I saw the Akira anime first (in 2002, at a boyfriend’s house, so I wasn’t aware of its context in Japanese or American geek culture), and loved the art so much I started buying the big Dark Horse volumes.
They became, alongside Cerebus, the set of phonebooks that changed my life forever. I don’t know if I ever knew for sure what was going on, but I loved the character designs — I mean, is there anything so simply, beautifully creepy as aged decrepit children? Also, instead of the boys looking like girls, the female lead looks like a boy! I loved the panel layouts, which seem a lot closer to the western grid model than the shonen/shojo model, in my limited experience with the latter. I loved how iconic the big panels were (see below if you doubt the sincerity of my flattery). and I especially freaking love the way he drew architecture. I’m not a person who usually appreciates backgrounds or buildings, or straight lines, but his architecture made me feel things (I later read Domu, and saw how he learned to make anonymous modernist architecture so alive). Otomo is the artist who made me invest in a t-square, for good or ill.
Sometimes I Feel Like a Nuclear Bomb, 2005, oil on canvases
So, that’s manga. But all other manga I’ve tried has been exceedingly… you know, all right, I guess. I have tried: Astro Boy, Lone Wolf and Cub, Good-Bye, Steady Beat (an oel shojo manga), Beck, and just this month, Nana. None of them have really transported me, as in, made me identify with the characters and feel immersed in the settings. I’d probably pick up further installments in all of those series/oeuvres if they were lying around, but I’m certainly not running out to buy them.
In shojo and shonen (Beck is shonen, right?) manga, I have never been able to get past the character design conventions. It’s not really the big eyes that bother me, as much as the barely-there noses, the acute-angle chins, and the fact that characters’ (this is especially jarring on adolescent characters) heads are reeeeally small in proportion to their bodies. I know it’s just a cultural thing, and I’m fine with western-comics-style stylization which is no less stylized, and the failing is in me, etc. but I can’t get over it. Nana additionally, has the fashion-illustration-inspired style of everybody at least ten heads tall, and less than a head wide (well, it would be so if their heads weren’t inhumanly small and narrow) and I haven’t been able to suspend my disbelief (or, perhaps, suspend my body-image issues) past that over the course of two volumes.
I also think I have issues around the idea that Zoey brought up in comments to this post, about manga being meant to breeze through on the train. That ethos seems to be connected to the visual shorthand that puts me off, where people are always exploding with sadness or happiness or anger or lust, to where every explosion looks the same (and I haven’t learned to tell whether a certain violent outburst actually happened or not… this was worst in the oel series, perhaps oddly).
I start to feel cheated out of subtext, or subtlety, or characterization, even, sometimes (everyone gets embarrassed the same way, etc.). If everyone is blowing up all the time, what does blowing up even mean? Can you take a really good shojo or shonen manga, and read it several times, and see different shadings or interpretations each time? If not, then I guess I’m not the target audience for shojo manga, much as I love romance and heartbreak and interpersonal intrigue and all that stuff.
So if manga is boundless and limitless, readers, and you’re finding stuff for Tom already, this is what I’d like: a non-bleak, interpersonal drama with strong, complex characters (especially female characters, bonus if the POV character is female) who don’t explode every other page… and drawing like Katsuhiro Otomo.
I was gonna say more, about the implicit rivalry between manga and everything the English speaking world could ever produce, and my relationship to that as an English-speaking creator, but… I’m on a deadline with my humble English-speaking creation, and I really can’t slack off more, tonight.
There’s a response to Miriam’s post at mangablog (just scroll down a little.)
Kyoko Okazaki – Helter Skelter. Spare, relaxed linework but good cartooning (kind of reminds me of old new yorker artwork or if Jules Feiffer had a better grasp of anatomy and with a bit more detail [and adapted to the needs of long form storytelling in other ways of course]). It is pretty bleak and twisted but I don’t think overwhelmingly so or in a really artificial way. No exploding. Only catch is that it’s only available in fan translations that you’ll have to download (shouldn’t be hard) but on the plus side: the whole story is contained in 1 volume so there’s no need to go reading for more. I also remember liking River’s Edge (by the same artist).
Also try Blue by Kiriko Nananan (female) and maybe A Patch of Dreams by Hideji Oda (male). Art that doesn’t really conform to they way you described stereotypical manga, subdued, more-realistic (at least by my occidental reckoning) depiction of relationships, a bit of fantasy thrown in in the case of the Oda manga.
Nausicaa, by Miyazaki. Just comes to mind because it has nice art, a female protagonist/viewpoint (with many other female characters), and denser storytelling (I think Miyazaki has even gone on record saying that he wanted to create a manga that people _couldn’t_ read on the commute to work etc. but would have to sit down and pay attention to. High adventure/sci-fi (I guess in a similar sense to Dune, but with the apocalyptic themes of Riddley Walker).
Um, I’m also going to throw Arigatou, by Naoki Yamamoto out there, because it’s the best comic book in existence. Male artist (who is famous mainly for creating erotic manga for guys, also started out doing prn). Definitely not a happy depiction but by no means unalloyed bleakness and still comes off as believable (very impressive given just how dark a lot of the content is). Male and Female protagonist (a Father and his estranged teenage daughter who runs away from home with some really trashy delinquents) but even though I believe the artist’s main sympathies lie with the father (just a vague impression I got) the viewpoint seems to belong to the daughter (another vague impression). It’s another one that you’ll have to download, and I don’t see it being published in America ever.
My friend’s Korean wife once told me that in Korean culture, diminutive facial features (and I guess heads) are considered attractive. Only heard that from one person and that’s Korea and not Japan anyway, but there you have it: my feedback to your comment on persistent re-occurence of narrow/small head phenomena in… manga.
-David Alex
Myself, I really like the shojo series Honey and Clover and Sand Chronicles. SC might be a little bleak, but not unrealistically so, and I find that it turns into a nuanced depiction of romantic relationships and maturation. H&C is more comedic, but there are a lot of nice dramatic moments in there too. The art might turn you off though. Of course, I'm a huge fan of Nana, so my opinion might not be the best to go on.
It seems like the josei genre, which is aimed at adult women, might be your best bet, but not a lot of that has been translated. I know Suppli is a really good series, but it was recently cancelled, so you can only read the first three or so volumes in English.
On the subject of exploding emotions: I've long had a theory about that. I think that in real life, Japanese people are very reserved and not prone to public emotional outbursts, as a cultural more. So the tendency in art is to go in the opposite direction, depicting emotion as big and loud and exaggerated. This is true of live action movies (and probably TV), as well as manga and anime. As you read more of it, you can probably learn to discern subtleties in the portrayals of emotion (and that's an interesting point, as to whether said outbursts even happened or not), but it's definitely kind of a cultural thing that you have to get used to. Myself, I enjoy it, especially when it's done in a comedic fashion. But your mileage may vary, as they say.
a non-bleak, interpersonal drama with strong, complex characters who don’t explode every other page… and drawing like Katsuhiro Otomo.
Yoshida Akimi’s Banana Fish may fit your preference.
You may be interested in the old gekiga comics of back-in-the-day. Though few Westerners are aware of it, there was an alternative comics movement in Japan starting in the early ’60s. It was based in rental libraries instead of anthology magazines, and produced work that was radically different from the popular stuff at the time, targeted at adults instead of children. Like Western alt comics, there was a significant strain of artists who went for a serious take on bizarre subject matter (a la Charles Burns). They tend to be male-gaze, tense and action-oriented, but also thoughtful. Art styles ranged from very realistic to more stylized, but usually stylized in a very different way from mainstream manga.
To whit, I would recommend Sanpei Shirato, known for grim and realistic art, characters and relationships and leftist philosophical leanings – especially his works Ninja Bugeicho (a leftist historical drama) and The Legend of Kamui. I know that The Legend of Kamui was translated by VIZ, though whether it’s currently in print I know not.
If you’re interested in more Katsuhiro Otomo, his work Domu, which was made prior to Akira and features similar themes in a more germinal stage, has been translated and is very worth looking at.
Another classic of serious, realistic human relationship-oriented Japanese comics is Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa. Nakazawa was a child when the atomic bomb landed on his home city of Hiroshima, and he experienced first-hand the suffering and horror; half of his family, including his father, died. Barefoot Gen is a fictional take on the scenario of a child surviving Hiroshima, but it draws heavily on his own memories, and is greatly loved by Art Spiegelman, creator of MAUS. It has been translated, and is probably still in print. He also made a one-shot of his own experience, called I Saw It; I got my English edition in Hiroshima, though, so I don’t know if you can get it here in the West.
If you’re interested in a serious, mature take on dark and bizarre themes, horror artist Junji Ito and Yoshihiro Tatsumi, who coined the term “gekiga,” are both wonderful. Ito’s work is horror, but it’s really about the unraveling of the human psyche, not about blood and guts (though there’s plenty of that). Uzumaki, which has been translated, is a wonderful series by him. And Tatsumi’s work uses the framework of the bizarre to illustrate the desperate situation of the average Japanese, living a life of quiet frustration. Drawn and Quarterly has been releasing a series of Tatsumi anthologies, which are worth checking out.
Last but not least, The Walking Man by Jiro Taniguchi is a plotless comic that simply follows the thoughts and ruminations of an ordinary Japanese man on his daily life, as he spends time alone, strolling through his neighborhood. It’s poetic, almost Zen-like. Taniguchi’s art is realistic like Otomo’s, and he seems to have created a substantial body of work worth checking out.
You’ll pardon me if my recommendations are a tad hit-and-miss – I’ve not read all of these works, though I’d love to have the chance to. It should provide you with a good framework to start from, though.
Yoshida does kind of draw like Otomo. Bananafish drives me nuts, though, as does Taniguchi– it's like reading molasses.
& Ninja Bugeicho actually has very cartoony art. But good recommendations all around, esp. Okazaki.
Miriam, ditch the t-square and invest in a team of assistants. Tezuka had "Mushi Pro," you could have "Beetle Pro" with a half-dozen grunts drawing hyperdetailed buildings, tanks, espresso machines. Wear a beret and drop in once a week to ink your characters' heads.
(Barring that, I saw a stack of cityscape ziptones in an art supply store in Fukuoka. Instant Tokyo!)
I’d second the recommendation of Nana by Nananan, as well as trying out as much of the other Fanfare/Ponent Mon releases you can find (if you can find them).
You might also explore some scanlations. That’s where you’ll find a lot of the alternative manga. Like the awesome Yokohama Kadaishi Kikou.
david, whoa! i am floored by your altruism in the way you are going out of your way to help the clueless this week. your recommendations are much appreciated — especially the first one (i like jules feiffer, & i *love* anatomy. no, really. giggle all you want), & nausicaa, because it's been recommended to me before, & i love miyazaki anime like everyone else… arigatou also sounds very intriguing, & a background in prn can be a positive thing, if it's the kind of artist who loves anatomy.. you know, real human anatomy, like i do.
well, maybe all of them. i've never downloaded comics before, so that's a little bit of a hurdle.
diminutive facial features & kawaii in general i get, it's definitely a thread present in western comics as well (*cough* as well as my comics *cough*). but having a head too small for your body is the *opposite* of childlike, that's what boggles me.
matthew, yeah, nana is the one where i'd most like to get more volumes (i read the first two), but i'm not addicted yet. the characters are starting to draw me in, but the art style is a big barrier still. that's why i'm hesitant to try anything that looks anything like mainstream shonen/shojo manga.
i've heard about the exploding being a kind of escape from real-life reserve. so i try to think of it as analogous to a musical (where you also don't always know if the big dance number has really taken place in the external world of the story), where singing & dancing signals a heightened reality of emotion. but maybe i just don't have the cultural background to get how the explosions are supposed to make me feel.
firefly– thanks! i'll take note of your recommendations. in the post, i mentioned reading domu (which i loved, & ripped off for more paintings, but to give you an idea of my tastes, is about the limit of horror that i can take), & good-bye by tatsumi (which i found too bleak, & with character design that was off-putting in a whole other way).
i'm afraid of "alternative manga," i guess, because i have this idea it'll be too much of the stuff i don't like in western alternative comics (an idea borne out by my reading of tatsumi). there is only so much middle-class, middle-aged male ennui i can take. i'm sure it's not all so, but it's nice to have other people wading through it for me.
bill, ha, i wish. instead i gave up on ever drawing buildings pretty. firstly, i can't afford to pay myself, let alone anyone else. secondly, i'm too stuck in me twentieth-century-western mode of artist as lone, mad genius. thirdly, i couldn't take having assistants who draw better than me, which anyone who can make a living as a journeyman/session artist undoubtedly can…. fourthly, i don't ink.
derikb, is this a different nana you're talking about, than ai yazawa's? re ponent mon, i read "japan as viewed by 17 creators," & found the french bits mostly too male-gazey orientalist french. yeah, i'm really picky.
“found the french bits mostly too male-gazey orientalist french”
*cough* Boilet’s ouvre *cough*
Just about every French cartoonist in the book is like, “Hi! I’m a tourist.”
(clarification: I know Boilet’s no tourist– he lives in Tokyo– just a world-class gazer)
bill, yep, boilet is exactly who i’m thinking of. i was attracted to his stuff because i dig not-too-tight photo-based art, but everything i’ve read of his comes across all, “look at my little japanese doll! isn’t she adorable? i get to put my penis in her!”
er… but i digress.
“look at my little japanese doll! isn’t she adorable? i get to put my penis in her!”
That’s the quote of the day. You win.
“found the french bits mostly too male-gazey orientalist french”
Now you’re talking.
noah- woo! i win!
tom- so should our next series be “french people: what is the point?”?
Whoops, sorry Miriam, I meant “Blue” by Nananan. (I had Nana on the blue because of her name.)
http://madinkbeard.com/blog/archives/blue-by-kiriko-nananan
For what it’s worth Yokohama Kadaishi Kikou is nowhere near middle male ennui. It’s science fiction (of a very unusual sort), but primarily focused on nature and quiet moments:
http://madinkbeard.com/blog/archives/quiet-country-cafe
Umm… “on the mind” not “on the blue”. Evidently something about this thread is keeping my brain from working properly.
Oh, well…
If you’re looking for stuff that isn’t surreal-expressions-of-salaryman-angst, perhaps the gekiga mileu isn’t the right place to look.
Yeah, Miyazaki is not just a great animator, but a great manga artist as well. He’s also a reformed Marxist and a feminist, who goes out of his way to make women feel at home at Studio Ghibli. I hear the women’s bathrooms there are something special. :D
I should also mention that some of Osamu Tezuka’s later stuff is both fairly serious and pretty incredible – Phoenix and Ode To Kirihito, for example. It’s cartoony as all get-out, though…
I'm coming to this party late, but I wanted to add something no one else seemed to.
(my background: I was an American comics collector in the '70s who stopped in the '80s when Epic Illustrated died. I always loved B&W comics. In 2001 I 'discovered' manga and am now a huge fan.)
Westerners who grew up on American comics find themselves trained to read a certain way (this has been documented in scientific studies). It was long dialogue-centric, everything out there in your face, fairly blunt in its story-telling. There may be much to think about in terms of theme, but the pieces were all there for the reader to easily access. It's akin to much of Western literary tradition.
Japanese comics on the other hand often tell around a story. They're meant to evoke, as they see bluntly telling as childish (a mistaken impression on their part, but that's another story). Much of Japanese literature's story lies under what's seen, and manga typically follows suit.
Have you read The Tale of Genji? It's a Japanese novel written in the 11th c, and where their written storytelling tradition starts. The dialogue in it is written in poetry fragments that's meant to evoke the whole for its true meaning. The readers would know (using an English example) that someone referencing the song "Turn, Turn, Turn" was alluding to the verse from the book of Ecclesiastes. The Japanese are used to shorthand like this, know it, and expect it in both dialogue and graphics.
Many Westerners read manga and think manga is simplistic. That's quite possibly because they're only reading the surface, and too because they're unfamiliar with the references to meanings they should be taking away. They see the graphic or dialogue equivalent of "Turn Turn Turn" and pass right over it, not knowing the significance of it.
One of the things that fascinates me about manga is discovering the hidden meanings. I like to read, then read with a Japanese friend of mine. I tell her what I read, and she tells me what she read. The nuances that I miss are daunting, though I'm getting better. She naturally sees layers, while I have to chip away to get at them.
Of course, not every story is that way, though even shounen action series contain moments that say a wealth more than they appear to. But there are good stories in all genres (Sturgeon…) that can be read time and again, and leave you discovering something new each time. Fruits Basket is shoujo that does that, though more so as the series progresses than in the first few volumes. It's art appears typical but contains a wealth of detail that adds to the narrative. The mangaka is skilled at pulling your eye along to exactly what she wants you to observe, though taking meaning from it often requires contemplation.
This is typical of a good manga series for me. It's something that I have to put some effort into to read as it's meant to be read. In some cases, I may may never get the real story. But most are accessible if you take the time.
The art, well, you'll find some you like or you won't, but the variety is greater than you think and there's a lot of talent behind it. And if you remember that the point isn't to represent but to evoke, it may make it easier to understand and enjoy.
jan, thanks for your thoughts! i enjoy references & layers of meaning, myself, but i am painfully aware of how much cultural background i'm missing when reading manga. it must be nice to have a japanese friend to hash things out with.
if this week's theme is what made you come over here (or if you'd read before but the theme prompted you to comment), i really hope you stick around! tom & i are manga noobs, but noah's a confirmed shojo fan, & bill's an honest-to-god, gets-paid manga columnist.