Week 14: The influence of anime and manga in the west

The Text I read was Annarasumanana by Ilkwon Ha. I'm honestly really surprised how unique and different the manga is in terms of hows its illustrated, how the comps are layed out, and how the use of variety in the media capitalizes in the humor and severity of the story told.  I think it was a very dramatic, and cinematic comic and takes its self very seriously through its usage of sparce dialogue and using the environment to communicate empty or loneliness.

I think the story connects to me through the main character. I think in the story, her main goals initially were to push past her past and to get her degree while support her sister. I think the difficulty she felt was it was hard for her to relate to most of her class mates because her priorities were much more different and were further past school. I think for me I can relate to this because I am trying to balance my personal life and my school life, while worrying about the unknown certainty of my future life. I think that its very relatable that she was yearning to relive a past experience at the carnival which sparked a new life in her. I look back to my past and find elements of what I want to relive and reflect on to help better my self in the future. 

I feel like the best change for this type of story could be translated into a TV series directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, the guy who made Samurai Jack. I think that he would be the only one to really give the series justice. I think the changes I would make would be to add more multi media in the story like stop motion and matte paintings.  I would also want it to be colorized, but also have it be black and white for certain moments. 

I think because of the minimal use of words and the capitalization of telling story through action and a dynamic composition that a video format would be a really amazing way to tell this story, and would be the best way to communicate the adaptation. 

Week 13: Oishinbo

This manga makes me want to fly to japan more and more. Something that I thought was really cool and unique which sets its self apart from other manga is in between chapters it gives you recopies to make your own food at home. I think its really awesome because it allows people to who arn't Japanese to really understand the culture further, in my opinion, I think the food of a country tells a story in its own way and I like how this book gives back an extra step by allowing the reader to apply real world knowledge. It encourages me to read further so I can learn more recipes. Fianlly, another thing that I thought was pretty cool was the art style, so far this is also one of the more unique styles, I feel like its a mix of the old school Akira Toryama style, and a mix of a cartoony One Piece vibe as well.

Week 12: contemporary manga

A silent voice

This Manga is a really beautiful, well written slice of life manga. Im not entirely sure what the genre of contemporary manga is exactly, but based off of reading this I would assume its very conservative, and feel good. I think it explores interesting topics and scenarios however it dosn't get into too much of the genres like horror or drama, and just plays up the elements of the simplicity of life. I think the biggest message I got from reading this manga was the struggle of acceptance. Communication is one of the biggest faults in our society and it this book really shows the difficulties of how a def person could establish emotional connections to her classmates. I feel like it especially resonates with people who have been bullied in school in thepast. It really looks at both sides and shows ultimately at the end of the day that we are all human and need to take the time to understand that we are all equal and should be accepted for who we are regardless of our flaws.

Week 11: Horror

Manga horror is just odd

There were so many surreal, gross, stupid, and trippy stories that I read. I don't understand how some of them are even considered horror. I think each one of these stories is very unique and explores a niche type or morbid curiosity. For example, the Fixed Face story is very psychological. The woman destroyed her ears because she feared nobody in the world would help her, but in reality she should have just waited until morning for an assistant to check the room. I really liked the over exadurated emotions portrayed in the comics and the sunken in eyes really played up the emotion of helplessness and pure stress. The weirdest one was for sure the shit one. I felt like it didn't take its self seriously. Something that I did think was super weird about it was the boy rather than what the vendor was selling. He was always in silhouette and had a very weird shape to his head almost as if he was some sort of crazy person. I don't know how to entirely describe it but It was just comedicaly unsettling.

Week:10 but in the future! Isekai

That Time I got Reincarnated As A Slime

So far this is my favorite manga I read during the class. I pays a lot of homage to some of the classic RPG games I used to play when I was a kid like Dragon Quest. Especially the fact that he turned into a slime is hilarious. The Slime is known as a the weakest mob in most Japanese RPG's and I find it comedic genius that the protagonist managed to charm the most powerful dragon in the realm and absorbed its power as the first enemy he "fought". The transporting to another realm was a very intresting sequence at the beginning of the story because it first focuses on the protagonists friend, and watches as he leaves our world from the random stabbing, and is transported into a game like reality. My assumption is he uploaded his consciousness into his PC or something. The thing I disliked about the read was it felt very cheesy. There are a lot of shows like this, and unlike Satellite Girl and Milk cow, the plot of a young man becoming an underdog in a fantasy realm is overdone and generic. I think overall, this was a very entertaining read although I personally think theres better stuff out there, but it certainly appeals to my aesthetic stylistically and the funny and self aware themes of the manga which I find my self reading for long periods of time.

Presentation Link(download drive)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iea3P-qSMBU6oN-oDASiZmoRgHJ13SKr/view?usp=sharing

Manga: My "secret" confession (not clickbait)

Week 10: Akira

I've always heard about Akira but never really had the chance to see the movie, I never knew what it was about and based on the cover I thought it had to do with racing, I was so so wrong. Overall this has to be one of my most favorite movies so far this year. My favorite thing about the movie was the art style and how it didn't hold back with anything. I saw a lot of influence of from the movie Alien, and even some Blade Runner style buildings and tech. It also felt like the main characters were right out of the 80 (which was when the movie was made) in a very rebellious "badboy" personality. It felt very much of the times because of how the main characters were very anti-system and government. Something that was unexpected with the movie was the ending and how Tetsuo became so corrupt so quickly, and its hard to still hate him because of his backstory and how hes not entirely to blame. someone with that much pain or trauma in their life shouldn't be given that much power, and that's where the government didn't care. They just wanted a test subject for the experiments and only wanted results which ended up costing thousands of lives. On a final thought, something that I noticed about this anime was how red, and realistic the blood was. I know japan tends to do a lot of censoring by either making the blood a different color, or figuring out a way to hide it. but with this film, everything was very graphic, I wonder if this movie was made to contrast the norm in anime for the time with its use of overly graphic imagery for japans standards.

Week 8: My lesbian experience with lonieness

I think this story is a really strong down to earth manga because of its themes and character development. Furthermore, the usage of gay characters in manga out of the yaoi genre is telling of change in manga demographics and more of a personal experience which I find really telling. In japan I think theres is still a resistance to same sex culture and the reason why I like this story a lot is because it shows the battle and conflction within ones self.  The main character has realistic expectations and tries to be a functioning member of society, and yet feels internally troubled, depressed and outcasted from the norm of society. I relate to this character because I battle with my sexual Identity during this time in my life, Im not necessarily depressed or uncertain, however being apart of the LGBT community I understand and empathize with the struggles of finding yourself and how that reflects on your environment. Finally what I really like about this story is the clever writing and holistic balance between heavy topics like depression and Identity, and yet the author finds a way to blend it with light hearted humor. Overall I thought it was a really unique take on this genre, and a really fun read.

Week 7: Madoka Magica

Madoka Magica puts a really dark twist on the magical girl anime stories. In the end, the hero doesn't end up really winning, and there's a lot of sadness and touchy subjects like depression which contrast the fun and colorful set or character designs. On the surface there's a lot of relationship and boy romance stuff on the top but the that wasn't the main focus. behind the scenes the girls in the show are fighting for their lives in an endless loop, each monster they kill is one of their past friends who were consumed by the "darkness" which is an allegory to the depression within young girls who are transitioning to adulthood. The witches in the show are magical girls of the past who were once like the protagonists full of spirit. Madoka on the hand was something special. The art style of madoka is very cool because they use multimedia in their fights. A lot of the witches have themes, and through the use of stop motion and cutout images and patterns they show themes of chaos and disorder. That is why I think it stands out comparatively from other shojo magical girl shows, is because it uses a unique art form to japanese anime.

Week: 6 Death Note

This week I wanted to revisit a Manga that I read/watched when I was a kid, and now that I have more of an appreciation for analyzing manga, I wanted to sit down and revisit the books and talk about what I think now. Death Note really helped popularize the crime/mystery genre for manga and fully integrated its self in pop culture with numerous spin offs, extended manga on specific characters like Lite, and even a live action movie. The overall themes that I picked up while rereading the books stem from a lot of political routed Ideas like liberty versus security. Morality is a strange line that can easily be blurred into corruption due to a "just" cause. Is killing someone who is evil moral? or is it immoral to kill someone even if there evil in the name of justice. Another theme I noticed in the book was the theme of religion and ego. Light is essentially playing god in the book because he gets to decide who lives and who dies. The original writes Takeshi Obata said in an interview "nobody should play god" and its almost fitting redemption at the end of the series when light dies. This plays a lot with the Idea of light and dark because and also its Irony. Light is actually evil but in his head, Hes doing the right thing. L is the good and light because hes trying to take down the one who is disrupting the laws of justice. The real question is, who is good and who is bad. I found that its all in perspective which is the thing that makes it interesting.

Week 5: Oran highschool

Ouran HighSchool Host Club is actually one of my favorite animes/manga of all time. I'ts a perfect blend of humor and slice of life, and plays a funny spin on the silver spoon life. I feel like this book calls to japans modern culture and themes. I know a lot of anime and gaming, or even more spesific things like yaoi are sensationalised and intigrated into bars and cafes around japan. Women and men go to these places to get courted and wooed into a very unique experience. Similarly Ouran host club is aimed at that type of audience, where these guys are playing spesific "types" of people. In this manga however, its very saterised and played up in a commediac way playing all the troupes, like the quiet smart cool guy, or the seductive twins, or just the outright handsome dream guy with too much confidence. Thats where I feel like the protagonist, Haruhi plays a very unique role, Shes a woman. It takes untill the end of the first episode for them to realise this and I find it intresting that this show kinda thins the line of looks and presentation which then creates this weird yet charming dynamic of the group. I feel like she fits right into the club, but the people shes courting as a host are completely oblivious of the fact that shes a girl. Similalry in most of the real host clubs in japan, guys take up a very femanin aesthetic and have more of a soft spot personality.

Week 4: I saw it

I never really read any manga that where this heavy and I am really shocked seeing it through this artists perspective. Growing up post WWII must have been an insanely bleak and difficult time for the children growing up. I though the color was a good choice to add to the book because it shows in full detail what the artist witnessed as a kid, and the use of color assisted to how graphic it was. The thing that was inspiring to me was the fact that he took his hardships and world perspective and turned it into his passion and career to share his perspective and create a dialogue on the topic. Its one of the most important times in human history and people need to know how horrible and traumatic nuclear war and fallout is.

Class Questions:

I am surprised there wasn’t really any reflective commentary on the war or the US, Wouldn’t there be things like resentment, hate, despair, towards the US? things to the extreme being expressed by the characters in the story for such an extreme topic?

Did he not have a say in how his mother would be taken care of after she passed away? It felt almost like he related it to the atomic bomb dropping because he didn’t have a say on behalf of his family’s traditions or wills.

Was this super close to the authors personal experience? When was the first time the author fully realized why and what happened that day, and how it fully impacted the globe. As a child during that instance, I could imagine it must have been something out of his comprehension and needed to reflect on it as he got older.

Week 3: Cigarette Girl, Masahiko Matsumoto

Cigarette girl is truly a slice of life. I feel like to an extent we can all relate to Hidari-Sans weird quirks and antics. The first thing that popped out to me about this manga was the the jurastic style change compared to the past 2 stories we read. This is a more goofy and simplistic style with pretty structured line art. It feels like everythign is just more refined and cohesive artisticaly compared to pheonix which jumped around a lot from past, to modern day and different ways to render and portray people. Cigarette girl is in my opinion a statement on the times social norms and highlighting Matsumotos realistic perspectve. All the romantic, cultural, and adult themes are addressed in the story and I think gives me a perspective on what life was like for that time in japan.

I did some reasearch on line and found that this Gekiga was one of the first that matsumoto had an english translation for. During the 70's It makes me think how much manga was truly accessable to the western counteries, and how many manga artists were thinking about adapting their stories for english readers.

There were a few main themes I was thinking about when reading the sequence of 11 stories. Each character in the end really struggles with some form of unforfullemnt. Things like solitude, isolation, and melincoly are very prevelant during the manga, and the artstyle's goofy playfullness almost contradicts the topics covered almost creating an unspoken layer of ironey.

Overall I really liked the comics and Im really happy I got exposed to Matsumoto's work. I plan on reading more of it in the future!

Week 2: Phoenix Dawn, Tezuka

Phoenix Dawn holds no punches in being a very cool and unique mature book. It has a lot of things that really appeal to me like mythology and history. Something that I really like is the overall aesthetic of the book. For some reason all the old comics like Dragon Ball, and Mega Man have this really cool cartoon vibe that just feels timeless. Something I noticed while reading the Manga was that the panels were really inconsistent with the art. Sometimes they would have really detailed shots, and some were really poorly drawn. Sometimes the characters would look more like Disney cartoons, and sometimes it would look like a Sailor Moon comic. To me this adds to the authenticity of the fact that its a really old Manga that really paved roads for future styles to come. Artists weren't payed very well and were charged per page, so I can see why some of it was super simple and almost gestural. Finally something that I really liked was it had a lot of action in it, they cover topics like death, war, sickness, religion and love. Overall I really enjoyed it, and I can see know how art style and topics of books reflect on the time they were created.

I did some more research and also found that there was a movie adaptation on the Manga that I want to watch, I think color and animation really adds to the drama of the story. its also interesting to see how the Manga was adapted to Anime for and how the character designs carried over to animation given on how loosely drawn they are.

My Manga

My Manga by Chase Emilio