme, which not only helps distinguish things inside a given scene, but also helps set that scene apart from the scenes with different color themes.

Especially impressive are the fight scenes, which in spite of being long and complicated, are lively, varied, and easy to follow. Looking at the extras sections, it becomes apparent that a lot of planning had to go into the battle scenes to get this result – there are illustrations of all Guo Jing performing all 18 of the “Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms,” as well as Huang Rong performing all of “Dog Staff Technique” moves. Taking the time to distinguish every individual move helps a lot to keep the fights interesting and readable.

In addtion, the high level of detail supports many wonderful flourishes in the linework. Swirls and circles are in abundance, like frosting on the cake.

I also love the constant use of visual metaphor. There are little visual metaphors throughout the comic, like pretty little flower petals casually left in the wake of a pacing young lover saying “He loves me… he loves me not…” For example, this:

Hong Qigong hurls some buckets of water at Ouyang Feng, turning the water into dragons.

I love that Hong Qigong can turn buckets of water into dragons!

Of course, the big, bold visual metaphors come out when it’s time to fight! It helps the reader keep track of what’s going on, and even better, it’s exciting.

The artwork alternates between regular coloring and pastel work. At first, this jolted me a little, but I got used to it quickly. The pastels generally come out to emphasize the expression of a certain character or to highlight a key moment in a battle. Usually there is only one pastel panel every few pages or so, or a full single or double page spread done in pastel. When the pastels are used differently, it feels even more special.

Seeing so many panels in pastel together really drives home that this is as special scene. And pastels are also warm, soft, and fluffy, like the characters’ feelings for each other.

Wait a minute, the pastels are stopping. Uh oh…

Yep, something is definitely wrong – in the story, I mean. There is nothing aesthetically wrong with the way Mu Nianci has poised a sword at her own throat.

While Tony Wong is not a master of showing subtle feelings or complex personalities through drawings, the characters all feel quite lively with a little spring in their step, keeping the energy level high.

And overall, the art evokes a greater-than-life grandeur. The frequent use of slanted angles makes the artwork more exciting, the costumes are often lovingly rendered, and palaces, islands, cliffs, and all sorts of grand sights make the world seem bigger than life.

The Adaptation

This is the whirlwind edition of Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn. The story has been greatly streamlined. Many details, and even some story arcs, have been removed, pretty much leaving just the essence of the plot intact. This allows the story to move—and move it does. Sometimes things happened so quickly that I felt like I got whiplash. However, the fast pace keeps the energy high, and makes the comic all the more sweeping.

There is also a strong emphasis on the battles. Many battles run 20+ pages. This allows Tony Wong room to fully flesh out the battles with sophisticated yet easy to understand moves. The battles are a lot of fun to read.

However, because the story has been so stripped down and the battles are given so much room, the characters and the pathos are greatly dimished. While the characters do not ring false, with so many details removed, they feel much less rich than in the original novel. And while the characters are given many pages to punch each other, the scenes which are meant to punch the readers in the heart often only run 4-10 pages. This is not really enough pages to let the impact sink in, especially when the reader is quickly swept to the next event. I do not think this adaptation of Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn will make anybody weep.

One exception is the backstory of Yi Deng, Yin Gu, and Wan Botong. This manhua actually goes into their history in greater detail than the original novel, and gives sufficient room for the reader to feel the tragedy. That said, this manhua still did not make my eyes wet with this story arc, whereas the original novel did.

In short, this adaptation fails to bring out the melancholy, tragedy, and passion of the original story … and succeeds at bringing out the fun and excitement with flying colors.

Guo Jing, Huang Rong, and Hong Qinggong are running out of a giant snakes mouth - with lots of snakes chasing them.

Whee! Doesn't that look fun?

Availability

This manhua, to the best of my knowledge, is totally unavailable in English, or any language other than Chinese. That is not a big deal. If one already knows the story of Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn, understanding the dialogue is unnecessary.

Conclusion

I knew these characters really well before I read this manhua. Therefore, even though many of the details that fleshed them out are missing, I still know those details, and filled them in as I read this manhua.

I only recommend this manhua for fans of Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn. Much of the story has been gutted—I think it would be very hard to get involved in characters’ struggles if this was a reader’s first contact with the story.

For me, this manhua truly was a pleasure to read. It made Jianghu look more lovely, spectacular, and wonderful than it ever looked inside my own head. It was like watching a friend coming to the ball looking like the most fabulous person in the world. Thank you, Tony Wong, for expanding my imagination.

Which brings me to the discussion question:

Which adaptations have you seen or read which, while clearly inferior to the original work, expanded your imagination or showed new sides of the story?

Sara K. has previously written for Manga Bookshelf: Why You Should Read Evyione Part 1 & Part 2, Mary Stayed Out All Night, and The Geeky Heart of Taipei. Her personal blog is The Notes Which Do Not Fit, though there is not much about comics or East Asian pop culture over there. She is a vegan, atheist, Linux user, ace, loudmouth, and the person in the back of the classroom who is always clicking her pen.

Bookshelf Briefs 4/2/12

April 2, 2012 by MJ, Sean Gaffney and Michelle Smith 3 Comments

This week, Sean, MJ, and Michelle look at recent releases from Viz Media, Yen Press, Kodansha Comics, and SuBLime Manga.

Bamboo Blade, Vol. 12 | By Masahiro Totsuka and Aguri Igarashi | Yen Press – There’s a lot of silly fun in this volume, and most of it requires you to be familiar with the sentai genre. North American fans would best think of Power Rangers. Given that, there’s some hysterical mocking of it here, as well as some great poses. Most of the volume, though, serves two purposes: giving Usra a reason to return to kendo (which is not the “oh, wait, I love kendo all along” reason everyone thought it would be), and giving Tamaki a genuine challenge. We’ve seen TV savant Erina set up to be good at anything she does, so the cliffhanger shouldn’t be surprising, but we were all expecting Tamaki vs. Ura, so it is anyway. Everything is set up for the big finale, but will it be the finale we were expecting? Recommended to fans of sports manga and fun comedy.-Sean Gaffney

Cage of Eden, Vol. 4 | By Yoshinobu Yamada | Kodansha Comics – We have slightly less fanservice in this volume – which still means more fanservice than almost any other manga on the market, mind you – but that’s probably because things take a darker turn here, and the body count starts to pile up. There’s murder, attempted murder, rape, attempted rape, and more murder in these pages, which have more of a Lord of the Flies feeling than ever. Unlike Lord of the Flies, though, the adults on the island can be just as mercenary and villainous as the teenagers. In the end, though, it comes down to Akira – shonen hero extraordinaire, thinking on his feet and protecting the others – vs. Kohei, who panicked under pressure and is now sliding further and further into darkness in order to cover that up. It’s violent and servicey, but still a riveting thriller.-Sean Gaffney

Dawn of the Arcana, Vol. 3 | By Rei Toma | Viz Media – Visitors from a neighboring kingdom bring Princess Nakaba some new inter-palace strife, but they’re also responsible for the introduction of an enigmatic new character who so far provides more genuine intrigue than either of Nakaba’s current love interests. Furthermore, both Nakaba’s heritage and her supernatural ability are finally gaining some real dramatic traction, and even the story’s royal politics have begun to be interesting. Though the series’ romantic trajectory still remains pretty much standard, its plot and characterization have now taken the lead—never a problem for this reader. I described volume two as “tentatively recommended,” but I’m happy to report that this recommendation has now become more solid. – MJ

A Devil and Her Love Song, Vol. 2 | By Miyoshi Tomori | Viz Media – Following up on a strong first volume, A Devil and Her Love Song catapults from “good” to “great” here, as “Devil” Maria struggles with both a desire to reach out to her evolving circle of friends and her inability to gauge the impact of her own words on the brave few willing to stand with her. It’s refreshing to read a modern shoujo manga in which everyone is truly, deeply flawed, and no amount of “doing their best” can fix it. Even better, mangaka Miyoshi Tomori manages to do this while deftly avoiding both the syrup and cynicism that alternately pervade stories about high school “mean girls.” Happily, too, Tomori’s supporting characters continue to be just as interesting as her lead, including passive classmate Tomoyo, whose emerging backbone offers the promise of some awesome female friendship—one of my very favorite elements in shoujo manga. Definitely recommended. – MJ

Devil’s Honey | By Isaku Natsume | Published by SuBLime – Tasked by his superiors with reigning in a gang of punks at the school where he teaches, Toshimitsu Sugaya is surprised to learn that their leader, Yoshino, has not only been unfairly judged, but is also willing to obey his instructions without any argument. Turns out that a few years before, Sugaya inspired a runaway Yoshino to return home and stay out of trouble, and Yoshino has regarded him as a hero ever since. This being BL, these feelings become love soon enough, and after some token resistance due to the teacher-student taboo, the two get together. Honestly, there’s not a whole lot here that’s out of the ordinary, but that doesn’t stop it from being a pleasant read. It also seems to be one of the tamer offerings from VIZ’s new SuBLime imprint, if that’s more your speed. – Michelle Smith

Fairy Tail, Vol. 18 | By Hiro Mashima | Kodansha Comics – I wasn’t as enamored with Fairy Tail 17 as I have been of the series in the past, and while 18 suffers from some of the same problems – Mashima’s battles just don’t excite me as much as they should – this is still a definite improvement, mostly due to the concentration on character relationships. Natsu and Lucy get some excellent scenes together (and some ship tease too, even lampshaded), the villains get a bit more development, and even Leo and Aries get to be cute yet angsty. Best of all, though, is Erza, dealing with Jellal back before her eyes and amnesiac to boot. Her angry exhortation that it is better to live with the pain and guilt than taking the easy way out via death. Which, of course, she knows from personal experience. Still not sure where this is going, but it’s picked up again. –Sean Gaffney

The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan, Vol. 5 | By Puyo and Nagaru Tanigawa | Yen Press – One of the best reasons for Haruhi fans to read these gag comics is that the character suffer great humiliation in ways that really only Mikuru seems to in the original. Seeing Haruhi so flummoxed by cats and crows, to the point of tears, is fantastic. Even better is the bodyswap episode, which gives us an opportunity to see Yuki acting like Haruhi. But best of all is the sheer lunacy of seeing Koizumi, off on an enforced vacation, being replaced by Arakawa-san and getting away with it. From the start, as he quickly turns the entire SOS Brigade into his disciples, to the ending parodying uber-serious 70s anime, it’s things like this that make me come back to this series over and over. Still better than the manga adaptation it’s parodying.-Sean Gaffney

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Vol. 4 | By Kenji Kuroda and Kazuo Maekawa | Kodansha Comics – Despite being comedic, the original Phoenix Wright games all revolved around murder, and could get quite dark and depressing at times. So here we have a story of a daughter accused of killing her father, and she’s shown to have endured a life of abuse – we see her father hitting her in the head with a kendo sword, and it’s shown that she wears a head bandage constantly. That being said, there’s some real mood dissonance here, also very common in the original series – the actual way that the father was murdered is so silly it almost undercuts the entire story. The second case, which we only get half of here, has fewer high points but also fewer moral ambiguities. Fun fluff for fans of the games, but not recommended otherwise.-Sean Gaffney

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol. 4 | By Naoko Takeuchi | Published by Kodansha Comics – You know, I think this might just be the best volume of Sailor Moon yet. Not only do we meet a new guardian in the form of Sailor Pluto, we also learn a little bit more about Sailor Jupiter’s daily life and watch as Sailor Venus gets frustrated trying to figure out the enemy and starts actively seeking answers. Various secrets and enemy motives are revealed, and though the majority are familiar to a long-time fan like me, there were some surprises, too, as I had completely forgotten that, in the manga, Tuxedo Mask has, like, actual powers! Even some awkward dialogue and a sigh-inducing “it’s” instead of “its” could not mar my enjoyment. At least they fixed “Sparkling Wide Pressure!” – Michelle Smith

Psyren, Vol. 3 | By Toshiaki Iwashiro| Viz Media – This series is probably never going to be in anyone’s list of top Jump properties, mostly due to it relying on hitting the basic shonen points. At the same time, those basic shonen points are the equivalent of eating beef stew – it’s not glamorous, but it fills you up. So we get a villain who is actually someone that Hiryu knew from before, now supposedly betraying them. We also get a volume filled with battle, as we’re back in the Psyren world for virtually the entire volume. People’s psychic powers are awakening, because that happens. And our hero and heroine get a chance to be badass and capable, which is always enjoyable. Honestly, there’s nothing here that will convince me this is great, but it’s not mediocre enough that I want to stop reading it. It’s good at what it does.-Sean Gaffney

Is This A Zombie?, Vol. 1

April 2, 2012 by Sean Gaffney

By Sacchi and Shinichi Kimura. Released in Japan as “Kore wa Zombie desu ka?” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dragon Age. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Now, let’s be fair. I knew I wouldn’t like this title when I ordered it. As I’ve noted before, I sometimes get things I hate in order to bring more ‘balance’ to my blog – see my review of Qwaser of Stigmata as an example. And honestly, any title that ran in Dragon Age is guaranteed to get me looking at it warily, similar to Champion Red. Sadly, though, Is This A Zombie? is merely bad, and not laughably bad.

This is essentially one of those manga where the premise is ‘guy living with lots of cute girls of various tyes’, but the author can’t really be bothered to give us much backstory on them. character development for Haruna and Sera in particular is minimal, with the two of them fulfilling the usual moe fetish tropes – Haruna is the loli tsundere, and Sera is the violent kuudere. Amazingly, by the way, this is not actually the worst of the adaptations – there’s an ‘alternate universe’ manga running in Comp Ace called ‘Yes, She’s Your Bride’ that is basically this only with less monster fighting and more naked harem antics. The mind boggles.

There is meant to be a certain amount of self-parody here, I suspect, but it’s the kind that’s done by people who think putting ‘ironic’ in quotes is ironic. The sleazy fanservice winks at you, but wants to have it both ways so the wink doesn’t fulfill its function. There’s also our hero’s magical girl outfit – excuse me, ‘magikewl’ girl (Yen explains why they translated it that way, and I agree it works, but I still hate it) – which of course is designed for laughs. Even the layout of the manga itself screams ‘self-aware comedy!’. It’s just not very good at that.

This is actually a shame, as there are a few moments in the manga where it briefly gets serious, and they show a definite leap in quality. These tend to revolve around the third girl, Eu, who is the quiet Rei Ayanami-esque character. She’s the one who resurrected Ayumu and turned him into a zombie in the first place, and like many other emotionless girls in anime/manga, her emotionless state is actually a plot point. Ayumu’s advice to her, and his decision to take whatever fate throws at him in order to make her life easier, is about the only time in the entire volume I liked him (he is otherwise a sarcastic pervert, one of the new breed of harem leads who are a reaction against the nebbish “Tenchi” type, but seeing a perverse guy not sleeping with all the women chasing after him is even more irritating than seeing a ‘pure-hearted’ type not do so).

Yen’s translation is fine for this type of series – it’s very colloquial, and at times read like a dub, but the original was no doubt just as colloquial. There’s lots of sentai and giant robot references, all explained in Yen’s copious endnotes. Sadly, absent from the endnotes is an explanation of why they licensed this at all. Admittedly, it *has* an audience here, unlike Sasameke. This title will appeal very much to the harem-anime-downloading, body-pillow-buying, waifu-proclaiming males out there. For everybody else, read pages 130-145, realize that the rest of the manga is nothing like that, and find something else.

Off the Shelf: Moon Child

March 31, 2012 by MJ and Michelle Smith 21 Comments

MJ: “There is this fish.”

That’s the sentence that first comes to mind when trying to describe Reiko Shimzu’s Moon Child, the subject of this week’s Off the Shelf. I hear it in my head, a la the Boy from Jones & Schmidt’s The Fantasticks. “There is this fish.”

Let me see if I can do a little better. I first became acquainted with Moon Child by way of Shaenon Garrity’s Overlooked Manga Festival, which she begins with the sentence, “How insane does a manga have to be in order to be the insanest manga I’ve ever read?” She goes on to describe Moon Child, and I don’t know whether it was simply due to her delightful writing style or the truly bizarre train of thought behind Moon Child itself, but it was an article that seared itself into my brain forever. I’ve probably shared that link with more people since the first time I read it than anything else I’ve found on the internet, and that’s saying quite a lot.

Eventually, curiosity got the best of me, and I started collecting the series—if only to confirm that what Shaenon had presented to me could really, honestly exist. Result? It does, exactly as she describes it, and though it’s probably one of the most problematic manga I’ve ever read (on quite a number of levels), it’s also one of the most beautiful and one of the most intriguing.

MICHELLE: I am not exactly sure how I started collecting Moon Child. It was probably something along the lines of, “Ooh, look, here’s some more shoujo from CMX. Shoujo from CMX can’t be bad!” I bought the volumes religiously and have actually owned the whole series for a while without ever reading it… until this past week. And yes, indeed, it is quite insane!

MJ: So in the interest of helping our readers better understand all these cries of “Insanity! Insanity!” let me see if I can describe the basics of Moon Child‘s plot.

There is this fish.

No, sorry, I promised better. Okay. So. Art Gile is a former ballet prodigy whose career was abruptly stalled in his youth, thanks mainly to his inability to deal with the success of his partner, Holly, whom he’d helped along on the road to stardom. Now Art is a failed Broadway dancer with anger management issues and a tendency towards domestic violence. Driving back to his apartment after a bad audition, Art strikes a young boy with his car, sending both of them to the hospital. Though the boy appears physically uninjured, he seems to have lost his memory. Feeling responsible for the boy’s condition, Art unofficially adopts him, naming him “Jimmy.”

(read right-to-left | click images to enlarge)

As it turns out, “Jimmy” is actually an alien mermaid named Benjamin, still in a sort of genderless larval form. Though, by day, he looks like a pre-adolescent boy in a suit and bow tie, moonlight transforms him into a beautiful (female) mermaid with long, flowing hair and soulful eyes and the inability to speak when it counts. We soon learn that these mermaids, scattered all across the universe, return to earth every six hundred years or so to spawn a new generation. We also learn that Jimmy/Benjamin is a descendant of the actual “Little Mermaid,” and that her entire clan is dedicated to making sure that Benjamin, unlike her mother, will appropriately mate with a merman instead of falling for a human, thereby thwarting a prophesied environmental catastrophe certain to wipe out their entire population.

(read right-to-left | click images to enlarge)

Complicating matters further, Benjamin is left to the care of her two siblings, Teruto and Seth, who have long been instructed that their purpose in life is to see that Benjamin matures into an egg-bearing female and mates properly, at which point they will merely dissolve into foam.

Seeing that Benjamin may potentially defy her duty by falling for the human, Art, her siblings battle (not quite successfully) the desire to remove her from the picture so that one of them can properly take her place.

MICHELLE: But the siblings are unable to actually do anything to Benjamin themselves, so Teruto, the more active of the pair, strikes a deal with the same witch who brokered his mother’s bargain to become human, and ends up possessing Gil Owen, the heir to an influential investment group, which results in the story being all about Chernobyl and Gil’s exceedingly convoluted plans (I am not even sure about this) to get Art to come to Kiev and then drive him so insane with the belief that Benjamin will destroy the world that he kills her. From a story that starts off about mermaids it really is entirely, as Shaenen Garrity wrote, all about water pollution.

MJ: Though there are numerous details we’ve declined to mention so far, as you can see, the series’ plot is fairly… esoteric. Furthermore, as I mentioned in the beginning, the series is problematic on a number of levels, including the visual age gap between “Jimmy”‘s usual form and that of his romantic prospects (Art, of course, and a merman named Shonach who is captivated by Benjamin’s beauty), his cheerful acceptance of Art’s physical abuse, and the highly unfortunate depiction of the mer-people’s prophet, Grandma, as a cross between a minstrel show caricature and a woman from the Burmese Kayan Lahwi tribe. (Click if you really want to know.)

But amidst all the crazy plotting, questionable characterization, and possible racism, there is a poignance and a unique beauty to this manga that is difficult to fully convey, though we’ll certainly do our best. And I hate to jump right to the ending, but I’ll admit that the series’ final volume—which provides two different possible endings, without making it fully clear which one is real—pretty much redeemed all its faults for me in one go. How often does that happen?

MICHELLE: The ending is very interesting, indeed! I will say, though, that leading up to it is a lot of stuff that doesn’t make a lot of sense, and for me, once you’ve reached the critical mass for “wtf” it spills over into “whatever,” so there were certain aspects of the conclusion that didn’t affect me as much as they might’ve, though there were a few subplots I liked very much.

MJ: I have a feeling there will end up being a bit of a divide here between us at some points—not because I think things necessarily made sense, but because that doesn’t matter nearly as much to me as it does to you. But I expect the conversation will be lively! So, why don’t we start off with some of the things we most liked, and then move on to the rest later? Where would you like to begin?

MICHELLE: With the twins. Really, I thought they were the most interesting aspect of the story, much more so than crybaby Benjamin who beguiles men purely on the basis of being lovely. I sympathized a lot with Teruto, who was bitter at having sullied his soul to provide for his gentler siblings and was to be rewarded for all that he had done with dissolving into foam. I also really enjoyed Seth’s journey, as after Teruto embarks on his plot for revenge he is given a chance to spread his wings and become more independent. I rooted for his relationship with Shonach from the start and enjoyed just about everything involving them up until the final volume. I didn’t care about Jimmy/Benjamin and her love for Art nearly as much.

MJ: I think I’m sort of half with you and half not. I absolutely agree with you about how fascinating the twins are, and I love the fact that though Teruto is, ultimately, the villain of the story, he’s also one of the most relatable characters by far. It’s pretty much impossible not to understand his resentment over his fate, which seems tragically unjust, and his devotion to Seth is quite moving. Seth’s journey, as you say, is also one of the most interesting aspects of the series, and he ends up being the character we care most about in the end.

On the other hand, I’m not quite with you on either the Seth/Shonach relationship or your feelings about Benjamin/Jimmy. I have to admit that I kind of hate Shonach. Probably he doesn’t deserve it—I realize that—but it really bothers me that his obsession with Benjamin’s beauty (her beauty only—he doesn’t care about her as a person at all, really) keeps him from being able to appreciate the best parts of Seth, to the point that even at the end, when Seth has matured into a female, he can only see her as Benjamin. That the only expression of true affection Seth ever really gets from Shonach is when he believes she is Benjamin really breaks my heart.

(read right-to-left | click images to enlarge)

Also, I admit I really do care about Jimmy/Benjamin, and I see her as being wronged pretty much throughout the story. She’s not responsible for her pre-destined role as this super-important mermaid who holds the fate of her race in her hands any more than Teruto or Seth are responsible for their pre-determined futures as bubbles of foam. Benjamin doesn’t want to mesmerize men with her beauty. If anything, she wants to be able to live indefinitely as Jimmy, so that she can preserve the relationship she (inexplicably) treasures with Art. But with everyone tugging at her fate from every side, what she’s got is a lot of unwanted attention from Shonach (for all the wrong reasons), a deteriorating relationship with Art (who is incapable of accepting her as an adult woman), and everyone and their mom out to kill or ruin her in one way or another. If I were Benjamin, I’d cry too!

MICHELLE: You know, it never occurred to me that Shonach was to blame for his fixation on Benjamin, but you’re absolutely right in terms of the limits of his feelings and how that blinded him to Seth most of the time. And yeah, I know that Benjamin doesn’t mean to mesmerize men, but… maybe Teruto’s plight just resonated with me extra strongly for various personal reasons, and so I came to regard her much like he does. I certainly didn’t feel this way about her in the beginning!

Also, I think I could’ve liked Benjamin more if I had really seen what she saw in Art, but because I couldn’t it affected the way I perceived her feelings for him. Of course, one can have genuine feelings for shitty people, but I got so irked at various times that my capacity for being thoughtful was impacted. It didn’t help that she—incapable, as Teruto pointed out, of doing anything for herself—eventually seemed to be trying to ruin Art so that he would kill her.

MJ: I can definitely agree that it’s really difficult to understand what Benjamin sees in Art. For my own various personal reasons (heh) I can understand her desire to help him rise up out of his professional slump so that he can regain his self-esteem, and he also proves his devotion to her in many ways throughout the course of the series, and I can see why she’d desire that, especially from someone outside the mer-world where she’s valued only as a sort of angel/demon icon. But it’s so difficult for me to swallow his abusive tendencies, that my view of him is ultimately pretty negative.

On a different note, one of the characters I ended up liking most by the end was Holly, who I’d hated early on for her manipulation of Art and her cruelty towards Jimmy. I was actually pretty surprised that I could end up liking her as much as I did, given where we started. But by the end, she was one of the few likable characters left.

MICHELLE: Speaking of Art’s profession, I did wonder whether the parts where we actually see him performing were among your favorites!

I never entirely warmed to Holly, but it did seem that concern over her brother’s fate—he’s in Colombia when an earthquake strikes—tempered her bitchy tendencies in a major way, and she was actually pretty horrified by what Gil was attempting to do, and much more attuned to there being something really wrong than Art, who was basically like, “I’m responsible for my sponsor’s injury so I will do whatever he says, especially if that happens to be touring a nuclear facility.”

Another unexpectedly fun character is Gil’s personal secretary, Rita. I admit, she’s quite a favorite for me. Tall, large, and unlovely, Rita harbors a crush on Gil even before Teruto takes possession of his (secretly terminally ill) body. When Teruto realizes her psychic gifts can amplify his own powers, he makes her his right-hand woman, and quells her questions with sex. I was disappointed that she turned out to be crazy, but her bizarre actions did help ratchet up the tension.

MJ: I loved Rita! I hate that she’s easily manipulated by her interest in Gil, but I can understand it, and really it only made me feel more indignant on her behalf. I suppose I, too, was disappointed that she turned out to be crazy in the end, but she wasn’t any crazier than Teruto/Gil by that point, so I was still rooting for her on some level. I kept sort of hoping she would ultimately prevail, but I’m not even sure what that would have meant. I am sad that she never got to see how her crush on the real Gil might have played out. I suppose she would have had little chance (even if he wasn’t dying) but I really hated the way she was treated by Gil’s overprotective sister, and I would have loved for the sister to have been proven wrong for real. You know. Not just because her brother’s body got taken over by the soul of a vengeful alien mermaid.

And to answer your earlier question, yes I really did love the parts where we saw Art actually performing! I loved all the ballet stuff, actually, including the bits with Artem Zaikov, the Russian dancer who (for his own personal reasons—I guess we shouldn’t spoil everything) has it in for Art, but who ultimately won my heart by way of his charming family.

MICHELLE: Characters who look like Rita are so rare in manga that I think it’s utterly natural to root for them and hope they will prevail. Which… I suppose in a way she did, but not in a way that made her feel any better about herself.

And I was just going to ask you about Artem! When Gil was first introduced, I thought, “Wait, who is this guy?” It soon became clear what his story was, however. Shimizu duplicates this feat near the end, with Artem’s introduction providing another “Wait, who is this guy?” moment that eventually proves pivotal to the climax of the series. I really liked him, and was especially impressed by the way his dancing was drawn—I swear, Shimizu was able to perfectly capture the ways in which his style differs from Art’s.

(read right-to-left | click images to enlarge)

MJ: Yes, she really does! I feel pretty strongly that Shimizu must be a real ballet fan. Okay, I’m going to end up spoiling things after all, here, but it seems likely to me that she based Art and Artem’s mutual father, “Rimsky” on the legendary Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky (despite entirely glossing over his sexuality), right down to the mental illness that ultimately ended his career, and she passed down some of his defining characteristics to Artem.

Among other things, Nijinsky was known for his sensuality and androgynous appearance onstage, which is exactly how she characterizes Artem. There’s a little Nureyev in there, too (which is more appropriate to the time period), but I feel like her real interest is Nijinsky. And despite Artem’s claim that it’s Art who is “the reincarnation of Rimsky,” it’s Artem who most resembles what we know of Nijinsky, body type notwithstanding (Nijinsky was kinda stocky).

Vaslav Nijinsky in Le Spectre de la Rose E. O. Hoppé, 1911

MICHELLE: Check out MJwith the ballet knowledge!

I think Shimizu likes the idea of parental characteristics being split between siblings. Rimsky’s look and style are passed down to Artem, but his must-kill-love-interest-she-is-dangerous traits are passed to Art. Meanwhile, Seira’s love for the human prince is inherited by Benjamin, while her love for her original mer-person fiancé is embodied in Seth.

MJ: Oh, what a smart observation, Michelle! I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re absolutely right. With that in mind, it becomes even easier to understand Teruto’s tragedy. He’s the only one of Seira’s offspring to receive basically nothing from her. I think one of the most poignant moments in the series is the flashback in which Teruto overhears one of their caretakers talking about the fact that it’s really only Benjamin and Seth who are priorities, because Teruto is (essentially) barren. And since these mermaids seem to be valued only for their ability to bear eggs, they might as well be saying that Teruto has no soul. It’s that devastating.

MICHELLE: You can’t see me, but I am nodding emphatically. Teruto’s entire purpose is to protect the other two; he’s not destined to have any future of his own. Really, though, none of the mer-people are, as we learn late in the series (and I can’t tell if this was planned all along or what) that they will all die shortly after spawning. I feel like Shimizu could’ve emphasized the biological imperative a bit more—early on, there are many comparisons to fish, along with visuals of the spacefishies returning to Earth, but at the time we didn’t know that this would also be their final journey. Though, I guess if I were really up on my ichthyology, I might’ve expected it.

MJ: Mostly, I feel that revealing this late in the story was really effective. I thought it was kind of a brilliant way to suddenly change the reader’s perspective and it’s interesting, too, because it simultaneously makes things seem both more and less urgent, in terms of the relationship issues we’ve been following the entire way through. But since we’ve managed to stumble on one of the areas where you feel Shimizu fell down a little, let’s steer our way in that direction. I’m sure you’ve been bursting all along with the need to scream, “BUT IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!” Am I right?

MICHELLE: Not exactly bursting, and (perhaps surprisingly) not at all over the general concept itself. Once something crosses that surreal threshold, it becomes easier to accept whatever kooky setup the creator wishes to explore. But certain particulars of the plot did bug me, like “Why do these guys love Benjamin?” or, most significantly, “How does Teruto/Gil doing all this stuff accomplish his goal of having Seth turn into a female and bear eggs?”

MJ: Well, I think the first question we pretty much have to chalk up to Benjamin’s physical allure, which is made out to be pretty spectacular in a very specific, fantasy-driven way. Benjamin is drawn as a classic fairy-tale princess, all wide eyes and golden, billowing hair—a stark contrast to all the sleek, modern women in the series, like Holly. I think we’re supposed to pretty much take it as a given that all men are helpless in the face of that kind of beauty.

The only reaction that is a bit more complicated is Art’s, since he’s more attached to the (in his mind) sexually null Jimmy. By the way, am I the only one who noticed that Jimmy seems to get younger and younger as the series goes on? At first it really bothered me, but after a while I started to think that Benjamin might be achieving that by pure strength of will, in her ongoing effort to try as hard as possible to be what Art most wanted her to be— almost like some kind of automatic defense mechanism. Like a chameleon.

Regarding Teruto/Gil… well, I think it becomes pretty clear after a while that Teruto is much more driven by his need to destroy Benjamin than he is by his desire to put Seth in her place. I mean, the idea is supposed to be that if Benjamin dies, Seth will be the next in line to mature into a female. But it certainly seems like this could have been accomplished much more easily by other means. Somehow.

MICHELLE: Yeah, I don’t think Chernobyl needed to blow up in order for Benjamin to die. A suggestion to Rita would’ve done the trick, I’m sure.

I’m glad you mentioned that about Jimmy, because I definitely noticed it, too! There’s one scene in volume three (pages 86-87) where her size is extremely variable. Sometimes he looks more five than twelve! I wondered if it was intentional on Jimmy’s part, but Art doesn’t react at all, so I suspect it’s a Shimizu issue.

(click image to enlarge)

MJ: And when we first see Jimmy, she looks pretty much exactly the same as Teruto and Seth do later on, which is to say maybe mid-to-late teens. Originally, I thought maybe Shimizu changed her mind about Jimmy’s visual age to avoid dealing with any issues regarding Jimmy’s sexuality except when she appears as Benjamin, and maybe to avoid Art having to be confronted by that as well. But I was never really sure.

MICHELLE: Yeah, me neither. Probably “never really sure” is just a state of mind one has to become accustomed to with Shimizu’s works.

Alas, no others have been licensed in English and aren’t likely to be now that CMX has disappeared. (Please bow your heads for a moment of silence.) I have thirteen volumes of Princesse Kaguya in French waiting to be read, though, and her josei series Top Secret is also coming out en Français.

MJ: I really would like the opportunity to read more of her work. As weird as Moon Child is, it feels really… I don’t know… organic. And I think Shimizu’s omake sections are actually really telling, here. I don’t always read these, but I poked through a few of hers, and my immediate impression was, “Oooooh, this is what it’s like in her mind all the time.”

MICHELLE: Yeah, those are really kooky! The two robot characters who feature in the omake, Jack and Elena, star in a string of stories by Shimizu, beginning with Milky Way, so they’d be familiar to her regular readers. It makes me wonder if, in some subsequent series, there might be similar omake starring the cast of Moon Child!

MJ: So, before we wrap up, I just want to gush a little bit about Shimizu’s artwork. You know I’m a huge fan of shoujo from this era, and really, there could be no better example of why that is. I chose a scene from this series back on our Let’s Get Visual column Celebrating the Pretty, and seriously that is still one of my favorite sequences of all time.

(read right-to-left | click images to enlarge)

Yet, I’m leafing through the books now, and page after page, I’m seeing visuals that just pretty much blow me away with their haunting beauty, like the dream tidal wave in volume seven, or the creepy, creepy fish inquisition in volume eight. In many ways, it’s the series’ weirdness that makes it work so well for me, visually, because it’s so well-suited to Shimizu’s artistic mind.

MICHELLE: That wave! Here’s what I wrote about it in my notes: “A… very trippy sequence with a wave ensues.” There are many strange and lovely sequences in the book.. I was disappointed that we saw less and less of the fishy manifestations as the series went on, but I believe that’s tied in to Benjamin’s form stabilizing as she matured. I also really liked the exquisitely detailed line drawings that frequently appear in between chapters.

Another thing that impressed me was Seth’s female form, who was so very beautiful—more than Benjamin, even—and entirely feminine, and yet everything about her mannerisms still made it clear that she is Seth. She actually appears on the cover before she appears in the manga, and I blinked for a second in puzzlement and then got geekbumps when I figured out who it was.

MJ: Oh, you’re absolutely right! Honestly, I felt chills through the entire scene in which Seth finally transforms. Not only is she so completely, utterly Seth, but the way Shimizu reveals the transformation, in rapid, chaotic spurts, just as Seth must be experiencing it, is absolutely stunning.

MICHELLE: I just got geekbumps again thinking about it. Although I admit, I have to squash the logical part of my brain that’s demanding to know how she and Shonach did the deed when she was in her neither male nor female state.

MJ: I feel that adolescent mermaid sex is one of those things we’re just better off not really thinking about.

MICHELLE: I cannot help but concur.

MJ: You don’t know this yet, but I’ve been going pretty much crazy here with scanning in artwork. There’s just so much I want to share with our readers. I know that Moon Child is in many ways a great big mess, but honestly this is the kind of series I most long to see more of in English. It’s just so beautiful and so unique. There are a lot of current shoujo series that I love very much, but it’s this stuff that I really hunger for as a reader. It’s something I can’t get in any other medium. Not like this.

MICHELLE: I wish I could be hopeful that we’ll see more manga like this in the future, but taking chances in this business doesn’t seem to pay. Every series has its faults, and Moon Child is not an exception, but that doesn’t mean I’m not infinitely grateful to CMX for making it possible for us to read it.

MJ: I most certainly am. And yes, I know that historically these series have not been strong sellers. I guess all we can really do is to continue to write columns like this, in hopes of getting more readers interested in the kind of manga we wish we could see more of.

More full-series discussions with MJ & Michelle:

Full-series multi-guest roundtables: Hikaru no Go | Banana Fish | Gerard & Jacques | Flower of Life

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol. 4

March 31, 2012 by Sean Gaffney

By Naoko Takeuchi. Released in Japan as “Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

The fourth volume of Sailor Moon, and Jupiter gets the cover! Unfortunately, we’re also in the middle of a ‘have the senshi get abducted one by one’ arc, so she gets the first chapter and not much else. As with the Mercury and Mars chapters, we see Jupiter bonding with a friend of hers, this one male. It seems pretty platonic, though, at least on her end. We also get the revelation that her parents are both dead from a plane crash, so she lives on her own in a swank apartment. No idea where she gets the money… Rich relatives? Settlement from the crash? Honestly, most of the senshi are well-off. Even Usagi and Minako, the two most likely to be whining about not having any money, don’t seem to be hurting.

But in any case, soon Jupiter joins her friends in ‘captured off screen’ land. Venus is theoretically the next chapter, but honestly she’s not in it much. Presumably as Minako had an entire manga series devoted to her own personal life, she didn’t need a chapter that shows who her friends are and what she does on her days off. What we’re more concerned with is Chibi-Usa and the new enemies (who I will just start calling the Black Moon Clan, as that’s who they are). Chibi-Usa is settling in nicely in the past, and has even made a new friend (Momo will be Chibi-Usa’s designated friend till Hotaru basically replaces her in SuperS and Stars). But she’s still in denial about what’s going on, and actually seems to have some sort of PTSD (and with good reason, as we shall find). So Usagi is worrying about that, to the point where Naru and Umino are concerned. Remember them? Naru here even admits she knows Usagi is part of “another world that she can’t enter”. True enough, Naru, the author will forget you again soon.

Venus is abducted as we expected… but this time Usagi and Mamoru get there in time, and Mamoru gets a bit of powerup (albeit a ridiculous one: Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber is not in the anime, which tended to make Mamoru less powerful and more jerkassish). So Venus gets to stick around and help question Chibi-Usa, who has finally broken down and admits the truth: she’s from 1000 years in the future. And the future is in danger from the same folks abducting senshi. So, after a brief stop at Mamoru’s to get it on… oh, yeah, about that. Chapter 19 has Chibi-Usa basically terrified, so she wants to stay at Mamoru’s apartment. Usagi goes along, and after discussing things and various reassurances, they start to kiss and fall onto his bed. Then it’s the next morning, and Chibi-Usa is looking out the window. Usagi and Mamoru come in, Usagi wearing the same dress she had on last night and Mamoru’s dress shirt. So, nothing may have happened… or something may have happened. Most fans of Usagi and Mamoru’s romance think of this as their ‘first time’.

So we’re off to the 30th Century, something which is basically forbidden. So forbidden, in fact, that another senshi arrives to stop them! Yes, Sailor Pluto debuts here, though at this point in the story she’s still basically trapped in one place, at the Gates of Time. She’s devoted to stopping intruders, even if that means Sailor Moon and company (which makes no sense, but we’ll assume it’s some preventing paradox thing). Luckily, Chibi-Usa shows up, and it’s revealed that she and Pluto are close. In fact, the 30th Century, for all its crystal utopia, seems to be a very lonely place, as Chibi-Usa is mocked for being relatively powerless by the other children (she’s also 902 years old, something so gratuitously broken I don’t even want to get into it. Pretend that line doesn’t exist.), and Pluto’s stoic duty is only relieved by visits from Chibi-Usa (who she dotes on) and Endymion (who she seems to have a small crush on, as noted by her blushes here.)

Ah yes, Endymion. Arriving at the desolate wasteland of corpses that is the 30th Century, we meet King Endymion, aka Mamoru, who is a phantom but can at least interact with the others. We also meet, encased in crystal, Neo-Queen Serenity, aka Usagi, the future ruler of the planet. This is not really a surprise today, and honestly I don’t think it was meant to be back then either. Chibi-Usa is their daughter, and we also meet Luna and Artemis’s daughter Diana. Unfortunately, Usagi is still having difficulty with the whole ‘Mamoru loves his daughter more than me’ thing, and runs off to get captured.

I haven’t talked much about the Black Moon Clan here, but Prince Demande deserves a special mention here as being a loathsome creep. He’s not the true big bad in this arc… that would be Wiseman, who gets the cliffhanger for this volume… but he’s the equivalent of Beryl, and it seems appropriate that he has an obsession with Usagi the way that Beryl did with Mamoru. He even forces a kiss on her, much to her horror. (One note about the odd continuity here. After going to the future and getting told the plot, the senshi quickly go back to their home era… only to pretty much immediately have to return after Usagi storms off and gets captured. Why bother going back at all? No wonder Pluto gets annoyed when they arrive… the Time Gate must be a revolving door.)

We end this volume with Cibi-Usa being the one doing the running off, and running into a fortune-telling black cloud of evil called Wiseman. As with all black clouds of evil in Sailor Moon, this is not going to prove to be a good thing. Not for our heroes, not for Chibi-Usa, and especially not for Pluto. But that’s for Volume 5.