Category Archives: industry

Manga and Women in Refrigerators

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Introduction

If you were to ask an avid and informed fan of superhero comics about controversies surrounding the portrayal of women in the cape-and-mask genre, you might get answers having to do with the male gaze, or the number of female protagonists, or perhaps even whether or not comics need to do more to attract female readers. In every case though, the focus can potentially lead to the phenomenon known as “Women in Refrigerators.”

Coined in 1999 by comics writer Gail Simone (probably most famous for her work on Birds of Prey, a series starring a team of female superheroes), “Women in Refrigerators” refers to a tendency for female characters in superhero comics to be either killed, abused, raped, or depowered in what seems to frequently be a move to anger or inspire a male superhero into action, or to intensify the hatred between the hero and his nemesis. Named after the Green Lantern character Kyle Rayner depicted above (who not only literally finds one of his girlfriends in a fridge but has also lost a number of significant others in his career), WiR has been an on-going discussion among comic fans for the past 12 years. In spite of the age and scope of the topic though, the conversation has not really penetrated the realm of anime and manga.

Given arguments over things like moe and lolicon and how Japanese society treats women, what of “Women in Refrigerators in Manga?” Furthermore, whether they’re informed or ignorant, with the number of people who have spoken or written about WiR in the superhero comics community, what would happen if they all focused their attention more towards manga?

Casca from Berserk, a strong female character horribly traumatized by brutal rape

When initially thinking about the topic, a number of questions came to mind. Would they look at manga and find it to be more sexist than superhero comics? Is the lack of a similar phrase or concept in manga a potential problem for it and any movements towards improving manga? However, I soon realized that WiR and its surrounding discourse are very much shaped by the superhero genre itself; evidence of this includes the whole idea of being “depowered,” something which holds a lot more weight in a setting where super powers are the x-factor in the story.

Of course, comparing one genre to the entirety of manga makes things quite unfair, but even when you narrow it down to, say, shounen fighting and action series, or even a single magazine such as Shounen Jump, the setup of superhero comics has particularly unique consequences.

Conceptual Paradox in the Superhero Genre

The basic superhero (of which Superman is probably the most well-known example) is someone who is somehow stronger, faster, and overall better than the average human, and this allows them to right wrongs. Where the regular authorities falter, the superhero-as-vigilante can come in and thrash the bad guys and make the world a better place. These settings rely on an environment fairly close to our own, one grounded in a similar default reality so that we can compare the ideal of the superhero to the everyday, but it also makes for a world that can start to unravel if the concept is pushed too far.

Adding a superhero to an otherwise normal world can transform it entirely, and when you begin to really question the effects a particular superhero can have on his environment,  you wind up with questions like “If Mr. Fantastic is so smart, why hasn’t he found a cure for cancer?” While there are comics which do explore in detail the influence superheroes can have on society (Watchmen, for instance), and the Mr. Fantastic question isn’t some magic contradiction that destroys the superhero genre, it does point to the idea that a typical superhero story has to set its boundaries if it doesn’t want such questions jumping out at its readers.

The idea of boundaries isn’t limited to superheroes, as just about any story which adds something “superhuman” while wishing to maintain a semblance of normalcy has to draw the line somewhere. The tricky thing with superhero comics, however, is that the manner in which they have developed over the years encourages readers to find those limits through the prominent usage of a shared universe. When a comic is just about Batman, you can see how he fights crime and strikes fear into the seedy underbelly of Gotham City. When you cross him over with Superman though, suddenly Batman is put in contrast with a near-omnipotent alien who can outclass him fifty different ways. The reason to join them together is not to just make Batman look bad but rather to afford both heroes sufficient respect, so it requires Batman to have something extra to make up for it.

Where once he could just be a clever and ingenious individual, Batman is now the smartest man on Earth, armed with the most complex contingency plans ever conceived by man, all to make him Superman’s equal. In manga terms, this would be the equivalent of putting Monkey D. Luffy and Son Goku in the same universe and having to find a way for Luffy to be as powerful and influential as the Dragon Ball protagonist, like saying that Luffy’s rubber body makes him more resistant to ki blasts or something. As Marvel and DC actively promote their shared universes, this type of comparison becomes almost inevitable, and when you’re comparing, then the superhero universe comes under at least a certain degree of scrutiny.

If you then add the on-going saga aspect that is “continuity” to that mix, then the world of the hero can be scrutinized not just in terms of space, but also time. Superhero comics encourage a long-term view of its characters, where the events build on top of each other to create a loose history. And given the longevity that some of these characters possess, an action 30 years ago can continue to be associated with that character. In a comic from 1981, Avengers character Hank Pym hit his wife Janet , and it became a recurring topic all the way up until she died a few years ago. If they were to just ignore it and have the two characters act like nothing had ever happened, then it would have been perhaps silently condoning spousal abuse. However, because they kept it, it wound up defining the characters in certain respects. Although one can argue that this enriched their characters, it also meant that once it was done, neither of them could return to what they were prior to it. And while things are re-written or counteracted on a somewhat regular basis in superhero comics, this shared universe setup means that just one bad decision by one creator can potentially define a character to the point that no amount of reboots or retcons can undo its influence.

One Woman, One Refrigerator, One Universe

Let’s go back to manga for a little bit and pick a title that most definitely has female characters that are WiR candidates: Fist of the North Star. Now I love this series and consider it among my all-time favorites, but its female characters range from essentially cheerleaders to useless. Going in the style of the original Women in Refrigerators post, I’m going to list them with a list of ways they’ve been “fridged.”

Yuria (above) abused, forced to become Shin’s lover, kills herself (not really), contracts a fatal illness from long-term radiation exposure

Mamiya turned into a sex slave, her lover Rei dies, stops fighting entirely

Lin almost forced to have Kaioh’s baby, brainwashed into falling in love with another man

And so on and so forth.

Women are kind of a non-factor in Fist of the North Star no matter what they say about love and no matter how many women nobly sacrifice themselves. But at the same time, the fact that Fist of the North Star ran in Shounen Jump doesn’t mean that its portrayal of women exists in the same environment as One Piece or Toriko or City Hunter. Misogyny can exist, and it can even exist in multiple titles from the same publisher in the same magazine to the extent that you could call the whole thing sexist, but there is less of a risk of the comics congealing into an entrenched, constantly self-reinforcing “super misogyny.”

With superhero comics and their long continuity and shared universes, it can be incredibly easy to permanently “poison the well.” In this environment, a single instance of a WiR does not stand alone in its own conceptual space, but ends up existing in a greater universe, and then stays there in the timeline potentially forever. While this is not inherently a bad thing, it means that more innocent and simplistic stories and concepts have a harder time maintaining that innocence. If someone said The Cat in the Hat and Schindler’s List occupied the same continuity, it would be very hard for Dr. Seuss’s characters to be quite the same when the idea of genocide hangs over them.

This can even apply to the degree to which women are sexualized in comics. Somewhat like how “Hollywood Ugly” requires you to believe that the attractive celebrity in baggy clothes and glasses is meant to be homely, if you take a title where the aesthetic portrayal of women is geared primarily towards the sexual gratification of men and put it in the same world as a comic where the attractiveness of women is depicted in a more neutral fashion, then there is bound to be a conceptual clash, especially if the two were to cross over directly. Either the overt “butt and breasts out” poses would have to be acknowledged directly with respect to how a woman would normally pose herself (accounting of course for stylistic flourish), or the more neutral design would have to be subsumed by the overtly erotic aesthetic. If respect is supposedly afforded to both portrayals, then there winds up being a compromise, much like Superman and Batman’s situation, that generates at least a certain degree of schizophrenia.

It can also be easy to poison the well of a shared universe because once that idea takes root in one corner of the world, it becomes easier for it to spread to other parts as well, and I think this is what ends up really shaping Women in Refrigerators in terms of the superhero genre. While I may be assuming things too much, I think it’s far easier to corrupt an innocent idea than it is to make a corrupted idea turn innocent, and so every time another woman gets killed or raped or depowered, it means less and less of a chance for that whole thing to be turned around entirely, which means the rate at which the universe becomes “darker” winds up being far faster than the rate at which it becomes “lighter,” unless deliberate steps are taken to work against it.

Given everything I’ve said about the danger of a shared universe, does this mean that any sort of shared universe will lead to similar problems? Not necessarily, but I think that regardless of which direction that universe goes, compromise is almost inevitable. When Neon Genesis Evangelion with its emphasis on psychological turmoil enters the crossover environment of the Super Robot Wars games, its story and characters end up less traumatized overall. When Lupin III meets Detective Conan, his role is more of a lovable scamp than a hardened thief. Even taking darker series and making them lighter to fit in another work is a form of compromise. However, neither of those bother to maintain their continuities for prolonged periods. Moreover, while a shared universe does not guarantee Women in Refrigerators, the way that superhero comics have turned out means that it is constantly poised to do so, and as far as I can tell, the discussion surrounding WiR is very much about a concerted effort to turn things around, to deal with what may very well be a case of inertia.

Towards Methods for Manga?

A quote from Gail Simone in 1999 clarifies one of the original purposes of Women in Refrigerators:

My simple point has always been: if you demolish most of the characters girls like, then girls won’t read comics. That’s it!

This is not as much of a problem for manga, even titles and magazines designed for boys, as many publishers in Japan have learned ways to court a female audience. Some titles in Shounen Jump are especially known for their sizable female readerships: Saint Seiya, Katekyou Hitman REBORN!, and The Prince of Tennis, to name a few. Granted, most of these titles have primarily male casts and so the portrayal of female characters is not the primary draw, but that is also getting into another more complex issue of gender-based character identification. I’ll leave this as something of an aside for the sake of not going too off-course, but will say that this might mean that it doesn’t take outstanding portrayals of women to attract a female audience, but at the very least ones that won’t make them feel uncomfortable to be women.

As it is, the “Women in Refrigerators” discourse is especially suited for the superhero genre. Its concerns and the manner in which it can quickly spread to other stories are at least partly predicated on the structure set out by decades of development. If WiR is to be applied to manga, or even a certain genre or magazine/publisher, then it likely needs to be modified to fit a very different history, both in terms of manga itself and the Japanese culture surrounding it. Personally, I’m not entirely sure what changes need to be made. It’s probably an endeavor that is too big for one post, but I can throw out some possible directions.

I think the killing, rape, and abuse aspects probably translate adequately as is, but to go back to the “depowered” aspect of WiR as something very particular to superheroes, perhaps it would be a good idea to find something that is not quite so specific. If we’re dealing with a genre like shounen action, your Dragon Ball‘s and Naruto‘s and such, then maybe it’s not so much a matter of depowering as it is being quickly outclassed or made irrelevant. A lot of characters in these works often get some kind of improvement to their abilities, but that is made obsolete by the fact that every other hero gets stronger at a quicker rate. While this is not exclusive to female characters, it may be something worth tracking among female characters to see how they’re made to be functionally useless.

If we’re looking more at sexually-charged (but not necessarily pornographic) titles, maybe it would be wise to keep an eye out for degradation or humiliation. For example, how often are characters made to do something or wear an outfit that not only embarrasses them, but sexualizes them in the process? What of humiliation as a sexual tool, even when it’s meant to be light-hearted prodding and not something more extreme like torture?

Maybe it would also be a good idea to take a look at one popular title and to note where the female characters are mistreated solely to advance the male characters’ stories. After that is done, the next step would be to look at works that may have come about as the result of its popularity, whether it was because there was a clear influence, there was a blatant attempt at riding the wave, it was the next title readers flocked to, or even if there was some kind of editorial mandate to feature more of those stories. Do some of those WiR-esque ideas and portrayals still exist? Are they getting weaker or stronger? This may be a way to track things across one magazine or one genre without having the shared universe of superhero comics.

Of course, this is all assumes that WiR is not an issue when the female readership has been established and sustained sufficiently, but what about the possibility that the phenomenon not only exists in shoujo and josei, but that such events might occur in greater numbers compared to manga geared towards male readers?

What I’ve provided in the ideas above would not comprise a complete framework, but then again neither did the original list of Women in Refrigerators. There is a distinct possibility that with each genre of manga, even if you were to narrow it to titles somehow similar to superhero comics, that it would require its own adjustments be they subtle or broad. It may even be the case that in the end, we find out that WiR cannot be applied to manga no matter how many modifications are made, but I think it would still be a worthwhile endeavor to figure that out in the first place. I’m sure we’d learn something along the way.

Genshiken II (Nidaime, Second Season, Whatever) Due Out in the US in (Probably) September

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I’m really just referencing Anime News Network referencing me (who in turn found out via Brian Ruh) about Genshiken Second Season, as well as informing anyone who is still not aware of the fact that Kodansha USA has the license for the new Genshiken.

This was all based on this Amazon page by the way. It says it’ll be out by September 4th, but I think we all know how Amazon dates can shift around. At the very least, we know who has it (and it makes sense, seeing as Kodansha USA is reprinting the original Genshiken).

I already buy the volumes in Japanese, but I am not entirely against buying them once more in English. That way I can share them with people!

Lastly, “De Maniax van Ogiue” indeed.

“Broad Appeal?”

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Whenever I see an article or post about how anime is declining because of a focus on an increasingly niche, otaku audience, I’m a little taken aback. This is not only because the most commonly given solution, i.e. “make things with broader appeal” is easier said than done, but that the very idea itself doesn’t actually seem to be what its most adamant proponents truly mean or want.

Take Redline for instance, which is touted by a number of people as a sort of magic bullet that has the potential to blast away years of anime-related stigma. Certainly it’s a fantastic film on a number of different levels, but I have a hard time believing that it qualifies as “broadly appealing,” unless your definition of “broadly appealing” is limited to geeks with a penchant for thrills and visual spectacle, or alternately, anime fans from previous decades, especially from when “anime” was closely tied to “science fiction” in their eyes. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to argue that the storytelling in Redline is excellent, and that it’s far more than just pretty explosions, but something like Redline will be not judged by a more general audience unfamiliar with anime based on the subtle nuance that exists in its otherwise extreme characters. It’s full of violence and has a sprinkling of nudity, and while that sells for some, it’s also an instant turn-off for others.

“Anime with broader appeal.”

“Anime that the average person will enjoy.”

I believe these to be obtainable goals, but I find that when people talk like this, they don’t necessarily want something for a wider audience, they want anime that is closer to what they enjoy most, that possess the qualities they think are most essential to great anime, or at least acceptable anime. Certainly, wanting more of what you enjoy only makes sense, but it results in conflating “broad appeal” with the tastes of the individual. Rather than something like Redline or Cowboy Bebop, maybe the answer will be the anime equivalent of The Big Bang Theory or Hannah Montana or something else far-removed from the aforementioned anime titles. Which is to say, if anime in whole or in part transformed itself to really aim for that bigger audience around the world, the result may not be what we might be expecting.

This somewhat reminds me of all of the manga creators that have been revisiting their older work. Even putting my beloved Genshiken aside, you have GTO: Shonan 14 Days and Rurouni Kenshin, among others. All of them have certain expectations associated with them because you have the original creators working on them, but when you think about it there’s no guarantee that the work will actually be all that similar. After all, artists can change given time and experience. Macross: The First is a retelling of the first series by the original character designer Mikimoto Haruhiko, who is praised especially by a certain generation of anime fans as being one of the best character designers ever. They might point to his work and say, “There, why can’t anime characters look more like that, instead of what we’re getting today?”

The only problem is, Mikimoto’s own artwork today doesn’t look like his work from the 1980s. For that matter, if you look at his stuff from between the original Macross and now, it also looks quite different.

Expectations shattered?

Ogiue Maniax on the Veef Show

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I recorded a podcast over at the Veef Show just this past weekend with Andrew of Collection DX fame, and it is up for your listening pleasure.

We talk about a number of topics, but it mainly focuses on things like space travel, the state of anime, and philosophizing about that most sacred of subjects, mecha anime. For reference, my Code Geass post that we mention is this one.

Apologies for the background noise on my end. If you’re curious, that’s the sound of Leidens Ontzet.

So in summary, this:

Plus this:

The End of Kaiji 2 and…Akagi???

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Kaiji 2 has ended, and while I won’t spoil any of the things that happen in the show, I want to point your attention to a particular moment in the final episode.

Here you have what looks to be a bunch of messages from artists/staff members/etc. with stuff related to Kaiji. But take a closer look up above.

Two Akagi images! And not just that, but the drawing on the left has some writing.

アカギ再び!!

or

Akagi Once Again!!

Is that a message of desire, or is it a hint of something to come?

I don’t want to get my hopes too up, but the possibility is there…

I was also amused by this:

The Interaction of Mecha Fandom and Code Geass as Mecha/Not-Mecha

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I was listening to the most recent episode of the Veef Show, where the argument that Code Geass is not a “robot” show came up by way of another podcaster, Anime World Order‘s Daryl Surat. It’s an argument that I’ve heard before from Daryl, whether it was through AWO itself or just talking with him online, and it all hinges on a simple statement: A show which does not focus primarily on robots cannot be called a “robot anime.” The direction the fanbase of Code Geass takes, one that emphasizes the characters in a variety of ways such that arguments about attractiveness and character motivations occur side by side, is used as supporting evidence. Seeing that I just appeared on the Speakeasy Podcast and endorsed Code Geass as a solid mecha show for people who feel a little put off by mecha though, I figured that it would be a good idea for me to say something. Also because I enjoy both the Veef Show and AWO and they’re cool dudes.

While I’m on the side that says Code Geass is a mecha show, I’m not writing this to argue in its favor.  Where one person draws the line between genres (or whether they choose to draw them at all) is predicated to a certain extent on their own preferences (the reason I put the qualifier of “a certain extent” is that obviously a show with zero robots and zero mentions or implications of robots would have a hard time justifying itself as one), and that argument can just go back and forth with no signs of budging. It happens to all sorts of genres, particularly science fiction, which may be appropriate given the subject at hand, but I’ll leave that alone for now. What I really want to do is look at some of the deeper layers of meaning behind the above argument about why Code Geass isn’t a mecha show, as I think it says some things about the anxiety that exists in a fanbase for a genre which perhaps fears irrelevancy. I do not think Daryl necessarily feels this way, but underlying questions still exist within.

The notion that Code Geass does not fall into the genre of “giant robots” is based on the level of presence that mecha possesses within that series. While they appear in virtually every episode in some way or another, they are not integrated into the main thrust of the story, thus the show does not attract fans through its robots, at least not in comparatively great numbers. Given this view, the first underlying element of this argument is a question, “Why isn’t Code Geass emphasizing the mecha?”

The answer can be presented with varying degrees of cynicism, and I will show two here on somewhat opposing ends. The first version is that their goal is to pander to a larger anime fanbase by placing importance on those character traits previously mentioned. Mecha are thrown in for flavor but not much else. The second version is that giant robots for the sake of giant robots do not capture the attention of a wide enough audience. Whether you’re more inclined to express this same idea as the former or as the latter, the commonality between them is the fact that giant robots as a genre, be they super or real or some kind of hybrid, just aren’t that popular anymore. So then the next question that comes up is, “Why aren’t robots popular?”

I don’t have the answer to that. All I can say is, for fans who got into anime because of giant robots, or those who lived in a period where mecha shows made up such a huge part of industry output that it became one of the genres inextricably linked to anime, the idea that robots do not capture the general viewing population’s imagination can be a bitter pill to swallow. The properties of anime that are bringing in fans now may not be what brought people to the table in previous eras. As soon as what you thought was popular no longer is, and you can’t quite figure out why things have changed, it can be baffling. How you reason through this change can depend on how you feel towards what has supplanted your old favorites, and it can be conveyed with different degrees of discontent.

At this point, it’s important to remember that giant robot shows that place enormous amounts of emphasis on the robots themselves and their influence on the story as a whole still do exist and are still being made. The problem with them, however, is that they are few in number, and that as a niche genre it appeals to a dwindling hardcore fanbase. I know that Daryl is also aware of this issue, as must be a great number of mecha fans whether they consciously realize it or not, and embodied in that feeling is the uncomfortableness of having gone from riches to rags, from being one of the premiere fanbases to a minority. I find that in actuality, the negative reaction towards categorizing Code Geass as a “robot anime” comes not from simply definition semantics and pedantry, but from what I think is perhaps the most central question underlying everything: “Why aren’t Code Geass and other shows doing more to convince people to like giant robots?” With that, giant robot shows must thus not only appeal to fans who already like the genre but also act as ambassadors to people who are less receptive.

For that, I point once again to that Speakeasy episode, because the whole purpose of that podcast was to talk about mecha shows that are capable of appealing not to simply those who are unfamiliar with the genre and just need to be exposed to it, but to people who have been burned by giant robots in the past. With some shows, the mere presence of robots can be enough for people to say “no thanks,” but if Code Geass attracts this large fanbase that is willing to stay even with robots continuously present within the show, then it must be doing something to not have them outright rejected. Perhaps all that is happening is that the robots are being conveniently ignored, but before people can even carry the potential to love giant robots, they should be able to tolerate them first.

Have you seen the “V8 VFusion?” It’s a drink whose purpose is to mask its vegetable content with fruity flavor. It’s even advertised by showing people who don’t like veggies drinking and enjoying it. You can make an argument that it’s not really a vegetable juice and you could even probably make a convincing case of it, but then I have to wonder about how much that distinction really matters.

The Expanding/Contracting Anime Fanbase

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Floating out there in the general discourse are what seem to be two contradictory ideas of anime fans.

1) Anime is appealing increasingly to a smaller and more niche crowd of otaku, often through devices such as loads of fanservice or active use of moe. As such, the fanbase is becoming more and more a select group of adult men who grow older and smaller in number over time.

2) Anime fans are getting younger and younger, that anime is attracting a primarily female audience. Moreover, a lot of these young fans are not able to retain their fandom as they grow older. They hit a certain age and anime stops being their obsession.

So somehow you have a fandom that is both shrinking and growing larger, while the median age rises but also lowers or remains the same, and this is all being done with the same collective pool of works we call “anime.” On the surface, something doesn’t quite add up. The more I think about it though, the more I find this isn’t necessarily an irreconcilable contradiction. I mostly have impressions and hunches from observing anime and its fans, but I can think of some possibilities as to how these two concepts can co-exist.

It might be that some fans are longing for another period of anime, a self-defined golden age where anime was at its best.  If it’s not simply a matter of nostalgia or specific tastes though, then it could be that these fans are not finding what they want in either side, the young and general, or the old and niche where they might have once been able to easily. So the anime fanbase may not necessarily be shrinking overall, but the demographic ratios may be shifting in a way that’s troubling to some. This one does not necessarily have any flaws, but it seems more to be a mix-up of personal desire for general trends.

Another possibility is that the effects of anime’s move towards extremes in its fanbase cannot be felt immediately and that it will take some number of years to really see the fallout. Perhaps it would be the age at which the current otaku base starts to literally die off, much like some of the criticism surrounding the current state of American superhero comics. This one doesn’t quite feel right through, and I can’t put my finger on why.

Similarly, while the younger fanbase is increasing, they are finding their access to anime through inexpensive means, be it through outright piracy or simply watching things streaming. “The surest” way at the moment to make reliable profit is to hit the collection/merchandise-obsessed otaku, hence all of the light novel adaptations. The amount of money being generated by anime is not what it used to be and may never be at that level ever again, even if there are new fans.

Overall, I’m not really sure. These are incomplete thoughts and I don’t think I’m going to be reaching a solid conclusion any time soon. I’d like to hear other people’s thoughts.

 

Gundam’s Jetstream Attack

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Gundam has undergone many changes over the years, either creating sequels or alternate timelines where new stories can be told, and every incarnation inevitably leads to some complaints that the franchise is heading in the wrong direction and that it can’t capture the magic of an older, more beloved series (often times this is considered to be Zeta Gundam). At the same time, people also complain that the series which try to play off of the old classics are too bogged down in their continuity. It seems almost impossible to fulfill all of the criteria set for a new Gundam (especially when you take into account the blame that is often placed on the fans themselves for not liking a certain series), and I think Sunrise and Bandai have realized this too. This time around, they’ve decided not to put all of their Mobile Eggs in one basket, and given everyone what they want, separately.

Gundam Unicorn, currently running, is an OVA series which acts as a direct sequel to the film Char’s Counterattack, seeks to capture those old UC fans who were never quite comfortable with the feel of later series such as Gundam W and Gundam 00, or even the later Universal Century timeline series such as Gundam F-91 and V Gundam. The character designs harken back to an 80s aesthetic and the plot itself is such that it appeals most to people who are already invested in its universe.

Gundam AGE is an all-new TV series in an entirely original universe with very modern character designs (sometimes regarded as “kiddy”), a generational motif that could potentially give it a wide appeal, and a merchandising system that is updated for the age of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!  Unlike Unicorn, it requires no prior knowledge of Gundam, and seems designed to capture fans unfamiliar with the franchise.

Gundam: The Origin is an anime adaptation of a manga based on the original anime. First Gundam is unique relative to even its direct sequels ina number of ways, and it could both introduce the original beloved story to new fans as well as appeal to those people who enjoyed Gundam decades ago but never became “Gundam Fans” per se.

Given this multi-pronged assault, I have to wonder why some fans still complain in the direction Gundam is going. Never mind that Gundam AGE isn’t even out yet, I can understand why someone would look at AGE and think, “This is so not for me,” but you’re literally getting something for non-fans, something for old hardcore fans, and something somewhat in the middle. The only logic I could see behind being against this approach is that the three anime muddle the image of Gundam, compromising its overall artistic merit. I disagree with that as well.

Hanasaku Iroha and Its “Conflict of Interest”

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Hanasaku Iroha, one of the new shows of the current season, is unusually divisive in an equally unusual way. Whereas most shows will divide people according to whether they love or hate it as a whole, Hanasaku Iroha has its fans disagreeing as to which specific episodes are the good ones and which are the wastes of time. I think the reason that this is happening is not just because different fans have different tastes and preferences, but because Hanasaku Iroha is a generically (as in genre) transitional show with a contradictory feel to its purpose and the purpose given to it by fans.

The basic premise of the show is that a teenage girl, Ohana, has to move in with her grandmother, who runs an inn. Ohana, leaving behind a boy and the rest of her old hometown, has to adjust to working at the inn and figuring out how to get along with all the personalities at the inn. It’s a big change in her life, but she enjoys it day by day. In other words, Hanasaku Iroha has both elements of a coming-of-age story and slice of life, and this is where the conflict lies, as the two are mutually incompatible in certain ways (though I think they can work well together, and Hanasaku Iroha is one such example).

Coming-of-age stories are primarily about the transition from childhood to adulthood. They are about growth. Gurren-Lagann is absolutely full of this. Slice of life stories on the other hand are about the every-day. Even if time moves forwards, the characters do not have to. The girls of Hidamari Sketch don’t ever have to change. Those are very different values, and Hanasaku Iroha has some of both, so I think it’s easy to see why someone can look at episode 1, which has a good deal of the coming-of-age element, and find it to be one of the weaker episodes of the series, and then look at episode 3, which was more every-day hijinks, and regard that as one of the better. On the flip side, it’s just as easy to see why someone would argue the opposite, and say that episode 1 is particularly strong. Overall, it results in a very character-based show where the story moves ahead primarily through subdued character development, and it is something that might not be terribly apparent because of how Hanasaku Iroha sits at the cross-section of two disparate genres.

I believe Hanasaku Iroha to be part of a larger transitional trend in anime, even if other shows aren’t quite doing the same thing as Hanasaku Iroha. Many anime since, let’s say, Evangelion for a convenient starting point, have been about expressing a certain sense of melancholic loneliness which manifests itself into several forms, from oft-mentioned topics such as hikikomori, to simply depression. If not, they have been about soothing those feelings, being a remedy for unease and internal strife, and I think the interaction between these two routes can even roughly approximate the development of moe over the past decade and a half. Both have been very good for anime and its viewers I think, but now we’re starting to see shows not just address those negative feelings but try to encourage people to find solutions for them, or at least try to show people moving forward and growing. Ano Hana, which is also running this season, shows a group of kids trying to mend their friendship and personal problems after drifting apart. Madoka Magica, for all of its gloom, leaves hope on the table. Fractale takes a look at a society of isolation. Even K-On!, which follows the “time passing with no real change” formula almost to a tee has the younger character Azusa feeling the impact of the four main girls upon her life, particularly their corrupting (but unconsciously welcome) influence upon her work ethic.

For Hanasaku Iroha, the divisiveness that springs forth from the contradiction between coming-of-age and slice-of-life is how this period of change manifests itself.

Takekuma x Akamatsu, A Must-Read Discussion of the Future of Manga

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Kransom over at 2chan.us (formerly known as Welcome Datacomp) has posted a translation of a fantastic discussion between Akamatsu Ken, author of Love Hina and Negima!, and Takekuma Kentarou, co-author of Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga, manga editor, and professor at Kyoto Seika University. The two of them talk about their mutual forecasts of a collapsing manga publishing industry, as well as their widely varying opinions on what they think should be done to correct that. I highly recommend reading all five parts.

They touch on a great number of topics, including the origin of Akamatsu’s J-Comi site and Takekuma’s research into how Shounen Jump became king as an indirect result of the 1973 Oil Crisis, but one of the particularly interesting topics they discuss how the roles of artists and editors may change in an age where big manga publishers such as Shueisha and Kodansha might not even exist. Akamatsu, rather than being the stereotypical artist who cares little for profit, is incredibly practical and sales-oriented, whereas Takekuma concerns himself more with thinking about what the artists want to do.

The danger of self-publishing, be it in a printed book format or as something viewed online or on an e-book reader is that there is a lack of quality control. While the environment that Takekuma and Akamatsu are thinking about is not quite at that point, the common idea here is that a lack of editorial feedback is something which can limit the success of both a weaker manga industry as well as a self-published title. Both Takekuma and Akamatsu agree to the importance of editors, and believe that the key will be an increase in freelance editors who, rather than being able to rely on a salaried position at a publishing company, will have to make a living by showing their skills at fostering talent. They’ll also have to act somewhat as agents for their independent artists, or if not, the artists themselves have to be their own agents. Those who can only draw will not survive, not only because they won’t know how to market themselves, but because they won’t be compatible with this new breed of editor.

I can’t help but think about the power structure that would exist should such a system come into existence. Ideally, the artists, editors (freelance or otherwise), and publishers will all regard each other as equally important in the whole process, but I get the feeling that it wouldn’t quite turn out that way. Granted, the role of editor and artist even now is not consistent across each publishing company, so it’s not like the manga industry would be changing from one universal form to another, but the fact that the manga industry would, in Takekuma’s view, become even more free-market, especially for editors, makes me picture some kind of wild west frontier for manga. Again, this has its benefits, but as Akamatsu points out, one of the benefits of manga is that compared to making a television series or even an anime, making a manga is much less expensive, and so a greater variety of ideas can be explored with less risk to those involved.

If the manga industry does get to a level where those involved with manga have to put more on the line to get published, there is a chance that it might stifle one of the great strengths of manga, and I doubt the artists who tend to be so overworked will have any less of a burden on them. In the face of this, Takekuma’s point that we may see many more manga artists with modest salaries instead of wealthier artists (Akamatsu, for example) may simply be the result of a changing perception of what it means to be “successful” manga.