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Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

roundtables

Off the Shelf: Tokyo Babylon

July 25, 2012 by Danielle Leigh, MJ and Michelle Smith 10 Comments


Warning: This roundtable contains spoilers for the entirety of Tokyo Babylon.

MJ: So, I’ll be honest, here. Though I am very anxious to see what the manga blogosphere has to say about CLAMP’s body of work as a whole, the biggest reason I proposed a CLAMP MMF in the first place was that I longed for an excuse to talk about my favorite CLAMP series, Tokyo Babylon.

As one of CLAMP’s earliest commercial works, Tokyo Babylon is certainly not their most deftly-plotted manga, nor their most polished—not by far. It is, however, one of their most honest manga, by which I mean that it contains a level of raw humanity and emotional truth that can be harder to find in some of their more sophisticated works.

And when it comes to things like “raw humanity” and “emotional truth,” who do I want to hash it out with? Why, The NANA Project, of course! This week, Michelle and I are pleased to welcome our NANA Project collaborator Danielle Leigh to the table for our MMF edition of Off the Shelf!

Welcome, Danielle, it’s so wonderful to have you here!

DANIELLE: Thanks so much for asking me to participate! We planned this so long ago but now that I’m rereading the project I found I’ve rediscovered my love of the title and, in a way, CLAMP as an artistic group. Even though parts of Tokyo Babylon are clumsy as hell I found myself really appreciating how well thought out the twists and turns were. For example, take all the artistic touches surrounding Seishirō anytime he appears in the work — CLAMP clearly knew who that character would be and what his backstory was from the very start.

And, okay, maybe the foreshadowing was heavy enough to drown in, sure, but there’s also a straightforward simplicity to how events play out that I feel CLAMP’s later titles would certainly benefit from (*cough* Tsubasa *cough*). It’s just refreshing to read a work and think, “yes, this plot was planned but not *forced.*”

MICHELLE: That was one thing I wanted to ask you two, actually. I pretty much learned about manga and CLAMP in the same breath, and because I asked a lot of questions, I was spoiled on the outcome of Tokyo Babylon before I ever read it. But, given that the foreshadowing is heavy-handed and starts at the end of volume one, was the reveal actually a surprise even to anyone who had not been spoiled?

MJ: For my part, I would say that the reveal of Seishirō as the Sakurazukamori was not remotely a surprise—nor do I think it was meant to be by that point. But what that ultimately meant for everyone involved was a huge surprise for me. I expected to find out that Seishirō was the “bad guy,” but I never expected his entire Seishirō-san persona to have essentially been a lie. I knew the truth, but I didn’t expect the consequences, if that makes sense.

DANIELLE: I was exposed to X/1999 (or the anime X) before I read this title so honestly I’m not sure if anyone would be *too* surprised about Seishirō being such a bad guy….but I think MJ’s right. The consequences are so horrific when he finally takes off his nice guy mask that emotionally the whole thing *still* feels like a vicious punch to the gut.

MICHELLE: That’s a good way of putting it!

MJ: So, we’ve sort of accidentally started with the end of the series. Let’s back up a bit, so new readers can grasp what on earth it is we’re talking about!

For a series with such a sweeping title, Tokyo Babylon is a fairly intimate manga, in that it essentially has only three characters: Subaru, a shy 16-year-old onmyōji and head of the powerful Sumeragi clan; his twin sister, Hokuto; and Seishirō Sakurazuka, a kindly veterinarian whom the two Sumeragi twins have befriended. Other characters (like the twins’ grandmother, and a young woman Hokuto meets during adventures of her own) flow in and out of the story, along with a host of onmyōji customers and “monsters of the week,” but every real theme in this story revolves around these main three, and them alone.

All three characters are introduced in the first chapter, in which Subaru is finishing up a job exorcising the spirit of a young woman who committed suicide after being cruelly dumped by a womanizing celebrity. While Hokuto chastises Subaru for helping out such a creep, Seishirō points out Subaru’s kindness in freeing the young woman’s spirit for her own sake, establishing the trio’s dynamic pretty much immediately. As the series goes on, chronicling Subaru’s continued duties as an onmyōji, two things will remain consistent; Seishirō will express his love and admiration for Subaru’s selfless spirit, while Hokuto will wish desperately for him to abandon that selflessness just long enough to want something for himself—a wish that will ultimately have consequences far beyond her expectations.

Though the beginning of the series feels straightforwardly light and (rather awesomely) humorous, even its jokes—like Seishirō’s teasing “love” for Subaru—are pretty deeply nuanced, something that’s become even more apparent to me on this particular re-read.

(reads right-to-left — click images to enlarge)


DANIELLE: MJ, you are much more generous about taking the opening premise and early characterization seriously than I am. When I was first introduced to the character I found I neither liked nor disliked Subaru and that in the early volumes both Hokuto and Seishirō behave in fairly cliched, and, to me, rather annoying ways. Hokuto often feels like the proto-yaoi fangirl (even though we find out about her deeper motivations much later on), while Seishirō plays the not-really-bad-wolf-in-veterinarian’s clothing (only later to be revealed as guilty of much, much worse than being a potential seducer of a 16 year old boy). Subaru is the empty center of the story and he lacks real definition for a very long time.

This all sounds terribly harsh but I firmly believe that all these characterizations are, in fact, carefully orchestrated by CLAMP to give the reader one hell of a payoff later on. And, of course, Subaru grows tremendously as a character over the course of the series. He starts of as a bit of a cipher (personality wise) and eventually develops real flaws, character traits, and deeper emotions.

MICHELLE: There’s definitely a sense of being lulled into a false sense of security. “Oh, nothing to see here. Just some disposable supernatural monster-of-the-week stories plus some fashion-conscious twin and a lot of BL teasing that results in Subaru taking pratfalls every three pages!” But we later learn that, with the exception of Subaru, everyone secretly had an agenda for acting the way they did, which is just marvelous.

MJ: I think why I’m so generous about this (to use Danielle’s words) is because my re-read convinced me that it was all incredibly brilliant, and it also helped me notice a lot of nuance that wasn’t apparent to me the first time around. I’m especially impressed with the way CLAMP handles Subaru.

One personal philosophy that is stated over and over again in this series (expressed by both Subaru and Hokuto at various times) is that no person can ever truly understand another person’s pain. Most often this idea is used to explain a lack of judgement made regarding other people’s choices and decisions and a respect for their uniquely painful circumstances. But while this philosophy seems on the surface to be a grand acknowledgement of individuality, Subaru takes it so much to heart that he not only refuses to make his mark on anyone else, he also resists becoming a fully realized individual himself, as though even that might be an affront to others. He lets other people dictate his movements, his feelings, his personal appearance—he is deliberately a non-entity. And while someone else as spiritually powerful as he is might do these things deliberately to facilitate deception, Subaru does this to avoid being an influence on anyone else. Once I realized that this was what he was doing, I could see it everywhere—along with Hokuto’s need to find a way to get him to rebel against it, even if it meant becoming involved with someone dangerous.

(reads right-to-left — click images to enlarge)


I’ll be honest—on this re-read I was kind of blown away by how carefully CLAMP crafted these characters, especially Subaru.

DANIELLE: I very much agree with your take on Subaru’s characterization with one important exception — I don’t think Subaru consciously understands a lot of his own choices and behaviors (in other words, I think CLAMP is being deliberate in their writing choices, rather than the character consciously making the choice to become a non-entity). Otherwise, I don’t think he would have such a shocking sense of emptiness, terror and guilt in the aftermath of Seishirō sacrificing his eye to save Subaru’s life. In those moments you can see him gradually awakening, with some desperate prodding by Hokuto, to his true self. Eventually he reaches the point where it all boils over and he basically realizes, “yes, I not only love Seishirō, but I’m also *in love* with him” (I’m just paraphrasing here). That’s the moment he reaches person-hood and it’s in that moment, of course, CLAMP tears it all down by having Seishirō reveal himself. God, it’s just so brutal.

(click image to enlarge)

MICHELLE: Yeah, I do think it’s so deeply ingrained in him he doesn’t know he’s doing it. When one of his jobs takes him to the home of a former classmate who’s spent four months asleep to avoid a traumatic reality, we see a flashback to a very young Subaru taking the delinquents’ kicks originally meant for a stray dog. He’s perfectly willing to take on consequences himself if it means protecting someone or something else, but he’s horrified that someone would do something similar for him.

MJ: Perhaps I should have chosen my words more carefully, because the truth is, I agree! When I say he’s “deliberately” doing this, I don’t necessarily mean that he’s completely aware of why or even always when he is refusing to assert himself as an individual. But I still think that kind of behavior is deliberate. Somewhere inside him, Subaru has determined that he should not put himself forward in a way that impacts anyone else—maybe it’s a reaction to the amount of power he knows he possesses, or to being given such a heavy role in the world at so young an age, or something completely different—but even if he’s not aware of all the steps between that determination and the actions he takes every day, I feel that’s still a real choice.

Michelle, I’m reminded too of the scene in which Subaru is trying to help a group of girls who have been practicing amateur dark magic over a party line. This scene hit me especially hard after the fact because of Seishirō’s interference, which at the time feels like absolutely the correct reaction. As Subaru is voluntarily taking all sorts of damage in order to avoid hurting the girls, I found myself somehow on Seishirō’s side, unwilling to accept Subaru’s selflessness when it meant he’d be sacrificing himself to atone for someone else’s horrible mistakes. But of course, Seishirō’s motivations are entirely sinister, while Subaru’s alone are pure. The way that CLAMP stealthily aligns the reader’s sympathies with something that is ultimately evil in a scene like this is also part of what makes later events feel so brutal.

(click image to enlarge)

This is also part of what makes Hokuto’s journey so moving and tragic, since we essentially find ourselves mirroring her own concerns for Subaru (or at least, I do), but unlike a lot of supporting female characters in manga featuring a male protagonist, she doesn’t only exist in the story for his sake. One of my favorite chapters in the entire series is one in which we get to see Hokuto’s life outside of Subaru’s (yes, she actually has one). In this chapter, Hokuto helps a young foreign woman escape from police, and in pretty spectacular fashion, too. Here, Hokuto—who is otherwise shown mostly in her role as Subaru’s caretaker and personal fashion designer—is a bona fide hero herself, showing up exactly when she’s needed to kick some serious ass. It’s the only chapter in which she appears on her own like this and I wish there were more, though I do appreciate the fact that later in the series when she’s headed out on a “date,” it’s implied that she’s meeting up with the woman she befriended at that time.

By about halfway through the series, I found I absolutely adored Hokuto—which of course made her end especially horrifying. What are your thoughts on her?

DANIELLE: Even though Hokuto has tried to distinguish herself from her brother—and to help give him the tools to do the same—I still feel like half of Subaru dies with Hokuto in the end. And I hate this feeling, because it goes against what the character herself says she stood for (i.e. that even though they are brother and sister, and twins, they are *not* the same person). On the other hand, I feel as though my inability to see her as separate from Subaru is also a consequence of that character failing to follow her own instructions. She gets so caught up in trying to give Subaru his own identity, I think she sacrifices parts of her own identity—not merely her own life—on his behalf.

(reads right-to-left — click images to enlarge)


MICHELLE: I was thinking along similar lines, actually. If one person is allowing their identity to be largely defined by another, that means there exists someone whose purpose it is to try to shape that person into what/who they think they should be. Which ultimately means Hokuto is a fairly selfless person, too.

Perhaps that’s why I so dearly loved the chapter where we see Hokuto help the foreign woman, because she suddenly comes so vibrantly and independently alive. I don’t think we even knew she had powers of her own up until that point—possibly because they are so modest that they wouldn’t be of help to Subaru on the job—but she is such a pure heroine in the other lady’s eyes that I wish we got to spend more time with her, to see how she truly sees the world when she’s not so desperately trying to save her brother.

MJ: You’re both brilliant, and (of course) right. And maybe what you’re getting at is something beyond either of the philosophies stated by Hokuto and/or Subaru over the course of the series. Perhaps both of their ideas are too simple to be useful.

While Hokuto is desperately trying to carve out identities for both herself and her brother as individuals and Subaru is desperately trying to have no identity at all, the truth is, they are both separable and inseparable at the same time. While they clearly are and must be individuals, they also can’t help being two parts of a single unit, and trying to define themselves entirely as either one or the other is simply not possible, or even desirable.

Is it wrong that they should need each other? I don’t think so. Nor is it wrong for them to be considerate to each other as individuals (this speech of Hokuto’s is one of my favorite things in the series, by the way). And in the end, the loss of either of them is inevitably devastating to the other. It would have to be. And even though I hate seeing what happened to Subaru over the loss of Hokuto (or contemplating the state Hokuto would have been in, had it ended up the other way around), I guess I can’t really wish for them to have been less important to each other. Can you?

(reads right-to-left — click images to enlarge)


DANIELLE: And forgive the irreverence of the following comment, but what the hell are two 16 year olds doing with such trenchant life philosophies anyway? Oh, CLAMP. Even though Subaru looks like a teenager, he and Hokuto never really get to act like they are one (compared to say, Watanuki, who gets to throw tantrums, complain constantly, hold irrational grudges, and generally act like a pain in the ass. Every inch of him a teenager most of the time). Even when Hokuto’s doing silly things in a silly way for a very silly reason, there’s such an element of *seriousness* to it all. It kind of breaks my heart all over again.

MICHELLE: One wonders how much of a childhood they were actually able to have, with their parents gone and such heavy responsibility thrust upon Subaru so young.

It’s such a sad life for him, and one that doesn’t get any better. I’m not sure how much either of you have read or seen of X. I’ve seen the anime, but read only the first volume of the manga, and I’m not sure MJ’s done either, or if she’s investigated to see what eventually becomes of Subaru.

MJ: I have read all of X/1999 (and didn’t care for it much, though I’m trying to let the new omnibus releases convince me that there’s more to it than just waiting for Subaru to show up), so I do know what becomes of Subaru, and you’re right, it really it does not get any better for him. There is more hope for alternate-universe vampire!Subaru in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle (he at least gets to have a twin again), though of course that isn’t quite the same. I guess that’s an advantage to being a CLAMP character, though… you do get second chances, one way or another.

I actually wanted to talk a bit about both these characters in other CLAMP universes and also what traits Tokyo Babylon does and doesn’t share with other CLAMP series. While reading Cardcaptor Sakura alongside Tokyo Babylon for the purposes of the feast, I was struck by one of the funnier philosophies they share—that designing and creating outfits for someone might be the ultimate gesture of love. Comments?

DANIELLE: In spite of the fact this series is a prequel to X/1999 (and a kind of dress rehearsal for the relationship between Kamui and Fūma in that series) in my mind I connect it to xxxHolic more than CCS, Tsubasa or X/1999. But I think that’s an artistic link, rather than a character or thematic one, that’s going on in my head. Thinking it over, I feel like X/1999 is the sprawling, epically messy unleashing of the very carefully designed plot of Tokyo Babylon. The story is, in fact, so fantastically messy the damn thing — for whatever reason — can’t even be finished. I get the feeling I might be the only one here who is rather fond of X/1999 (or the anime X) but it’s a fondness that comes from appreciating how imperfect it is as a sequel and as a narrative work. In contrast, you could never use such a mild word as “fond” to describe how I feel about Tsubasa or xxxHolic (although for very different reasons).

I really like MJ’s point, though….providing a friend or family member with a costume change is the ultimate act of love in the CLAMP universe! :-)

(click image to enlarge)

MICHELLE: I’m not anti-X, but I feel oddly disconnected from it.

And yes, I am sure Hokuto and Tomoyo would get along fabulously. Hokuto could be a kind of mentor to her… it’d be great!

Of course, another theme that begins (I think) in Tokyo Babylon and proceeds to permeate CLAMP’s other works is the idea of “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” Seishirō loses his eye to protect Subaru, and then suddenly eyes are lost or swapping all over the place. It’s become such a CLAMP trademark that it’s actually a cliché now, sort of how people just stopped being surprised when Joss Whedon kills a character.

MJ: I admit I like the eye exchange in xxxHolic the best, but maybe that’s just because it was my first. Heh.

There are a lot of themes that run through CLAMP’s work as a whole, both visually and otherwise. One of the things I’m struck by with Tokyo Babylon, however, is how little it resembles its sequel, in every way, really. Danielle has already touched on this, in terms of structure and plot, but visually, too, they couldn’t be more different.

DANIELLE: Agreed. The reason I also think of X/1999 as messy is because it actually looks quite messy in comparison to the crisp, clear art of Tokyo Babylon. I absolutely love the art in Tokyo Babylon, it remains second only to xxxHolic in my own personal ranking of CLAMP styles. I think X/1999 pretty much begat Tsubasa, and my god does the art in that series drive me up the wall.

MICHELLE: I think “messy” is a great way to describe X, but for me it feels that way largely because of its huge cast, compared to the extremely intimate trio in Tokyo Babylon. Granted, I’ve not read the majority of the manga, but from what I’ve seen it looks like there’s just not time to get to know and care about everybody, there’s just so many people and so much going on in the scenes that the visuals can’t help but be all crowded and hectic. There’s no time for atmosphere, which Tokyo Babylon possesses in abundance.

I actually got used to the art in Tsubasa after a while—well, more or less—but the in-your-face gangliness of the character designs is not something I’ll ever be a fan of.

MJ: I think I may love the artwork in Tokyo Babylon even more than xxxHolic, but if so, it’s not by much. Both series are striking in their elegant storytelling, their stunning use of black, and a sort of woodblock sensibility that makes them feel somehow timeless. Even Tokyo Babylon‘s unapologetic 80s fashion sense manages to come off as elegant in CLAMP’s hands. xxxHolic also resembles Tokyo Babylon in its intimacy. Even though there are a greater number of vital characters, and obviously the story is much longer and wider in scope, the main setting of Yūko’s shop creates the same kind of private world Tokyo Babylon‘s characters live in.

DANIELLE: Honestly, MJsums up the ties I see between these series so beautifully I don’t have too much to add. I would just say if Yūko’s shop is is the centerpiece of xxxHolic, then Tokyo itself is basically the fourth character in Tokyo Babylon. Before the series gets almost claustrophobic in its tight focus on Subaru and Seishirō’s relationship, there’s a lot of pontificating in the omniscient narration about Tokyo as a kind of mirror of the human condition. It’s totally overblown and hokey, but that’s CLAMP. And I’m okay with it.

MICHELLE: That’s a great point, and you’re absolutely right. And a lot of the woes leading to the supernatural crises that Subaru is called upon to solve have something to do with Tokyo, from celebrities seducing pure-hearted girls to thugs running rampant in an apartment block, leading the residents to gossip about their misdeeds. It’s almost as if Subaru is having to clean up Tokyo’s messes.

I agree that visually (or perhaps the word I’m really looking for is stylistically), xxxHOLiC is probably the most similar to Tokyo Babylon of all CLAMP’s works. It feels like they really exhibited some restraint with these series. They didn’t go overboard with swirls and feathers and putting wings on everything, but kept things kind of understated and gloomy.

(reads right-to-left — click images to enlarge)


MJ: I certainly agree, Danielle, that CLAMP’s Tokyo parables are pretty hokey, though what makes it all worthwhile for me is the payoff in the final volume, where Seishirō mocks Subaru’s agony over his betrayal by saying, “Things like this happen in Tokyo every day.” With that one sentence, Seishirō manages to belittle not only Subaru’s feelings in the moment, but also basically every single time the two of them had ever talked about the city as they worked to help its many lost souls. It’s so cruel, but wow does he hit that on the nose. I’m not sure it would have had the same impact without the overblown narrative in those early volumes.

Another connection this series has with xxxHolic is the primary message being aimed at its protagonist by those who love him—Hokuto and (interestingly) Seishirō in the case of Tokyo Babylon and Yūko and Dōmeki in xxxHolic—that lesson being that it’s ultimately selfish and perhaps even hurtful to devalue and thoughtlessly sacrifice oneself for the sake of others. Ironically, it’s Seishirō who says this outright in Tokyo Babylon, after sacrificing his eye to save Subaru (whom he actually does not love at all), and given that irony, perhaps it’s fitting and meaningful somehow that, unlike Watanuki, Subaru never really gets the message.

DANIELLE: I must pause here to mention that Watanuki is my favorite CLAMP character of all time. Dōmeki is probably my second favorite.

Okay, here’s a question that’s been on my mind—do we really think Seishirō does not care for Subaru at all? And by “care” I mean have some interest in Subaru in his own evil, twisted fashion and not…you know. Anything resembling traditional human affection. Why in the world would he go so far in order to keep his original “bet” (that, honestly, he made with himself, not even with Subaru). Or am I letting knowledge of X/1999 cloud my reading of the prequel?

MICHELLE: “Care” has so many connotations of loving kindness, that it’s hard for me to even use the word in this context. I think Seishirō delights in tormenting Subaru, and that Subaru is his favorite plaything. So he’s not utterly unconcerned with him, by any stretch of the imagination. It still really bothers me that we don’t learn what he said to Subaru in X, and I’m not sure CLAMP ever intended to tell us, even before the series went on hiatus.

MJ: I think that’s a really fair question, Danielle, and seriously I just don’t even know. I don’t know how much we can trust everything that Seishirō says to Subaru at the end of the series. He claims to feel nothing at all for Subaru and to perceive no difference between him and a common household object, but then you’re right… what the hell? Why bother with the “bet” in the first place? Why didn’t he just kill Subaru the first time they met? And even if you (or we) are letting our knowledge of X get into the middle of this, I think that’s fair, since it is a canon continuation of this storyline.

I feel like… he’s lying. Or perhaps he doesn’t even quite realize that he’s lying, since he’s completely inexperienced when it comes to human emotion.

Also, I agree, Michelle. I really wish we knew what he said to Subaru at the end of their arc in X. It will haunt me forever, as these things do.

DANIELLE: CLAMP really loves to play with shadow selves and mirroring and Tokyo Bablyon is just *bursting* with mirroring imagery, particularly with Seishirō. Everything about his representation points to the existence of the dark identity he’s skillfully hiding (i.e. part of the foreshadowing we discussed earlier). But we never get a hint that the surface self he presents is bleeding into the hidden self. I think I would understand that character a bit more if we saw any tension or conflict in how he perceives and understands his own actions. But we never see that happen. At least in this series.

MICHELLE: Oh, now you’re making me think of a character in Cardcaptor Sakura, but I’m not sure how much I should say without knowing where certain reveals transpire or where MJ is with the series!

MJ: I’ve read all of Cardcaptor Sakura, so you’re good to go.

MICHELLE: Oh, good! I was going to mention the dual identities of Yukito and Yue. Granted, Yue is not evil, but he is rather cold and unemotive, but has been hiding himself in the body of open and friendly Yukito for so long that some of Yukito’s feelings have begun to rub off on him, particularly as regards Tōya. And that’s something that doesn’t seem to have happened with Seishirō, who is able to just manipulate the Sumeragi twins without apparent qualm.

(click image to enlarge)

MJ: I was thinking about that, too, Michelle, even though Yukito/Yue is such a drastically different character than Seishirō. I have to admit, the way that character is handled is so much more in line with what I expect from a shoujo manga than what CLAMP does with Seishirō.

You know, Danielle, I actually think what you just said about Seishirō is one of the reasons Tokyo Babylon was so surprising to me the first time I read it. I was relatively new to reading manga at the time, and I’d read a lot of shounen manga and a lot of fairly uplifting shoujo, and one of the things that nearly always happens in those series, is that characters we initially perceive as villains will turn around and become very sympathetic characters, by way of backstory or some other kind of revelation later on. The message driven home by that trope is that understanding is the key to learning to love someone, or perhaps that anyone can be granted salvation (of a sort) by way of understanding. These series are careful to always give us something to latch on to—to help us understand even the most seemingly depraved characters before the end.

Tokyo Babylon rips that trope to shreds by giving us nothing of the sort. Not only does the series end with unrepentant tragedy and despair, but there’s absolutely no sense that we should understand why it had to happen. There’s no redemption for Seishirō, because there’s not even the slightest hint of humanity for which we might feel sympathy. Seishirō’s motivations are inscrutable, he makes horrible things happen, and there is no understanding it (nor certainly any fixing it). The message of Tokyo Babylon is that sometimes people are just horrible, goodness does not always win, and our weaknesses may very well be exploited without any chance at all for us to learn from them. It’s a bleak, bleak message that I never expected to find in a shoujo manga series, and it left me absolutely wrecked as I finished it.

Of course, this was also kind of awesome.

So, I’ve talked a little here about my own personal response to Tokyo Babylon. I think you both know me well enough by now to know that it’s important to me to feel emotionally affected by a story, and I’m sure my strong emotional response to this series has a lot to do with why it’s such a favorite. Though it’s interesting to note that unlike so many favorite stories of mine, there isn’t a character I personally identify very deeply with—unlike, say, NANA, where I do find exactly that kind of touchstone in Nana Komatsu. I think I’m a more emotionally-driven reader than most, however, so I’d be curious to know what your own connections are with this series.

DANIELLE: I think my connection to this series is almost completely on the level of “that shit is entertaining.” Yes, I’m moved by what happens to Subaru and Hokuto but there’s also this *thrill* of reading a story where the creators aren’t afraid to just go for it. MJ, you’ve beautifully analyzed your expectations versus experience of the work, but man. All I can say is, that was a really *good time*—that reading this story was, in its own way, *fun.* The older I get the more I realize how rare it is to be able to say that about a piece of popular entertainment. Too often we see the flaws and the cracks and all the random authorship-by-committee stuff that gets thrown into mass culture to make it palatable for too large an audience.

Here all I see is CLAMP pulling a ripcord I didn’t even realize was there. So, yeah…I second MJ: It *is* kind of awesome.

MICHELLE: I feel similarly, Danielle, though for me there’s also a very powerful undercurrent of nostalgia, as Tokyo Babylon was one of the first manga series I ever heard about, and the first I was so excited to read that I bought the complete set in Japanese and scoured the internet for text translations.

But when I consider my response to the story itself, one of the things I’m most struck by is CLAMP’s chutzpah. I frequently wish that creators would be brave enough to go for the sad ending. It seems to me this doesn’t happen much anymore. Could this possibly be some Western influence creeping in? Now, granted, I’m not basing this on scholarly research or anything, but it seems to me that sad endings were more common in the past. Now even CLAMP seems to shy away from them—please note I say this without having read the endings of Tsubasa and xxxHOLiC, so please don’t spoil me!—if the way they handled Kobato. is any indication. There was the potential there for a bittersweet ending that would retroactively have cast the entire series in a more positive light for me, but they didn’t commit to it.

So while I lament that there aren’t more of these wonderfully, awesomely sad shoujo classics, I am very grateful for the perfect examples of same that do exist. (Aside from Tokyo Babylon, I am counting Banana Fish among them.)

MJ: You’ve rounded things out so nicely here, both of you. Thank you! And many thanks to you both as well for indulging my desire to dwell on this dark little series that has been such an enduring favorite of mine.

As we wrap things up, I’d like to make make one very heartfelt plea: We know that Dark Horse has acquired the license to reprint Tokyo Babylon in omnibus format, though the timeline has stretched quite a ways beyond what was originally reported. We know these releases take time and work, but… might it be soon? Pretty please?

It’ll be so lovely, won’t it?

MICHELLE: Very lovely indeed.


To submit your contributions to the CLAMP MMF for inclusion in this month’s archive, please send your links by email to melinda@mangabookshelf.com or via Twitter to @mbeasi. If you would like your contribution(s) to be hosted at Manga Bookshelf, please email them to MJ, along with any included images.


Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: clamp, Manga Moveable Feast, MMF, roundtables, tokyo babylon

Roundtable: Sailors Moon & V, first volumes

December 30, 2011 by MJ, Michelle Smith, Sean Gaffney and David Welsh 2 Comments

MJ: Back in March, the Manga Bookshelf Battle Robot got together to share some squee about Kodansha Comics’ announcement regarding their upcoming re-release of Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon. nine months later, this re-release is well underway. The debut volumes of of both Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and its predecessor, Codename Sailor V dominated Matt Blind’s Manga Bestseller charts for months, with preorders of later volumes hitting the top charts well before they’ve been released.

As a newcomer to the series, I’ve been anxious to reconvene the Battle Robot’s original discussion now that I’ve had some real exposure to the series, so I’m quite pleased to say that Michelle, David, and Sean (a newcomer to the Bookshelf since our first go-around!) have agreed to join me once more!

I’ll talk about my impressions of the series in a moment, but first, I’d like to ask the rest of you–all fans of the series previously to one extent or another–how well the series has held up for you since your first experiences with it. Has this re-read stood up to your expectations?

SEAN: Oh, definitely. I’ve always liked the manga better than the anime, even though I’ve enjoyed both immensely. And since I’ve been involved in the fandom since 1996 or so, I did not have any issues with Usagi’s characterization the way that some people have. Honestly, the re-read of Vol. 1 of both Moon and V just made me realize how much I wanted to read the rest.

MICHELLE: I actually liked it *more* than I thought I would, because I was unprepared for what a difference actually reading it in English would make. There’s an immediacy to having understandable words on the page that you just don’t get when looking back and forth between a physical book in Japanese and a translation on a screen. Like Sean, I have loved Sailor Moon for a long time, so Usagi was exactly what I expected her to be at this early stage. It must help having advanced knowledge of her more competent moments!

DAVID: This is actually my first time around with the manga. I’ve seen a lot of the anime, though. This is really rare for me, but I actually like the anime more, and I think it’s because of what Michelle just said about Usagi’s competence. I’m reading a lot of titles right now that feature spunky, can-do heroines, and this early evolution of Usagi strikes me as a huge, can’t-do whiner. Is that blasphemy? I love the other sailors, though.

SEAN: This is an issue that I’ve thought about for some time. I discussed it a bit in my reviews of Teru Teru x Shonen as well. When you have a story where your goal is to take a very flawed heroine and gradually make her grow up and improve, how annoying can you make her at the start without losing your audience? I know with both Sailor Moon and TTxS, I had people tell me, “I don’t care if she gets better, I found her so aggravating I don’t want to read how it happens.” As David noted, the process might be helped here by the addition of the other senshi, who the reader can identify with as well. (Ami was the most popular senshi in many polls in both Japan and North America, for reasons that should be obvious.) It also might not be helped by seeing the Sailor V manga as well, as Minako is flawed in different ways, and I think Western fans approve of ‘shallow ditz’ more than ‘whining crybaby’ by default.

I also read the Super S manga first, so had exposure to Usagi’s epicness before I went back to read the early stuff.

DAVID: I think the comparison with Sailor V definitely doesn’t help, because her reaction to the circumstances feels more natural. She’s excited that she can become glamorous and powerful and, to a lesser extent, help people. If Usagi had something compelling going on in her life, the added responsibilities might actually seem like a burden, but she seems put out because it’s cutting into her nap time. It reminds me of how right Joss Whedon got this dynamic so right with Buffy, whose destiny was really gruesome and dangerous, and Cordelia, who went from being very shallow to really enjoying making a difference. Usagi is a very “Math is hard!” type. I’m looking forward when manga Usagi catches up with anime Usagi, who was a lot more likable and credible.

MJ: This might sound crazy, but I was actually really surprised after I read volume one and then saw everyone describing Usagi as annoying. I get that she’s slow to embrace her destiny and complains about it a lot, but it didn’t affect me the same way. I guess maybe I’m used to working with teens who complain that you’re ruining their lives if you ask them to practice between lessons or enunciate when they sing. By comparison, Usagi’s whining seem pretty reasonable. She doesn’t strike me as overly immature for her age, and I thought her little mental freak-out near the end of the volume over the fact that she’s supposed to be the leader of this group of girls, each to whom she feels stunningly inferior, read as very natural and relatable. I actually kind of…. like Usagi. I wonder what that says about me! Heh.

SEAN: I’m trying to think of comparable heroines… Miaka from Fushigi Yuugi, if I recall, had a similar issue with fans calling her a ‘whiner’. It seems to be far more of an issue here than in Japan… impulsiveness is not as much of a sin as reluctance or running away.

MICHELLE: Oh, maybe consuming the story out of order has a hand in my feelings, too, since my exposure to Sailor Moon was the third season of the anime. I guess all we can really do is assure people that Usagi does mature while still essentially remaining herself.

SEAN: Actually, while we’re discussing the anime, and how some of us saw that first, I wanted to mention the only character who is noticeably different between her anime and manga incarnations: Rei Hino. Rei in the manga tends towards the cool and collected, and might occasionally be grumpy or irritated with people, but for the most part is meant to show ‘aloof’ more than anything else. Rei in the anime, is, well, a hothead, who is contrasted with Usagi – and also compared, as the fights the two of them get into (and the arguments over Mamoru) make us realize their similarities. At least in this first volume, Usagi does not really have this – the other three senshi we meet are all more together or have better attitudes. I do wonder if the manga might be better presented in five huge volumes, one for each arc – I think Usagi grows a LOT in future volumes, and seeing this is easier once you get Vol. 2 and 3 down as well. And as I said earlier, I wonder why Rei was the only one gives major changes for the anime. (You can argue Minako was made flakier, and to an extent that’s true, but Rei’s seems DIFFERENT in a way that Minako does not.)

MJ: I’ve never seen the anime, outside of maybe one episode, so I came to the first volume of the series (and Sailor V too, of course) without really knowing what to expect. Even though Sailor Moon is iconic, I never had a clear sense of why people really loved it, even when friends would try to tell me. So I feel like I came to it with no expectations at all.

Honestly, I was charmed from the very first pages. It helps of course that I adore older shoujo art styles, but it wasn’t just that. There is a sense of, oh… girlish joy woven into the fabric of these books that I haven’t experienced to this extent since my pre-teen years when I was consuming things like Maida’s Little Shop and the Betsy-Tacy books as rapidly as I could acquire them. Of course Maida Westabrook and Betsy Ray weren’t fighting evil, but theirs were the kind of books that, even in their dated settings, seemed to take for granted that girls were brilliant, capable people with nothing to be ashamed of. They could run their own businesses or become famous writers, but they could also angst over friendships and romantic prospects, make mistakes, hate cooking, and leave their family’s religion, without tarnishing their awesomeness as girls in the slightest.

Sailor Moon and Codename: Sailor V are the same kind of books for me. The short skirts and concern over prettiness that I worried might be a problem for me, ultimately are exactly the opposite. These girls are allowed to care about feeling pretty and other typical teen things, but there’s never the sense that they need to care about these things in order to please boys, or for any reason other than because they enjoy it. In a way, this may even be related to why I like Usagi. She doesn’t feel terribly ashamed for wanting to nap instead of being ordered around by a cat with big claims on her destiny, and on some level I’m with her on that.

MICHELLE: MJ, I’m so glad that you love these books. I remember in our first roundtable attempting to reassure you that the girls calling themselves pretty really makes all the difference in the world; it’s like an empowerment thing. As I read your comment, I wondered whether people who approach this manga will fall into two camps: those who love it while spewing copious hearts and those who wonder what all the fuss is about. Is there a middle ground of people who simply kind of like it? I’m not sure.

Sean’s point illustrates why I’d recommend reading the manga and watching the anime. Personally, I like the manga version of Rei a lot more, and her squabbles with Usagi in the anime are kind of irritating. But there’s more humor in the anime, more fleshing out of character relationships (or at least more flirting when Haruka and Michiru come along), and more time for the villains. Several of Queen Beryl’s henchmen are dispatched in the first volume of the manga but stick around for dozens of anime episodes. Some of the villains are fun characters so it’s nice to have the opportunity to spend a little more time with them.

DAVID: I definitely feel like I fall into the middle ground that you theorized about, Michelle. I like a lot of these girls, and I like the fact that they still get to be teen-aged girls with specific lives and interests outside of their shared destiny. I tend to be of the belief that a little vanity and a little glamor should be a universal quality in super-hero fiction, which Sailor Moon certainly is. There should always be moments when the protagonists kind of step back and realize that their lives are pretty fabulously cool in a lot of ways, and I definitely get that vibe here.

I also really like the fact that none of the Sailors, even Usagi, are shrinking violets when the time for battle comes. They might not know exactly what they’re doing yet, but they know it has to be done, and they don’t tremble. After some awkward moments in the first volume of the generally wonderful Princess Knight where Osamu Tezuka seemed to be suggesting that a girl can’t be feminine and tough at the same time, Sailor Moon is definitely a tonic in that regard.

MICHELLE: Your first paragraph reminds me of a great exchange between Buffy and Faith (and for once I am not the first person to inject Buffy into a conversation!) in season seven where they’re commiserating about their dangerous destiny and Faith says, “Thank God we’re hot chicks with super powers.” “Takes the edge off,” Buffy agrees.

That sentiment definitely manifests in Sailor Moon, as I can think of several painful or pivotal moments for Usagi during which she has transformed into a serene and lovely version of herself.

SEAN: That’s a key thing about the series: Mamoru may give encouragement, or tell her not to doubt herself, He never saves her. She’s always the soldier, even when she’s the princess. In fact, that’s the unique thing about this incarnation as opposed to past lives: she *is* a soldier, as well as the princess to be protected. And this is one of the main reasons why they don’t die again (well, OK, they do, but they get better.) Mamoru may be a dashing prince and boyfriend, but he loves her strength. (Also, note how the series shows that a) you don’t need a boyfriend to validate yourself, but also b) if you get one, that having a handsome and understanding boyfriend IS great.)

MJ: So to switch gears a little, let’s talk about Sailor V. I read this first, and though I liked it quite a lot, I did get pretty weary of its string of similar villains, whose only purpose in villainy seemed to be making people their slaves. After a while, it almost seemed like a running joke. Is it just me?

SEAN: Sailor V is a bit schizophrenic simply due to how it was conceived and played out. The magazine it ran in (Run Run) came out, I think, only 6 times a year. This necessitated every single chapter reintroducing the basic plot for new readers. (You see that a lot in some Hakusensha shoujo, such as Natsume’s Book of Friends or S.A.). Then once she was told to create Sailor Moon, she drew V sporadically for the next 7 years. And by sporadically I mean ‘about 5-6 chapters in the entirety of 7 years’. I think as she did this, she realized she wanted to wrap it up in such a way that it could end with V joining the cast of Sailor Moon (as indeed she does). Thus, Volume 2, which comes out everywhere but comic shops this week, has a much stronger plot and is slightly more serious than Volume 1 is.

As for the one-shot villains being a running joke, Takeuchi doesn’t come close to the creators of the anime. How can one top Doorknobdar, for example? XD Most shoujo magical girl genres feature incredibly silly one-shot minor villains, and stronger major villains who are not as silly. We’ll meet Minako’s main nemesis in Volume 2 as well.

MICHELLE: I had forgotten the doorknob one! I remembered “Hurdler,” who is basically a tennis shoe imbued with demonic power who menaces a bunch of runners. Probably I remember that one because it appears in the episode depicting how Haruka and Michiru met which I *may* have watched about four times as often as the rest of the series.

So yeah, I’m not sure if Takeuchi intended the enslavement plot to be a joke or what, but you’re definitely not the only one to wonder what the point of it all was, MJ. Not only that, they’re all singing sensations. Was Takeuchi making a dig at the idol biz?

DAVID: I have to admit that I found myself favoring the low-rent cheese of V. it doesn’t speak well of me, and I can see why Takeuchi was asked to do a proper version of the story, but I just… like it.

MJ: I think Takeuchi’s “low-rent cheese” is some of the most fun I’ve seen, so I can get on board with that, David.

So, other than Usagi’s character development, what should I be looking forward to in future volumes of Sailor Moon?

DAVID: Well, I’m not sure what’s on the horizon exactly, but I know that it will involve lots more Sailors and sidekicks, and, in my book, the more crowded a super-hero book is, the better.

SEAN: As you’d expect, you’ll see Minako and Artemis join the cast. Get ready for a lot of destiny talk, as well as epic fantasy flashbacks. There will also be some bloodshed – Takeuchi is not afraid of violence when it suits her plot. Vols. 2 and 3 will be less episodic and more serious – though there will still be humor. And a very interesting – and controversial – plot will drop in as the first arc ends. Literally.

MICHELLE: Ha. I’d say *that* particular plot is even more controversial than Usagi herself!

I am tempted to squee about the eventual debut of the Starlights (volume eleven), but they’re around so briefly in the manga that I’m not sure you’ll love them as much as I do after prolonged anime exposure. Actually, they bring around a controversial plot in their own way, or at least something that’s controversial among the fandom…

SEAN: Are there still Seiya/Usagi fans? Sheesh…

MICHELLE: Yep. There was some big brouhaha at Ask a Pretty Soldier just recently having to do with that pairing.

MJ: Oh, fandom. I’m not sad to have missed out on all of that.

Thanks to all of you for joining me here. I look forward to reading both series’ second volumes!

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: Manga Moveable Feast, MMF, roundtables, sailor moon

Roundtable: Flower of Life

August 21, 2011 by MJ, David Welsh, Michelle Smith, Sean Gaffney and Katherine Dacey 7 Comments

MJ: There’s a lot to love about Fumi Yoshinaga, from her expressive artwork to her rambling dialogue, and she’s one of those writers I consistently love, even for her weakest work. When I find myself searching for what really defines her, though, I always come back to Flower of Life. I’ve talked about this series on my own before, but there’s something about a story so warm and so driven by friendship that begs to be discussed with friends. To that end, I’ve begged asked my fellow bloggers to join me in this roundtable!

Every time I pick up this series, I’m struck again by just how odd it is. On one hand, it’s this meandering, slice-of-life manga filled with idiosyncratic characters, tangential dialogue, and no obvious central plotline. On the other, it’s eerily truthful and genuinely dramatic, often when I least expect it. For those of you re-reading the series or picking it up for the first time, how would you classify something like this? Or is there even any point to trying?

DAVID: I would categorize it as un-distilled Yoshinaga, to be honest, which is a category or genre all its own. Everything she does is really steeped in her own sensibility, and I think Flower of Life is possibly the best translated example of that. And it’s a little strange, but with this re-reading, I really noticed how sneakily structured the story is, at least in terms of its emotional arcs. They don’t really emerge as being as well-formed as they are when you read the series as it’s being published, but if you sit down with the whole series, you really get a lot of unexpected and resonant payoffs.

SEAN: I’ve only read one volume of the series so far, but I wasn’t particularly surprised by its idiosyncrasies, as I had researched it a bit and discovered it ran in Shinshokan’s ‘5th genre’ magazine Wings, which tends to be categorized as shoujo, has more of a josei audience, is predominately fantasy-oriented, and has a large contingent of what could be called ‘not quite BL’, including both Flower of Life and Antique Bakery. Actually, I was rather surprised to find that there wasn’t really any true BL in the volume of FOL I’d read at all, mostly as both that and AB are described as ‘gateway volumes’ for those who want a taste of the BL genre without any of that, y’know, actual GAY stuff. :) It’s just a slice-of-life school story starring a bunch of weirdos. I really enjoyed the volume I read, and will definitely seek out the others. If only for the bishie otaku.

KATE: One of the things that strikes me most about Flower of Life is how accurately it captures teenage experience. Yoshinaga clearly remembers her own adolescence, as she conveys the intensity and sincerity of her characters’ feelings with tenderness. Yet Flower of Life doesn’t behave like a typical young adult story, with characters striving toward a goal; Yoshinaga fiercely resists imposing an obvious dramatic arc on the material, even though her principal characters grow and change over time. I’d classify it as “slice of life,” but I hate that term because reviewers apply it indiscriminately to series as different as Azumanga Daioh and Saturn Apartments. Maybe “true to life”?

MICHELLE: “True to life” works for me! I’m not exactly sure how she does it, but there’s something so organic about the way that we’re introduced to the characters—a really sublime “show don’t tell” going on about their personalities—that, in time, one feels immersed in the class. Example: I am so weary of cultural festivals in manga I could scream, but the one in the second volume of Flower of Life is the best example of same I have EVER SEEN. And that’s because we’ve gotten to know the characters well enough to feel their excitement as they plan. Also, I think I could write 10,000 words about Majima (the aforementioned bishie otaku), but I assume we’re going to get to him later.

MJ: I’m happy to go with “true to life” as well, because that really is what it feels like. Also, Kate, I think your choice of words here is particularly apt. “Yoshinaga fiercely resists imposing an obvious dramatic arc on the material, even though her principal characters grow and change over time.” Yet, as David mentions, there really are some wonderful emotional arcs throughout the story. They just feel so natural, there’s never a sense that this is a result of “plot.” The characters simply live, and somehow it’s kind of a revelation when we realize what that really means.

Sean, it’s interesting that you mention BL here, because I wasn’t actually aware that Flower of Life was considered a “gateway” book, though I certainly spent much of the first volume under the same delusion as Harutaro.

And Michelle, I’m thrilled that you brought up the cultural festival, because I feel exactly the same way! And really, I think that’s where my 10,000 words on Majima would really get going.

DAVID: Can I take it back to how the characters really seem to breathe? Because I agree, and I do so even with the kind of heightened, commentary-rich dialogue. These people don’t just feel things and do things. They think and talk a whole lot, and while it’s not especially naturalistic dialogue, it’s very character-driven, and it actually makes the story barrel along rather than dragging it down.

SEAN: I had a lot of preconceptions before starting Book 1, and one of which was that it would be ‘sorta BL’, i.e. that it would feature gay characters but not gay relationships or something similar. You know, Wings-ish. The way that Tokyo Babylon is. This is probably why I was so amused at the revelation of the teacher’s gender, as having ‘him’ being a flaming gay man didn’t surprise me when I started the book. Which, of course, is exactly what Yoshinaga was going for, in order to get the payoff two chapters later. (There’s some great gags here – I loved the girl’s story about how to ‘properly’ sit on a toilet with a skirt – complete with visualization. Hilarious.)

MICHELLE: I had a similar experience, not because of Wings but just because of what I’ve read of Yoshinaga so far. Of course she’d have a gay couple in her story! I was actually kind of impressed she managed to fool me so thoroughly—as a hardened manga veteran I thought I was pretty savvy in regards to such tricks! It certainly puts all of Saito-sensei’s conversations with the students in a new light—often still inappropriate, but less potentially actionable than they first appeared.

I love, too, how Yoshinaga balances relatively lighthearted day-to-day stories for the students with some pretty serious dramatic issues for the adults, like Saito and Koyanagi’s relationship and the plight of Harutaro’s homebound sister, Sakura.

KATE: I’m really glad you mentioned the adults, Michelle, because Yoshinaga doesn’t reduce them to cartoons — evil principals, hot teachers, overbearing parents — but portrays them as real people struggling with real problems: maintaining authority in the classroom, establishing appropriate boundaries with colleagues and students. That’s one of the reasons I love this series so much: the conversations in the teacher’s lounge have the same ring of truth as the discussions at the manga club’s meetings.

MICHELLE: The presence of so many parents makes me very happy, actually. I especially love how helpful some are with the Christmas party the kids plan, and how the kids then come home and thank them, or tell them about how things went. Very few actual teens are super-powered orphans, after all.

DAVID: It’s reflective of one of the things I like most about Yoshinaga, no matter what category she’s visiting. Her characters tend to have rounded lives. They have friends or lovers, sure, but there are other people who populate their worlds. She’s open to the kinds of digressions that make stories richer for me.

MJ: Speaking of the Christmas party, I think it stands as a great example of why the story’s universe feels so real. The kids are initially over-optimistic in their planning, only to realize as the party actually approaches that they’re all under-prepared on some level. At this point, I’d expect a typical shoujo manga to go in one of two directions. Either the kids would pull together at the last minute and make their spectacular party dreams come true, or everything would be a spectacular failure, but somehow they’d have fun anyway, learning a lesson about what’s really important. Yoshinaga goes in neither of these directions. Instead, some things work out, some don’t, and the stuff that gets pulled together is for the most part not quite what they dreamed of, but adequate for reality. The real story is in the fun they have with each other and not any of the organizational close calls, just as in real life.

So, getting around to some of Michelle’s 10,000 words on Majima, one of the things Yoshinaga seems to specialize in is taking common manga tropes I generally find distasteful, and making them really interesting instead. I’m not a fan, for instance, of student-teacher romances, especially when the student is underage, but I have to admit that the obviously problematic relationship that develops here between emotionally-stunted Majima and his lonely teacher Saito is completely fascinating to me, in all its messed-up glory. Is it just me?

MICHELLE: It isn’t just you! I loved the scene where Saito finally breaks it off with Koyanagi-sensei, wanting him to remain the good father she always loved him for being, and runs into dispassionate Majima’s arms. But then I felt kind of bad for loving it so much. I shouldn’t be rooting for the teacher to choose her sixteen-year-old student!

MICHELLE: The message I got from this is “you don’t have to try to impress your friends, just be yourself.” That same idea comes through when Mikuni is allowed to see the true messiness of Harutaro’s room and they bond as a result. Really, Yoshinaga doles out quite a few lessons about friendship, like, “you don’t always have to like the same things in order to be friends” (Takeda, Isonishi, and Jinnai) or “you don’t always have to agree about everything” (Mikuni and Harutaro)” or “there are one-sided feelings even in friendships” (Yamane and Sakai). I feel like I should hand this out to teenagers as some kind of handbook.

MJ: Michelle, I’m totally with you. Also, I will point out that Yamane/Sakai is one of three questionably-canon “‘ships” I once begged for from fandom. I love their little book-borrowing story just that much.

DAVID: I don’t think I’d go quite so far as to say I liked the relationship, but I certainly understood it. It was a very credible part of the spectrum of imperfect connections that Yoshinaga portrays throughout the series. And I absolutely admire Yoshinaga’s ability to make me invested in a character like Majima without having to like him even a little bit. That’s a tough bit of acrobatics.

MJ: That’s exactly the thing, isn’t it? Yoshinaga doesn’t necessarily make us like everyone in Flower of Life or everything that happens in the story, but she makes it all so compelling, we dismiss the desire to reject it. As little as I like Majima, his character’s journey is one of the most interesting to me, because Yoshinaga never takes the easy way out with him.

I feel a little guilty, leaving Sean behind here when he’s just finished volume one. But Sean, I’m actually really interested in your comments earlier, because it sounds like Majima is actually the character you’re most interested in at this point.

SEAN: Yes, sorry for being so silent. I did only read Vol. 1, and am planning to review it tomorrow, so want to avoid repeating myself too much. :) And yes, Majima fascinated me, if only as there’s no glossing over his otaku-ness. He actually reminded me a bit of Naoto in Itazura Na Kiss, who is early, retro shoujo jerk, so doesn’t have the ‘soft edges’ or occasional pet the dog moments that our modern shoujo jerks get in order to make them appealing. Majima’s otaku creepiness is unapologetic and a little scary, especially to the Japanese who have a definite view of this sort of obsession. The joke, of course, is that he’s an older-looking handsome young man, who would no doubt have friends and potential lovers falling all over him were it not for… well, everything he says and does. Even when people THINK they understand him… witness the chapter where they think he’s offended by their teasing him and try to apologize… but he’s still upset as they go about it the wrong way. I’ll definitely be looking forward to Vols. 2-4, as I’m hoping that, while I’m sure he will gain some depth and kindness in there, he retains his basic creepy unlikeability that makes him so interesting.

MICHELLE: I find him fascinating for much the same reason: he doesn’t seem to have any redeeming qualities. Readers want to like him, but time and again, he gives us reasons not to. I think it’s a pretty stunning portrait of the fixated otaku, personally, with the arrogance and obsession coupled with a preference for 2-D girls (of a very specific forehead-showing, glasses-wearing type) and a lot of hostility towards real women (witness the top three things he has wanted to say to one).

I actually found myself wondering what Tohru Honda would make of him, someone whom her warmth could not penetrate and help to heal. I think she’d find him pretty terrifying.

KATE: I appreciate the fact that Yoshinaga doesn’t try to sand away Majima’s edges; I have a deep loathing for authors who give their curmudgeons and eccentrics falsely redeeming qualities. (It’s one of the reasons I can’t sit through an episode of House!)

Switching gears a bit, one of things I find most fascinating about Flower of Life is that it’s the least mean-spirited satire I’ve ever read. Yoshinaga is clearly having a ball poking fun at series like Genshinken — not to mention every shojo manga that involved a school play — yet at the same time, she isn’t mocking her characters for their passion; their let’s-make-a-manga enthusiasm is contagious. That kind of balance is very hard to pull off, since the story can easily tilt towards snark or flat-out hokum. The results remind me a little of Shaun of the Dead: it works equally well as a zombie-movie parody and a straight-ahead horror flick with comic elements.

DAVID: I think the Shaun of the Dead comparison is really apt, because the characters aren’t only reacting to each other as characters, they’re responding to the ways they fill certain genre tropes. Funny and great as the long set pieces are, like the school festival and Christmas party and study session, there are lots of little moments. A particular favorite is when Sumiko, the female otaku, tucks her hair behind her ear and reveals herself to be unexpectedly beautiful. That’s perfectly executed, especially for the reaction of the onlookers. They all recognize the moment, and it resonates with them, even beyond the actual surprise of the reveal. And I also love how Harutaro and Sakura totally geek out over how adorable Shota is. That’s like a Twitter conversation about favorite characters between enthusiastic fans. But really, that’ one of the great things about this series: that all of the characters are essentially fans of one another, finding those recognizable pop-culture resonances in the everyday people around each other, and celebrating them in these odd, quirky way.

MJ: That’s such a great way of describing it, David! And I think you and Kate have put your finger on one of the reasons the series’ warm feel really works for me. There’s no saccharine quality in it at all. The characters genuinely like each other (mostly) but so much of what holds them together as a group is a common point of reference. It’s odd that this should feel extraordinary, but when I’m reading Flower of Life I become aware of just how rare it is for a writer to really capture that sense of shared pop culture between characters.

MICHELLE: Another thing that prevents that saccharine feeling is that we’re not told over and over that they like each other. Yoshinaga simply shows it, over and over, in marvelous ways. Even the episode that comes closest to bullying—when several classmates gather around Shota and proclaim him a “good fatty”—seems to be born more of ignorance than genuine malice. And, of course, characters argue or disappoint one another. They’re not perfect sunshiney friends 100% of the time, but that doesn’t prevent them from being friends and may, in fact, bring them closer as they recognize their own faults in others.

MJ: As our time runs out, I guess we’d better wind this down. But honestly, I could talk about this manga forever. It’s a favorite that surprises me with its warmth and freshness every time I reread.

Thanks, all of you, for joining me here during such a busy week!

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: flower of life, fumi yoshinaga, roundtables

Roundtable: On Fanfiction

August 11, 2011 by MJ, Sean Gaffney and Michelle Smith 60 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

I still READ fanfiction constantly, of course.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MJ: I can go with that.

MICHELLE: Ugh. :)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: fandom, fanfiction, roundtables

BL Bookrack: Wild Adapter Roundtable

June 22, 2011 by David Welsh, MJ and Michelle Smith 43 Comments


MICHELLE: In celebration of the Manga Moveable Feast, we’re devoting this month’s BL Bookrack column to a discussion of Kazuya Minekura’s Wild Adapter. Joining MJand me is our fellow Manga Bookshelf blogger and Wild Adapter enthusiast, David Welsh.

There was a time when I’d visit bookstores several times a week to assess their new manga acquisitions, and I vividly remember spotting early volumes of Wild Adapter lurking on the bottom shelf. It wasn’t until 2009, though, that I was sufficiently swayed by public opinion and actually read them. I’d been borrowing a set from one of MJ’s friends but knew very quickly that this series was something I would have to own for myself. Its vast reread potential was already evident.

What was your first experience with Wild Adapter?

DAVID: I was an early Adapter adopter. I’ve always found Lillian Diaz-Przybyl to be a very reliable source of recommendations, even when she was editing a book and obviously had a heightened personal stake in a given title’s commercial success. She’s a straight shooter, and our tastes often overlap, so I tried the series right out of the gate. Obviously, I’ve had no reason to regret that.

MJ: I was still quite new to manga when my friend Deanna Gauthier reviewed the first volume of Wild Adapter here in this very blog. I had never even heard of the series, but she was a huge fan, and after she had read all six volumes, she put them in the mail and sent them to me.

She had wrapped them in plain brown paper for shipping, and when they arrived, bundled up neatly in a anonymous little brick, my husband jokingly asked if she had sent me a package of cocaine. Later that evening, as I emerged from our back room, having ravenously devoured the first volume and eager to begin the second, I told him that he’d actually been right after all, because Wild Adapter was like crack.

MICHELLE: And then you sent that same package to me and got me addicted. It’s a vicious cycle!

As mentioned in the introduction to the Wild Adapter MMF, the series is composed in such a way so that each volume is self-contained, with the first volume serving as prologue and the fifth later filling in the gaps between volumes one and two. As I stated in the post referenced above, the fifth is my favorite (and remained so on a reread), partially because I love Shouta so much. Do either of you have particular favorite arcs?

DAVID: For me, it’s a dead tie between the first and the fifth. I think the thing that they have in common is that they objectively should not work. The first is all about characters trying to convince the reader that the protagonist is fascinating, which is such a recipe for failure in so many cases, but Minekura’s work is so subtle and assured that I found myself nodding emphatically. The fifth runs the very great risk of lapsing into Cousin Oliver Syndrome, inviting readers to see the leads through fresh, adorable eyes. Of course, Shouta is as complex in his own way as Kubota and Tokito are, so another common land mine is sidestepped. Minekura is amazing.

(click images to enlarge)




MJ: I agree with both of you, and probably I have the same answer as David, but I also am fairly fascinated with volume four, which is partly seen through the eyes of a lonely salaryman who snaps after killing a prostitute in a drug-induced rage. That volume uses the Japanese concept of kotodama as its overarching theme, and uses it better than any of the more supernaturally-themed series I have mostly seen it crop up in.

There is a quote at the beginning of the volume that stuck with me for a long time. “In this country, we have something called ‘kodotama.’ The spirit of words,” the salaryman says. ” Whatever you say with intent becomes… real. When I was in elementary school, we had to write essays on what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wrote, ‘Section Chief.’ My teacher laughed. ‘What a small dream.’ Those words hit the air, and I breathed them in and just as the teacher said… I grew up to be a perfectly small man.” He later tries to harness kotodama himself by repeating over and over again how he’ll get away with his crime and how everything will be fine. It’s kind of heartbreaking to watch, even though he’s not an especially sympathetic character, and it completely shatters the pattern we’d usually see in a supernatural manga by suggesting that the power of kotodama really is just all in our heads. It’s startlingly true to life.

One of the things Minekura does so brilliantly in this series is that she doesn’t just use her side characters as windows into the protagonists’ lives, but also as windows into the lives of her readers and their world, for better or worse, and sometimes that can be just as revealing.

MICHELLE: And sometimes their interactions with Kubota and Tokito actually affect how they relate to the world at large. Going back to Shouta, there’s a scene where he casually mentions to Tokito (unnamed at this point) that his first name might be Minoru. It’s obvious that Shouta thought he was going to be springing a good surprise, and is completely stunned when his comment instead triggers a traumatic memory and sends Tokito into violent freakout mode. The experience stays with him, and later informs his decision not to ask his parents about the arguments he’s been overhearing. “But I don’t ask them anything about it. I can’t. The moment I touch that subject, everything will fall apart.”

One of the things I like about volume five so much is that here are a couple of guys who arguably would be a bad influence on an impressionable kid, but because of the context in which he knows them (Shouta never learns the details of what Kubota does for a living, for example) they end up being a good influence. When Kubota, surprised by Shouta’s insightful observation, “Saying you don’t want to hurt something because it’s precious isn’t fair. Because it’s not an object… it’s a living being with a heart,” tells him that he’ll be a great writer, it brings to mind the kotodama idea all over again. Maybe Shouta will believe it and come to embody it, just because Kubota expressed confidence in him.

DAVID: I think you’re getting at something that’s at the core of the appeal of the series: the protagonists don’t really fall anywhere on the hero/villain continuum. They’re fascinatingly amoral in that they’re extremely focused on their own interests. Pretty much everything else is kind of collateral. It’s incredibly interesting to see these two do what amounts to the right thing and know that the rightness of that action is only a small component of why they chose to do it.

MJ: Your discussion here reminds me of a scene in the fourth volume in which we’re given a glimpse into Kubota’s past and his acquaintance with a woman named Anna who turns to him for consolation after her abusive boyfriend has run off with all her cash. Anna laments the fact that she always falls for “guys like that” and wishes that she could have fallen in love with Kubota (just a young teen at the time) instead. Later, when Kubota has beaten Anna’s ex-boyfriend nearly to death with an iron pipe, he says to her, “See? Aren’t you glad it wasn’t me?”

As a reader, we’re on Kubota’s side. He’s protected his friend from an abusive guy and (from our perspective) avenged her for wrongs done up to that time. But from another perspective, he’s just terrifying, calmly beating a man to a pulp with no real concern for what’s “right” at all, outside of the way things affect him and those he cares about in some way or another. And he’s far more brutal when protecting Tokito, whom he cares about much, much more.

MICHELLE: When Kubota kills in volume one, his mentality can be summed up by the line “It was him or me, and I always choose me.” After he meets Tokito, the jobs he takes may be dirty, but they’re not deadly. This side of him reemerges in volume six when his old boss, Sanada, orders Kubota’s replacement, Osamu, to kidnap Tokito and grill him for information related to Wild Adapter. Kubota’s revenge is swift, sure, and incredibly, incredibly lethal. Osamu realizes that he’s to blame for “baiting the monster,” which ultimately leads to an absolutely haunting page when Tokito and Kubota together take aim at Osamu and fire. They’ll leave you be if you return the favor, but provoke them and they will do anything to protect what they care about.

DAVID: And I think the key phrase there is do. I’m a big fan of talky manga where characters really articulate and examine their feelings, like in so many of Fumi Yoshinaga’s works. But the way that Minekura has these characters express the depth of their feelings for each other in actions is so effective and fascinating. It’s a brilliant execution of the “Show, don’t tell” mentality of storytelling. There’s terrific, astute, consise dialogue in Wild Adapter, but Minekura’s techniques in sharing the emotional truth of her leads is just amazing. It’s an appropriation and subversion of stereotypical masculinity, the whole “You touched my stuff” thing, and it’s been given so much urgency and truth.

MJ: That’s exactly it, isn’t it? That’s how Minekura so successfully creates such intimacy between her characters without ever having to pull them out of character by forcing them to reveal themselves with words they’d never say. In your post about volume three, David, you described the series as containing, ” improbably sexy characters posing through mostly outlandish scenarios, all of which manage to be unexpectedly involving beyond their considerable surface sheen.” And this is really how she manages that. Whatever else is going on–all the crazy plotting and stylized sensuality–it’s always grounded in emotional truth, which allows us to enjoy the cracktastic plot for all the fun that it is without sacrificing any of the stuff we’re really reading for. It’s satisfying on multiple levels.

MICHELLE: And it’s that very intimacy that helps the series to function as boys’ love without containing any scenes of overt sexuality. The art helps, too, of course. My favorite sexy pose is at the very beginning of volume six, where we first see Kubota lying shirtless in bed with Tokito’s discarded glove next to him, and then on another page see a shirtless Tokito holding Kubota’s glasses in his beasty hand. The glasses are such a part of Kubota, that for Tokito to be holding them in so familiar a manner is positively suggestive.

DAVID: Not to derail anything, as everything we’ve just been talking about is entirely true, but I feel like we’re neglecting the fact that the series is frequently, intentionally hilarious. There’s character-driven humor and some extremely clever scene construction.

MJ: I was thinking about that during our introduction, and trying to find good examples to scan in, but I realized that so much of it is hilarious over the course of a really well-crafted scene, it was often difficult to capture in a single page or two. Minekura’s humor is so much more clever than just a series of gags or punchlines.

MICHELLE: She does play with readers’ BL expectations a few times, though, by having Tokito make suggestive sounds while Kubota is beating him in a video game, or having them both play out a seduction scene for the benefit of the guys in a surveillance van outside. One of my favorite amusing things isn’t actually laugh-out-loud funny at all but just really neat, and that’s seeing the characters depicted in the style of the shounen manga Shouta is drawing. I especially loved Kou’s scientist persona.


MJ: Michelle, I’d say that Kou in general is some of what I find most funny in the manga. I absolutely adore his coded conversations with Kubota.

DAVID: Kou is a treat, no doubt. And that surveillance scene is still possibly the funniest scene I’ve ever read in a manga, just slightly ahead of the school festival in Flower of Life and the synchronized swimming in Sgt. Frog. It’s funny because that dialogue is note-perfect BL, right down to the faux-reluctance.

Minekura is an amazing mimic, and not just with BL tropes. Her seinen credentials also seem particularly strong, and I don’t think Wild Adapter would be out of place in something like Big Comic or Ultra Jump, especially with contemporary catering to a fujoshi audience. Frankly, her capacity to render credible, dramatic violence is right up there with the stars of the noir seinen category.

MJ: I absolutely agree, David, and I’ve wondered if there are regular MMF participants who have decided not to try Wild Adapter because they generally don’t like BL. I’m hoping that’s not the case, but I expect it might be. If so, that’s a shame. Not that there’s any guarantee they would like Wild Adapter, of course, but it’s definitely not exclusive to that audience in terms of appeal.

DAVID: I can honestly think of few series with BL elements that would cast as wide a net as Wild Adapter could.

MICHELLE: There’s definitely a lot about Wild Adapter that isn’t typical of the BL genre, and I totally agree that it would not be out of place at all in a seinen magazine. Fujoshi would see what they want to see, but for everyone else, the relationship between Kubota and Tokito could be read as a kind of intense bromance, like the one between Ban and Ginji in the thoroughly seinen GetBackers. In reality, though, the series run in a BL magazine (Chara). I’m wondering what about the series (if anything) does seem like typical BL to you.

DAVID: For me, the thing that’s most BL-ish is the lack of examination of sexual orientation or identity. It’s merely an intense and surprising relationship that happens to be between two men. There are asides where supporting characters wonder whether Kubota is gay or not, or prefers guys to girls, if that’s their reference point, but that’s just one component of the character’s mystique that people around him find puzzling. But Kubota and Tokito are both so enigmatic that a definition of their specific sexual orientation doesn’t really matter, though. For me, it’s one of those rare cases when that kind of real-world consideration wouldn’t make the BL elements any sharper or more interesting or persuasive. Minekura delivers their relationship without delving into specifics.

MJ: I agree with David about this being the most prominent BL element in the series, and I’ll also add that I actually quite appreciate the fact that other characters speculate about their sexual orientation, because it softens this issue for me a bit. Generally I dislike this aspect of BL, but at least Minekura acknowledges that same-sex orientation exists in the world and that people are thinking about these characters in those terms. Actually, along these lines, there’s a scene in one of the uncollected chapters of the series in which Tokito asks Kubota what kind of relationship they have, because somebody has asked him. Kubota’s reply is basically to say that it’s fine to just tell people something casual and vague, at which point he abruptly changes the subject. It’s a pretty interesting little moment, and it does make one wonder if Minekura might have planned to revisit the question later on in the series.

Other than that, I think the next most BL-like aspect would be the vilification of the series’ actual gay characters, Sanada (the yakuza boss who comes on to Kubota in volume one) and Sekiya, the youth leader from a rival group who is overtly feminized (in the Japanese version, he refers to himself with the feminine “atashi”) and frequently insulted by other characters using anti-gay slurs. The fact that both these characters are villains in the story actually reminds me a lot of Banana Fish, in which all the gay characters are rapists or pedophiles. Not that Banana Fish is BL (we’ve discussed that at length in this blog already), but you get my point. I’m not saying that Minekura intends to vilify gays. I don’t think she does. But homophobia is pretty common in BL, in my experience, so it does spring to mind.

MICHELLE: Wild Adapter does seem to have a touch of the everybody-is-gay syndrome that one sees in BL from time to time. Even though this isn’t overtly specified for the leads, you do have Sanada and Sekiya right off the bat, with each of them (in varying degrees) seeming to expect sexual favors from their underlings. So I don’t know that it’s a case of Minekura vilifying gays so much as the villains are just gay, too.

On the other hand, we do see plenty of other characters whose sexual orientations are not known or even part of the story, like Kou, Kasai, and Takizawa. And there’s some hetero boffing going on as well.

DAVID: For me, part of the appeal of the series is that Minekura is so vague about the specifics of the core relationship. It’s not that she’s entirely being a tease, because the emotional architecture is entirely clear, but she clearly has her own idea of what constitutes necessary detail beyond that. She either trusts her readers to come to their own conclusions, or she wants to leave the potential spectrum of those conclusions wide open, and she’s talented enough to get away with it.

MJ: I think you’re right, she does get away with it, and beautifully too. In that way, it’s more successful than Banana Fish and most other manga I’ve read in which the mangaka deliberately keeps the specifics of the main relationship vague. And actually, given the characters’ particular circumstances and personalities, I think it’s entirely possible (maybe even probable) that the specifics are vague on their part, too, which aids the believability of the whole thing.

MICHELLE: I’m conflicted a little on this point, because although I definitely think Minekura has skillfully crafted their relationship, I’m still a fairly literal-minded person, so I simultaneously wish for some kind of confirmation while being glad that Minekura isn’t giving me any. Does that make sense? Until I see proof otherwise, I’m going to assume they aren’t sexing it up. That obviously doesn’t preclude loving each other, of course.

DAVID: Count me among those who assume that they are sexing it up all the time, but I think your point is totally fair. And I’ve certainly enjoyed titles where we know exactly where the potential couple is on their road to intimacy. I’d list Sanami Matoh’s Fake (Tokyopop) as my very favorite from that subcategory. But I do have a weakness for mangaka who are confident and skilled enough to leave things unspoken.

MJ: And just to clarify my position, I’m assuming they probably are, but that it’s none of my business. So I suppose I’m in-between.

MICHELLE: And thus we provide a bit of something for everyone! :)

DAVID: And thus confirm Minekura’s genius.


MICHELLE: Earlier, MJ mentioned that some regular MMF participants might have decided not to try Wild Adapter because they’re not big fans of BL, but another deterrent for some potential readers might be the fact that it remains unfinished (though, I stress, it does not end on a cliffhanger). How much does that impact your enjoyment of the series?

DAVID: It does make me sad that the series is on hiatus, but it doesn’t leave me dissatisfied with the series itself. As you both noted in the introduction to the series, the volumes are largely self-contained, and they can be enjoyed individually. (I can’t really understand how someone could read one volume of Wild Adapter and not want to read all of them, but that might just be me.)

There are so many reasons that readers of translated manga may not see the end of a series — the publisher cuts its losses on a commercially unsuccessful property or goes out of business altogether — that can result in perfectly legitimate complaining, but I always feel reluctant to get up in a mangaka’s business when he or she is facing health issues. I mean, I’d love to read more Wild Adapter, volumes and volumes of it, but I don’t feel any sense of grievance about it. Does that make sense?

MJ: That makes a lot of sense to me, and I feel much the same way about it. Wild Adapter could go on forever, and I’d be thrilled. And yes, I’d very much like to get to the bottom of the W.A. mystery and learn the truth behind Tokito’s past, but the overarching plotline was never really the point. So while I’d read as much of it as Minekura and Tokuma Shoten were prepared to give me, I don’t feel left in a lurch at all. I do wish we would see some official release of the five chapters that have been left hanging. I’d buy that in a second, whether they filled an entire volume or not.

I will admit a bit of utterly unjustified pettiness over the fact that various incarnations of Saiyuki (which I like much, much less) demanded so much of Minekura’s time when she might have been producing more Wild Adapter, but I realize how ridiculous and entitled that sounds. I mean, seriously.

MICHELLE: I’ve only read a tiny bit of Saiyuki (the first three volumes) but I definitely understand your grievance.

And, like you say, the plotline is not really the point. I’m less interested in W.A. and Tokito’s past (though of the two, the latter is far more compelling) than I am in the characters’ reactions to this. There’s a particularly poignant scene in, I believe, volume six where Kubota has engaged Kou to look for Tokito and says something like, “If he’s regained his memory, then you don’t need to tell me where he is.” He also believes there’s a chance that Tokito, like some amnesia patients, might forget everything that happened while he was “ill.” Kubota isn’t hindering Tokito’s quest for answers, but at the same time, he realizes that when Tokito gets them, things may be over for both of them. That is the part of the story I’m most sad we haven’t seen and maybe never will see.

DAVID: And I am becoming leery of series about hot, emotionally disturbed, possibly romantically involved boys who are linked in some way to illicit pharmaceuticals. Between Wild Adapter and CLAMP’s Legal Drug (Tokyopop), I’m wondering if these series ever get finished.

MJ: You do have a point. Sadly.

MICHELLE: I guess the only thing left for us to do at this point is wish Minekura-sensei a full and speedy recovery.

MJ: Well said, Michelle. Thank you, David, for joining us for this special edition of BL Bookrack!

DAVID: It was my pleasure!

Filed Under: BL BOOKRACK Tagged With: Manga Moveable Feast, MMF, roundtables, wild adapter, yaoi/boys' love

Breaking Down Banana Fish, Final

May 24, 2011 by MJ, Michelle Smith, Connie C., Eva Volin, Robin Brenner and Khursten Santos 25 Comments

Welcome again, and for the very last time, to our roundtable, Breaking Down Banana Fish!

We greet you this month with our final installment, covering volumes seventeen through nineteen of this epic series, as well as two side stories (“Angel Eyes” and “Garden of Light”) which are included in the final volume of the English-language edition of the manga. It’s hard to believe we’ve finally come to the end!

I’m joined again in this round by Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue), Khursten Santos (Otaku Champloo), Connie C. (Slightly Biased Manga), Eva Volin (Good Comics For Kids), and Robin Brenner (No Flying, No Tights).

Just a note before we begin, this final edition of “Breaking Down Banana Fish” contains in-depth discussion of the series’ final chapters, including the outcome of the all series’ main conflicts and the fates of its characters. Obviously this means spoilers, so if you’re new to the series we recommend you begin reading along with the discussions listed below.

Read our roundtable on volumes one and two here, volumes three and four here, volumes five and six here, volumes seven and eight here, volumes nine and ten here, volumes eleven through thirteen here, and volumes fourteen through sixteen here. On to roundtable eight!

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Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: banana fish, breaking down banana fish, roundtables

Roundtable: Hikaru no Go

May 5, 2011 by MJ, Michelle Smith, Cathy Yan, Hana Lee and Aja Romano 27 Comments

 


 

MJ: Back in June of 2007, not long after having loudly proclaimed in my blog at the time that I would never get into comics, my friend Aja finally convinced me to take a look at a shounen manga series called Hikaru no Go. It was a revelation for me. The series was thoroughly engrossing, poignant, and sincerely optimistic in a way I hadn’t experienced before in any medium. Furthermore, the storytelling was masterful and elegant to an extent I’d previously only associated with prose and a few favorite television series. How was it possible that I could find so much satisfaction in a comic about boys playing a board game?

After that, I tried every manga I could find, discarding some immediately, but becoming hooked on many, many more. By October, I’d started a separate blog for the subject, which eventually became the center of my online life. It would be fair to say that Manga Bookshelf most likely would not exist had I not been so enthusiastically encouraged into reading Hikaru no Go.

This week on May third, after a publication schedule spanning seven years, the series’ final volume has been officially released in English. To celebrate the occasion, I’ve asked some of my favorite writers to join me here for a roundtable discussion, namely Manga/Manhwa Bookshelf contributors Michelle Smith, Cathy Yan, and Hana Lee, as well as my good friend Aja Romano, who got me into all this in the first place.

Ladies, would you share a bit about how you first became fans of Hikaru no Go?

HANA: I first heard about Hikaru no Go when it was still being released in 2002. One of my best friends from high school—the one who introduced me to anime and manga, in fact—had asked me to get her the 18th volume for her birthday. (Unlike me, she had studied Japanese and could read manga in their original editions without waiting for translations.) I went to the local Japanese bookstore to find it and was surprised to realize that it was by the same artist who drew Ayatsuri Sakon. I was watching the Ayatsuri Sakon anime at the time and loved the series, so it interested me to learn that Hikaru no Go was about a ghost possessing a boy and teaching him how to play go.

As I started reading the manga through the fan scanlations (all that were available at the time), I realized that the series was not the sort of supernatural-tinged episodic mystery that I had expected it to be. Since I also enjoyed the Shounen Jump brand of tournament-style shounen manga, I wasn’t at all disappointed. But what came as a real surprise was how Hikaru no Go completely transcended the genre: not only a story about competition, it was also a story about growing up, about discovery and loss, and most of all, about passion. What really spoke to me in the series was all the characters’ intense passion for go, whether they were amateurs playing in their school go club or professionals who had been playing for a lifetime. And getting to experience that through Hikaru’s eyes as he slowly learns to feel the same passion himself was what hooked me into the series.

MICHELLE: I can’t actually remember how I first learned about Hikaru no Go. At some point after the anime wrapped in Japan, I acquired some fansubs of the entire series and devoured them in short order. Titles like Rurouni Kenshin had already converted me to a fervent love of tournament manga, and though Hikaru was certainly very different from others in that genre, it was similar enough to addict me quite thoroughly. Beyond the satisfaction of watching our protagonist learn and grow, the series is also genuinely moving, and some episodes left me with tear streaming down my cheeks.

Then the manga came out. Amazon informs me that volume one came out on June 16, 2004. Because I am anal-retentive, I’ve been keeping track of what I read for about a decade. Guess when I read that volume? June 16, 2004. I got it home and gobbled it up. This is meaningful when one considers the backlog of other things I bring home and then just admire.

I think it’s safe to say that I’ve ardently loved Hikaru no Go for going on a decade now. It’s bittersweet that the manga is finally coming to an end, but I’ve definitely enjoyed reading the material that was not part of the anime and, as I mentioned in our Pick of the Week column, now I’ll have the luxury of indulging in a series-long marathon reread whenever the craving strikes.

AJA: You can thank fandom for piquing my interest in Hikaru no Go; I’d been hearing here and there for about 2 years that if I loved certain slash pairings, I’d like the dynamic between Akira and Hikaru in this anime series. So it was on my radar for some time before a friend finally sat me down and showed me the first half of the anime. I fell completely in love with it. I only had a basic familiarity with most of the iconic shounen manga series out at that time, but I knew enough to recognize that Hikago was unlike anything else that I’d really seen or read to date.

Something that makes Hikaru no Go unique for me, in terms of series and fandoms, is that I actually didn’t finish it for about a year. I balked at the inevitability of Sai’s disappearance, because I am a total wuss when it comes to angst, and I knew it was going to completely break my heart. Instead, I dove into the fandom and read all of the available fanfic I could get my hands on, and I actually didn’t return to finish watching the series or reading the manga until a year later.

Reading the manga, especially the final arc that wasn’t in the anime, for the first time was a complete revelation to me. It was so intense, and it still amazes me that a manga about a board game can carry such fabulous pacing over such a long period of time. And the angst was even more intense than I could have expected—but in that final moment when Akira says, “this isn’t the end—it never ends,” to Hikaru made it all worth it.

CATHY: I too found Hikaru no Go before it was picked up for official release. I was in my sophomore year of high school, I think, and had just started to read shounen manga. I absolutely devoured it. I spent one week reading it nonstop; I remember now pulling an all-nighter during Sai’s disappearance arc, absolutely bawling my eyes out. It’s one of the few mangas I’ve read where the subject material is still so unfathomable to me (if you asked me, I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to play a game of go) but the characters and story of it are enough for me to love it eternally. Even Hotta and Obata’s subsequent works, while good, can never measure up to the sheer emotional power of Hikaru no Go.

Fundamentally, for me, the story is one about the passage of Hikaru from childhood into adulthood. I imagine that’s also a fault of the age at which I read the series, because I felt like at that time, I too was trying to grapple with those issues. Go is so distant to me, as a concept and a real game, but in the series, it perfectly encapsulates so many life experiences for our characters. You can’t help but feel how earnest all of the characters are, even too-cool-for-school Ogata!

MJ: I should mention, too, that it was fanfiction Aja used to lure me in, so ten points for fandom!

We’ve already started talking a bit here about how the series transcends its genre, and what I find so stunning about that is how it manages to do what it does within the shounen sports manga paradigm. All the key elements are there—increasingly difficult competition, a powerful rival, strong messages about sportsmanship—but the result is somehow very different than anything else I’ve personally encountered in the genre. What makes this story so special?

MICHELLE: One of my favorite themes in any kind of story is the tale of someone who finds where they belong. It might be finding people who accept them (like Fruits Basket), but it might also be finding their passion. Hikaru no Go is special because it’s not just about a boy who wants to become stronger, it’s about a boy who realizes that he loves something very much and wants to become stronger.

Slam Dunk is kind of similar in that regard, making it another sports manga favorite for me, but that series lacks some of the homey touches of Hikaru. How often do you see the hero’s mother in the periphery, worrying about him and making him bento boxes? It reminds you that he really is just a kid—and often lamentably inconsiderate to his poor mom—which casts him in an endearing light even while he’s accomplishing all these impressive things.

AJA: I think part of it is that despite the mystical element, it’s a series strongly grounded in reality, so you have kids faced with real life decisions and pressures, and having to deal with normal (and not-so-normal) human events like sickness and death along with all the shounen sports tropes like overcoming failure. And even then, there’s nothing over-the-top about the depiction of failure. You have all these characters in the background who struggle with self-doubt like Waya and Nase, Ochi and Isumi—but it’s very understated and they don’t always get a big triumphal tournament moment in which they overcome their inner struggles. It’s a much more subtle story than that, and I think that allows us to really feel the failures and triumphs of these characters (who are all complex and flawed and dynamic) so much more intensely than we do in a typical sports narrative where there’s never any question which characters will win in the end.

I also think part of creating that type of narrative is what Michelle mentions—all of the background characters and especially the adults and their relationships to the children and the story itself. It’s rare in this type of series to have much of the storyline shown from the POV of the adults, much less entire tournament moments devoted to them, but in Hikaru no Go, the adults are much more than fully-developed static mentors. They’re still growing and learning, and even the ones who aren’t involved in playing Go, like Hikaru’s mom, Touya’s mom, and Ichikawa, still have important connections to the story.

It’s a very humanist story as a whole because it allows so many of these characters to develop and then it explores their connection to each other through the game and throughout time and it gradually develops a conceit in which the game of Go becomes a metaphor for the march of the human race. It’s just so beautifully done, and when you first realize that metaphor is unfolding it’s a really breathtaking moment that really transcends genre tropes and becomes great literature.

Which brings me to Sai, who is a character, with a role, unlike any other in shounen manga. Sai is the supernatural Hobbes to Hikaru’s Calvin, but he’s also so much more because he’s a real person with such a charismatic personality, and he carries not only personal history but cultural history on his shoulders. He’s just remarkable! But I have rambled enough now so I will just say that I think the fact that, as Hotta mentioned, real Go players started leaving a seat for Sai in their tournaments, speaks to the beauty of Sai as a character and the richness of Hikaru no Go as a series.

HANA: I agree with everything said above. I’ll add that Hikaru differs from the typical “underdog” shounen protagonist in one important way: aside from what seems like a latent affinity for the game and being taught by Sai, Hikaru is not portrayed as hiding some inborn talent or special ability that only needs to be unlocked by competition. We see that he has to really learn how to play go, and often in the beginning stages of his journey, he isn’t the best and he doesn’t win. Compare to protagonists like Yoh from Shaman King or even Naruto, who are perhaps dismissed by their peers but are shown to actually stand apart from the rest in some way. Hikaru, by contrast, is really just an ordinary boy. I like that the series emphasizes that his surprising growth and progress in go is because he ends up practicing and watching more games than anyone else. I also like that he does lose more often than you would expect from a shounen series, and we see him progressing as a player even when he loses.

CATHY: I think the thing about Hikaru no Go is that on some level, it more than any of the other shounen sports-like series is about the process of growing up and letting go. I always found Sai before his disappearance to be the most touching adult figure out of all them. You know, there are characters like Sai in other stories; one that’s been on my mind lately is Atem, the pharaoh from Yu-gi-oh! who haunts the main character and guides him along just as Sai does to Hikaru. But the thing is that Yu-gi-oh! is ultimately a quest story. The characters end up trying to return Atem to the afterlife, so they can be laid to rest. But Hikaru no Go isn’t that supernatural quest to “put the ghost to rest.” Sai is really another kind of parent to Hikaru. In many ways I think I read the story right when I was realizing that the adults around me were starting to see me as a fully formed person, in my own right, and that I would need to make my own choices. And that’s, strangely, what the character of Sai is for me. He “cedes” his path to Hikaru and lives on in Hikaru just in the way we romanticize our parents living on in us. The moment that always struck me the most was how after Sai disappears, Hikaru wonders if he should have let Sai play more. Because that’s such a fundamentally pure and child-like way of handling grief, to think that you had just listened to them more or been nicer to them, they would come back from the dead. It’s the moment I always mark as Hikaru transitioning from boy to adult.

MJ: Michelle, I’m so glad you brought up Hikaru’s mom, because she’s one of my favorite characters in the series! And you know, despite the huge number of supporting characters in this series, not one of them is superfluous or wasted. I think one of my favorite moments in the series is in volume 21 when Hikaru, after hearing about the difficult time Yashiro’s parents have given him over going pro, finally realizes on some level just how lucky he is to have the support of his mom. It’s not a big moment. It’s small, and it isn’t lasting. It’s not like Hikaru has this major epiphany that changes the way he thinks about his mom forever. It’s just one tiny moment in a million tiny moments that are part of Hikaru’s slowly growing maturity. Details like this are a big part of what makes this manga so special to me. I think this may be part of what Hana is feeling, too, when she describes Hikaru as an “ordinary boy.” Unlike Akira, who often seems like an adult in a child’s body, Hikaru is always exactly his age, no more, no less.

Also, Aja, I’m happy you’ve pointed out that Hikaru frequently does not win. And really, winning is hardly the point, is it?

HANA: My favorite moment in the series that illustrates that is the game that Hikaru plays with Hong Suyeong. Suyeong is on a losing streak as a kenkyuusei and tries to pretend that he no longer cares about go and doesn’t want to try anymore. But it takes a go game where he loses against Hikaru, where both of them played the best that they could, which finally breaks through Suyeong’s shell and gets him to admit that he does care about go. That scene when through his tears, he asks Hikaru’s name and says that he wants to play him again so he can beat him is really a perfect example of how the series shows that it’s not winning or losing that matters, but the personal growth and human connections that the characters experience through the game. (And reiterating what everyone else has said, it’s how Hotta develops backstories for even minor characters like Suyeong that really rounds out the emotional resonance of this series.)

MICHELLE: That scene in volume 21 really struck me, too, because he’d been kind of snotty to her earlier about some snacks she’d made for him to take to Akira’s house just a few days before. I wonder why he can seem like such a nice kid most of the time, but then he’s utterly dismissive when she attempts to learn more about what he’s doing with his life. Granted, he does change his mind, but his first instinct was to be a little git.

So, yes, totally an ordinary boy.

MJ: Hana, I’ll add Hong Suyeong to my list of favorite characters, too! Also, I appreciate the fact that Hotta takes the time to really flesh out some of the Chinese and Korean players, rather than letting the unavoidable nationalism of the tournaments overwhelm the story.

AJA: Hana, I love your mention of the game against Hong Suyeong. Hikaru no Go is really such an adult story in so many ways because it doesn’t pitch you this idealist fantasy of a boy with special powers—like you and Michelle said he has to work, and struggle, and fail. I love that even Akira, who is a child prodigy by all rights, has to work and challenge himself, and develop the personal strength not to be cowed by superior strength.

And yes, Hikaru is just your average impudent boy through and through, and it’s a lovely thing watching him grow more serious and focused over time and seeing the genki trope sort of fade into something more subdued, self-aware, and adult. <3

CATHY: I have to plug my favorite secondary character, which is Isumi! I loved his time in China, and Yang Hai, and Le Ping, and the process of Isumi’s maturation. I think it speaks a lot to the maturity of Hotta’s storylines, that she devotes this plot to one of the characters caught in between the adults and the kids. You’d think there would be a lot of characters like Isumi in shounen manga, but I think he truly is an individual. He’s strong, but not boastful; an older brother figure, but not overbearing or wacky or a classic show off. He’s just so perfectly normal, and you could see that Hotta and Obata used him to throw context into the world of the insei, just like they occasionally use Akari’s character. Like, the entire story just sort of takes a step back with Isumi, and you watch him evaluate the importance of the game and what he really wants to accomplish with his life and you feel eighteen with him. And that, I think, is an underrated element of the series! Often Hotta and Obata pull back and we sort of laugh at how seriously everyone takes the game, but none of the characters are so far gone that you can’t relate.

MJ: Since we’ve already sort of launched into discussion of individual characters, let’s continue with that thread for a bit.

In addition to everything that’s been said here about Hikaru’s regular-boyishness and how much that influences the whole tone of the series, he’s also the heart of the story for me, and not just because he’s the main character. Hikaru’s journey makes my heart swell with warmth and affection. I rejoice when he rejoices. I ache when he does. The first time I read volume fifteen, when he really begins to understand loss and regret for the first time in his life, I thought I might die from the hurt of it. I think it’s rare when a story’s hero is its most relatable character, but for me, Hikaru is exactly that. Is it just me?

HANA: I agree! For me, I think what makes my affection for Hikaru all the stronger is that Hikaru is not the character I would normally identify with. (Our personalities are too different!) But I am fascinated by Hikaru because of it, and I think Hotta does an amazing job of making Hikaru’s journey resonate universally. The most heartwrenching scene for me in volume 15 was when Hikaru is playing against Shuhei in Hiroshima. After he wins, he looks back over his shoulder to ask Sai, “Wasn’t I good?” I started crying at his moment of realization when he remembers that Sai is no longer there.

Obata does a wonderful job of showing that scene wordlessly through just a simple change in expression. I think that Obata’s art—and how Obata’s art develops over the course of the series as well—plays as much a role as Hotta’s writing in allowing the reader to feel with Hikaru. All the characters show wonderful expressions, but it’s Hikaru’s faces that stick with me the most: he shows his glee and exasperation, his joy and sorrow with his entire being.

CATHY: I echo Hana’s comments about the art style maturing with the characters! It’s one of the best things about revisiting Hikaru no Go. You can actually see them mature in a way that uncannily echoes the storyline. Sai gets more and more ethereal as Obata settles into drawing him, and Akira in his final form (oh geez, I apologize for talking about him like a pokemon!) is every bit as regal as the son of Touya Meijin should be.

MICHELLE: There are several panels during the Hokuto Cup where it’s literally stunning how grown-up these guys look, especially Akira. I think it’s time for a new haircut, though!

AJA: I love everything you guys have just said about Hikaru, and I completely agree. I love what Hana said about the moment he looks back over his shoulder. That’s the quintessential moment of the series, I think. And this is a series with so many heartbreaking and iconic moments.

But I have to wave my banner for TEAM AKIRA, here. Touya just breaks my heart from day one, with his spirit and his determination to be the best, and his freakouts when he isn’t. He endures hazing, public humiliation, ridicule, alienation, jealousy, and scorn from his peers, bafflement from his parents, and constant confusion about who and what Hikaru is—all in order just to have a partner and a friend to challenge him to grow. Unlike Hikaru, who is outgoing and boistrous and pretty much culturally aware, Akira comes across as a little isolated, a loner who despite his general friendliness is shunned by other kids. I always think about how lonely and uneventful Akira’s life was before Hikaru showed up and gave him something to strive for. And he strives so beautifully!

And best of all, I think because of having grown up isolated and somewhat alone, he’s the ideal person to have around when Hikaru is struggling through the loss of Sai in the latter half of the series. I think the sheer intensity and rawness of Hikaru’s heartbreak (and ours) can sometimes overshadow what a huge leap of faith Akira makes when he decides to trust Hikaru with the secret of Sai’s Go. We don’t actually see that trust rewarded during the series; but we do see Akira warring with his desire to know the truth about Sai, and the decision he’s made to trust Hikaru. That moment in the final arc is such a beautiful testament to how much his character grows over the series, and how he gains patience, calm, and acceptance. He and Hikaru are perfect complements.

MJ: When I think about it, my favorite Akira moments in the series are sort of equal parts arrogance and equal parts humility and desperate honesty, and it’s pretty unusual to find those things so evenly distributed in the same person. As a result, Akira’s confidence manages to be endearing, while another character would probably just seem like an ass.

MICHELLE: Aja, reading what you have to say about Akira and his isolation that eventually gives way to more spirited striving reminds me so much of Yuki Sohma from Fruits Basket that I’m actually getting geekbumps just thinking about it. The refined-seeming boy who is set apart due to that very refinement who really only seeks someone who will not be afraid to connect and engage with him on a vital level, you know? Again, this ties in with my love for the “finding where one belongs” story arc, and thinking about how much Akira really needs someone like Hikaru in his life makes me feel kind of sniffly.

HANA: I’m always a little embarrassed to admit that Akira is actually the character that I identify with the most, but he’s my favorite for that reason. What I associate most with Akira is his sense of direction: he’s always loved go and he’s always known that he’s wanted to become a go player. I think that it’s really refreshing that the series makes it clear that Akira isn’t just following in his father’s footsteps but has a vocation for go in his own right. I like to think that an Akira who wasn’t the son of Touya Kouyou may have ended up being passionate about go anyway, although perhaps it might have been a longer road.

But what is also clear is that Hikaru shakes Akira out of his complacence. For the first time in his life, Hikaru forces Akira to question himself. And I love that the series resists the temptation to make it a simple narrative of a prodigy encountering an obstacle for a first time but instead ends up reaffirming Akira’s commitment to the life of go. The relationship is also reciprocal: just as much as Hikaru challenges Akira, Akira also becomes the channel through which Hikaru first connects to the go world.

MJ: So, okay, Sai. Aja spoke rather beautifully about Sai earlier on, and he really is extraordinary. She mentioned that part of what’s special about him is that he’s a real person, and wholeheartedly agree. He isn’t just some ancient, wise, supernatural being, sent to be Hikaru’s mentor; he’s fully human, even as a ghost, for better or worse. As much as I love him, I also spent a significant chunk of the series feeling absolutely horrified by him and the lengths he was willing to go to in order to play the games he wanted, even if it meant jeopardizing Hikaru’s future. But even in those moments, I can recognize that this is what makes him an exceptional character. He is Hotta’s greatest creation. And even in his worst moments, he’s an inspiration.

MICHELLE: I really, really, really love Sai. Really. As I write, I still haven’t received my copy of volume 23 from Amazon, and I still continue to hold out a tiny shred of hope that we’ll see him again, even if he’s not really there. (How cruel of Hotta and Obata to deny us even a glimpse of Sai while Hikaru’s thinking about him, which he at least continue to do.)

In my review of volume twelve, I likened Sai and Hikaru’s relationship to, well, a relationship. They’re together, they love and support each other, but they’re also jealous of each other and fail to sometimes understand what the other wants and needs. At the same time, they still want to stay together, so they’re trying to work out a compromise that will make both of them happy.

It’s absolutely gutwrenching to me to think of how Hikaru would ignore Sai’s requests to play and how incapacitated by regret he eventually was because of this. But at the same time, it’s true, that this is Hikaru‘s life and he has the right to pursue his goals.

But I still really love Sai.

MJ: I think, MIchelle, I might have never become truly livid with Sai had he not insisted on playing Hikaru’s first game as a pro, when he was set up against Touya Meijin. It was one of the most important moments in Hikaru’s career, and Sai’s insistence on playing not only jeopardized everything Hikaru had worked so hard for, but it also stole the experience from Hikaru. This first game is something Hikaru would never get to do again, and Sai, who had already lived his own life and Shuusaku’s insisted on having it for himself. And though I eventually did forgive him, at the time when I first read the series, I considered this act unforgivably greedy.

Of course, all this just made Hikaru’s desperate feelings of regret later on even more poignant. In volume fifteen, when he tries to bargain with God to get Sai back by promising to let him play all the games… not only did I fully forgive Sai at this point, but I was also deeply moved by Hikaru’s selflessness, which (kind of ironically) I think he might not have ever developed without Sai’s influence in his life. It’s all very complicated and messy and human, and I love this series for it.

MICHELLE: That was definitely a crappy thing to do, but I think Hotta does a good job of showing how Sai just wanted it so much he couldn’t stop to think about how Hikaru would feel and, as you say, that’s a very human failing.

Speaking of Sai and Touya Meijin, is anyone else sort of inexplicably touched that the latter is still biding his time, waiting for Sai to reappear?

CATHY: I really like the way you phrase that as “a very human failing!” I don’t think there’s been another story about being haunted by a ghost where the ghost seems just as alive as any of the other characters, in a very human way. He’s not detached from life at all. He’s just as excited and immersed in Hikaru’s world as Hikaru is, whether it be the technology in the internet cafe or the people Hikaru meets. I’ve always sort of entertained the idea that Sai might never have been able to achieve the Hand of God with Honinbou Shuusaku because he never had to lead and work and bargain and love Shuusaku the way he does Hikaru. Because something about the Hand of God is also about the passage of life. As Sai says at the end of the Touya Meijin battle, “God gave me 1000 years of time to show you this game.”

I have always adored Touya Meijin and his fascination with Sai. During the setup to the internet game, he and Sai really understood each other in a way Hikaru and Sai can’t. Touya Meijin actually tries to bargain with Hikaru for more games with Sai! Probably of all the characters in the book, he’s most like what Sai would have been if Sai were living. Touya Meijin is one of the few people other than Hikaru who from the start sees Sai for who Sai is, and not who Hikaru is. I always felt kind of bad for Akira that in some way he was left out of the Hikaru-Touya Meijin-Sai relationship and only manages to approximate the story that happens between them. Akira spends so much of this time understanding his father from the outside, through his mother, or through interactions with other people who have interacted with his father. It reminds me, actually, a lot of the book The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, which is about a young boy who ends up befriending a brilliant, neurotic boy who was raised to be a messiah among men and his stern, overbearing father.

As a side note, does anyone remember reading Chapter 114, right at the end of the Sai vs Touya Meijin internet match, and Ogata tries to intrude on the game, and the nurse asks him, “Are all go players like this?” Then we flash to all the insei, Akira, and Ogata all hovered around a computer watching the game. All go players are like this!

MJ: We talked about Hikaru’s mom a bit earlier, but I’d also like to take a look at some of the other great female characters in the series. I’m especially fond of Akari, and also Kaneko, one of the girls in the Haze Go Club whom I’ve loved for being one of the few examples I’ve seen in manga of (to quote a review of mine), “non-skinny, non-conventionally attractive young female character who is portrayed as smart, athletic, and generally to be admired.” I know you have favorites, too, so do tell!

HANA: Akari and Kaneko are two of my favorites as well! But I have to put in a word for Nase, whom I really grew to like after reading her sidestory, where she skips the insei class to go skating with friends. She’s introduced to a boy who seems interested in her, and they go on a date, only to make a detour to a go salon. Nase is in her element: she’s unfazed by the old men and the cigarette smoke and sits down to play a game. Her date on the other hand is more than a little intimidated, and as Nase grows absorbed in the game, he leaves quietly. I really like the moment when she wins the game and looks around to see if her date had seen her at her “coolest”. When she sees he’s gone, she shrugs and goes back to playing another game.

I love this sidestory because on the one hand, we do see Nase wanting to be ordinary and fit in with her peers, but we also see that she loves go too much to give it up for the appearance of normalcy. It always makes me smile that she’s so confident in thinking that she’s going to look awesome playing go in front of her date; it doesn’t occur to her that he might find it strange. The series does a beautiful job of showing the conflicts and doubts that the insei face: they’re all young and devoting most of their free time to this game that they love, but not all of them are going to pass the exam and enter the pro world. They have to choose, over and over again, whether to stay committed or to give up. At another point in the manga, during the pro exam, Nase wins a game and says that she can’t give up on her dream because she knows she can play games like that. I really like that while Nase does have her moments of self-doubt, the series ultimately affirms her self-confidence.

MICHELLE: I was going to mention Nase, but honestly, I think Hana has expressed her appeal so beautifully that all I can do is nod in agreement! It seems cruel to wish for more of this series, since it was obviously incredibly labor-intensive to create, but I can’t help pining for stories that might have been. Like, a sequel focusing on a girl’s journey to become pro, for example.

AJA: Hana, I love your point about how well Nase fits in among the boys’ club, because it brings up a point I wanted to make earlier regarding the dynamic between Touya Meijin and Sai. Throughout the series, we’re shown again and again the importance of having a rival, someone to pull you further along the road towards the Hand of God. I know that arguably Sai does some unforgivable things, but I think especially the moment you mentioned earlier, MJ, when Sai insists on playing Touya Meijin, is the perfect example of how desperately that need exists in the main cast of players. We see it between Touya Senior and Sai, between Akira and Hikaru, in Ochi (Ochi!!!!), Waya and Isumi, Ogata and Kuwabara, even Tsutsui and Kaga.

But the interesting thing to me is that we never see anything like that kind of obsessive need for an other half in any of the female players that we see throughout the series. Granted, we only see one female insei, but all three of the female Go players we observe seem completely independent. Not only do they have a life outside Go (how awesome is it that Kaneko plays volleyball?), but we never see them getting fixated on being pulled along by someone else, a rival that they can call their own.

In some ways I feel like that’s almost a gender subversion on the part of the series, because there’s a heavily romanticized emphasis on finding your perfect partner that seems to be delineated to the male cast members in the storyline, while the female characters are almost all kept apart from that aspect of the game by their own interests. It’s a refreshing autonomy.

On the other hand, I wonder if it’s problematic that the female characters aren’t allowed to have more stake in the game. We don’t even know, for example, if Touya’s mother has any experience playing Go herself, or if Ichikawa ever does more than run the cash register and chauffeur Touya around.

But I do think that it’s refreshing that the female players who do play seem to do so entirely for their own sakes. Akari may have started out wanting to play the game so she would have something in common with Hikaru, but she keeps playing for herself, and becomes the leader of the Go club! Kaneko may have had to be coaxed to join, but she still bonds with the Haze team and stays with the club. And Nase, as Hana already said, affirms her self-confidence completely independent of any outside opinion. All of the girls of Go seem confident and independent!

CATHY: Akari is a great supporting character. I love that Hotta and Obata use her as a foil to Hikaru’s progress in go. I’m sure everyone remembers that scene where Hikaru asks her what to do if her piece was surrounded by the opponent’s, and she says, “Run away like this!” Later, right before Sai’s disappearance, Hikaru plays a game with her too, and Sai notes that it wasn’t so long ago that Hikaru was the one being taught, but now he can teach Akari. I love that she cares enough about the game to play with Hikaru, but she knows her life is going another way, the more conventional way. But Hotta and Obata never make that path less important than Hikaru’s — just different.

One of my absolute favorite moments of Hikaru no Go is Akari in chapter 154. That was the chapter where, for the first time in a long time, we check in with Kaze Junior High! Akari is going through a period of self-doubt as well, because she isn’t doing as well in cram school as she would like, and she gets this feeling that everyone around her — Kaneko and Hikaru especially — are leaving her world behind. On the way home, she stops by Hikaru’s house and sees that the light is on in his room, and, cheered up, she runs home shouting, “Fight! Fight!” That chapter still brings tears to my eyes now. I was in high school then, feeling sort of out of my element, convinced that I would go to a crappy college and do crappily forever, and seeing Akari go through the same troubles, that her worries and self-doubt were just as real as Hikaru’s troubles (this was right before the North Cup and Hikaru’s re-match with Kadowaki), moved me inexpressibly. In that scene, I think there’s this great sense of meta, that she’s us reading Hikaru’s story too and taking strength from the hikari of Hikaru. Which is fitting, since both their names mean light!

I’ve been reading a lot of discussion in chess forums, interestingly enough, about the difference between male and female chess players, that I think is directly relevant to Aja’s point. In 2009, some researches looked at titles held by men and women in chess and concluded that crunching the numbers, women hold just as many chess titles are they’re supposed to, given how few women chess players there are. In other words, there are more male players than female players, so there are more male players at the far end of the bell curve, thus giving us the false impression that men are inherently better than women. And it can’t help but remind me that in the world of Hikaru no Go, almost all the role models to go players are males: the teachers, the professionals, the reporters. In fact, during the Meijin games, the only female you see is the one who runs the live board, right? I think it speaks to this false logic we get in real life, that we start with an inherently gender-skewed system which discourages/disincentivizes girls from joining, and then we conclude from it that girls just don’t have the interest, or even worse, the skill, to participate in the game. Isn’t there even an exchange where someone tells Akari that girls can’t learn go?

So, yes, I think there is a problematic representation of women in the series, but it actually reflects the problematic nature of games like go and chess in reality! Hotta and Obata clearly have done their research into the world of go, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they found most of it is male dominated. I don’t think it’s a subversion at all, really. But then again, I don’t think it is because I think when it comes to female characters, Obata, at least, has a very troublesome history. Bakuman, I’m looking at you.

HANA: I remember when I was doing some research on female go professionals in Japan, I found that there are separate women’s tournaments for many of the major titles as well as a separate women’s pro exam. (I should note that women are not limited to competing in women-only tournaments or taking the women-only pro exam.) I think there are two ways to look at it. On the positive side, having these separate arenas for women does address the issue of the extreme gender imbalance and helps increase the visibility of female professionals in the go world. On the negative side, it does seem to reinforce the idea that women can’t directly compete with men.

I think Hikaru is the one who tells Akari that girls can’t learn how to play go, and I do think it was a positive sign that Sai immediately contradicts him and says that many women of his acquaintance in the Heian era were masters of the game.

AJA: There’s also the fact that the manga was overseen by a female Go pro, Yoshihara Yukari, and that not only was she the instructor of the Go-Go-Igo! segment that aired along with each episode of the anime, but she also featured a girl student along with a boy student.

So I think they definitely did go out of their way to show that girls could be involved with and part of the game of Go.

MJ: Since we’ve started inching towards it a bit already, let’s take a moment to discuss the end of the series. I’ve seen some disappointment from other manga bloggers over this, and though I had a mixed reaction the very first time I read the ending, I’ve come to like it very much.

My impression of the ending the first time I read the series was that it felt abrupt and maybe a bit weary. It seemed so clear that Hikaru’s journey was not over, and though I realized that the manga couldn’t last forever, I didn’t understand why the creators decided to stop telling me Hikaru’s story at that particular point. To me, it seemed like his story had just barely gotten started, and I felt almost a little angry that I wasn’t going to get to see him finish growing up. I’d never get to see how he learns to deal with being an adult, winning a title, or even just winning a pro game against Akira, which it seemed he must inevitably do sometime as both their careers continue on. I’d never get to see him move out of his mom’s house. I realize that much of this is unrealistic to expect of a shounen manga series, but he’d grown so much right before my very eyes, I felt like I’d been witness to his entire life up to that point and I didn’t understand why I was suddenly being cut out of it.

My second read-through of the series left me feeling completely different about the ending, which was quite a surprise to me, but because I had that initial reaction, I can understand where other manga bloggers (who are just reaching the ending now) are coming from. They’re feeling like it ends with a whimper instead of a bang, and I get that. It’s unexpected. I’ve come to appreciate that very thing about the ending now, but I’ve been there, so I understand.

I know Aja, at least, has some things to say about this (UNDERSTATEMENT), and I’d love to hear what you all think about the way the series ends.

MICHELLE: I read the ending for the first time yesterday. Though I could use a little more mulling time, I have to say that I like it. I like the parts where Yang Hai (the leader of the Chinese team) and Touya Meijin sit around, discussing the hypothetical possibility that the Sai who briefly appeared on the internet was, in fact, the spirit of Shuusaku. They got it right, but they’ll never know they got it right. Still, Sai’s presence inspired both of them, and seemingly reinvigorated the Meijin’s joy in the game.

I like that Hikaru doesn’t win his game against Ko Yeongha, because it prompts Akira to say those wonderful words to him: “It doesn’t end here, y’know. In fact, it’s barely started.” Geekbump city! Would I have liked more? Sure! Would I have liked Sai to come back? Sure! But sometimes what fans want and what a story needs are mutually exclusive concepts, and I’m not dissatisfied at all by what we get.

The one thing that puzzles me is the quote from Sai at the end. “Can you hear me? Can you hear my voice?” This is hearkening back to his first words to Hikaru in the first chapter (though not exactly the same, I note), and so though this is probably a reinforcement of the idea that the distant past will continue to affect the far future—as further shown by the second bonus story, in with those insei are inspired by Hikaru and Akira—part of me wonders, “Wait, what? Is he back? Is no one noticing?!”

HANA: It came as a complete surprise to me to learn that people disagreed about the ending. Thinking on it further, I see where the complaints may be coming from: on a structural level, it did seem to end a little abruptly, just after several new characters had been introduced. Often, the shounen manga convention is that an ultimate goal is introduced at the beginning of the series, and despite the many plot arcs, the series as a whole is expected to achieve that goal. (E.g. winning the nationals in Prince of Tennis or becoming the titular Shaman King in Shaman King.) However, Hikaru no Go completely subverts this genre convention: the initial “goal” at the beginning of the series, Sai wanting to achieve the Hand of God, is never reached. In fact, the series presents the Hand of God as an unrealizable ideal that humanity approaches like an asymptote. One of the most powerful moments in the series is Sai’s realization that the purpose of his afterlife is not to reach the Hand of God, but to pass on the dream to Hikaru, his student, thus becoming part of a larger human story of striving for perfection. When Sai relinquishes his desire to personally find the Hand of God, he is finally able to be at peace. There’s almost a Buddhist quality to how the story transforms the classic shounen quest to “become stronger” into a story about letting go and transcending one’s individual limitations by connecting to others. The ultimate move or power-up has value not because it is an end in itself but because of the journey it inspires.

I think that the beauty of the ending lies in how it ties together these thematic threads and ends on a powerful message about continuing the journey. As we see so often throughout this series, Hotta does not take the easy route of ending Hikaru’s story with a triumphant victory. He loses to Ko Yeongha in a game that he bitterly wanted to win. But in that loss, he reaffirms his purpose in playing go: to remember the past and to look forward to the future, to be part of the unbroken, collective endeavor to reach the Hand of God. I also interpret that last line, echoing Sai’s first words, “Can you hear my voice?” in the context of this message. I think of it as an invitation to the reader to not merely consume the story but become part of it.

MICHELLE: Ooh, I like your interpretation of Sai’s final line very much. I shall promptly adopt that way of thinking of it. It’s sort of like, “How about you? Do you hear the call?”

CATHY: Hana already said everything and so beautifully that I could have said about the ending. For me, I felt the story had already ended when I read chapters 147 and 148. Those are the chapters covering the lunch break of the Hikaru vs Touya preliminary game to the Meijin tournament, where Touya remarks that there’s another person inside of Hikaru, and that person is Sai. Then, in 148, he tells Hikaru that it doesn’t matter because Hikaru is the go he plays! And the rest of 148 is this wonderful dream Hikaru has of Sai. I think that chapter has a similar feel to the real ending of the series, in that we return to Sai’s voice, how Sai’s love for go became Hikaru’s love for go, and thus an extension out to the world of go that Hikaru becomes a part of. There’s even a similar feeling of how the story is just now beginning, because the Weekly Go office talks about how exciting Akira, Hikaru, Ochi and the rest are, as the new generation of go players! So in many ways I felt like for me everything after that was merely icing on the cake. I was pleasantly surprised that the Meijin games didn’t end the story, and as Aja mentioned, that’s exactly where the anime ends it!

I do understand how the manga could have seemed abrupt, but I think you could feel during the North Cup that the story was wrapping to a close, what with bringing back characters like Yang Hai, Suyeong, and even Tsutsui, Yeongha’s potshot at Shuusaku, and finally Hikaru and Akira switching First and Second board. One thing I found great was that Hotta and Obata ended the story with the young players of Japan, Korea, and China marching forward. It’s Korea versus Japan, and it’s the Chinese team commenting on the side. This is no longer the world of Sai and the Fujiwaras and Heian Japan; it isn’t even just the Hikaru and Akira being the rising stars of Japanese go. It’s this wider feeling, an embracing of the rest of the world, a vastness that’s alluded to throughout the story. And that more than ever echoes the final speech given by Yeongha, translated by Yang Hai, concluded by Akira, and mused over by Hikaru. If there was ever a story about how hope springs eternal from the fountain of seishun, I think it’s the final chapter of Hikaru no Go.

AJA: Everyone else has perfectly articulated the richness and the scope of the ending, and I hardly know what to add.

It’s not just that the story subverts the typical shounen trope: Hotta made Hikaru’s loss at the North Star cup even more unspeakably heartbreaking than it would have been on its own, by tying his matchup with Ko Yeongha explicitly to the loss of Sai: the match takes place on May 5th, the anniversary of Sai’s disappearance; and Ko Yeongha insults the memory of Shuusaku. So for Hikaru, this moment isn’t just about failure, or the attainment of a higher level of skill: it’s about honoring Sai’s memory.

To me, all of the ending’s wonderful elements of international connection, cross-generational connection, and metaphysical connection come together in the image of Hikaru weeping, not only for his loss, but for his lost friend. Akira’s reminder, “this isn’t all there is,” is a fully layered statement, because he’s not only acknowledging that there is more to Hikaru’s Go than this loss, but also stressing that the outcome of the game isn’t what keeps Sai alive: it’s the act of playing. And just as Sai needed courage and maturity to accept that his path isn’t about attaining the perfect hand, Hikaru, in that moment of acknowledging Akira’s words and following him out of the room, is showing us how much courage and maturity he has gained over the series—something he couldn’t have gained without also witnessing and being tied to the struggles and losses of everyone around him who is playing the game with him.

In the wake of that moment, Sai’s words in the final panels always wrap around me like a blanket of comfort and hope. I hear them, just as Hana said, as a request to the reader to acknowledge, along with Hikaru, our ever-present connection to the universe and the world and people around us, the past, present, and future. Sai’s acceptance of his intrinsic connection to the rest of humanity allowed him to find peace; and it is our acceptance of our own shared roles as players in the Game that will allow the spirit of Hikaru no Go to live on in each of us.

MJ: That was beautiful, all of you.

So, I know I had a slew of things I wanted to talk about, and I haven’t gotten nearly to all of it, but before we wind down, let me ask all of you, is there anything you’ve been dying to talk about?

CATHY: I just wanted to add that for those of us who enjoy cardgame based anime or manga, while Hikaru no Go is obviously the best I’ve ever read or watched, there are a few other series I would recommend. Fukumoto Noboyuki does a series of excellent manga about games: Akagi and Ten, both of which are about mahjong, and Kaiji, which is about a number of different games, some of which are more, shall we say, gladitorial than others. Akagi was made into a very enjoyable 26 episode anime with a cliffhanger ending, and it’s actually the series that made me start learning mahjong! Fukumoto’s work is much, much darker than Hikaru no Go, though and, sadly, they’re only available right now for those of us who can read Japanese. But if you ever get a chance to check them out, I highly recommend doing so, or at least making a clamoring for someone, anyone, to license them in the US.

MICHELLE: Actually, something Cathy said back at the beginning reminded me of a question I wanted to pose… has anyone been inspired by the series to take up Go? I have! I used to play every lunch with one of my coworkers, and have since purchased a nifty (and largely unused) magnetic board. The problem is… I’m really bad! If only reading the series could impart strategic knowledge to a person!

MJ: I have! Sort of. I bought a small board and stones, but since I didn’t have anyone to play it with, I tried to learn from a computer game, which was a *big mistake*. The game didn’t teach me; it just slaughtered me over and over until I lost the will to go on. I still haven’t gotten up the nerve to ask a real person to teach me, which I think is the way to go, so my cheap, little board remains unused. It’s very sad.

MICHELLE: Oh, I had the same experience with a computer game! You know, Hotta mentions a supplementary book that has the characters’ game records in it. How awesome would it be to get that and have fun recreating the games ourselves?

Okay, yes, I am a big nerd, but this sounds like much fun. Pizza would have to be involved, as well.

AJA: I’ve gotten as far as playing tutorial games online, but I’m so fuzzy on the concepts that I haven’t gotten very far! It’s still fun, though.

HANA: I had the dubious pleasure of my father attempting to teach me go several times, starting from when I was around eight or so. Unfortunately, these lessons always ended in my father playing an even game without any handicaps with me, and I’d lose by at least 40 moku. (I did get very good at playing omok—gomoku in Japanese—though!) So I did go into Hikaru no Go knowing the very basics of the game, but I had always thought of it as an intimidating game that I could never master. Reading the series encouraged me to try learning how to play again. (If Hikaru could learn, surely I could as well!) My father was thrilled at my renewed interest, and he even agreed to give me a four-stone handicap. (I still lost by 40 moku.) I haven’t played very much though; I practice occasionally against a computer game. I also have a magnetic go board that is gathering dust on my shelf.

CATHY: My inability to play go is frankly laughable. The thing is, early into the series, I decided I was never going to understand go and decided I wasn’t going to try too hard to solve the go problems or understand the game! I didn’t know anyone around me who played it either, and I just have such terrible spatial logic that I was never able to grasp the flow of the game. I did, however, memorize a lot of the terms related to go, so I once surprised a real player by talking about playing tengen as a first hand — let it never be said that reading manga will impair your social skills!

MJ: So, pizza and Go, anyone?

 


 

Never-ending thanks to these fun and brilliant ladies for joining me here to discuss Hikaru no Go. Look for more Hikago-related fun over the next two days, and please join us in comments!

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: hikaru no go, roundtables

Breaking Down Banana Fish, Vols. 14-16

March 26, 2011 by MJ, Michelle Smith, Connie C., Robin Brenner, Eva Volin and Khursten Santos 12 Comments

Hello and welcome once again to our roundtable, Breaking Down Banana Fish!

We continue this month with our new three-volume format, and with just six volumes left to discuss, that means we’ll have the entire series covered by the end of our May installment.

Volumes fourteen through sixteen are action-packed, as Eiji and the others manage to (mostly) pull off their ambitious rescue operation, followed by a declaration of war by Golzine that places all three of our major gangs at the center of a military-style siege. Meanwhile, Yut-Lung declares a war of his own with assassin Blanca on board as his bodyguard.

I’m joined again in this round by Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue), Khursten Santos (Otaku Champloo), Connie C. (Slightly Biased Manga), Eva Volin (Good Comics For Kids), and Robin Brenner (No Flying, No Tights).

Continued thanks to these wonderful women for their hard work and brilliance!

Read our roundtable on volumes one and two here, volumes three and four here, volumes five and six here, volumes seven and eight here, volumes nine and ten here, and volumes eleven through thirteen here. On to part seven!

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Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: banana fish, breaking down banana fish, roundtables

Manga Bookshelf talks Sailor Moon

March 19, 2011 by MJ, Michelle Smith, Katherine Dacey and David Welsh 21 Comments

Join the Manga Bookshelf bloggers and special guest Michelle Smith in our spontaneous Sailor Moon squee roundtable!


MJ: As most of our readers probably have heard, the big news yesterday in the manga blogosphere was that Kodansha USA is re-releasing Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon. I was pretty excited when I got the press release (there may have been a caps-locked e-mail), but I admit when I examine that, I’m not exactly sure why.

I’m thrilled at the prospect of being finally introduced to a series that was so key in bringing shoujo manga to the US, but beyond that I’m a little bit lost. My only personal experience with the series is a couple of episodes of the anime adaptation that Michelle showed me last year, and from that alone, I don’t feel like I have any real basis for understanding why the series means so much to its American fans.

I think Kate may be in a similar position, so I’m hoping that our squeeful cohorts can shine some light on the subject. Why do you love Sailor Moon, and why will we?

DAVID: I should jump in and admit that my familiarity with the series is entirely based on the anime, though I was quite charmed by it. This was decades ago when it would just randomly be aired on those third-tier non-networks, and I was always game for a half an hour with these girls. This might have been because I was a huge fan of super-hero teams at the time and had a particular weakness for super-heroines who also had rich emotional lives.

While I always loved comics like The Avengers and The Uncanny X-Men, part of me always muttered about the fact that there were too many boys hogging the glory. Every team had its own version of “the girl,” and sometimes they’d even have two, but it was always clear that she was “the girl.” Sailor Moon was such a nice change of pace for that reason — all of the really important, powerful characters were girls, and they had lives outside of the big battles.

MICHELLE: It seems I’m the only one of us, then, who’s read the manga before (albeit with the help of fan-made translations). I was introduced to the anime first, specifically the third or ‘S’ season, and though I probably thought it was a little silly and episodic at first, I was new at the time to the concept of gender-bending characters, so fell hard for the allure of the older sailor senshi, Uranus and Neptune. Perhaps because it was one of the first shoujo anime I ever saw, it holds a very special place in my heart, and really exemplified—especially in its dramatic conclusion, at which all Sailor Moon seasons excel—how different that genre is from American cartoons.

The manga is fun, too, and definitely worth squeeing about, but in some ways I prefer the anime, especially as it allows more time with some of my favorite characters, like Fish-Eye (a villain from Super S) and the Sailor Starlights, and also plays up the flirtatious angle between Uranus and Neptune.

Rereading this response, it seems that I may love Sailor Moon primarily for its gender hijinks, but the drama really is the best part.

KATE: My interest in Sailor Moon is the same as MJ’s — as a historically important shojo manga that introduced a generation of female readers to Japanese comics. What little I’ve seen of the art suggests that I’ll probably be reading the manga as a historian more than a fan, as it’s the kind of wide-eyed, sparkle-riffic style that doesn’t really speak to me. I’m keeping an open mind, however, as the series’ gender politics sound genuinely subversive.

I’m glad that Kodansha decided to re-issue the series. The nostalgia factor will undoubtedly fuel sales, especially among women who want to share Sailor Moon with daughters and nieces, but I also think there’s a new audience for Sailor Moon as well. As David points out, there’s still a dearth of stories about super-powered women (or girls) banding together to save the day. When I was eight or ten years old, that kind of fantasy would have had irresistible appeal, as it was never much fun to fight with female friends over who got to play the token female character when we re-enacted the latest Superfriends episode or favorite scenes from Star Wars.

MJ: I’d love to hear more about the gender politics, actually, should anyone care to elaborate. Squee optional.

MICHELLE: Jason Thompson talks some about that in his excellent piece on Sailor Moon for his House of 1000 Manga column. To quote him:

“But amazingly, years later, when I reread Sailor Moon, I realized it’s actually not even that shojo. Oh sure, it’s got hearts and kisses and accessories, but it’s also got a heavy dose of shonen manga, from the melodramatic fights and deaths and reincarnations to the earth-shattering explosions to the touching friendships. Sailor Moon is shojo for the era of Dragon Ball Z and Saint Seiya. The heroines of series like Wedding Peach and Tokyo Mew Mew can’t match the Sailor Scouts for self-discipline and steely fighting power. By the standards of magical girl manga, that ever-popular genre of manga which is part girl power and part short skirts and pink things, Sailor Moon is butch.”

Plus, in this case it’s the “hero” of the piece, Sailor Moon’s boyfriend, who is chiefly there to look handsome and be rescued.

KATE: That low, throaty sound you just heard? That’s me squeeing. Sign me up!

MJ: I’m with Kate!

Though, interestingly, as a big fan of 1980s & 90s shoujo, I have to say I already associate things like melodramatic fights, deaths, reincarnations and so on with shoujo manga. I guess those things are less common now (at least in the titles we see coming over), but when I think of the stuff that defines “shoujo” for me, those things are a big part of it. Glancing at the section of my bookshelf that is populated with titles from Viz’s old shôjo imprint (Banana Fish, Basara, Please Save My Earth, X/1999), they’re filled with elements like that.

All of you are more knowledgeable about manga history than I am–where does Sailor Moon fall in terms of the evolution of shoujo in Japan?

DAVID: I don’t know that it broke any new ground, but Paul (Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics) Gravett credits it with revitalizing the magical-girl genre, which is pretty significant when you consider how much of a staple that genre is, especially in terms of the kind of books that got licensed in the early wave of manga in translation. And it’s generated an enduring franchise, with all kinds of spin-offs and a merchandising empire. Again, that’s not unique, but properties that manage that are always worth noting.

MJ: That’s a great point, David.

Let’s talk magical girl for a moment… I admit it isn’t my favorite shoujo genre. In fact, I can only think of one manga title in that vein I genuinely love. In some ways, I think that is probably what makes Sailor Moon a tougher sell with me (outside of its historical significance) than other older shoujo might be. Do I have a skewed view of the genre?

MICHELLE: I don’t think so, at least given what’s been made available here. Compared to something saccharine like Tokyo Mew Mew, for example, Sailor Moon is by far the better series. Compared to something like Cardcaptor Sakura, though… That’s a tougher choice.

I will say that, while in other series the whole “donning the costume” bit is usually cheesy, I kind of love it whenever it happens in Sailor Moon. I can’t really explain why. In this series, I like their different-colored costumes and various powers, whereas in other series I couldn’t possibly care less. Is some of this nostalgia speaking? Quite possibly. I’m not sure how this would play to a seasoned manga reader who is encountering it for the first time.

DAVID: I think those transformations are so important, like the ones in the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman. Instant, empowering makeover, style plus power.

KATE: For me, my reluctance to embrace magical-girl manga is a direct reflection of the advanced age at which I started reading comics. I found tough, adult women more appealing as avengers, enforcers, and butt-kickers than teenage girls because they were a lot closer to me in age than the heroines in Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura.

MICHELLE: If you want tough, determined enforcer types, then you will probably like Sailor Uranus. I mean, these aren’t just a bunch of girls in cute, matching outfits. They have individual personalities, though I do think these are probably more fully explored in the anime. Some of the girls are more frivolous (Minako is actually more serious in the manga, if I recall rightly), but the older senshi in particular are pretty poised and mature. One of them is a college student studying physics, for example.

KATE: That’s good to hear, Michelle! The few magical girl manga I’ve read just made me feel hopelessly old, you know?

MJ: I’m glad you mentioned age, Kate, because though I find I still personally identify with my long-gone teenaged self much more than a woman my age should, I think my age might have something to do with my reaction to most magical girl manga. I’m ashamed to say, though, that even more of it may have to do with the point Michelle and David brought up, and that would be… the clothes. Heh.

This is something I’m struggling to reconcile in myself, actually. I look at this cover, for instance, and I have two negative reactions immediately. One is to seeing a character I know is supposed to be a warrior of sorts in a tiny little skirt, and the other is to the use of the word “pretty.” There’s a part of me that really hates for these things to be important. I know none of this is unique to magical girl manga (or even manga in general) and it’s not that I have a problem with style. I just want it to be less important than other things. Yet, I know that when I was a young girl, I would have loved that little skirt and thought it was the prettiest thing in the world! I also actually quite like the color pink. I’m a mess of contradictions, really. But is it just me?

DAVID: Obviously not. I contradict myself constantly. And I’ll do so again by saying I’d love to see a josei take on this genre.

KATE: Oh no — me, too, MJ! I love me a nice dress and pair of shoes as much as the next gal, but my inner warrior chafes at popular entertainment that unironically packages strength, intelligence, and competence in frills and sparkles. At the same time, however, I’d have to concede that looking good can be a powerful confidence-booster. Even though I dress like a slob when I go for a run, I always make an effort to look smartly coordinated when I participate in a road race.

I guess I’m a confused hypocrite, too.

MICHELLE: Does it help if I say these girls aren’t sexualized at all even though they wear these outfits? And it’s Sailor Moon who declares herself pretty. It’s kind of empowering, actually.

MJ: Michelle, that does help a bit. And David and Kate, I’m grateful to hear I’m not the only self-contradictory soul in the room. David, I love the idea of a josei “magical woman” series. That’s something we really haven’t seen over here have we? Would you put Wonder Woman in the western version of that category? Or is she too much written for male readers?

MICHELLE: Oh, I’d love to see a josei magical woman series. There’d be so many extra complications. I think Fumi Yoshinaga should write it.

KATE: I love the idea of josei Wonder Woman — I would totally read that!

Actually, Wonder Woman’s costume is just as absurd as the Sailor Moon girls’, though I loved Jim Lee’s recent WW makeover. Her new outfit is sleek and sexy, but still conveys WW’s physical strength. Plus it actually looks like something that a real female athlete could wear while she was running or jumping, something I can’t say for most superhero or magical-girl costumes.

MJ: I think one of the things that always gets me about these types of costumes is all the bare flesh. And I don’t mean that in terms of how revealing they might be. I just keep thinking how horribly scraped and bloodied up a person would get, fighting with bare legs. Human skin is so fragile!

MICHELLE: I seem to recall them getting scraped up a little, but most of the enemies’ attacks are of the energy-draining variety, so there’s very little close combat going on.

DAVID: I have to admit that I always found the battles in the anime to be amusingly baffling. Maybe it’s because I didn’t watch it from start to finish in a coherent order, but the combat moves, the announcing of everything that was happening, the sparkly visual effects… I’m obviously used to that sort of thing now, but back then, it was almost hallucinogenic.

KATE: Switching gears a bit, do you agree with me that there’s a new audience out there just waiting to discover Sailor Moon, or is its appeal strictly nostalgic? If there is a new audience for Sailor Moon, do you think the series will play a critical role in bringing new readers to the medium again, or will it be a blip on the manga radar?

DAVID: I was wondering the same thing, but one thing I’ve noticed in the responses I’ve seen to the news is excitement over the chance to give it to a new generation of readers. It seems like there’s an army of Sailor Moon fans from its original run waiting to hand it off to their daughters and nieces and little sisters and so on. I don’t know if that guarantees commercial success, but I think it will help. And the fact that this is a different, by all accounts more attractive package with a sure-to-be-excellent translation from William Flanagan suggests to me that the original audience will also be going back to the well.

kATE: I also wonder if Sailor Moon will look too dated to teens — the artwork in Sailor Moon isn’t as radically different from what VIZ and Tokyopop are licensing now as, say, Swan or From Eroica With Love, but it definitely has its own look and feel. Teens tend to be pretty ruthless critics when it comes to judging manga artwork, especially if the characters’ clothing or hairstyles obviously belong to another era.

MJ: I’d like to think there could be a new audience. Tween girls in particular I think would be less turned off by the series’ dated look than teens might. I know I never noticed things like that when I was their age. Those girls would be its best chance of bringing new readers to the medium, I think. The other new audience is perhaps readers like you and me, Kate, who missed out on the manga when it was released by Tokyopop, and would be looking at it as a significant historical specimen. But we’re already manga readers, of course.

DAVID: I know I pick on her a lot, but Arina Tanemura’s manga seems to do okay with a contemporary audience, and I don’t think her aesthetic is that far away from Naoko Takeuchi’s, though Takeuchi’s seems to possess more clarity. (It would have to.) It does raise the good question of whether or not to brand the book as a classic, relatively speaking. “Your mom loved it when she was your age” may not be the best incentive for certain consumers.

KATE: Good point — a lot of Tanemura’s hardcore fans love her primarily for her distinctive artwork and elaborate costume designs, so maybe the art will be a selling point for Sailor Moon.

MICHELLE: Somehow I missed the fact that William Flanagan is doing the translation! Now I’m even more excited!

I, too, would hope that the influence of mothers and other fans upon the younger generation will help guide them in that direction. The beautiful new covers, too, ought to help temper the more dated interior artwork, and make the series something that beckons from the shelf.

MJ: I know when I was young, the secret to “classics” for me was to discover them myself. I might not have loved something that adults were actively pushing on me, but if I found it in the library or a box in the basement, that was pure gold. Obviously these books aren’t going to be in the basement, but if just a few tweens and teens discovered them on their own, they’d be the best ambassadors to other girls their age.

Before we wrap up, I’d like to open the floor for any general squee that’s been suppressed here in this very orderly, grownup conversation. Got any?

MICHELLE: I think I pretty much exhausted my supply of squee yesterday, like when I proposed marriage (bigamy, really) to Kodansha on Twitter, but I admit that I am really looking forward to how others are going to react to this manga. I hope I haven’t hyped it up too much because, again, it’s not flawless or anything, but it really is fun. I’m especially keen to see the reaction to those incantations David mentioned, because some of them are… special. My own beloved Seiya has a doozy in “Star Serious Laser,” but there is one that surpasses that which I will allow you two to discover on your own.

Okay, in thinking about that, I found a hidden reserve of squee. Here goes: OMG, THE SAILOR STARLIGHTS!

MJ: Okay, given what I’ve already said in this discussion, I am definitely not supposed to love those outfits. BUT I DO.

MICHELLE: I love the Starlights so much that even when I thought I had calmed my squee, they proved me wrong.

DAVID: I just want to say that I was uninspired by Kodansha’s initial announcements, but this gives me reassurance that they’re going to be ambitious from time to time, and that makes me squee.

KATE: I’m not much for squeeing, but I’m also delighted that Kodansha is digging into its back catalog; it gives me hope that they’ll take a risk on even older material like Haikara-san ga Toru.

MICHELLE: And, actually, maybe Sailor Moon will help fund some less commercially successful titles, like a continuance of Nodame Cantabile, perhaps! And I’ll still hold out hope for Hataraki Man.

MJ: I share all your hopes, indeed. Thanks everyone, for joining me in this conversation today!

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: kodansha usa, roundtables, sailor moon

Breaking Down Banana Fish, Vols. 11-13

February 15, 2011 by MJ, Michelle Smith, Khursten Santos, Eva Volin, Robin Brenner and Connie C. 13 Comments

Hello and welcome to the sixth installment of our roundtable, Breaking Down Banana Fish!

This month, we move to our new three-volume format with volumes eleven through thirteen, beginning with Ash’s escape from a government mental hospital. Having been officially declared dead, Ash is able to reunite with Eiji and his gang without the cops on his tail, but a new scheme from Papa Dino’s corner soon has him trapped again, forced back into prostitution, this time of mind instead of body.

With Ash back in Dino’s clutches, it’s time for Eiji to step up and plan his rescue, with no little help from Chinatown’s gang leader, Sing Soo-Ling.

I’m joined again in this round by Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue), Khursten Santos (Otaku Champloo), Connie C. (Slightly Biased Manga), Eva Volin (Good Comics For Kids), and Robin Brenner (No Flying, No Tights).

Many thanks to these wonderful women for their continued time and brilliance!

Read our roundtable on volumes one and two here, volumes three and four here, volumes five and six here, volumes seven and eight here, and volumes nine and ten here. On to part six!
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Breaking Down Banana Fish, Vols. 9-10

November 21, 2010 by MJ, Michelle Smith, Connie C., Khursten Santos and Robin Brenner 26 Comments

Hello readers, and welcome to the fifth installment of our roundtable, Breaking Down Banana Fish!

This month we take on volumes nine and ten, in which Ash faces Arthur in their final showdown, Eiji is nabbed by the fuzz, Yut-Lung reveals his vulnerable side, and government conspiracy runs amok.

I’m joined this month by Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue), Khursten Santos (Otaku Champloo), Connie C. (Slightly Biased Manga), and Robin Brenner (No Flying, No Tights). Eva’s taking a break this time around, but she’ll be back with us in January as we head into the second half of the series!

Just a note: We’ll be moving to three volumes per installment beginning in January, so if you’re following along, be sure to read up through volume 13!

I would like to take just a moment to thank everyone on the roundtable for working to make time for this project. Nineteen volumes is a large commitment to make, and I have a great deal of gratitude toward these women for sticking it out, especially Eva who will have to marathon five volumes to catch up next time around! Thanks also to Viz for printing this series in its entirety. Perhaps if we’re very lucky, it might receive an omnibus treatment somewhere down the line, to put it all back in print.

Read our roundtable on volumes one and two here, volumes three and four here, volumes five and six here, and volumes seven and eight here. On to part five!
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Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: banana fish, breaking down banana fish, roundtables

Breaking Down Banana Fish, Vols. 7-8

September 23, 2010 by MJ, Michelle Smith, Connie C., Khursten Santos, Eva Volin and Robin Brenner 16 Comments

Hello faithful shojo fans, and welcome again to our roundtable, Breaking Down Banana Fish!

This month we take on volumes seven and eight, in which Ash brings his war straight to Arthur’s doorstep and Papa Dino’s bank account, playing both cutthroat businessman and cold-blooded killer, while Eiji does his best just to keep Ash human. Blackmail, introspection, and an epic subway battle ensue.

I’m joined again in this round by Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue), Khursten Santos (Otaku Champloo), Connie C. (Slightly Biased Manga), Eva Volin (Good Comics For Kids), and Robin Brenner (No Flying, No Tights).

Read our roundtable on volumes one and two here, volumes three and four here, and volumes five and six here. On to part four!
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Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: banana fish, breaking down banana fish, roundtables

Roundtable: Gerard & Jacques

July 23, 2010 by MJ, Michelle Smith, Danielle Leigh, Eva Volin, Robin Brenner and David Welsh 14 Comments

Fumi Yoshinaga’s Gerard & Jacques is a two-volume boys’ love manga that tells the story of Jacques, a young aristocrat swept into a new, terrifying world following the death of his father, and Gerard, the unlikely man who eventually becomes his new family.

Published in English by BLU Manga (Tokyopop’s BL imprint) Gerard & Jacques was recommended highly to me when I first began reading yaoi, but I’ll admit I had some difficulty with it my first time around, due to some specific content in the manga’s opening chapter which kept me from enjoying it at all at the time.

When I began to make plans for this special week of Yoshinaga, I decided to give Gerard & Jacques another try. I was also interested to hear what some of my favorite critics (and BL fans) thought of the work, so I invited a few of them along for the ride.

Joining me in discussion are …

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Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: fumi yoshinaga, roundtables

Breaking Down Banana Fish, Vols. 5-6

July 10, 2010 by MJ, Khursten Santos, Connie C., Michelle Smith, Eva Volin and Robin Brenner 25 Comments

Welcome to the third installment of the Banana Fish roundtable!

This month, we tackle volumes five and six. With Yut-Lung conniving behind the scenes and Shorter’s loyalties stretched to the limit, everyone ends up in Papa Dino’s hands over the course of these volumes, and not all can survive. Ash orchestrates an elaborate escape, but his allegiance with the Chinatown gang may be lost forever.

I’m joined this round by Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue), Khursten Santos (Otaku Champloo), Connie C. (Slightly Biased Manga), Eva Volin (Good Comics For Kids), and Robin Brenner (No Flying, No Tights).

Read our roundtable on volumes one and two here, and volumes three and four here.

On to part three! …

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Breaking Down Banana Fish, Vols. 3-4

May 25, 2010 by MJ, Connie C., Michelle Smith, Katherine Dacey, Eva Volin, Robin Brenner and Khursten Santos 24 Comments

Welcome to the second installment of the Banana Fish roundtable!

This month, we discuss volumes three and four of this classic shojo series, in which Ash gets out of jail, Eiji and Ibe overstay their visas, and everyone ends up on an ill-considered road trip to L.A., just in time to fall into the hands of a Chinese mafia family’s secret weapon. Topics this round include what makes a shojo manga, thoughts on the series’ few female characters, and everyone’s take on new bad guy, Yut-Lung.

Once again, I’m joined by Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue), Khursten Santos (Otaku Champloo), Connie (Slightly Biased Manga), Eva Volin (Good Comics For Kids), Robin Brenner (No Flying, No Tights), and Katherine Dacey (The Manga Critic), all of whom graciously found time in their incredibly cramped schedules to indulge me in this discussion. …

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Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: banana fish, breaking down banana fish, manga, roundtables

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