Real men read shoujo. That’s the gist of this thread on the ANN forums, in which a poster asks “Is Shojo enjoyable to males?” The answer is a resounding yes, although the jury is still out on Fruits Basket. This conversation is interesting because it flies in the face of the conventional publishing wisdom that girls will read boys’ books but boys won’t read girls’ books.
It certainly takes a lot of self-confidence to post a photo of yourself with an ice bag for all to see, but Tokyopop Editor-in-Chief Rob Tokar is apparently a confident guy. In his blog, Rob comments on a new series that I have enjoyed, Afterlife.
CMX has set up an “Ask CMX” page so readers can communicate directly with the company. It’s a good idea, but it would be even better if the answers were not anonymous.
Lyle wonders which title will be dropped next from Shojo Beat and reflects that he likes Absolute Boyfriend better in small bites than in full volumes.
Comics-and-more does a Double Take on vol. 7 of Death Note. Warning: Spoilers, and I believe there’s a major plot development in this volume.
Manga Junkie gets the final volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Happy for a buck. Why is this one not licensed here? She has a theory:
Even though there are no cultural barriers for sports, sports manga just doesn’t do well in the US. Is it because otaku are indoor people? Sports manga always has kandou (感動), the touching moment, where you can cry your eyes out… aah, mottainai. Let’s sweat together & cry together with sports manga!
I think everyone likes romance. Even in an action story. Take Rumiko Takahashi’s work she manages to make a perfect blend of both worlds.
Though the primary problem with manga is. Once they become popular, they end up in a endless web of side stories to prevent the reader from getting true progression of the key elements of the story that intrestead them in the first place. The japanese are great at making hooks and pulling you in ^____^
Well, Naoki Urasawa’s YAWARA was just licensed (well, the anime anyway) so it’s possible that the manga may someday be grabbed, and then Happy may be picked up too :D (wishful thinking…)
I think Spaceturtle is correct sort of — lots of people like romance but shojo is not *just* romance. It has a lot of specific things going for it that makes it appeal to girls. Such as fashion, attitude, the way they talk, the way the characters are posed and etc.
I see those elements in the closest thing to shojo I collect — Nodame Cantibile, the manga-ka pays lots of attention to fashion and personality. The reason I like it is she’s story first and everything second. So the actual genre is not so blatant.
The link leads to Manganews’ forum instead of ANN’s forum >.>
Fixed!
Thanks for pointing that out!
• CMX has started a “Ask CMX” page, for readers to send questions directly to the company. [ Source: Manga Blog ]
(From manganews)
Ohh.. hi eclipsey!
Hah! Why isn’t Happy licensed? Because it has a horrible freefall ending. The series was forced to end early as the mangaka forgot what the series was about. Urusawa was not able to maintain a series as either a sports manga or a yakuza drama.
The tennis was actually on the side of realism. No Prince of Tennis shots, just guts and skill and sweat. There never was much of this because the tennis drama quickly moved into the locker room where the main character had to deal with personalities. This seemed to be a really cheap idea that possibly was overblown especially since the characters here were pros (and they have managers, trainers… teams essentially to watch over them) but the main character would get wrapped up in personal problems. And that was justified because she was poor and had debts with the Yakuza. That thread was very weak. They never really took action. One character ended up falling for the tennis star but he wasn’t the only one.
… Sigh. Urasawa really brought in too many concepts and the manga was basically killed at a critical point of the series. Leaving me wanting to see if the main character could reach her potential or not, and wondering if love could come to people who were so dysfunctional together.
I think I enjoyed Fruits Basket more than my girlfriend did!