Category Archives: Columns

Overthinking Things

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When You Think Deeply, You Think Alone. When You Don’t Think, The Whole World Doesn’t Think With You

Hello, my name is Erica Friedman and this is my obligatory wankery self-introductory post here on Hooded Utilitarian..

I originally began to overthink anime and manga in 2002, and now Noah has given me the opportunity to overthink comics  as part of the team here on HU.  Who among us would pass up the chance to overthink comic books, cartoons and related stuff? And with a pre-existing audience to boot?  In the blogosphere building an audience is the hard part.  Any schmuck can build a blog – getting other people to care about it is work.

So you’re probably wondering what I’m going to bring to the HU table.  Well, I think I’m here to provide a unique perspective.

I’m not just here as a woman or feminist or a lesbian.  I’ve always been pretty bad at being a good female comics reader (my collection started in 1972 long before “female readers” were a thing) and I’m a terrible lesbian (I hate cats and Ellen Degeneres and have completely forgotten to run out and buy Batwoman, whoops.)  I’ve been in the industry as a publisher of Yuri manga since 2003, and have been writing stories of and articles about lesbian themes in comics for many years.  I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler. My perspective is uniquely mine.

Frankly, there’s no such thing as the “female perspective” or the “lesbian perspective” anyway.  Summing up the thoughts of 51% of the world’s population (or the miniscule portion thereof that reads comics) isn’t really doable.  As for representing lesbians, I can clearly remember a day on a mailing list I *own* when a member replied to a post I had made about what lesbians want in manga with something like, “I am also a lesbian and I have never agreed with a word you said and you do not speak for me.”

Therefore, when I write about perspective here, I’m basically speaking for no one but myself – and not for myself of the future or past, only the myself that is right now.  So, here’s my perspective right now:

My perspective is that I do not read comics like most women, nor do I read comics the same way men do just because I’m a lesbian.  I don’t like big breasted female characters with tiny waists AND I don’t like sunken-chested, sparkly lads, but I do like strong women.  I have this utterly weird belief that comics don’t owe us reality in situation, but they do owe us realistic portraits of people acting consistently within the rules of the world portrayed in the story.  My perspective is that comics don’t have to condescend to women or minorities and the fact that they still do is everyone’s fault – publishers, writers, artists and readers.  It’s my perspective that the Internet may have killed the comics industry, but it is has saved sequential art.  It’s my perspective that overthinking things is the third best thing about comics, after creating them and enjoying them.   It’s my perspective that the best reason to be involved in comics is to meet the obscure, unknown,  independent artists who are reinventing the wheel every time they create a work from scratch.

And it is my perspective that I will have a great deal of fun here overthinking things in the months to come.  Thank you Noah and thank you HU audience.  I look forward to working with you!

Erica Friedman is the President of Yuricon & ALC Publishing. She blogs about Yuri in anime and manga at Okazu.

Gluey Tart: Madness

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Kairi Shimotsuki, December 2009, Blu

The marketing copy says: “In a distant future, violence has savaged a wild wasteland. Kyo, the leader of a ruthless group known as Madness, has spent the last few years imprisoned in a church, with no memory of his true nature. Tenderly cared for by Izaya, a gentle and beautiful young priest, Kyo’s life has become a tranquil one – until the day the church is attacked by an old enemy… The back cover further promises us a futuristic yaoi adventure filled with brazen lust, tender love, and murderous rages!

How can you go wrong with that?

Sigh.

This title is a mess. Not even a hot mess – more the floor of my closet kind. There are some nice things down there, but is it worth it to dig through all the murky crap to ferret them out? We have a big negatory on that, amigo.

I blame everyone. I mean Shimotsuki and I mean Blu. We’ll start with the publisher and work our way back.

The printing sucks rocks. The art is heavily toned and is very dark and dense in places, meaning there’s a lot of ink on the page, and that’s a disaster with the pulpy, gray paper Blu uses. There just wasn’t ever going to be any way to get this kind of art to print clean on this kind of paper. But the problem seems to go beyond that; the screens are so clogged with ink that you can see patterns. Reversed type (white type on a black background) is difficult to read, and faces (etc.) look dirty and grainy.

The darkest areas blend together into one indecipherable mass. Seriously, what the hell is going on at the top of the page here?

This is making me squeeze my eyes shut and pinch the bridge of my nose in annoyance. It’s more than just production problems, though. The printing fiasco only emphasizes the fact that the art is overly busy and often fails to provide much of a hint about what’s going on in the story. Not only is this ugly, but I defy you to tell me what’s going on in this page.

There are many pages like this. I figured out more or less what happened in the first third of the book by mentally filling in the blanks. It’s not like it required a lot of ingenuity. A priest, Izaya, is sheltering the leader of a feared gang of killers – the Madness referred to in the title. Izaya is beautiful, effeminate, and pure. He believes the killer, Kyo, is really a gentle man. There’s also a sword named Sigfreid. (Sigh.) A member of Madness (I think) shows up to steal the sword, killing everyone in his way. Kyo shows his stuff and goes nuts, killing the interloper and getting his sword back. He announces he’s going to become a bounty hunter and takes the priest with him. The priest is apparently able to dampen Kyo’s berzerker streak. Whatever. Details are thin on the ground, and frankly, I don’t care. To be fair, there is a kicky bit of interpersonal heat in a couple of panels that imply Kyo doesn’t just want to jump Izaya’s bones (that’s stated clearly, no implication necessary) but might also love him. And that Izaya might, in his innocently ignorant, Mary Sunshine way, also love Kyo. After they embark on their adventures, Izaya keeps saying Kyo was a different person in captivity – which appears to be almost literally true. Kyo was sweet and gentle in prison, and he couldn’t remember his crimes; and after he escapes, he can’t remember what he was like before he got free. I’m sure I’m supposed to be intrigued by that, but not so much, it turns out.

But, to continue that impulse toward fairness, I should also note that there are a few scenes that almost make up for the rest. After the priest keeps Kyo from killing someone else, Kyo is overcome with lust and jumps Izaya, holding him down and kissing him. (Izaya suppresses Kyo’s berzerker rages, and there is apparently a sexual element to that. Which is potentially hot. In theory, anyway.) It was difficult to figure out what actually happened because of the drawing and printing problems, but you can get it from context. Kyo quickly brings Kzaya off, and our exceedingly innocent priest couldn’t be more surprised.

I have no idea what’s going on with the porn actress thing, but the main image made me snicker, in a “that’s kind of nasty but it surprised a chuckle out of me, sort of like Perez Hilton” sort of way. It’s immediately followed by another scene that’s supposed to be funny and possibly sexy and is actually just mildly stomach-churning, but I’m taking my wins where I can find them.

I just paused for some serious introspection, which I will spare you. (You’re welcome.) The main problem with Madness is that its reach exceeds its grasp. I think it’s going for a Saiyuki kind of sustained violence and jacked up level of constant interpersonal strife and irritation. Sadly, Shimotsuki’s skills aren’t up to it. The violence doesn’t work because you can’t really see what’s happening; the art just isn’t good enough. And the interpersonal strife doesn’t work because the storytelling doesn’t have the goods either, which means that the constant bickering among the characters isn’t amusing. It’s annoying. It’s all a big muddle, like someone left a cake out in the rain. There are some good bits, like the idea of the innocent priest being in love with the bloodthirsty, terrifying killer. Madness itself is a fun idea – a group of killers so wild and bloodthirsty everyone is terrified of them. That has some very sexy, badass possibilities. There’s also some mysterious gang hunting down Madness members. That could be interesting, too.

And then there’s Miyabi.

I had high hopes for Miyabi. She’s absurdly busty, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t read yaoi titles for the female lady women characters (that would be a loser’s game), but the possibility of having one who’s just a member of the team, just as deadly and sarcastic as the men, that’s appealing. And Miyabi has a secret – she supposedly killed Kyo. Which she obviously didn’t, since there he is. Not that I’d blame her if she had. But anyway, nobody knows why she supposedly did it. I assume all will be revealed in volume 2, but I’ll never know, since I won’t be getting volume 2.

There are some other characters, some other complications. Things happen. If I haven’t put you off this book yet, you should buy it, and then you’ll know. And if I have put you off it, the details don’t matter anyway, do they? I may be making excuses for myself, but seriously, I used up all my energy clawing my way to the end of this thing. And not in a good way.

And while we’re talking about buying or not buying, I’ll note that this is an expensive title – $14.99. I was attracted by the heft, though, and I’d rather pay a few dollars more and feel like I’m getting something. In general, I mean. I’ve seen some pretty skimpy titles lately at the old price of $10-$13, and this makes me frown. It’s ironic, though, that I would really have preferred that this particular title be shorter. I was pretty crabby by the time I finished it, and for a book about a theoretically hot, crabby, insane killer with multiple personality disorder or something, that is a sad state of affairs.

Gluey Tart: Sense & Sexuality

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You Higashino, 2009, Media Blasters

This manga was always going to be one of those things for me. Like when you’d really like a dense, perfectly moist brownie, but you go and get a bag of M&Ms from the snack machine instead. The experience isn’t without its redeeming features, but it isn’t the platonic chocolate experience whose reflection you once glimpsed against the wall of the cave in the flickering light of the bonfire. I was iffy about the plot description and a little less than iffy about the art. The cover design is quite good, and I’m pleased to see a bit of a trend toward actual design on these things, rather than just a big image of the characters embracing against a spray of flowers or whatever. They don’t have to look like 1970s romance novels. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s nice to have options.) But I digress – as usual.

The plot synopsis advertises this as a Taisho era love story (and I originally typed “ploy synopsis,” which is a pretty insightful typo). The Taisho era was from 1912-1926, and I understand “Taisho jidai” means “the period of great righteousness,” which is an amusing setup for a decadent bit of porn. (I mean decadent in the Victorian/Edwardian aristocratic sense, as does Higashino. We’re not talking about cults of Cthulu. Although I’d love to read that. Oh my god.) The Taisho era was known for its liberalism, following the Mieji era, and this is also part of the joke – my knowledge of Japanese history is sadly fuzzy and lacking in details and context, but I’m almost certain that the liberalism of the day did not extend to a completely blasé attitude about same-sex cavorting. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Higashino does, by the way, throw in an inexplicable (and clumsy) nod to historical accuracy by having one of our wealthy cad protagonists assaulted by communists. To which I said, huh. Communism was a big deal in Taisho Japan (and elsewhere). The Japanese communist party was founded in the early 20s in response to the Bolshevik victory in Russia a few years before, and there was high-profile violence. The police came down hard on the movement and had pretty much stamped it out at the end of the decade. Unlike the farmer and the cowman, communists and fabulously wealthy robber barons can’t really be friends. But throwing it into the middle of this mindless post-Edwardian romance just feels muddled. It’s a convenient plot device, certainly, and of course one must thrust one’s characters into each other’s arms in some way or other. But it felt heavy-handed, especially since the historical accuracy is otherwise, shall we say, uncertain. (And, oh dear, I feel another disclaimer is in order; I have nothing against historical inaccuracy, either. I’m all for it, in fact. It amuses me. What I’m commenting on here is the mix – juxtaposition is everything.)

In the notes at the end of the manga, Higashino explains that the whole point of the manga was to draw dandies in the clothes of the time. That’s as good a reason as any, and better than some. And she does convey an aura of Oscar Wilde-ish world weariness and spoiled, bored dissolution and self-indulgence. So, full marks for that. The first stories of the book show a series of bets our two main characters make about who will be the first to seduce some sweet young thing. (The protagonists are named Masatsugu and Kuniomi, but we will refer to them as the blond and the brunet – or, ultimately, uke and seme, which should surprise no one. I have a hell of a time keeping track of some Japanese names because I am lame and undisciplined, and Masatsugu and Kuniomi flat-out refuse to stay in my brain for even a moment.) These are somewhat amusing and occasionally kind of charming. One of my favorite moments is when the blond looks out the window of his carriage at his next victim and says, “A school uniform, eh? It’s so stoic. It’s arousing.” At the beginning of another story/bet, he looks out from his box seat at the opera and says, “I would love to open his tight rosebud. And make him writhe with pleasure beneath me.” That’s funny stuff.

Also, there is actual nudity (instead of whited-out absences of genitalia or those bizarre half-there rods of light), and it is drawn reasonably well. After a series of these bets, the brunet confesses his constant and abiding love for the blonde and calls off any further bets. The blond is conflicted (which is to say, he does not say no to sex but is uncertain about the eternal love portion of the equation), but after the brunet is wounded by communists in an alley (“Your wealth was created by the suffering of the people! You’re going to pay!”), the blond starts to realize that he too has Serious Feelings. And they (literally) sail off into the sunset. It’s nice. It amused me and made me smile.

I do have an artistic bone to pick. The drawing is OK, overall, but there are a couple of clunkers that just made me stare in dismay. I mean, look at this:

What the hell? Seriously, what the hell? This is an abomination. (Maybe I should rethink my earlier enthusiasm for Elder God yaoi.) And while I’m flapping my hands in horror, I’ll note that there is the occasional blip in the sex scenes, too. Toward the end, brunet says to blond, “I’ll make love to you countless times, over and over… Until you smell like me from within.” To which I say – well, I don’t know what to say. Other than dear God, no.

These unfortunate malfunctions are the exception rather than the rule. They don’t ruin the reading experience, but they do leave a bad taste in your mouth. It’s the sort of thing I expected, though. I decided not to buy this title several times before I finally gave in, a victim to my completely irrational impulses. “It isn’t going to be that great, and you already have several thousand books in your to-read piles,” I said to myself. “But – but – but – post-Edwardian dandies! And I like the cover,” I whined back to myself. “You like all kinds of things. Things you’ve already purchased. Read one of those – this one isn’t going to be special.” “But – cover! Suits!” “Oh, for Christ’s sake, just go ahead and buy the damned thing, them.” “!!!!!! Cover! Suits!” Sigh. Sad, but true. I am a shallow magpie of a woman. So I bought it on July 18, according to Amazon’s handy feature that sometimes (but not always) keeps me from buying multiple copies of bright and shiny titles. Now that I have finally gotten around to reading it (which shows the level of anticipation I’d built up), I’m happy enough with it. I could like it more, but I could also like it a lot less. (I had a similar experience with Higashino’s Gay’s Anatomy, now that I think of it, except that I didn’t actually buy that one. It just came down to not really having a hospital fetish and also, inexplicably, not really liking characters in glasses.) (I assure you that Kinukitty has no such biases in real life.) (Thus endeth the pointless parenthetical comments and also, coincidentally, the post.)

xxxHOLiC Roundtable: In Which Kinukitty Natters on AT GREAT LENGTH

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This post is part of a week-long roundtable on xxxHOLic. See Vom Marlowe’s opening salvo here.

I bought the first volume of xxxHOLiC (if you object that that version, mentally fill in the random capitalization convention of your choosing) years ago. I don’t remember how many years ago, but probably in 2004, when it came out. The pages have gotten yellowish and skanky looking, but that doesn’t take long with that newspapery pulp stuff Del Ray uses. It doesn’t matter anyway. The point, if I could manage to shift around to it (ah, there – much more comfortable), is that I read it and I wasn’t moved to buy any more volumes in the series (it’s ongoing, and volume 15 is due out in March). Upon rereading it, and then reading volumes two and three for the first time, I don’t really see the error of my ways.

I am a fan of CLAMP, and I don’t dislike xxxHOLiC. Parts of the story amuse and interest me. I loved Cardcaptor Sakura (but not Tsubasa, the sort of second version of it) and Clover and Chobits and Wish. I hated RG Veda and couldn’t really get into Magic Knight Rayearth. I was frustrated by Legal Drug, but I’m not bitter. So, I have some history with CLAMP. I even remember why I got the first issue of xxxHOLiC; I’d seen some of the original color art at an exhibit and, damn, it was amazing. I still think about it occasionally, and my memory is like sieve, but with holes so big it can’t be used as a sieve because everything bigger than a car falls through. So what I’m saying is that aesthetically, this is some fine work.

CLAMP is known for that, of course. The design is beautiful, and they also use design to help tell the story, something I, for one, like to see in a comic. For instance, look at this (from volume 1).

There’s smoke swirling around Yuko – the witch at the center of the series – all the time (well, not literally, but enough to establish the connection). The smoke that drifts up this page is shown on the cover and throughout Yuko’s introductory scene. And it’s echoed here.

This is one of Yuko’s clients. She comes in because she can’t move her little finger. What the hell does that mean? In palmistry, the little finger symbolizes communication, and hands are often used to symbolize divinity in religious iconography. In Buddhism, the Karana mudra (a mudra is a ritual hand gesture), which is made by raising the index and little finger while folding the other fingers down, expels demons and removes obstacles like sickness or negative thoughts. Is that what we’re supposed to be thinking about? Maybe, but damned if I know. It doesn’t seem unreasonable. The woman’s problem is that she’s a compulsive liar, and every time she lies, a beautifully drawn greasy black cloud pours off her. We watch as she tells casual lies everywhere she goes and she starts losing use of other parts of her body – her arm, her neck – and finally her entire body freezes up in front of a big old truck, which ends her sad tale of woe.

I have two major thoughts about this, the first story woven into the series. When I saw the black clouds engulfing this woman, I thought, karma. (Yes, this depiction is also all about the way spirits are depicted in Japanese prints. But I believe it’s fair to think beyond this.) In the west, karma is often understood to be kind of a cosmic vigilant ubercop who will jump out at you if you do something bad and yell “gotcha!” This is a misunderstanding. Let me propose another. I’ve often thought of karma as the maple syrup that accumulates on the outside of the bottle. (Feel free to substitute Kaluah, if you prefer.) You buy a fresh bottle of syrup, and it’s nice and clean and perfect. The first time you use the syrup, a bit of it is likely to drip down the side. Or a lot. Even if you wipe it off, the outside of the bottle remains a bit sticky. The next time you use it, you spill a little more syrup down the side of the bottle. As time passes, maybe some dust or lint gets stuck in there, too, and the layers of spilled syrup build up, and your lovely, pristine bottle of syrup has become a bit of a mess. Or a disgusting thing nobody wants to touch or think about, depending on how sloppy you are and how long you’ve had the syrup. This is how karma works. As you go about the business of living your life, you spill some syrup. It isn’t a punishment or judgment; it just makes things sticky, and you live with it. So it is with the lies this character tells. Nobody affixes a big, red “L” for liar on her chest; nobody even confronts her, even though we see that others realize she’s lying. But the weight of the lies builds and builds until her life is too gummed up to function.

I also thought, wow, that’s kind of extreme, isn’t it? Does she really deserve to get run down by a truck because she tells lies? She isn’t hurting anyone but herself – although there’s a Buddhist argument to be made (while I’m talking about karma) that you can’t really just hurt yourself. Because you are part of the universe, your actions affect the universe. Yadda yadda. Anyway, it seemed surprisingly moralistic, at first glance. But, no; I think it’s just heavy-handed symbolism. The witch keeps saying there’s always a price. What she means is that there are consequences. You don’t get away with anything. You might not understand the harm you’re causing, and the cosmic judge might not jump out and finger you for your transgression (that was a little joke – we were talking about her little finger, so – oh, never mind) – but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a price. You live with the syrup residue, and it leads to the situations it leads to, whether you realize what’s happening or not.

The witch tries to explain this more explicitly in the next scenario of volume 1 – a situation that resonated with me, I must say. This client is a woman who is addicted to the Internet. She neglects her children and her housework in favor of her online connections. But the woman in the story wants to change. Unlike some, she is concerned about being a good wife and mother. She tells Yuko so, but the witch is suspicious and tries to make her understand that, basically, it is what it is. Maybe she really doesn’t want to be a good wife and mother; maybe she really wants to tell her family to sod off so she can spend all her time online. There’s a choice to be made, and pretending that isn’t the case doesn’t change it.

Volume 2 is different in structure, concentrating on the main characters instead of the little vignettes about the clients. This isn’t ideal, in my opinion. Because I’d sort of thought I didn’t especially like the main characters, in volume 1, but I kept getting distracted. Taking away the distractions (except for a brief appearance by four characters from Tsubasa, which was supposed to be delightful but just made me feel a little hunted) made this clear to me. (They also stop by Legal Drug, which caused me to stop and say, “Hey! They stopped at Legal Drug!” But that was a very fleeting pleasure, really.) This volume sets up the romance or whatever between Watanuki (the kind of annoying kid who is mystically drawn to Yuko’s place who I didn’t mention in my ramblings about the first volume because I really didn’t give a damn about him as a character) and the maddeningly over-cute Himawari (a girl with big, aggressive curls and, apparently, a secret – dum dum dum!!!!). (Wikipedia will tell you what the secret is, if you care. Kind of lame, I thought. Whatever you’re thinking it is, that’s probably better.)

Yuko tries to make the really maddeningly stupidly jealous and competitive Watanuki understand that he needs his schoolmate, Whatshisname, to get rid of the spirits that chase Watanuki around. Watanuki’s problem with the spirits is what led him to the witch’s house anyway, and it’s a big deal, not a minor problem like continually forgetting to pay the mortgage on time or something. So I kept thinking that Watanuki would grasp at any solution, no matter how immature he is, but apparently not. CLAMP did warn me that “This isn’t the kind of story where understanding makes you smart, or not understanding makes you dumb.” Anyway, Yuko saves the day (for the reader) by arranging for these four characters – her, Watanuki, the annoying cute girl, and the strong, silent, tall, and handsome guy Watanuki is jealous of – to get together and tell ghost stories. I liked the ghost stories. Japanese ghost stories tend to be understated and quietly creepy in a way that appeals to me.

That smoke is still there, by the way. I’ll stop pointing it out, but I do like it. Check out this page – just beautiful.

Right, then. On to volume 3. We get a couple of adventures in this book, one with Watanuki and that guy whose name I can’t remember, and one with a client, of sorts. In the first story, Yuko sends the boys into a school where the students have stirred up spiritual nastiness by playing a game that’s the Japanese equivalent of the Ouija board. Things get dire, but then a huge snake spirit comes along and eats the Ouija-based miasma. Yuko explains that the snake showed up to clean up something that had gotten out of balance in its area, and that none of the spirits are good or evil, even though they were trying to kill our protagonists; good and evil are just concepts assigned by people. Very Buddhist, that. I’m all for it, but I felt like the following story, about a monkey’s paw, spirals a bit out of control itself (but the snake spirit is nowhere to be seen).

In the monkey’s paw story, a blithe young woman is drawn to the witch’s house (by fate, or, more accurately, karma, I think) and asks for a sealed cylinder. Yuko gives it to her on the condition that she Never Open It. Yeah, right. Well, something happens, the cylinder opens, and there it is. Everyone knows a monkey’s paw is bad news, but this woman (I don’t think we find out her name, and I’m running out of steam with these books, so I’m disinclined to go back and check) explains that she’s extremely lucky and always gets what she wants, so she isn’t worried about wishing on the nasty-looking thing. Her first wish is for rain, just to prove it works. There is a sudden downpour, and the next day we find out the consequence – all the water is gone from the school pool! Gasp! Now, I don’t want to go out of my way to be snarky about CLAMP, but this is lame with an almost unbearable lameness. Next, the woman wishes for an antique mirror she’d been trying to talk some shop-owner into selling to her. Poof! The Yata no Kagami, coming up! (I think that’s a Naruto reference. This whole crossover thing is not lighting my fire.) This is a sacred object that represents wisdom and/or honesty. That’s a bit ham-fisted too, but OK. I can live with it, especially after the pool fiasco. Next, the woman wishes for a topic for her upcoming seminar, and she gets a brilliant lesson plan. Now, the way this works, in case you haven’t read a monkey’s paw story, is that a finger breaks after each wish. Five fingers, five wishes. So after this seminar success, she has two wishes left and is really feeling on top of the world. But then she’s late for an important class and thinks, wow, if only there were a HORRIBLE ACCIDENT! Then I could show everyone the police report and I wouldn’t get in trouble! You’re ready for it, right? Yep, the man next to her falls onto the track and is killed by a train. Oh, dear! Maybe this repulsive dead animal part is bad news! A random stranger dies, and then our heroine gets in trouble because the monkey paw actually stole her brilliant lesson plan from somebody else, and she’s been caught. Now she worries she’ll be blamed for the death of the stranger, too, since he was standing next to her. Finally concerned, she unfurls her fifth wish – for the monkey’s paw to make this right. So it strangles her. Move along – nothing to see here.

Well, I thought about this tale a lot more than I should have. I was immensely cheered when the monkey’s paw first made its appearance. I mean, a monkey’s paw! That was going to have to be fun, wasn’t it? But I think CLAMP lost control of the metaphor. Good and evil are relative concepts, we must expect consequences for our actions, and so on. But when the happy-go-ultimately-not-so-lucky lady’s saga is over, Yuko says, “She thought that the disaster that is brought on by breaking a promise would never come down on her head.” That sounds more “gotcha” than I’m comfortable with.

Now, there is a delightful little story at the end of volume 3 that succeeds on all levels. It is my favorite thing in xxxHOLiC, charming in the way I wish the rest of the series were. Watanuki runs across an udon stand run by a fox spirit. (It’s a sweet little joke, as fox spirits are said to like the fried tofu in kitsune udon.) The idea is cute, the foxes are cute, the whole thing is cute. The young fox of the house is drawn to the feathered end of a broken arrow in Watanuki’s bag, and all the foxes are pleased when Watanuki gives it to the kit. If anyone knows what the arrow symbolism is, I’d love to know.

So, I’ve pushed past volume one and through two and three. Am I going to finish the series now, as I am prone to do? No. It’s OK; enjoyable, even, but nothing moves me to read any more of it. This is interesting (to me) because I did read the entire Pet Shop of Horrors series (by Matsuri Akino), which was released starting in June 2003 in the United States and 1996 in Japan. (xxxHOLiC was released starting in 2004 in the United States and 2003 in Japan.) It’s hard not to compare them, although that comparison might actually be fairly random. xxxHOLiC stars a beautiful, playful, flirty, and mysterious figure whose occult significance is obvious but never quite explained and who likes to lounge about wearing sexy Chinese clothes. (Sometimes, anyway. That thing on the cover of volume 2 certainly looks cheongsam-like.) Clients come to her store (albeit not of their free will) to get a wish granted, often much to the wisher’s detriment. Pet Shop of Horrors stars a beautiful, playful, flirty, and mysterious figure whose occult significance is obvious but never quite explained and who also likes to lounge about wearing sexy Chinese clothes. Clients come to his store to buy exotic pets that will, more or less, grant the owner’s wish, often much to the wisher’s detriment. (There are contracts, and the clients break them; that seems very much like the monkey’s paw thing, for instance.) This sexy witch-like figure is a man, but that isn’t a major deviation, believe me. Yuko drinks and flirts and partially falls out of her various improbable outfits, while Count D eats cake and flirts and never seems in danger of falling out of his various improbably outfits, but they do make you wonder. xxxHOLiC wins by a mile in the categories of art and design (and color – I seldom wish with all my heart that an entire manga could be done in color, but I do with this one), but Pet Shop of Horrors wins for storytelling. So sayeth Kinukitty, anyway.

Oh, and one last thought. Perhaps you were wondering how the hell you’re supposed to pronounce “xxxHOLiC.” I found it somewhat vexing, actually. When I thought about it. So, twice. Anyway, Wikipedia comes to the rescue again, explaining that it’s just “holic.” The Xs aren’t letters but multiplication symbols, standing in for crosses, which indicate relationships or crossovers in Japan. The “holic” part seems to be standard usage. As for the weird capitalization, I don’t know. Let’s just ignore it.

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Update by Noah: You can read all posts in the xxxholic roundtable here.

Gluey Tart: Age Called Blue

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Age Called Blue, est em, 2009, NetComics

I love est em’s drawing style. I’m also fond of her gently melancholy tone. I usually like my yaoi crazy and sweet, because I can be unhappy and angsty all on my own, thanks. But you can’t eat chocolate all the time – even Kinukitty can’t, although I do dream – and sometimes you want something bitter.

Age Called Blue is about rock stars. I’ve only seen one yaoi manga about rock bands, that I remember, and it was not ideal. (Hard Rock by Akane Abe, which was not hot. Or especially interesting.) This seems like a bizarre omission, since rock stars are a fun, sexy topic, and it’s not like there isn’t a huge music scene in Japan. Ironically, the rock stars in Age Called Blue are British. One of those things, I guess.

No point in worrying about what is lacking just at the moment, though, when there’s such a feast on the table. This is a beautiful, sexy book. It isn’t sexy because it’s a non-stop romp of bawdy ass piratery – not that there’s anything wrong with that – but because it’s about intimacy. There’s sex and nudity, but it isn’t on an epic scale. It does mean something, though. The relationships feel very real, even if the settings are not strictly plausible. (Realistic, yes. Real, no.) There are young men and old men, dreams and betrayals, situations that are messy and wistful. Things fall apart, like things do, and people try, fail, wait, and hope.

The main story arc, about the band, sort of plots the trajectory of a car wreck (metaphorically, although sort of literally, too), although it isn’t told in order. I’m not usually a fan of that sort of thing because it’s kind of hard to get it right, and it can add a level of confusion that isn’t usually necessary, much less helpful. It’s usually better to just tell the damned story and leave evocative to the couple of people who can handle it. Well, est em gives good evocative, it turns out, and the snippets we get, weaving in and out of the timeline and ending with the beginning, really work. It feels like remembering, the way one memory triggers another in an almost random way that isn’t random at all. There’s also a little bonus two-pager at the very end of the book. It’s the sweetest take on a funeral for a friend that I’ve ever seen. The style is stark and looks almost like a wood-block print, and the feeling is stark, too. Not really sad, though. Sometimes that happens with love.

That’s what this story is about. The main characters are a pair of up and coming rockers, the singer and guitar player (of course; that’s sexier than the bass player and drummer, it just is). The singer (Nick) is a charismatic asshole of the sort we’ve all pined after (if we’re lucky) or chased (if we’re less lucky). He drifts through life being all hot and fascinating and hurting everybody. Especially the guitar player (Billy), who actually loves him. I can’t think of a way to really discuss what happens in the story without ruining its revelations, so I’m not going to give any details. I’ll just note that the complications are painful, but the outcome is sweet and even beautiful. The story also focuses on two older men, rock stars who were big years ago but are now past their prime. The interactions and intersections between these four characters is played quietly, but the patterns are pretty.

In the first side story, “I Saw the Blue,” the first encounter between the two lovers (French, this time) takes place when Lucian delivers something to Professor Pascal and throws up in the envelope (after it’s empty, at least). Meeting cute, n’est ce pas? There is a four-star scene where the professor – Michel – pours paint over Lucian’s naked body and tells him to roll around on a piece of paper. Lucian tempts Michel to join him (it doesn’t take much, but the way he does it makes me smile stupidly), and they wind up rolling in the paint together. It turns out that Michel is keeping something very important from Lucian, and the scene in which this is revealed is painful. The last scene, though, is subtly hopeful, not for anything more to come of this relationship, but perhaps for another love to grow.

The final side story, “Ni Pukha Ni Pera,” is extremely improbable, and I was shocked when it ended up being not only an embarrassment to everyone associated with it but actually touching. It’s about a friendship that is obviously so deep as to be a little more (I’ve been listening to the fabulous Flight of the Conchords album, I Told You I Was Freaky, so this reminds me of a bit from their song, “Friends”: “My Uncle John had a special friend/They dressed alike, his name was Ben/I’ve never seen two friends like them/They were very, very friendly men”). Friendship porn is standard stuff, obviously. Except that this friendship starts in 1950s Russia, and what stands between them is one man’s yearning to go into space. As in become a cosmonaut (rather than the “Ground control to Major Tom” way), which he does. This one doesn’t end the way you’d expect it to, either. And I’m also a little bit in love with est em’s wistful old men.

And that’s the book. My understanding is that est em prefers that the Romanized version of her name be all lower case, so I will go with that, even if it makes me start thinking about how not even the rain has such small hands. (That was an e.e. cummings reference, for those of you who hate modern poetry or, perhaps, just e.e. cummings, which is fair enough. Although we are actually supposed to capitalize his name, it turns out, despite what the teachers said in high school. Confusing, isn’t it? Annoying bastard.) est em is Maki Satoh, and her pen name is eso to emu, or S&M.

I found that out while trying to find out something about the translation. Age Called Blue was apparently translated by Netcomic’s Soyoung Jung, who translated Dining Bar Akira, which read a little funny to me. I was curious because est em’s previous book, Red Blinds the Foolish, was translated by Matt Thorne, making it something of a gold standard. And he was “supervising translator” for her first book in English, Seduce Me After the Show. I thought this Publishers Weekly interview snippet with Thorne, “Matt Thorne Returns to Translation”, was interesting:

est em, whose real name is Maki Satoh, is a former student and dear friend of mine. Most artists, including est em, have little input in the exporting of their work. So one day her editor told her, “We’re putting out an English language edition of your first book,” and then months later, she mentions it to me. So I freaked out and said, “Are you serious!? When!? Your work’s too sophisticated to be translated by some hack!” So we asked her editor, and learned that the translation was already done, but the editor asked me if I would check it. I ended up pretty much redoing it. For the second volume, I was in from the beginning.

So obviously I had to go reread Red Blinds the Foolish and Seduce Me After the Show, and then reread Age Called Blue to see how the tone compared. (No wonder I never have time to cook or clean or send out Christmas cards.) Anyway, I didn’t have any problems with Age Called Blue, although I did wonder about the lyrics to the song that resonates throughout the main story. Although, you know – rock song lyrics. Who knows.

I looked through the Amazon.com reviews to see if anyone addressed the translation question. No one did, but I noticed a lot of comments to the effect that est em’s drawing is rough, the stories are raw, and the works are an acquired taste. That makes me shake my head sadly. There is a theory that yaoi fans want nothing but empty-headed stories about 18-year-old pretty boys having explicit sex with other 18-year-old pretty boys. Not that there’s nothing wrong with that – I’m a fan. But I think most people can appreciate a beautiful piece of work like this, regardless of their usual tastes and fetishes.

Gluey Tart: Dining Bar Akira

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Dining Bar Akira

Dining Bar Akira, Tomoko Yamashita, 2009, NetComics

I was sold on this title when I saw the cover. That backfires on me sometimes, yes, but sometimes you just know. Look at those grim, sour faces. The threat of violence in the angle of the frying pan and the smears of tomato. The hint of interest and promise of…

The drawing in this volume just blows me away. I love the style, just a little more realistic than the tall, tall, tall, skinny, skinny, skinny, inhumanly pretty boys. These characters are immediately identifiable as men, and the expressions – every shade of volatility, incredulity, and annoyance. The first page tells the whole story.

Dining Bar Akira

Torihara, a part-time worker at Akira’s restaurant, tells Akira he has feelings for him. Both of them are guarded and twitchy and petulant anyway, but Torihara’s news freaks Akira the hell out. This isn’t one of those stories where one party confesses his love and then waits, broken-hearted, until the other party realizes he’s really been in love along, and then everyone embraces as flower petals trail across a splash page. Torihara doesn’t expect Akira to take his declaration well, and he’s not so thrilled about the situation himself. But he’s really irritated about Akira’s reaction and takes every opportunity to show it.

There’s not much story or character development here, but the situation interests and pleases me. Also, I’m just a big fan in general of cranky. These characters are extremely ambivalent about their feelings for each other, and, you know, that happens, sometimes. Even though Torihara started the ball rolling, when he notices that Akira is starting to fall for him, it makes him uneasy. He thinks Akira is a mess and a drunk and kind of an idiot. We can all sympathize, I think. As for Akira – who is a mess and a drunk and definitely an idiot – he wants to be straight, and even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t want to get together with Torihara, who is much younger and also an employee. It is yaoi, though, so they’re doomed. They circle each other, they fight, they give into the sex, they can’t deal with any of the relationship stuff that isn’t sex, they fight, they finally work something out.

Did I mention that they fight? For fully 75% of the book. It’s pretty entertaining – the art, anyway. I’m not crazy about the translation – normally I don’t pay a lot of attention, but I kept getting the feeling that there were colloquialisms that weren’t quite coming across. You know, when the characters are arguing and there’s lots of banter and should-be witty repartee, and you find yourself saying “Huh?” a lot. Also, typos. Come on, people.

There are a couple of short side stories that are equally well-drawn, and also bitchy and adversarial, although nobody’s actually coming to blows. Ah, well. In the first one, “Foggy Scene,” the opening page once again tells you everything you need to know.

Dining Bar Akira

“I think my contacts are gonna fall out” really did it for me. The premise of this story is slightly twisted in a way I find endearing. Yatsue is a high school student who has is in love with his best friend, who isn’t interested, so he drowns his sorrows in a fling with an older man he meets at a club (and lie about his age to). Because every detail is incredibly realistic, said fling shows up at school the next day as the new teacher, Isai. Yatusue pursues the teacher, not because he’s in love with him, but because he can’t have his friend, and he wants someone to want him. I won’t ruin the ending for you – it’s interesting and ambiguous.

In the last story, “Riverside Moonlight” – it’s just a few pages, so more of a vignette, really – Minamida is freaking out because he’s just had a wet dream about an ugly guy he works with. Again, we’ve all been there. Actually, the guy doesn’t look bad – more of a bear than a troll. But Minamida obviously isn’t usually into bears. Just takes one, though.

I think it’s worth looking through this book just for the art. It made me stop, over and over, to analyze the nuances of expression after expression. And if you like your yaoi touchy, ill-tempered, and cross, with a twist of twisty, I think you’ll be into it. I was so enamored I ran straight to Amazon and ordered Black-Winged Love, Yamashita’s other manga that’s available in English. (Dining Bar Akira came out in August, and Black-Winged Love, October. Huh. Nothing useful to say about that – just, huh.) You might be hearing more about that later.

Dining Bar Akira

Gluey Tart: eManporn on Kindle

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I don’t have an iPod. My cell phone is powered by Babbage’s difference engine, and I only got a laptop last year. I don’t even have a digital watch. I am not technologically advanced. I am somewhat technologically reclined. And napping. But trainable, if it’s something I really want.

Which leads to the Kindle. I received one as a holiday gift, and it is one of my favorite toys ever, up there with my MacBook and my Hitatchi Magic Wand. The Kindle is an expensive toy – $259, plus another $30 for the leather folder thing that keeps it from getting all mucked up in your purse – and it does not multitask to any great degree. But it is admirably suited to my yaoi reading.

The thing that might make me the happiest about the Kindle is kind of shallow (quelle surprise), but here goes. Believe it or not, Kinukitty is not a completely shameless creature. Largely shameless, yes. But not without shame entirely. And I must tell you that sitting on the train with a sleek white tablet in a plain black leather sleeve (oooh, that does sound kind of exciting, doesn’t it?) feels more dignified than sitting on the train with a book that has two shirtless, muscular, waxed and well-oiled men twined against each other like the Lacoön Group , but, you know, suggestively. Ditto sitting at my desk at work (during lunch or some other officially sanctioned break period, of course). I could be reading anything. Something important and edifying. No one has to know it’s “Butt Boys from Outer Space: Blasting into Uranus.”

I also read a lot of fan fiction. A lot, a lot. And most of my reading is done on the train, going to and from work, or at work. I don’t want to carry my laptop, and I’m certainly not going to access this stuff on my work computer. In the prehistoric past – PK, or pre-Kindle – I dealt with this problem by copying the stories into Word files and printing them out. Many of these things are hundreds of pages long. That’s a lot of paper and toner, and one grows weary of dealing with all those damned stacks of paper – I have them all over the place. They are messy and unsightly and topple over occasionally, probably presenting some sort of safety hazard (unlike anything else chez Kinukitty). Now, I can put these stories on my Kindle. (As long as they aren’t PDFs – Kindle doesn’t exactly support PDF files. I just added one, and oy vey, yeesh, and Jesus Christ. The type is wee, tiny, and exasperating. I don’t know if I could have read it ten years ago, but I can’t read it now.) I can have as many stories as I want, without carrying around a file cabinet and using up untold tons of toner cartridges and reams of paper. The $259 Kindle device is saving me money! Since I didn’t pay for it. If I had, however, this feature alone would pay for itself in, um, about 13,500 pages, give or take a printer drum. Economical!

Right, then. On to the books. Not everything is available for Kindle, and it requires a serious commitment to Amazon.com. If you’re not a fan, or baby, baby, you’ve got to ramble, this is a deal-breaker. (Assuming the $259 wasn’t.) I have already checked out a good percentage of the yaoi and gay novels available for Kindle. It looks like the supply will more than keep up with me, but you could hit the wall as far as supply (possibly even if you read novels that don’t feature or at least allude to manporn).

On the plus side, you can download the first two or so chapters of any Kindle book for free, allowing you to make an informed buying decision. I love, love, love this feature. The book might sound good, and eight people might have given it five stars for reasons that seemed perfectly valid to them, but I want to know if it’s the kind of thing that pushes my buttons (in a good way) and if the writing isn’t so bad it makes me shake like a wet dog. (Just to be clear, this is in no way a problem that afflicts yaoi and gay novels any more than any other category.) I’m willing to go there, by the way, to a certain extent, if the story is good and the writing isn’t too bad, but I do feel better about paying $5 for an e-copy of a not-great book than $15 or more for a hard copy. (Ditto for anything that’s riddled with typos and editing stupidity, a problem that plagues a surprising number of titles now, from romance to literary fiction, even from the biggest publishers.)

There are also manporn novels that are only available for Kindle. When I first started noticing these, I became jealous and acquisitive. There are many yaoi and gay novels I haven’t read yet, but no matter – I could if I wanted to. You know? I wasn’t being actively thwarted. Now that I have access, though, I can think about considerations other than being book-blocked. Some of these things cost $10, and that’s wrong. Most of the volumes that are also available as printed books average about $5, and that’s about what I feel comfortable paying for something I don’t really get to own. Because you don’t own it. If Amazon pulls the title – which has happened – “your” book will disappear from your Kindle the next time you access the Amazon Web site.

But I do appreciate the overall comfort factor. I have always been the sort of person who worries about running out of things to read. On business trips, I choose to wear the same suit for three days so I can get another book into my suitcase, just in case I need it. I get antsy when I’m nearing the end of a book, too. What if I finish it on my morning train ride? What will I read on my evening train ride? (Welcome to the mind of Kinukitty. Please sign the guest book on your way out.) This will never happen to me again (assuming I can remember to keep the thing charged, which is hardly a given – in fact, I have already failed, in less than two weeks of Kindle ownership, but hope, like disgust, springs eternal) because I can store 1,500 books on the Kindle, and if I read all those, I can use Kindle to check in with the Amazon mother ship (anywhere there’s cell phone coverage) and buy more. You make your selection and they send it within a minute. I cannot tell you how comforting I find all this. Really. Although I do have a caveat. Many people appreciate suspense, but I am not one of them. At the first hint of suspense, I flip ahead to see what’s going to happen, and then I go back and actually read the book. The Kindle does not really encourage this sort of behavior. In fact, the Kindle makes it pretty much impossible. It takes about three screens to read a page, I think (I haven’t done the math, but that’s my sense of things), and there’s no way to flip through to the end easily. At times, this feels like not having a left hand or something. I’ll probably manage, though.

I could tell you more about the Kindle, believe it or not – there’s an on-board dictionary! – but I am not without pity, either. And, in an attempt to actually be useful, I will mention a couple of novels I think the Kindle-having yaoi lover should check out: Zero at the Bone, by Jane Seville, and the annoyingly named St. Nacho’s by Z.A. Maxfield. (Although both are available in print, I think.) I also got sucked into a vampire novel (ha! good one, right?) by Z.A. Maxfield, called Notturno, and it looks pretty good, but I’ve only read the two sample chapters. I bought it, though. Same with HaveMercy by Danielle Bennett and Jaia Jones. I can see both of those going horribly wrong in the next chapter or two, but, you know, you can’t win if you don’t play. (Forget about manga, though – it’s available on Kindle, but it shouldn’t be. Holy bifocals, Batman, that’s a small screen for a full page of art. To say nothing of the type – I don’t know who the hell could read that. Just – no.) (Did I download a manga, just to check? Of course I did. It’s like you don’t even know me.)

My general feeling about this whole thing is that the Kindle is cool and well designed but, really, $259? Are you freaking kidding? Nobody needs a portable reading device. (I think just about anybody would agree with me here, but I have to mention that I felt the same way about CD players for the first, oh, ten years.) But if someone asks if you’d like one for Christmas? Say yes.