It’s Manga Taishou season again and I haven’t even started reading Therma Romae (once… I find my copy somewhere). Out of all the award ceremonies, I tend to enjoy the selection in Manga Taishou because these manga do not disappoint at all. Some awards tend to let some title win awards in order to boost its popularity. I honestly don’t know how some of these awards go behind the scenes, but yeah, so far, some winners are rather questionable. I cannot say the same for Manga Taisho though. When I look at their list, it all boils down to which manga were most amazing in the past year.

The list of the nominees is out and here’s my two cents on who have a shot of bringing home the Manga Taisho… well, at least those that I have read…

Otoyomegatari. The Bride Stories by Kaoru Mori. A very strong contender and quite popular to both critics and fans. I have full faith that there’s a high chance that Mori-san might bag this one. Can’t say much about the committee but if they gave it to Therma Romae last year, they might give this eclectic beautiful title a chance. I mean for chrissakes, she’s holding a kind of antelope on her shoulders. I’m quite sure the expectations will be high on this one.

Sangatsu no Lion. March Comes in Like a Lion by Chica Umino. This is quite an interesting tale and it’s one of those heartwarming stories that you can’t stop reading. The shougi is a nice extra but it ain’t anything like Hikaru no Go. This might have a good chance and I’m trying to think if there was something amazing that happened since its last nomination. This is Chica Umino and if you’ve read Honey and Clover, you can imagine the pace of this story. Between this and Otoyomegatari… my bet’s on the latter.

Omo ni Naitemasu by Akiko Higashimura. Filling in the loss of the amusing Himawari in Morning is her new work Omo ni Naitemasu. My friend and I have been fans of Himawari and we were hoping that this title would follow. While the humor is there, the plot in itself is a little difficult to swallow. The female lead is a mistress/muse to an artist and sometimes you just want to whack her head for longing such a horrible man. It’s a cohesive story but not exactly the best of the lot.

I think what I love more about looking at the list is the number of titles I have yet to read. So far, these are the ones that caught my eye.

Don’t Cry Girl by Tomoko Yamashita. This girl’s a BL artist and I enjoy her work immensely. I’m not exactly sure what this title is – if it’s a seinen or a josei. Either way, it looks interesting.

I am a Hero by Kengo Hanazawa. I’ve been trying to find this comic but it often escapes my mind. Maybe I should give it a shot next time.

Un chocolatier de l’amour perdu by Setona Mizushiro. It has macarons on the cover. While it’s quite josei-ish in art… it looks yummy.

Hana no Zubora Meshi by Masayuki Kusumi & Etsuko Mizusawa. I doubt this manga is about food but that girl on the cover looks like she’s enjoying what she’s doing (with those morsels of rice all over her face.) It looks yummier and maybe… just maybe… I might get to enjoy this one.

I wish all of the nominees good luck and I can’t wait to hear the results of this one!

How do you like your Shounen Jump heroine?

Do you love her dressed in a pristine school uniform, where her smiling face (and possibly panties or if your lucky, cleavage) grace every panel? Do you like her making bentou for the hero, sharing laughs right before he enters the greatest of his greatest battles? Or do you love her strong, the type who would smack the hero when he is wrong and is generally unforgiving to anyone who insults her short skirt but is soft to the hero who basically ignores her D-size bra? If she has one.

For years, legions of Jump readers, particularly women from the Western frame of thought¹, would write a post or two complaining why women in a particular Shounen Jump manga is often misrepresented. An interesting  rant came by my timeline today, a disheartened Katekyo Hitman Reborn! fan who cannot forgive Akira Amano for making cooks out her heroines. In her blog, she pines about why the female characters in Reborn have been ill-presented, nothing but dolls whose only purpose in the story was to make the boys look better.

Yeah. Right.

Seriously, this magazine was not meant for you

There are two key things that “Jump feminists” must remember when it comes to tackling feminism in Shounen Jump. First, the magazine is published in Japan, drawn by Japanese mangakas,  edited and published by Japanese publishers, and sold to Japanese people. Second, the magazine’s target market are Japanese boys ages 10 to 15. These two factors play a great role in building and creating the stories that are published in the magazine.

The least of the magazine’s concerns is a 10-yr. old Japanese boys going feminist, suddenly complaining that Kyoko is only capable of making an onigiri.  I doubt 10 year olds think this way. I doubt Japanese boys, or even men would actually hate her for that.

A lot of great points about differences in culture and perspectives has been pointed here.

To wrap it up, the magazine was built for a different set of people, with cultures and practices much different than ours. The Western feminist concept does not exactly apply to them. For them, being a woman has an entirely different meaning. Hence, you cannot force the Western concept of what makes a woman unto a working theory that’s already been established and deeply ingrained in Japanese culture.

Japan loves their women pure

Perhaps I will segue here differently from Kae, looking closer to the cultural side of Japan’s feminism on why authors tend to draw their girls like Kyoko and why we would probably be reading more of them in the future.

One of the most interesting readings I crossed was Mikiso Hane’s study² on how men, after World War II, preferred their women pure. In history, Japanese women were often portrayed as ghosts or sly creatures or crazy ladies who are out to teach men a lesson or two about humanity. The war has taught Japanese men the comfort of a woman’s doting support. The purity and the innocence of loyal servitude.

Women also appreciate this fact, despite Japan’s transition into a modern cosmopolitan country. They understand that their role as women is to help build and raise a healthy family. In fact, this is an accepted reality among women in Japan. Even if they’re career women, they also have to play the role of housewives. One of the most loved comics that’s still running in Japan, Sazae-san, presents a loving wife who has found comfort in taking care of her family. Sazae’s image is one of many that has become an institution in Japanese society. So much so that women dream to be like her once they start having families. I can go on talking about the women’s double burden, but for sure, Sazae’s image is something that men and women both revere. The image of a domesticated woman is highly appreciated in Japanese society.

And this was a facet of Japanese feminism that has been highly translated in manga. From Captain Tsubasa, all the way to Reborn, and even in mangas outside of Shounen Jump, the ideal Japanese girl would be someone who has this doting innocence, the sunshine in the hero’s life.

Her bento skills may make her appear very domestic, but these are the traits that the hero respects so much that he would have an unshakeable determination ( e.g., Tsuna’s Dying Will) to protect it, may it be driven by his affections or his stomach.

But really, do their images and what they represent matter?

I would like to believe that it is not what the heroine in Jump does that really matters. They can be strong tsunderes or they can be quiet girls. They can be important or unimportant to the story. I’d like to think that no matter how small or big their role is in the story, their existence is key in teaching boys how to relate, respect, and treat the girls around them. And I think this is what is primarily in the heads of the mangakas and the editors as they shape and build these women. Maybe there are higher things, but at the core, it all boils to this, for the intended audience of Shounen Jump. They’re actually there to make men out of the boys.

Boys who read this magazine are at a fragile age where they start to realize the stark differences between men and women. In my opinion, Jump does a great job in showing the strangely complex world of women (as much as they show us what a boy’s world is like too). On one end you have the strong and independent women like Hana, Nami and Sakura. On the other end you have Kyoko and Orihime, fragile girls who appears innocent at first but learns to understand their roles in the grand scheme of things and offers as much help that they can give, to the best of their abilities. I believe, characters in Jump titles are built to represent personalities in Japanese reality. This is pretty much a fact for any story, I think. But for those who think these are fragments of fiction, then let me share that yes, strangely, in my experience at least, I have met Japanese girls who are as polite as Kyoko, and some who are as sinister as Nami.

They exist not because the authors thinks their weakness makes the boys look better. That is a lame assumption. Looking back at tons of stories in Jump, their existence are integral to the growth of the hero and his relationships with other people. Even if they’re just a side character, they offer a lesson or two for the hero to learn from.

No really, they’re cool girls

You see, Jump Heroines, weak as most appear, are really great girls. I’ve explained above why they’re admirable to the Japanese. I’ve also shown why they exist in such a shounen magazine.

So do not diss these girls just because they make onigiris than join the boys in a big fight against phantom knights and giant robots. The girls represent so much more than just eye candy for the boys. Really, without them, we won’t have heroes to admire every time we open Shounen Jump.

1. Oh yes! Orientalism plays a key part here!
2. Found in Eastern Phoenix: Japan since 1945

Mr. Welsh, I feel you. There is an ongoing frustration among English manga readers of not getting their hands on some really good mangas. My friends alone would make it a habit to ask me what happened in the latest Nodame or Moyashimon not because they can’t buy the manga in Japanese (it’s a lot easier for us here) but because they cannot read it. At least for Nodame, it’s being translated (you just have to be patient about it), but there are a wealth of mangas that would some time to get translated, or probably will never get translated at all.

I always wondered why some mangas never see the light of licensing among the US publishers. For most, it’s whether it will make a sale. 20 or so manga bloggers who blog about Japanese titles wouldn’t probably make a difference in the grand scheme of things. Putting it into english and in a quality that readers like would mean costs. And I think most of us know that. Although fans would say they’ll buy it, more often than not, it’s only those who really can afford it do buy the manga the moment it comes out in the list. And they’re not a lot among manga fans. But sometimes, they do take a risk. Who knew Nodame would hit big when Del Rey got it? So there must be something other than costs on why they license and probably not license a title.

In a conversation with Ed, he told me how publishers in Japan sometimes push titles for licensing. He asked me about a particular title and what I thought of it since it was in consideration for licensing and I was thinking “Why not get Chi’s Sweet Home instead?” Ed enlightens me that even if english publishers want to get something more popular (e.g. Moyashimon), because they are already popular in Japan and probably earning a lot, publishers won’t push these titles for licensing and would probably place it at the end of their agenda. It’s not saying that they won’t be licensed, but instead, they just want to perhaps make up for the cost of a manga that was probably eating up their resources, hence the push for the obscure titles that are good but not exactly popular in the Japanese market.

To be honest, that’s rather upsetting because it only means that for some titles that we like, we’ve got to lobby for it to get it and that would take some time. A manga’s popularity sometimes ride on its popularity in Japan. When you hear the buzz about it from those who are in the scene, you wish that you can easily get it. Like I’m sure fans of Moyashimon who managed to see the anime want to get their hands on the manga. The manga’s richer in story compared to anime, but yes, it’s only in Japanese and quite difficult to read too (especially since it doesn’t have furiganas for those sc). When the hype for a series is gone and your patience has worn down, sometimes you lack interest in getting that said title to the point that you don’t wish to get it at all. And there is little market in nostalgia for mangas and this is probably why Slam Dunk never really got past the first two volumes in my country. We can at most, be really hopeful that eventually, it will come to our english-speaking shores. Hopefully not too late because we’re really missing out on a lot. Because there are lots of mangas that are left untranslated and they have stories that I’m sure we’ll learn and enjoy. Stories like St. Oniisan, Moyashimon, Detroit Metal City, Touch, H2, Cross Game, Rough, Himawari, Kimi ni Todoke, Arigatou, Zipang, Candy Candy, Kaze to Ki no Uta, Glass no Kamen (Glass Mask), Cat’s Eye, Tokimeki Tonight… As more time passes, more and more mangas are coming with great stories.

In this scenario, would our best bet to get these read in English would be those scanlating groups online? Scanlating’s a whole post altogether (and a lot of people have said a word or two about it) but although I see the convenience and accessibility of scanlations, it’s still nice to read a manga leisurely in your couch knowing that you fed your favorite mangaka and his assistants for at least a day.

I’m in the midst of post amazement season. I’ve been watching/reading this really funny series named Moyashimon. It’s been running for a month and I’ve been pimping their widget, the yellow thingie at the side that has rounded floating objects that would scream “Kamosuzo¹” and every second or so. To the untrained eye, they’re just mascots. But for those who know, they’re actually… bacteria.

Yes. Those icky microbes that some of us are afraid to mess with has a manga of their own named Moyashimon and I’ve been pimping it to everybody I know at work, at home, at my friend’s blogs (and my personal blog), and basically everywhere!

Honestly, bacteria. Who would have thought of that?! A true cohesive story about a boy who can communicate with bacteria. As Itsuki-sensei says it in every episode, “Sugoi yo ne²”. The series even has E.Coli and Dysentery presented as cute and lovable characters. YES! Even E.Coli and Green Fungi (P. Chrysogenum) are too cute to resist!! I’m completely forgetting that they’re lethal and icky bacterias!!

I mean, this is, part in part, a fan who is just in awe of the extent of manga’s topics. What have they not done? Giant Robots. Done. Soo done. Animals. Done. Talking animals. Done too. Zombies. Done. A galactic bakufu that features a pet duck, a lazy rounin, cross-dressing geishas and the shinsengumi. DONE! Mermaid Yakuzas. SOOO DONE. What is left?

…I’m actually stumped.

So let’s play a little game, shall we? I’d like to ask my readers (and if you want, ask your friends too, if they’re interested) if they think that there’s a topic or a theme that manga hasn’t handled yet. And readers can also answer if these topics have been done. Think the craziest!

Like I’m sure there’s no manga yet that has one of those chemistry cooking things wherein you cook your food (like curry or pasta in liquid nitrogen). I’m also sure that I haven’t read a sentai BL manga (ooooh! Imagine the tension among teammates!). I was about to say about a super pessimist guy that not even a ghost can make him more negative (Oh wait, Oda Eiichiro just did that in OP). I’m stumped… honestly! I’m really stumped. So, do you have any themes that you think mangakas haven’t written and should write about it? :3

On a side note… if you can read Japanese, read Moyashimon manga. If not, then watch the anime. There are subs lurking around in places. :3

1. Let’s Brew!
2. Trans. Amazing, isn’t it?

Okay. So Japan requests that America should put some kind of regulation with the distribution of anime online¹ . Perhaps in the same strength that Odex tries to control the Singapore market? A part of me says that this kind of deal is fair. When I read stories of animators and mangakas and their hard lives, it’s just right to put some money in their pocket for the thousands of animes and mangas downloaded at a time.

But, there’s also a part of me who is rather troubled. For a small country like mine, a country who doesn’t have a large array of licensed animes and mangas for sale on the shelves (except for Voltes V and Daimos and a dreadful set of mangas), downloading online seems to be the best option if you’re really a big fan of this genre. Some can wait. But for those who can’t, IRC and torrents are the way to go. Not everyone has big paychecks to order their favorite mangas and anime online. $15 dollars for a manga (if you include the shipping) is quite costly for many fans. All the more if they have to spend $30 for a DVD of an anime. Many anime fans are students and many (like myself) wait until they get a decent job for them to even start investing on these kinds of things.

We can buy things a little cheaper if we buy it straight from Japan (shipping is a breeze too!) however that means that we have to understand Japanese since those that come from Japan are not translated. Not everyone in the Philippines has that extra cash for Japanese lessons unless they took basics of it in their college classes… which is not even enough to make you understand manga or anime. -_-;; You can also do it my way and spend years of your life studying everything from photocopies of your friends Japanese books and learn Japanese by yourself (with some aid from your growing set of Japanese friends.) The task is arduous for many and for sure, they’ll just head back to those torrent sites to read them in English.

Filipinos also have this really interesting attitude wherein they say “Why spend when you can get it for free?” As long as we know we can get it cheaper or for free elsewhere, then we won’t bother getting the real deal being sold in shops. It’s true. I admit having bought pirated stuff in my youth, but that was when I was a student and had a meager allowance (although my classmates would contest to that since I was lucky that I can actually buy something while they mooch from me). For $2, we could buy a DVD of a 25 episode anime, prolly something mooched off torrents. It’s a cost that many can shoulder. It’s also a cost many people take advantage of.

In a country like mine, where there are burgeoning fans who are enjoying anime due to its availability on local TV, the repercussions of this logical request can be a lethal blow for fans who would like to keep a copy of their favorite shows and mangas easily available in their DVD spindles, hard drives, and flash discs. We have to admit that the standard of living here is poor and a dollar can mean life and death for many. The key here is availability. We want them. And I’m sure if they appropriate it locally, we might be able to find the right price for us. If the price is right, then we’ll definitely buy them.

The only solution? Maybe local stations and productons should start distribution rights to anime just like how ODEX got rights to rightfully distribute it in Singapore. There are similar anime distributors in Indonesia too. Publishers should also consider the local market for manga. There’s already two mangas translated in Tagalog. Why not add more titles? English-translated mangas have also been sold locally too? Why not add more? It kind of sucks that the market doesn’t consider the anime community as a serious market probably due to the fact that they think that animes will always be a kid thing. *sigh*

1. Link via Manga Blog