rainsometimes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rainsometimes) wrote2012-09-11 07:27 pm
rainsometimes) wrote2012-09-11 07:27 pm
Entry tags:
A is for Adolf, Akira, and more
A has quite a few titles, so I'll be more brief this time.
Adolf by Osamu Tezuka
(note: this is a flipped page: panels read left to right)
Recently reprinted as "Message to Adolf", I first read it under this title way back in the 1990s: it was, in fact, my first Tezuka comic. And it's a good one. Very dark, hard to find characters to fully sympathise with (of course I root for the non-Nazis, but all the central characters commit some awful things) - but it's also hard to stop feeling at least a little bit sorry for half-German, half-Japanese Adolf Kaufmann, even as he descends further and further into murdering Nazi fanatic. The central premise isn't all that plausible, but the oppression and atrocitites shown sadly are. And yet there's such a lot of genuine feeling into it - and superbly well told on a technical level, which is almost always a given with Tezuka. Here, I believe his authentic memories of the WWII era and how he feels about it looking back give the narrative additional power. Tezuka had intended for the "past" and "future" strands of his life work Phoenix to meet in World War II: as he didn't live long enough to realise those plans, perhaps this work is as close as we can get to that.
Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo
So many years since I read this one, it's hard to give a fair impression of how I took it at the time. It's another dark and violent story, but completely without the often claustrophobic atmosphere of Adolf: instead Otomo's art and storytelling conveys an epic grandness to the story. Everything is big and important, as I recall. Kaneda is also not always terribly sympathetic as a protagonist, and sometimes I felt I was expected to identify more with him than I did, but he does have an engaging energy - and Tetsuo also takes his time to cross over the Moral Event Horizon. A lot of brutality, even among the "good" characters trying to stop the end of the world - and when someone felt more moral than others, it was usually a sign they wouldn't last long.
In some ways Akira quite lived up to my expectations, which had led me to postpone reading the series for several years, in others less so. SPOILER for the ending: I'd actually been led to believe it all ends in the darkest way possible, with the whole world ending. Instead, there's an awful lot of death and destruction, and society will have to rebuild itself, but there are survivors, and even a certain amount of hope. That surprised me.
All My Darling Daugthers by Fumi Yoshinaga
A collection of interconnected josei stories, centred on a mother, her daughters and their acquaintances. I'm pretty new to Yoshinaga and I found this an interesting and thoughtful read, with lots of nuances in the telling. Yoshinaga's refined art is not the type I latch onto instantly, but it's pleasant to spend time with.
Aomanjuskogen
Aomanjuskogen (lit. "Aomanju Forest") is the Swedish title for the manga Hoshigahara Aomanjuu no mori by Hisae Iwaoka (who also does Saturn Apartments). I've only read the one volume in Swedish so far, not having found scanlations: supposedly there's a second volume coming out in November. I really hope this one makes it into English - so far, it's an entrancing manga of a world apart, the forest where a young boy lives in a house together with various spirits - spirits of nature and even of inanimate objects. Some stay with him permanently, others turning up in search of company and to get help with their problems only to leave later. So I guess it's all part of the "Solving Supernatural Problems" genre (or whatever its name is) that also contains titles like Mushishi, Natsume's Book of Friends, RIN-NE, and many more, but definitely putting its own atmosphere into it. Iwaoka's drawings of small, rotund people with scrounged-up but charming faces adds to the quirky atmosphere. And just look at that gorgeous cover!
Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka
The classic old manga that was translated in a "Best Of" format by Dark Horse in the early 00s. I was delighted to rediscover these old comics with a childlike sense of wonder and old-fashioned adventure: my inner eight-year-old was rejoicing. I couldn't quite keep my enthusiasm up for all of the volumes, though: after a while a certain sameness sat in. The ones I liked the most were the original "Pluto" arc and the long feuilleton in DH volumes 7-9, where Astro is sent back in time and even suffers a death of sorts until we get to follow his creation and early years, this time in extra detail. (Man, Dr Tenma is one messed-up character. Yet oddly compelling. The stories where he showed up were often good ones.)
I also always liked the ones where Astro's parents, Astro's sister Uran and his oft-forgotten younger brother Kobolt show up, even if they don't do much. And of course Mr Mustachio, short-tempered badass, and wise old Mr Ochanomizu, various Star System characters (I always had a soft spot for Hamegg) and so on... Sometimes surprisingly dark in tone, as both the arcs I quoted could have; always moral and didactic, espousing Tezuka's leftist pacifist values and pro-robot rights. (Tezuka actually made up his own Robot Laws independently of Asimov); and full of the joy of storytelling.
Azumanga Daioh! by Kiyohiko Azuma
Four-panel comic (with occasional longer stories) about a bunch of high school girls and some of their teachers.
People more up on these matters than me say that "Azumanga Daioh!" was an early and influential moe comic. For me it's the first thing I think of as a counter-argument to those who think the moe genre is inherently bad. (There's also Yotsuba&, but I've seen some disagreement that that one is moe.) Although I guess it might well be an eye of the beholder thing - perhaps the reason why there are no boyfriends, no love affairs and no recurring male characters apart from the pervy Japanese Literature teacher is so the intended male reader won't feel that there are any "rivals" in the setting, and so the girls will come across as innocent, as I've read people argue of moe comics. But frankly, to me it just means there's a female-heavy cast of pure romance-free, characters-based comedy in a pace neither particularly gentle nor high-paced but just... I dunno... ordinary. But fun.
Oddly enough in terms of trends, the art seems to be a lot more moe-esque and fanservice-y at the start of the comic; the fanservice never goes away entirely, but the mandatory cuteness gets somewhat lessened by comedy and a stronger sense of character in the art as well as story. (Seen most clearly with the way the eyes are drawn, losing their droopiness over time.) In any case, the characters never feel othered to me, nor does it feel like they're fetishised in terms of a praised innocence or vulnerability. Just because they don't have boyfriends doesn't mean they're particularly pure, nor do they come across as vulnerable. (Okay, Chiyo-chan remains pretty innocent, but she's just one character. And she's still more used for humour than to make you go "d'aww".) They're just funny people you like to hang out with.
******************************
Creators
Hiromu Arakawa
Kiyohiko Azuma
Favourite characters (just the favouritest, there are many more I like!)
Akane Tendo (Ranma 1/2)
Ai Tanabe (Planetes)
Akitsu Masanosuke (House of Five Leaves)
Alphonse Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist)
************************************
Anime corner
Angelic Layer (originally a manga by CLAMP, but I've only seen the anime - entertaining, cute, and occasionally tearjerking. Love the fight scenes with the Angel fighting dolls.)
Azumanga Daioh! The anime adaptation. A good one, perfect for relaxation.
Arrietty - Beautiful and melancholy Ghibli adaptation of The Borrowers. I love the way the Borrowers and their world are treated so matter-of-factly, their small perspective not used for humour or spectacle. The sadness in the narrative makes it a movie I don't want to watch on a day I'm already down, but there is also hope at the end.
Any other manga recs beginning with A?
Adolf by Osamu Tezuka
(note: this is a flipped page: panels read left to right)
Recently reprinted as "Message to Adolf", I first read it under this title way back in the 1990s: it was, in fact, my first Tezuka comic. And it's a good one. Very dark, hard to find characters to fully sympathise with (of course I root for the non-Nazis, but all the central characters commit some awful things) - but it's also hard to stop feeling at least a little bit sorry for half-German, half-Japanese Adolf Kaufmann, even as he descends further and further into murdering Nazi fanatic. The central premise isn't all that plausible, but the oppression and atrocitites shown sadly are. And yet there's such a lot of genuine feeling into it - and superbly well told on a technical level, which is almost always a given with Tezuka. Here, I believe his authentic memories of the WWII era and how he feels about it looking back give the narrative additional power. Tezuka had intended for the "past" and "future" strands of his life work Phoenix to meet in World War II: as he didn't live long enough to realise those plans, perhaps this work is as close as we can get to that.
Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo
So many years since I read this one, it's hard to give a fair impression of how I took it at the time. It's another dark and violent story, but completely without the often claustrophobic atmosphere of Adolf: instead Otomo's art and storytelling conveys an epic grandness to the story. Everything is big and important, as I recall. Kaneda is also not always terribly sympathetic as a protagonist, and sometimes I felt I was expected to identify more with him than I did, but he does have an engaging energy - and Tetsuo also takes his time to cross over the Moral Event Horizon. A lot of brutality, even among the "good" characters trying to stop the end of the world - and when someone felt more moral than others, it was usually a sign they wouldn't last long.
In some ways Akira quite lived up to my expectations, which had led me to postpone reading the series for several years, in others less so. SPOILER for the ending: I'd actually been led to believe it all ends in the darkest way possible, with the whole world ending. Instead, there's an awful lot of death and destruction, and society will have to rebuild itself, but there are survivors, and even a certain amount of hope. That surprised me.
All My Darling Daugthers by Fumi Yoshinaga
A collection of interconnected josei stories, centred on a mother, her daughters and their acquaintances. I'm pretty new to Yoshinaga and I found this an interesting and thoughtful read, with lots of nuances in the telling. Yoshinaga's refined art is not the type I latch onto instantly, but it's pleasant to spend time with.
Aomanjuskogen
Aomanjuskogen (lit. "Aomanju Forest") is the Swedish title for the manga Hoshigahara Aomanjuu no mori by Hisae Iwaoka (who also does Saturn Apartments). I've only read the one volume in Swedish so far, not having found scanlations: supposedly there's a second volume coming out in November. I really hope this one makes it into English - so far, it's an entrancing manga of a world apart, the forest where a young boy lives in a house together with various spirits - spirits of nature and even of inanimate objects. Some stay with him permanently, others turning up in search of company and to get help with their problems only to leave later. So I guess it's all part of the "Solving Supernatural Problems" genre (or whatever its name is) that also contains titles like Mushishi, Natsume's Book of Friends, RIN-NE, and many more, but definitely putting its own atmosphere into it. Iwaoka's drawings of small, rotund people with scrounged-up but charming faces adds to the quirky atmosphere. And just look at that gorgeous cover!
Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka
The classic old manga that was translated in a "Best Of" format by Dark Horse in the early 00s. I was delighted to rediscover these old comics with a childlike sense of wonder and old-fashioned adventure: my inner eight-year-old was rejoicing. I couldn't quite keep my enthusiasm up for all of the volumes, though: after a while a certain sameness sat in. The ones I liked the most were the original "Pluto" arc and the long feuilleton in DH volumes 7-9, where Astro is sent back in time and even suffers a death of sorts until we get to follow his creation and early years, this time in extra detail. (Man, Dr Tenma is one messed-up character. Yet oddly compelling. The stories where he showed up were often good ones.)
I also always liked the ones where Astro's parents, Astro's sister Uran and his oft-forgotten younger brother Kobolt show up, even if they don't do much. And of course Mr Mustachio, short-tempered badass, and wise old Mr Ochanomizu, various Star System characters (I always had a soft spot for Hamegg) and so on... Sometimes surprisingly dark in tone, as both the arcs I quoted could have; always moral and didactic, espousing Tezuka's leftist pacifist values and pro-robot rights. (Tezuka actually made up his own Robot Laws independently of Asimov); and full of the joy of storytelling.
Azumanga Daioh! by Kiyohiko Azuma
Four-panel comic (with occasional longer stories) about a bunch of high school girls and some of their teachers.
People more up on these matters than me say that "Azumanga Daioh!" was an early and influential moe comic. For me it's the first thing I think of as a counter-argument to those who think the moe genre is inherently bad. (There's also Yotsuba&, but I've seen some disagreement that that one is moe.) Although I guess it might well be an eye of the beholder thing - perhaps the reason why there are no boyfriends, no love affairs and no recurring male characters apart from the pervy Japanese Literature teacher is so the intended male reader won't feel that there are any "rivals" in the setting, and so the girls will come across as innocent, as I've read people argue of moe comics. But frankly, to me it just means there's a female-heavy cast of pure romance-free, characters-based comedy in a pace neither particularly gentle nor high-paced but just... I dunno... ordinary. But fun.
Oddly enough in terms of trends, the art seems to be a lot more moe-esque and fanservice-y at the start of the comic; the fanservice never goes away entirely, but the mandatory cuteness gets somewhat lessened by comedy and a stronger sense of character in the art as well as story. (Seen most clearly with the way the eyes are drawn, losing their droopiness over time.) In any case, the characters never feel othered to me, nor does it feel like they're fetishised in terms of a praised innocence or vulnerability. Just because they don't have boyfriends doesn't mean they're particularly pure, nor do they come across as vulnerable. (Okay, Chiyo-chan remains pretty innocent, but she's just one character. And she's still more used for humour than to make you go "d'aww".) They're just funny people you like to hang out with.
******************************
Creators
Hiromu Arakawa
Kiyohiko Azuma
Favourite characters (just the favouritest, there are many more I like!)
Akane Tendo (Ranma 1/2)
Ai Tanabe (Planetes)
Akitsu Masanosuke (House of Five Leaves)
Alphonse Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist)
************************************
Anime corner
Angelic Layer (originally a manga by CLAMP, but I've only seen the anime - entertaining, cute, and occasionally tearjerking. Love the fight scenes with the Angel fighting dolls.)
Azumanga Daioh! The anime adaptation. A good one, perfect for relaxation.
Arrietty - Beautiful and melancholy Ghibli adaptation of The Borrowers. I love the way the Borrowers and their world are treated so matter-of-factly, their small perspective not used for humour or spectacle. The sadness in the narrative makes it a movie I don't want to watch on a day I'm already down, but there is also hope at the end.
Any other manga recs beginning with A?