MangaBlog

Thanks to David at Love Manga for pointing out the new VIZ website. It is a vast improvement over the previous site in one respect: It is searchable. However, the designers have retained one feature that drives me crazy—instead of providing an alphabetical list of manga titles, they persist in classifying them, on the off chance that I’ll know that Ultra Maniac falls under “Shojo Beat” and not “Shoujo,” or that I’ll understand the difference between “SHONEN JUMP” and “SHONEN JUMP ADVANCED.” (CAPS theirs. Hey, guys, stop shouting.) All this just makes it harder to find a book, which means it’s a lot of work for nothing.

But at least I don’t have to exit the site and go to Google to find a title any more.

My reviews of volume 6 of Fruits Basket and volume 2 of Ultra Maniac are up at Manga Life.

When two of my favorite comics commentators say almost the same thing, I begin to sense a trend. At Cognitive Dissonance, Johanna is giving up on Rurouni Kenshin:

I’m definitely quitting with this one, because it was a chore to get through it, and there are still a ton more volumes in the series. (If I was anywhere near the end, then it might be worth hanging on.) There are just so many other manga I want to read more.

And at (postmodernbarney), Dorian comes to a similar conclusion with regard to InuYasha:

I’m several volumes behind as it is, and everytime I flip open a new book I note that a) they still haven’t found all the pieces of that damn gem and b) a new nemesis has been introduced who is more powerful and more evil than the previous nemesis, thus forcing the heroes to unlock yet another hidden power they didn’t know they possessed.

It seems that there is such a thing as too many volumes. I often wonder, as I embark on a multi-volume series, how far ahead the author is thinking. Does she know how the whole story will unspool, and which volume will be the last? Or does she have a three-volume story and figure she’ll think up some more stuff if the series get extended? I once read that J.K. Rowling knew pretty much what the whole Harry Potter saga was going to be when she started on the first book. It seems that Natsuki Takaya did the same sort of planning with Fruits Basket; as I re-read the earlier volumes, there is quite a bit of foreshadowing. On the other hand, it was clear from the first volume of InuYasha that this was a story that could go on and on as long as the contracts lasted; you can search for bits of that jewel forever and never find them all, and a story like that is episodic by nature—finding each shard is a new adventure that doesn’t depend on what went before.

There’s a place in the world for both types of storytelling, but the risk with the episodic stories is that the formula doesn’t permit enough variation to stay interesting for 30 or 40 volumes. Even a real story arc can be boring if stretched out too long. On the other hand, I’m willing to stay with a story for 10 or more volumes if it feels like it’s going somewhere—and if the end is in sight.

What is it exactly that makes manga different? In this month’s issue of Sequential Tart, we get the second installment of an insider’s view: artist Pam Bliss explains how manga artists break the rules that Western artists learned in Comics 101. Bliss discusses the way manga artists change the look of their characters from page to page and even volume to volume, mix genres and conventions (giant robots in shoujo manga? I haven’t seen it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe it), and strategically use small bits of text to replace entire panels of exposition. As an artist, Bliss sees these as useful techniques to blend into one’s own work, rather than adopting a single style wholesale: “Steal, certainly, but only take the good stuff.” And she ends with a comment that seems very relevant in light of the recent are-manga-comics-or-are-they-not debate:

If nothing else, a thoughtful look at manga will reveal our own comics-making conventions to be just that: conventions based on a common set of assumptions rooted in Western storytelling and comics culture, rather than immutable laws of nature. Telling stories the Japanese way works not just for the Japanese, but with a little help from skilled translators, for us in the West as well. And I think that gives us all something to think about.

An article in this morning’s New York Times describes the effect that a visit to an art museum has on people with Alzheimer’s: they seem to be able to appreciate art on some very visceral level, and some are actually able to speak more fluently when they are discussing the art on the wall. The article also notes that “exposure to music can even result in lowered dosages for patients being medicated for cognitive and emotional disorders.”

In a previous post, I wrote about my father, who has a pretty advanced case and can’t relate to much these days, but is fascinated by old comic strips. Initially, he had a very strong emotional response; the old strips seemed to bring something back to him. Now his interest has switched to a set of old illustrated readers, the same books he used in grade school in the 1930s. He can sit and look at them for hours, reading the text but mainly looking at the pictures. He often tells me “This book is a part of me.” He still delights in classical music–we play Mozart, Handel, and Vivaldi for him. As his world dwindles down, and the simplest things in everyday life get more frustrating, it’s nice to be able to offer him some simple, effortless pleasures.

(Registration required for the Times article; if you don’t like to give away your personal information, visit www.bugmenot.com first.)

I don’t have any kittens, or orchids, or funny old comic book covers to scan in for an easy post, but I do have some pretty cool stamps that came on a letter from a friend in France a few weeks ago. There is something very French about these cartoons. The left-hand one translates to “The reverse of a self-stick stamp is an excellent flytrap.” The right-hand one is a pun that doesn’t really translate very well.