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Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: B

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From the back cover:
From its sharply satiric opening sentence, Mansfield Park deals with money and marriage, and how strongly they affect each other. Shy, fragile Fanny Price is the consummate “poor relation.” Sent to live with her wealthy uncle Thomas, she clashes with his spoiled, selfish daughters and falls in love with his son. Their lives are further complicated by the arrival of a pair of sophisticated Londoners, whose flair for flirtation collides with the quiet, conservative country ways of Mansfield Park. An outsider looking in on an unfamiliar and often inhospitable world, Fanny eventually wins the affection of her benefactors, endearing herself to the Bertram family and readers alike.

Review:
I feel very much that I ought to love Mansfield Park, Austen fan that I am, but I simply can’t. With any Austen novel—satirical as they are—one is bound to encounter excessively foolish and self-aggrandizing characters. I fully expect that and am accustomed to disliking a few in each novel. I did not, however, expect to dislike nearly everyone, which is lamentably the case with this novel.

Fanny herself is the biggest problem. She’s meek, weak, weepy, and irksomely virtuous, to the point where other characters annoyed me simply because they gave her fodder for her hand-wringing. Her cousin Edmund, our ostensible romantic hero, isn’t much better. He’s a wet blanket, too, fond of lecturing others about what is right, but also a hypocrite, since his objections to the scandalous idea of producing a play at Mansfield Park are easily overcome when he learns one additional man is required to play the suitor of his lady friend, Miss Crawford.

Everyone else is self-absorbed, indolent, or deluded to varying degrees. Though Fanny’s personality is the biggest blow to my enjoyment of the novel as a whole, the character I hate most is actually Mrs. Norris (though at least with her I can feel assured that this doesn’t run counter to Austen’s intentions). She’s Fanny’s aunt, a frequent visitor to her sister and brother-in-law at Mansfield Park, and is fond of claiming charitable acts for herself that she actually had no part in executing, getting into everyone’s business, and making snide remarks about Fanny at every opportunity. No wonder J. K. Rowling named Filch’s cat after this odious woman! The only character I truly like is Fanny’s uncle, Sir Thomas, for he’s one of those gruff but kind paternal types that I can’t help but love.

The plot itself, like Austen’s other novels, involves the social interactions of several country families, with the importance of marrying well uppermost on everyone’s minds. The back cover blurb quoted above says that Fanny “wins the affection of her benefactors,” but that implies that Fanny actually does something to bring this about. In reality, Fanny pretty much sits back, sticks to her principles in refusing one undesirable suitor, and, when he is proven a rake and her female cousin disgraced, is suddenly valued for all of her propriety.

Thus brings us to the inevitable conclusion, wherein Edmund realizes that Fanny would make a better wife than Miss Crawford. There’s no romance leading up to this, since he spends the majority of the novel longing for the latter and often employs Fanny as his confidante in this regard. Though I am probably supposed to be happy for Fanny at this outcome, I instead find it pretty icky. True, Fanny has sheltered romantic feelings for Edmund throughout the novel, but he has always treated her very properly like a close relation. In fact, as he ponders the match, he holds hopes that her “warm and sisterly regard for him would be foundation enough for wedded love.” To that I must say, “Ew.”

Although I had plenty to complain about, Mansfield Park is still an Austen novel, which means that the writing is excellent and the characters vividly drawn and memorable. Though it’s my least favorite of the four I’ve read so far it by no means decreases my regard for her in general.

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, Vol. 1

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By Motoro Mase
Published by Viz, 216 pp.
Rating: Mature

“Obedience is the key to happiness,” proclaims the government of this manga’s dystopian society–a tenet upheld by the National Welfare Act, a law that dictates standard immunizations for every first grader in the country (a country that greatly resembles modern Japan). What is special about these immunizations is that approximately one in one thousand of them contains a tiny capsule that settles itself in the recipient’s pulmonary artery. Then, on a pre-determined date sometime between the affected citizen’s eighteenth and twenty-fourth year, the capsule ruptures, killing the person instantly. Because nobody knows who has received a capsule, the law is said to make people value life more and conduct more productive lives, ever mindful of the shadow of death.

Anyone who opposes the law is injected with the capsule, as Fujimoto, the series’ protagonist, witnesses for himself on the first day of training for his new job. Fujimoto’s job is as a Messenger–a government employee responsible for delivering ikigami or “death papers” to those who are destined for government-mandated death, informing them of the exact date and time of their unfortunate fate. The ikigami are delivered to the person’s residence precisely twenty-four hours before the appointed time so that the individual may decide how to spend the last twenty-four hours of his or her life–one of the primary subjects of this volume. In the final chapter, Fujimoto’s manager explains to him, “Depending on how a person lives their last day, the ikigami can be a death sentence, or an invitation to really live,” and though on the surface, this might seem to make sense, it also highlights the most problematic philosophy presented in the story.

Fujimoto delivers two ikigami during the course of this volume, one to a store checkout clerk who is haunted by his past as a target of his former schoolmates’ intense bullying, and one to a musician just on the brink of artistically unfulfilling commercial success. The most interesting portions of this volume are the stories of these two young men and their individual reactions to receiving an ikigami. Though their choices in the last twenty-four hours of their lives seem quite different on the surface–one turns to revenge, the other to liberation–both are acting on their deepest regrets, and it is this that is the great tragedy of Ikigami.

Despite the government’s insistence that the National Welfare Act helps people value their lives, to a great extent this only seems to happen in these young men’s final moments, which begs the question of whether or not the “obedience” these people are so proud of is actually just the product of plain, ordinary fear, so deeply ingrained into their way of life that it is maintained unconsciously, with little thought given to its cause. After all, appreciating life and fearing death are not the same thing. Giving this very well-plotted manga its due, however, it seems quite likely that this could end up being the point, as by the end of the volume Fujimoto is clearly having non-government-approved thoughts about his role in all this, and there are enough hints throughout the book to suggest that he may not continue to walk the straight-and-narrow.

Everyman Fujimoto is the perfect guide to take readers through this grim world–part Death Note, part 1984 (though more starkly real than either of them). It is the government that is the serial killer in this story, doling out doom with a tight, corporate smile while failing to recognize (let alone address) the real suffering of its constituents.

That Yosuke Kamoi, the young man whose school years with a group of bullies left him permanently disfigured, could have lived the life he did in this “obedient” society, proves just how little part the government plays in people’s day-to-day lives. Yosuke lived his life tormented by his peers, with his negligent Big Brother only stepping in to deliver the final blow. For most of these people, the ikigami is something that happens to others–distant, anonymous people who have nothing to do with their lives. Despite the government’s best efforts, the darkest oppressor hanging over these people’s daily existences is that which they create for themselves and for each other. It is this that makes Ikigami feel so real and enhances its sense of horror.

Mase’s art is bold, stark, and heavy on contrast, effectively portraying the bleak reailty of its world. The characters’ faces are wonderfully expressive and specific, with a level of nuance one might expect from live actors, and the character designs provide the detailed realism found primarily in seinen manga.

This manga is smart, compelling, often chilling, and relentlessly dark though never for its own sake. With its fascinating concept, tense storytelling, and sharp, clean art, Ikigami is a real page-turner–impossible to put down through the very last panel.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Samurai 7, Vol. 1

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Remake or retread? That’s the question facing critics whenever someone updates a classic novel or favorite film, be it Pride and Prejudice or The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. A remake brings new urgency or wit to the original story, new clarity to its structure, or new life to a premise that, by virtue of social or technological change, seems dated—think of Philip Kaufman’s The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which infused a 1950s it-came-from-outer-space story with a healthy dose of seventies paranoia, or Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, which featured a leaner, meaner script than his 1934 original. Retreads, on the other hand, evoke the letter but not the spirit of the originals, embellishing their plots with fussy details, slangy dialogue, or new characters without adding anything of value—think of Ethan and Joel Coens’ deep-fried version of The Ladykillers, which was louder, cruder, and longer than the 1955 film, yet decidedly less funny.

Samurai 7, a mangafication of Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai, falls somewhere between these poles, treating the source material respectfully without adding anything particularly new or interesting to the mix. The basic plot remains the same: a poor rural village hires seven samurai to protect them from a band of thugs who steal their rice and enslave their womenfolk. Though the manga takes minor liberties with the main characters—one is a headless cyborg, one is a bishonen who always seems to be falling out of his yukata—the samurai bear a strong resemblance to Kurosawa’s original crew, both in terms of their personalities and functions within the group. The manga also preserves the war-ravaged atmosphere of the original, substituting a robot-fueled world war for the carnage caused by sixteenth-century daimyo.

Such fidelity to the source material proves Samurai 7’s undoing, however, as it underscores just how lackluster this adaptation really is. The story unfolds in fits and starts, bogging down in lame comedy and windy speeches that stall the samurai’s inevitable posse formation. Though the fight scenes are competently executed, the artwork has a sterile, perfunctory quality, as if the layouts and character designs were traced from four or five different sources. The mecha elements seem especially incongruous when juxtaposed with the story’s sixteenth-century costumes, buildings, and weaponry; there’s never any compelling rationale for their inclusion, save a desire to surpass the original film’s “wow” factor.

I offer these criticisms not because I view Kurosawa’s original as a sacred text, but because Samurai 7’s creators made such a calculated, unimaginative effort to sex up the material for a new generation of fans. Alas, no amount of bitchin’ gadgetry can compensate for poor pacing, generic artwork, or flat characterizations, even if later volumes promise more samurai-on-robot action. My suggestion: skip the manga and rent the original film. Toshiro Mifune is much fiercer than anything in this samurai-lite adaptation.

SAMURAI 7, VOL. 1• BY MIZUTAKA SUHOU • DEL REY • 224 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Her Majesty’s Dog, Volume 1

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Good morning, folks! I’ve been on a bit of a crazy schedule, so I’m behind on answering comments to yesterday’s entry. I will work on doing so later tonight! Thanks for such a great response! In the meantime, here’s a quick review for today:

Her Majesty’s Dog, Vol. 1
By Mick Takeuchi
Published by Go!Comi

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Hey, Sensei?

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By Yaya Sakuragi
Digital Manga Publishing, 200 pp.
Rating: M (18+)

Isa is a high school math teacher who discovers, not uncommonly, that one of his students has a crush on him. What’s unusual about this student, however, is that he happens to be a boy, Homura, who is also the younger brother of Isa’s ex-girlfriend. At first believing Homura’s advances to be a joke perpetrated in retaliation for his sister’s broken heart, Isa resists, despite recognizing his weakness in the face of Homura’s charms. Homura perseveres, Isa eventually succumbs, and the two of them begin a relationship.

Though this student-teacher relationship is problematic from the outset, putting aside Isa’s blatant irresponsibility as a caretaker of young minds, the story is really quite charming. The mutual history of the two characters gives them a place of intimacy to start from that helps to soothe the worst concerns, and Homura is so self-aware, it’s difficult to feel that he’s being taken advantage of. Both characters are lonely misfits of a sort—even Homura with his good looks and popularity with girls—and it’s gratifying to watch them finding a sense of belonging with each other as the story goes on. Though Homura’s impatience nearly causes him to take Isa by force at one point, thankfully he realizes this is not at all what he wants and does not go very far with it.

Yaya Sakuragi’s art is also a highlight. Her faces are expressive (both in the main feature and in the short extra story, “Unbreakable Bones”) and her lanky character designs help to alleviate worries about the age difference between Isa and Homura as well, as Homura’s body is unambiguously adult.

With its sweet, idiosyncratic characters and warm love story, Hey Sensei? is easy to recommend to any fan of the genre.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Ruminations on Grading

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First things first, I have a review in today’s Manga Minis, for DMP one-shot, Hey Sensei? which is definitely my favorite of their BL offerings I’ve read so far.

Now it’s time to get around to my final topic from the poll! Originally in my head, this was called “The Futility of Grading,” but the more I thought about it, the more I realized what a silly thing that was to say. It’s not that grading is futile, just that it is tricky and subjective. I might not like being asked to assign a grade to something, but as others have pointed out, it does provide a shorthand for letting the reader know if you liked something or not. Or does it? Heh.

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Nodame Cantabile, Volume 1

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First, just a quick link to a review of mine over at Manga Recon’s Otaku Bookshelf column, for the second and third volumes of DMP’s The Guilty, a series of yaoi novels I had extremely mixed feelings about. And now, a quick review of something a bit more my style!

Nodame Cantabile, Vol. 1
By Tomoko Ninomiya
Published by Del Rey Manga

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The Guilty, Vols. 2-3

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By Katsura Izumi, Illustrated by Hinako Takanaga
Published by Digital Manga Publishing

Toya Sakurai is a young editor of mystery novels for a struggling publisher who has just scored a huge success for his company with a new book from best-selling author, Kai Hodoka. What no one else knows is that while working on the project, Hodoka also became Toya’s lover through a bizarre series of pool games in which Toya paid for his losses with his body. Now that the book has been finished, Toya isn’t sure where he stands with Hodoka and is desperate to find out, but his timidity and Hodoka’s incommunicative nature keep getting in the way. Meanwhile, Toya begins work with a new, young author, Amano, whose straightforward manner and obvious feelings for Toya only make things more confusing. As these volumes continue, Toya struggles against his own insecurities to try to understand Hodoka’s feelings, while also battling a rumor about their involvement which forces the question of whether or not they should reveal their relationship publicly.

This series has so much potential to be fun, solid romance, but it is unfortunately dragged down repeatedly by the rather appalling treatment of Toya’s sexuality and his physical relationship with Hodoka. Most of their frequent sexual encounters read like assault, with Toya begging for relief from Hodoka’s sadistic treatment of him. Though it is clear that Toya truly desires Hodoka and even initiates their encounters from time to time, these scenes are irrevocably tainted by Toya’s constant feelings of shame and humiliation, which Hodoka encourages and obviously enjoys. Late in the third book, Hodoka actually rapes Toya outright, purportedly to give Toya a much-needed reason to break up with him. The fact that this ultimately is explained away as an act of kindness is fairly shocking by itself, but what’s most disturbing is that this scene is not appreciably different from most of their other sexual encounters, aside from Toya’s use of the word “rape.”

The most distressing element of all this, however, is the author’s emotional and physical portrayal of Toya. Having discovered his own sexuality after years of simply feeling no real attraction to anyone at all, it is understandable that he would be confused by his own emotions and desires, and perhaps even believe that he should be ashamed of them. What’s appalling is that this point of view seems to be shared by the author, who not only spends a great deal of time describing in detail how Toya’s manhood is degraded by his desire, but actually treats him as though he is equipped with female genitalia and experiences the physical responses that go with it. It is difficult to decide whether this is more demeaning towards Toya or to the series’ female readers, but either way it is deeply unfortunate.

Regrettably, these problems dominate what would otherwise be a nicely engaging romance series. Toya is an immensely relatable character, struggling to balance career success with romance for the first time in his life. As he juggles his shaky affair with Hodoka along with young Amano’s feelings for him, he realizes too late that his fear of conflict and desire to be kind to everyone may actually result in a great deal of hurt for others–an important but painful lesson too often ignored by most people. Hodoka, too, is quite a poignant character, obviously deeply damaged by his past, and though early on it is difficult to understand why Toya would stay with him when sweet, open Amano is right there waiting in the wings, over time it becomes clear how much good Toya and Hodoka might do for each other, if only they stayed out of the bedroom. Near the end of the second volume, Hodoka begs Toya to teach him how he wants to be loved, and for one shining moment it seems possible that he might learn real tenderness and help Toya to shed his shame over his own body, but by the end of the third volume this hope remains sadly unfulfilled.

Ultimately, The Guilty offers some nice characterization and real emotional depth. Unfortunately it is not enough to balance out the uncomfortably humiliating sex scenes or homophobic self-loathing of the series’ protagonist.

Review copies provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Why Twitter?

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This is a bit out of order in terms of the poll, but since my mother is one of the readers who most wanted to see this post, I’m going to let her trump all. :)

Lissa Pattillo recently blogged about manga publishers and bloggers/reviewers she’s found on Twitter, and as one of those I felt a bit inspired to talk about my own experience there, especially since the thing I hear most from non-users is, well, “Why?”

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My Thoughts On Yaoi Manga, Part II

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So I’m starting with this topic because it received the most votes, but I’ll be talking about each topic on the poll within the next week or so, and posting some reviews as well, so hopefully I will please everyone!

It’s kind of stunning now to go back to my original thoughts on yaoi, not because the things I have problems with in the genre have changed, because they really haven’t (though I probably have some new things to add). What’s changed is that I have finally nailed down what exactly it is I’m looking for in a boys’ love story, and the simple truth is that it is exactly what I’m looking for in any story, no more, no less.

I’ve read arguments from time to time (made by people I respect a lot, mind you) about certain things only being “okay” in a BL story–things they would not accept in any other kind of story. And while I can see the point that these things are potentially unavoidable in the vast majority of the genre, I still don’t like them, and wouldn’t purposefully read something with those elements included unless there was a lot of what I do like in there to balance the scale. So in this entry, instead of talking about what I don’t like in yaoi/boys’love/whatever, I’m going to talk about what I do.

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Lunchtime indecision

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My mind is quite scattered today. I spent my unusually long commute this morning (thanks, construction season) pondering Great Truths of Our Time, such as “Dunkin’ Donuts has better coffee than McDonald’s,” and “Those who ignore ‘yield’ signs are douchebags,” and since then I’ve encountered quite a bit of online conversation that has caused me to develop Deep Thoughts. First, some comments in Michelle’s blog got me thinking about my futile struggle with assigning grades in reviews, followed by an e-mail exchange that gave me a few new thoughts on yaoi (and wow, reading that old post, I’m struck with how much clearer a perspective I have on the subject now). Finally there came Lissa Pattillo’s post about Twitter which inspired some reflections on my own tweeting experience. In the end, however, here I am at lunchtime with no real direction to speak of. So I put it to you, dear readers (poll after the jump):

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Click 3 by Youngran Lee: B-

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From the back cover:
Joonha, the transgender headcase, and Taehyun, the hotshot rich kid, are actually becoming buddies—so much so that they even team up to take down a card shark at the casino Taehyun’s family runs. Is the friendship about to turn into something… more?

Meanwhile, figures from Joonha’s past keep popping up—and stirring up real trouble. His old friend Jinhoo, now a star piano player, is back in Seoul and not going anywhere. And former nice girl Heewon: is she really as nasty as she acts, or is it all a front? Could she be the reason why brainy Jihan suddenly isn’t wearing his glasses anymore?

Review:
I’m not sure what it is about Click that makes it so addictive. I think perhaps the emphasis on character relationships over anything else is partly responsible, because the plot itself is pretty much just day-to-day things, even though what passes for day-to-day in Taehyun’s life is his stepfather accusing him of being gay, plotting business takeovers, winning at high stakes poker games, et cetera.

Also, now that the mechanics of Joonha’s gender change are out of the way, the uncertainty of the other characters regarding her true gender is pretty interesting. Taehyun’s definitely attracted to her, but unable to really convince himself she’s a girl. Heewon, despite Joonha telling her outright that she’s a girl (though she made up a story about having been a girl all along) is in denial and insists to her friend that Joonha’s a guy. And Jinhoo is completely clueless, though the volume ends with a cliffhanger in which he seems poised to find out (or to at least spot Joonha in a girl’s uniform).

I also love the wordless reunion between Jinhoo and Joonha and the fact that when Joonha tells Taehyun she’s starting to like him, she doesn’t mean romantically (at least, I don’t think so), but rather means that she wants to be like him, a cool badass kind of guy. I can almost like Joonha now, but her nasty personality emerges once again when confronted with Jinhoo’s girlfriend. I also can’t stand Heewon, with her profanity, violence, and propensity for ordering people around like they’re her servants.

I think of a B- as meaning, “I enjoy this despite its flaws,” which fits Click pretty well.