Fashion, Fighting and Literature: Hana no Asuka-gumi
Sometimes, the power of a series is in the details. The subtle moments, the deft stroke of a brush or subtle camera-work, the sound of a voice catching at just the right moment.
In Hana no Asuka-gumi, the power of the series is in the grand scheme, the wide-angle view of a world that, whether it truly exists or not, will never be seen by those unaware of its existence.
We all know that in every great city, in every country, there is an underworld organization that runs the illicit businesses humans require. But what if there was, behind even that, another world, an even more obscure world, of gangs and drugs and phone texting competitions and boy bands – a world that extends through middle and high schools country-wide?
In Hana no Asuka-gumi, Asuka is both part of and an outsider to a pervasive underground organization that runs all the girl gangs of Tokyo. “Gumi” here means gang, so the translation can be “Asuka of the Flowers Gang.” However, the “Hana no” is most often translated as “Magnficent” as in the “Hana no Nijuuyo-nen Gumi,” the “Magnificent 49ers” the name used to loosely identify the mothers of girls’ manga in Japan. It would not be out of the pale to translate the series “The Magnificent Asuka Gang.”
