Category Archives: manga

Studying the Realism in the Fujoshi Character Design

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Ever since the mid-2000s the fujoshi character has seen an increase in overall presence in anime and manga, as evidenced by my Fujoshi Files, an ongoing project where I catalogue fujoshi characters. While comparing various fujoshi characters, especially in seinen manga, I began to realize something interesting about their portrayal, and that is the fact that they are often the characters closest to how a Japanese girl would actually look: dark, straight hair, possibly wearing glasses.

There are series such as Genshiken and Zetsubou-sensei where the fujoshi characters having dark hair is not unusual given the rest of the cast also sporting dark hair. My discussion focuses on those shows where characters’ hair styles and colors tend to be the anime rainbow stereotype.

When you look at Lucky Star as a whole, you’ll see that bespectacled fujoshi Hiyori is the only female character to sport straight, dark hair. Contrast this with Konata, who is the biggest otaku in Lucky Star and her unrealistic blue hair. Patty, while a fujoshi, is an “American” character first, so she’s blonde. Again, I want to mention that Hiyori is the only example of a character with a realistic hair color and style mainly because of how much the rest of the cast isn’t. In a world where bright pastels rule hair colors, the fujoshi is the exception.

Similarly in Kannagi, Takako is also a dark-haired glasses-wearing fujoshi, though her hairstyle is arguably more unrealistic than most of the other characters. However, it cannot be argued that most of the rest of the cast, especially female characters, have hair colors that do not occur at all or much less commonly in reality among Japanese girls.

Meanwhile in Mousou Shoujo Otakukei (Fujoshi Rumi), the main character of Rumi also stands out as being much plainer than the other girl characters out there and even a lot of the guy characters. Part of this has to do with the fact that she is the main character and that this visual plainness is a part of the story being told, but it speaks to this desire to make her a more realistically accessible character even if it’s only at a shallow level at first.

“There’s plenty of characters who look like that who aren’t fujoshi!” you might be saying, and you’d be totally right. The dark-haired, straight-haired glasses girl predates the fujoshi character boom, and arguably falls into the same category as the “iinchou” class representative character. Adachi Hana from Yankee-kun to Megane-chan is a character who is actively trying to achieve that iinchou look, even going as far as to wear fake glasses. She also bears some resemblance to Asai Rumi from Mousou Shoujo. So in a sense, the author of Mousou Shoujo, Konjoh Natsumi, and the fictional character, Adachi Hana, are attempting to reach the same goal: design a character with the look of a realistic Japanese girl. The main difference of course is that the iinchou is characterized by an ultra-clean look and  responsibility, while the fujoshi is characterized by being somewhat disheveled and a tad irresponsible.

You might then be saying, “Ah, but that’s really how fujoshi look.” But then I have to ask, why is it that in these shows where all other characters are not beholden to reality that the fujoshi ends up being how fujoshi “actually look?” And why is this occurring in comics targeted towards guys?

Most other character types in moe or moe-ish anime tend to be fantastic versions of possible real-life people: childhood friends, reticent girls (tsundere), little sisters, etc. Everyone knows that little sisters in anime are rarely like actual little sisters, and even if you compared the imouto character in an h-game to an actual incestuous younger sister the two images would not line up. In this sense, a fujoshi character can be as unrealistic as the others but it is often the case that a certain sense of realism is desired in fujoshi characters in a manner different from other character types.

Looking back at tamagomago’s essay for which I provided a translation, one line in particular jumps out at me: “No matter how realistic it gets, it’s still a fantasy,” or in other words, no matter how realistic a female otaku character may be, they are still just a character in fiction. What this sentence implies is that there is to some degree a push to make female otaku characters have a sense of relatable realism, perhaps more than other character types, and fujoshi fall into this category by extension.

Perhaps the answer to the question of “why are there these realistic aspects in the fujoshi design” is that having a member of the opposite sex also be an otaku makes them more accessible, gives the male otaku a glimmer of hope brighter than previous. Also, by making them a fujoshi instead of just an otaku, a useful distinction is created. And of course, if applied to actual reality with real girls, it is not in itself a realistic goal as long as the male otaku does not confuse his image of 2d and 3d girls.

Analyzing the X-Men Manga and What It Says About Manga and American Comics

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This is a follow-up to the images from the X-Men manga I posted yesterday. Now that I’ve given people time to ruminate over those pages, pages which I selected partly to show how various characters are portrayed but mostly to show how the artists took a very “manga” approach to the material, I’d like to go into further discussion about them.

I’d also recommend checking out my post about what I think is a recurring defining trait of American comics.

There’s two things we can say about this comic. First, is that it’s based off of the 90s X-Men cartoon, which was actually shown in Japan with new openings specific to the Japanese broadcast.

Second, is that this isn’t a terribly good comic. It’s an interesting piece of cross-cultural collaboration and all but of course isn’t nearly as high-profile in America as, say, Nihei Tsutomu’s Wolverine comic “Snikt.” It is, to put it simply, okay but not great, and there are many, many runs of the original American X-Men comic which are better and more influential. But of course that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from it.

While this page doesn’t really show any X-Men and in fact just has Mystique in disguise, I think it tells us a lot about some of the fundamental differences between manga and american comics, and it has largely to do with the fact that it is such a low-profile throw-away comic. It is not the pinnacle of manga achievement, but that’s what makes it so useful.

After all, if you only try to learn from the very best you’ll only end up seeing a fraction of the whole image.

Here we have Mystique disguising herself as per her shape-shifting powers. Clearly the goal of the artist here was to portray an attractive female so that when the thug accosts her she can turn her head into a grotesque abomination for contrast. The result is an almost Matsumoto-esque female figure, particularly in the face. She’s disguised as a mysterious, alluring sort of woman, and it’s one far more in line with the Japanese version of such a concept as opposed to the more American va-va-va-voom type, despite this being an adaptation of an American property.

Now what I find to be even more interesting than the character designs is the panel arrangement of this X-Men manga. Again, it is not the best example of panel flow in a manga, but it is a very good example of what is considered “standard” for panel progression.

Panels are arranged as if they do not all exist on the same plane. Intra-panel depth cues are not nearly as important as seeing the panels placed one on top of the other to achieve a smooth progression throughout the page. A lot of emphasis is placed on shifting facial expressions, and those faces help to carry the reader’s eyes through the page.

Of course, this is only in a page with no action and how could I make a proper comparison without some fighting going on?

Below is an example of a fight scene from this manga, and an example of a fight scene from popular X-Men artist Jim Lee’s run, which was going on at around the same time.

Now it’s not exactly a fair comparison as Jim Lee is considered among the best artists who have ever worked on X-Men and there simply aren’t a lot of X-Men manga to go by, but what’s important here are the small differences.

Notice the degree to which the characters separate from the backgrounds. In the case of the manga, the separation is much more stark despite the Jim Lee panels having color on their side, color generally allowing an artist to much more easily separate foreground and background compared to black and white.

Then there’s the vertical progression vs the horizontal one, which admittedly this is not a good example for. This is perhaps my own pet theory, but I believe that a comic in a language which is generally written vertically will tend to have a vertical progression, while comics in a horizontal language will put an emphasis on the horizontal just short of having books actually being wider than they are tall. The most prominent example is the Japanese 4-Koma vs the American 3-panel strip, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Basically what the X-Men manga here has shown us is what features are so naturally a part of manga and people’s and artist’s perceptions of manga that they crop up in a comic based on American superheroes.  Because this is a comic based off of the X-Men with obvious attempts to match the look of the cartoon and comics, the Japanese and manga influences in the drawing style come out even more.

CRY FOR THE MOON

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X-Men by Yasue Kooji and Higuchi Hiroshi, published 1994.

By the way, this is NOT a doujinshi.

Note: The Japanese Word for “Snikt” is “Jakin.”

Somerset Somersault: AnimeNEXT 2009

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This past weekend I attended AnimeNEXT in New Jersey. While held this year in Somerset at the Garden State Exhibit Center and conjoined Somerset Doubletree Hotel, in years prior the convention was held at the Meadowlands Arena in Secaucus. However, seeing as this was my first ever AnimeNEXT this did not have much of an effect on me beyond the fact that I was basically required to stay at a hotel, an experience which turned it from a commuter convention to a hotel convention, and perhaps turned out better because of it.

AnimeNEXT is a fairly small con whose guest list is comprised mostly of locals. There are no big name Japanese guests at AnimeNEXT but the convention doesn’t really pretend to be an Anime Expo or an Otakon. It’s in this environment that I was able to do my first two official con panels ever (I was a last-minute panelist on the Comic Market panel at Otakon 2006), and I managed to learn a lot despite attending relatively few panels myself. At a convention like this, fan-run panels really are the order of the day so that was the majority of my activity at AnimeNEXT.

Friday, June 12

Friday I arrived in Somerset accompanied by kransom from welcome datacomp and the Reverse Thieves. After finding out that my site was apparenty called “Ugiue Maniax” I went to the panels. Getting there too late to see the mecha panel or others that might have been of interest to me, I ended up going to the “Anime Through the Generations” panel, curious as to who would be giving such a panel with such a name. It turned out to be a group of girls who were fairly young but also fairly diverse in their approach to the fandom, and with the help of Rob Fenelon and other (seriously) old school fans it turned into an interesting discussion about how otaku relate to each other across age gaps.

Next was a panel about Anime Pirates, whose name was fairly confusing because I was unsure of whether or not it was a panel about Pirates in Anime or about Anime Piracy. It turned out to be the former…sort of. Apparently Gurren-Lagann totally counts as pirate anime because it makes Captain Harlock references.

Probably the highlight panel of Friday was Anime Princesses, or as the full title goes, “Anime Princesses Rule, Disney Princesses Drool,” run by the aforementioned Old Guard Anime Fans, which talked about female royalty in recent anime and how their portrayals as figures essential to the governance of their respective kingdoms contrasts heavily with the traditional portrayal of the damsel-in-distress Disney Princess. I noticed a lot of girls leaving once they realized that the panel was essentially about politics in anime rather than talking about princesses per se, but for those who stayed it was an informative hour. My only complaint with the panel really was that too much time was spent on too few princesses and there was a glut of video clips. Points that could have been illustrated with one or two videos were expanded to four or five.  Still, a fun panel.

At this point I’d like to talk about the game rooms set up for AnimeNEXT and how pleasant it turned out to be. They had six separate rooms dedicated to different genres with the most popular ones getting their own rooms out of consideration for said popularity. Most importantly, they never really smelled too badly. It was a well-run game room overall.

Saturday, June 13

Saturday began with the panel run by the Reverse Thieves and I, titled “I Can’t Believe You Haven’t Seen This!” Though it was among the first panels of the day, running from 9am-10am, we still managed to get a fairly large crowd and for that I am thankful to you our panel attendees, whoever and wherever you are. It’s our hope that we could expand your selection of possible anime to watch and to go beyond what you know already, and people came away ready to look at the titles we recommended, among them being Kaiba, Rose of Versailles, and Kekkaishi. Again, thank you to everyone there.

Vertical Press also had their panel Saturday, led by Marketing Director Ed Chavez. In it, he tried to clear up misconceptions about Vertical Press, which is often touted as a provider of manga classics but should more accurately be seen as a provider of the widest range of material indicative of Japanese popular culture. Ranging from cook books to light novels to non-fiction memoirs and of course manga, no topic is taboo for Vertical Press. Having spoken to Ed on multiple occasions now, I have to recommend anyone who has an interest in manga or Japanese pop culture who has the opportunity to listen to Ed speak should take that opportunity. While a Marketing Director, he does not speak like a stereotypical spin doctor, and will fast convince you that Vertical Press is trying to sell you something worth your time. I know I felt that way at least.

The panel immediately following the Vertical Press one was a dub voice actor panel featuring Michele Knotz and Bill Rogers. The crowd was significantly larger than the Vertical Panel, which came as no surprise once it was revealed that both Knotz and Rogers are voice actors for Pokemon. Both are talented individuals, though the main reason I was there is because Knotz is the English voice actor for Ogiue. So naturally I had to ask Knotz for her opinion on Ogiue. Michele called Ogiue a “very interesting” character, and a type whom she had never played prior to landing the role of Ogiue. Recalling difficulty in achieving the right voice for Ogiue, Michele mentioned that the voice director told her to do a voice akin to “Wednesday Addams.” While I don’t think Ogiue is quite like Wednesday Addams (a more accurate description would be to imitate a girl imitating Wednesday Addams), it was interesting to see how she approached this most important and defining of roles in anime. Both of them also talked about how much they’re looking forward to Genshiken 2’s US release. There were other questions but as far as Ogiue-related topics were concerned this was it.

One of the panels that caught my eye on the programming schedule was “Restricted Rock Paper Scissors.” Anyone who’s seen Kaiji should be familiar with this concept, though interestingly only half of the people at the panel had even seen Kaiji. After a few hiccups and the panelists warning the half who didn’t see Kaiji to say away from the half who did, the game was afoot. I managed to be a finalist in both of the games I played, remembering that there’s no such thing as Honor in the ultimate gamble and to avoid the mental trap of “balance.” My prizes were candy and a tiny deck of Uno cards. Truly I was at the very least a Penultimate Survivor.

The highlight of Saturday by far was dinner, as I and other bloggers converged on the local Ruby Tuesday and chatted it up. Many of the bloggers were ones I met for the first time at AnimeNEXT and it’s always enjoyable to see new faces. Among them were the Reverse Thieves and kransom, my fellow Sunday panelists Omo, Super Rats, and Moy, as well as Anime Almanac’s Scott and Japanator’s Brad. I got the dry-rub Memphis ribs with mashed potatos and steamed broccoli, and followed it up with a decked-out baked potato.

After dinner I arrived just in time for the “Bad Anime, Bad!” panel, where we watched select clips from an old Toei animation called “Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned,” an entertaining movie which plays fast and loose with the story of Vlad Tepes and whose plot involves Dracula pretending to be Satan so he can trick Satan’s bride into marrying him. The movie managed to continually top itself in ways that few could imagine. It was also apparently based on a comic by Marv Wolfman, writer of the most famous Teen Titans run as well as many other comics.

Hisui from Reverse Thieves joined us halfway through Dracula, the other half having been spent at the “As the Otaku Grows” panel, which he informed us was a very misleading title as it turned out just to be a guy with a serious hard-on for 90s anime. He would declare that everything made before and after the 90s was worse by comparison, and would apparently give inane evidence to support his claims. I guess if we have so many people calling the 80s the greatest anime decade it’s inevitable we’d get one for the following decade. I look forward in 15 years when someone declares this decade of Zaizen Jotaro and Slap-Up Party Arad Senki to be the greatest period of anime ever.

Sunday, June 14

Due to rearrangements in the AnimeNEXT schedule, I essentially had my entire Sunday convention experience in the same room. Starting off with the History of Manga in the US panel, I learned a lot about not only manga translations in the US, but also the many attempts to either take existing manga properties and get American artists to draw comics based on them, or to draw a comic in a deliberately “manga-esque” style. It’s a side of the manga industry that isn’t really explored much and I learned a good deal, particularly in regards to how the companies constantly try to adapt to the shifting environment. My only regret was that I had to leave the panel a little early so I was unable to ask him about anything he knew in regards to Marvel’s Shogun Warriors comics. For those who don’t know, Shogun Warriors was a toy and comic line where popular Japanese super robots were brought to America with their stories entirely changed so they could fit in the same universe, somewhat similar to Super Robot Wars but not at all like Super Robot Wars.

US Manga History was followed up immediately by “Otaku Perceptions & Misconceptions,” and it turned out to be a panel by the same people who ran the Friday Anime Through the Generations panel. The conversation revolved around how not only others see otaku but also how otaku see themselves, and it eventually boiled down to how otaku could and should work to fight misconceptions, a topic I contributed to based on my own beliefs.

And then after that was the moment of truth, the “Anime Blogging Basics” panel. As expected from a 1:30pm panel on the last day of a con, barely anyone we did not know showed up, but again that was hardly a surprise. We talked mainly about the “Why” of anime blogging, which turned out to be quite interesting because of the level of variation between our blogs and our styles. Omo enjoys focusing on the fandom (he mentions that his feed contains over 400 anime blogs), Super Rats concerns himself primarily with anime figures and photographs of, Moy’s blog has gone through many variations until it settled into something more personal, and my own blog is defined by the description you see at the very top of Ogiue Maniax. Omo described my blog as the evolution of those old character shrines from 90s online fandom, a description I can’t quite disagree with. In the end, I think we managed to lay down some solid thoughts and opinions on blogging and perhaps helped the two or three guys we didn’t know to engage in their own blogging adventures.

With the con over, I and the others had lunch at Marita’s Cantina, which turned out to be a surprisingly good Mexican restaurant, and one that I would recommend if you are ever in New Brunswick. After eating to our content, we took the train back to New York.

Final Thoughts

AnimeNEXT as mentioned in the beginning is not a widely attended convention, but it still managed to attract a lot of dedicated anime fans. While I did not focus much on cosplay, I did notice a lot of dedicated cosplayers, and to those of you who dressed as Eureka Seven characters I salute you. I do not know if I will attend again based on circumstances beyond my control, but I would recommend it if you live in the area. It’s not the most exciting convention but it’s certainly not a nightmare. AnimeNEXT is the type of convention where being around good people and great friends can magnify your enjoyment of the con tremendously.

Oh, and if you’re taking the train to New Brunswick to get to the con, watch out for bums. Just a warning.

Hot Blood

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“Bubble Economy”

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Driver Alien

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AnimeNEXT 2009 Tomorrow!

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This is the last reminder to everyone that I and the entire staff of Ogiue Maniax (i.e. just me) will be at AnimeNEXT in New Jersey from June 12-14. It’ll be my first time at this convention, but I’m sure I’ll find ways to have lots of fun.

I will be on two panels at AnimeNEXT:

“I Can’t Believe You Haven’t Seen This!” with the Reverse Thieves on Saturday 9am-10am in Panel Room 2. This panel is all about shows we think more people should see as it’ll really broaden your horizons when it comes to this thing we call Japanese Animation.

“Anime Blogging Basics” with a gang of others on Sunday 2pm-3pm in Panel Room 1. See what various bloggers have to say about what makes blogging so great and just why the hell we do this in the first place.

The following are panels I will probably attend but this list is subject to be incorrect with the slightest breeze or whenever I feel really hungry.

Friday
-Anime Through the Generations, 5pm, Workshop 1

Saturday
-Vertical Books: Industry Panel, 1pm, Panel 2
-Power Hour with Michele Knots (Ogiue’s dub voice actor) & Bill Rogers! 2pm, Panel 2
-Restricted Rock, Paper, Scissors, 6pm, Panel 2

Sunday
-Otaku Perceptions & Misconceptions, 12pm, Panel 3

Catch Me Talking About Giant Robots on the Anime 3000 Podcast

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I was a guest on the Anime 3000 podcast on a topic very near and dear to my heart: giant, monster-punching, war-fighting robots.

I was on there along with Gerald from Anime World Order, John-Paul from Fight Bait, and Mike Dent from R5 Central.

Sadly, due to personal obligations I was not around for the whole podcast, and came in starting at the section about Nagai and Ishikawa. If you want to hear me talk you can skip to that part of the podcast, but I highly recommend that you DO NOT, as the discussions concerning Imagawa and Tomino are also important.

Looking back at my picks for recommend giant robot anime for beginners, I realize my list has many flaws, such as Shows that are Too Long, Old-Looking Animation, and No Super Robots. I’m not sure how I would solve any of these though, so you’re stuck with what I gave you.

Download is available here.

The Joys of Afternoon and Kuroda Iou

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Recently I found out that Kuroda Iou, creator of Sexy Voice and Robo as well as one of my favorite manga artists, has a new series entitled Atarashii Asa (New Morning) in one of my favorite magazines, Monthly Afternoon. Afternoon was home to Genshiken, and is where Kio Shimoku’s current series about a teenage mom Jigopuri, as well as Mysterious Girlfriend X, are running. Suffice it to say, at this point I am almost, almost tempted to consistently buy Monthly Afternoon even though I understand how much the costs tend to add up after a while.

This got me thinking about why I like Kuroda’s artwork, as it’s a wild style unlike most other artists in the anime and manga industries. If you look at my previous Sexy Voice and Robo review, you can get a good idea of what his drawings entail. He’s detailed but not meticulously so, and his brush usage leans away from the “cleaner” style that is so popular with so many people. Often times his drawings and panels aren’t completely coherent, but I feel like these “mistakes” are part of what make his style so unique. I call them mistakes only in the sense that in the end he did not decide to redraw something so that the thickness of the lines made a little more sense or the proportions of a character’s fingers were more realistic, but ultimately it was a decision, and it’s these decisions of which I am fond.

I’ve mentioned before that his style is pretty much what I wish I had, and it really has to do with conveying a sense of energy that goes beyond “accuracy.” Accuracy has its place in that world, but it is not at the forefront, much to the dismay of people who scrutinize single frames from Naruto episodes. While I don’t think my own style will ever be JUST LIKE his, it’s good to know that he’s still in Japan producing works that hopefully will get brought over to America at some point.

Oh and I found out Jigopuri’s first volume should be out, but that’s it’s not listed on Kinokuniya’s website. Maybe it takes a while for new series to get over there.