In my childhood I read a fair amount of mystery novels, but it wasn’t until I listened to the Speakeasy podcast that I became acquainted Knox’s Rules, a 10-point guide designed to make sure that a detective story does not violate the mystery’s logical structure and thus remove the reader’s desire to solve the case as well. That said, at least one or more rules are broken in every detective story, but the idea is that they should be kept in mind. More important though is the fact that adhering to those ten rules does not guarantee a good story.

The reason I bring this up is that the more I read about and examine the structure of comics, particularly manga, the more I find myself having to make sure that my reading of comics theory does not then overwhelm my reading of manga as I am looking at each page. The potential pitfalls here aren’t limited to just “overthinking” things or being too distanced from the work at hand, but that it risks making my viewing of comics, manga or otherwise, an exercise in dissection for the sake of dissection, and also can possibly lead me to believe that a comic is “better” if it follows those rules. That’s not to say you should just turn a blind eye to the things you learn, but in my experience, it can poison both the well of analysis and the well of enjoyment if mishandled. For example, in being more aware of the Ki-Shou-Ten-Ketsu (Introduction-Development-Twist-Conclusion) 4-part structure commonly used in manga (especially 4-panel manga), I have found myself looking for it everywhere in manga, and I have to make sure I don’t force it to appear in places where it does not necessarily exist just because I want it to be there.

Perhaps letting my own emotions towards a story mix in with the more distanced viewing is key to mitigating these situations.