Jun
30
A friend of mine recently asked me to write something about manga for a national broadsheet, the Manila Bulletin. Instead of shocking kids with my rabid fujoshi fangirlings, I decided to take the safe route and explored the different aspects of monsters seen in manga. I’m not entirely an avid of monsters in manga, but I took this as an opportunity to explore their presence and their effect in manga. It turned out to be more interesting than what I had expected. I hope you guys enjoyed reading it too.
Manga and Monsters
Published June 28, 2008 in the Manila Bulletin. Online on June 30.
Manga may appear to be literature for children yet they speak to us of change that is universal to many. No matter what shape or form, change will happen in our lives…
I hate monsters.
Ever since I was a kid, I abhorred the idea of Halloween because of the various monster specials shown on TV. They eat you, consume you, and even in your sleep, they haunt you. And for years I tried my best to evade these monsters the way you try to avoid bullies in your school. Don’t look at them straight in the eye. Keep calm, ignore them, and just walk away.
And yet here I am, years later, reading my manga, suddenly staring at one monster straight in the eye. Just like that high school bully, they’ll find their way to get back at you.
Finding a monster in a Japanese comic, most popularly known as manga, is like finding a cockroach on your cupboard. Having a monster in their manga is a natural occurrence and it revels at that moment when you scream on top of your lungs.
For a tight-lipped society like Japan, monsters not only spark interest because of their strange looks but also because of their ability to elicit change. This is why they’re called bakemono by the Japanese – things that can change. This ability to transform himself or his surroundings is the very heart of the Japanese bakemono. And in manga, we see these in various shapes and sizes that it’s interesting how even if I change the genre of comics I’m reading, one way or the other, I’ll end up facing a monster.
Children’s manga is bombarded with bakemonos. Instead of seeing drooling sharp-toothed beasts, they have talking trains, electric yellow kittens, and humanized bread.
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Sep
4
It’s been a year…
Filed Under Features, Insights, Site Updates | 6 Comments
… and I missed my celebration! ??????(?????????) ?????????????!! I honestly wasn’t able to keep track of when I actually actively started this blog and it turned out that my site went in motion on August 23 and I forgot to celebrate. lol. I’ve been busy during the past few days as well due to the bookfair so the date just slipped away. Gomen ne. ^^;;
A lot has happened back when I started. Back then, I was on student allowance and now I’m fortunate to at least have something to sustain the hobby. lol. More so, there’s been a lot of developments in terms of manga in the Philippines.
In the past year since I started, there’s been a surge of English translated manga in the Philippines. Booksellers have become sophisticated in their choice of mangas and have started to bring in a lot of more popular titles as well as some to cater for those who have eclectic tastes (but trust me, just like in the US, finding them can be a total pain. -_-;;) . Another interesting thing to note is the resurgence of Japanese mangas in the Philippines through Manga Kissa 10 and the JFMO library. Although you won’t be able to buy the manga, at least you would have access to the weekly magazines and the likes.
But perhaps the most interesting development this year was the discovery of my friend while going through their local Japanese grocery. In this said grocery, they started selling tagalog translated volumes of Doraemon. The book is not as well printed as its American counterparts. If I have something to compare it with, it’s closer to the Malaysian manga releases. Not so sure if it’s the same for Indonesian prints. The paper’s closer to newsprint and the print was closer to that of the weekly magazines than it is that of a tankoubons. For the cheap price of P60 ($1.20) , it’s the best kind of print they can do.
In terms of translation, the manga turned out quite well. The conversations were casual and some things were appropriately contextualized. Mochi was turned to Bibingka1 and the translators were not afraid to use colloquial terms over those that would deem to be more proper in literature. Sound effects and variations thereof were also translated which made it all the more fun. In short, the translators made an effort to keep the spirit of Doraemon by sticking towards a translation that is closer to home. I hope that this characteristic and its cheap cheap price could spiral a new industry in the Philippines.
I just realized this morning that this was not the first tagalog translated manga in the Philippines. (Sorry about that Ed. ^^;;) Barefoot Gen was also published in the Philippines for a short while before the 80s. In fact there was a big effort after the war to distribute Barefoot Gen to the Filipinos to show the impact of the war to the Japanese, but I’m not so sure what happened afterwards. The choice to translate Barefoot Gen was more of a political effort than a commercial effort. What makes this Doraemon release special is the fact that it’s being released commercially. As I told Ed this morning, there are around 4 volumes available and this could be the start of something new for mangas in the Philippines. Many countries in South East Asia makes a big effort in translating Japanese manga to the local dialect. Indonesians has a bustling translated manga industry. The same goes for Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. These countries have been ahead in the game, and it should be time for Philippines to follow suit. Hopefully… HOPEFULLY, this publisher could get more licenses with more titles and start publishing them here.
- a local rice cake, not the same texture but both are ‘essentially’ rice cakes [↩]
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Otaku Champloo is...
a small serving of bittersweet manga bits by a manga addict named Khursten.
She currently digs mangas about boys who live to be men. -
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