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.

Doraemon

The most famous of these monsters is Doraemon, a blue cat from the future who has a strange pocket filled with various toys and devices.

In this comic, Doraemon returns to the past to change the wayward ways of his creator, Nobita. In his youth, Nobita was a slacker and would rather play around than rather than do his homework. More than that, he was also spineless and was often bullied and taken advantage of by his friends. Doraemon’s arrival boosts the young Nobita’s spirit and helps him to change into a good boy.

Doraemon may not be the usual monster that you can imagine. He is more of a cat than the beast that we would usually attribute to a monster. However, by definition of the bakemono, Doraemon is no different than the threatening beast. Doraemon’s role becomes integral because Nobita needs him to change his bad habits.

This bakemono has a very simple role yet proves itself to be an important and crucial tool for change. Through monsters like Doraemon, children understand the importance of change and how they should be open to it. Change brings about new and interesting experience that can probably teach you a lesson or two in life. As the readers of mangas such as Doraemon grow older, a different kind of bakemono is introduced. One that most of us are familiar with.

Boy’s manga

The heart of bakemono in manga is in boys’ manga. Writers in boys’ manga are a little adventurous in terms of creating monsters. In stories like “Kekkaishi” and “Naruto,” bakemonos take the familiar shape of big beasts with scary faces.

Particularly in Kekkaishi, different types of bakemonos exist not only to change the people they’re with but also to exhaust a power that lies beneath the town.

The ayakashi, the name of the monsters in Kekkaishi, are examples of the traditional monsters that we see in our imagination. They can be wolverines, ghosts, or giant owls. In order to get the power beneath the town, the ayakashi wreaks havoc in the school. It is the duty of the kekkaishi to stop these ayakashi before they can even harm people outside the school. What is interesting is despite the destructive nature of the ayakashi, their presence also brought in a positive change to the main character, Yoshimori.

When Yoshimori was young, he was careless as a kekkaishi. He did not enjoy his job and often left it to his comrade, a fellow kekkaishi named Tokine. One night, a strong ayakashi arrived in school and tried to attack Yoshimori. Tokine came in to save him but severely injured her arm in the process. Yoshimori witnessed all of this and swore to himself that he will become a better kekkaishi so that no one will be hurt like Tokine did. Yoshimori’s story is a common example of how a bakemono’s presence can turn young boys to heroes. In boys’ manga, the monsters usually serve as triggers that riles up the heroes of that story to rise up to the challenge. They serve as tools to change boys to heroes.

But the bakemono in boys’ manga can also take a more familiar form – one which we’d least expect as a monster.

In Kazuo Umezu’s Drifting Classroom, it was the school that turned into the bakemono. One day, a great earthquake shook Tokyo and all of a sudden, the Yamato Elementary School disappeared into thin air. The students of the school were in deep shock to find themselves in a different world after the earthquake. There was nothing but sand outside their school. Students cried for their families while teachers held on to their sanity just to keep the kids calm. The school’s sudden disappearance triggered a change so drastic that many were pushed to kill and harm others in order to survive. The Drifting Classroom is a simple yet brilliant example of introducing young readers to another monster. It may appear that the school may be the bakemono, but in fact it gave birth to another bakemono, man’s inner demons.

The Drifting Classroom shows to readers how the bakemono need not be the giant monster from the future but the very teacher whom you trusted. The breakdown of the teachers and their sudden violent rage illustrates how a human can be corrupted when all hope is lost. It is scary to see how these individuals, whom these kids trusted a lot, suddenly start killing each other in frenzy.

For me, a man’s inner monster is more frightening than King Kong and Godzilla combined. I can forgive monstrous beasts because I can barely understand their consciousness, but I cannot seem to let ordinary humans turned killers slip away. Seeing them consciously decide to harm someone is frightening.

Monster

Such was the case in Naoki Urasawa’s work, Monster. In this story, a talented neurosurgeon named Kenzo Tenma was framed for a murder he did not commit. Years later, he realizes that one of his patients, Johann Liebert, was responsible in committing the crimes that Dr. Tenma was accused of. The story of the manga revolves on Tenma’s drive to clear his name as well as understand Liebert’s motivations in committing the crimes and framing him.

Monster is a great example of a story that actually explores the internal monster that lies within us. Not only do we see Liebert as the monster, but also how the people around him, particularly Dr. Tenma, have turned into a monster as well. It’s interesting how Urasawa built his characters to be innocent and kind-hearted in the beginning and eventually showing how they’re truly sinister after Liebert has affected their lives.

In this story, you have doctors choosing patients to save rather than treating them all equally for power. You have scientists manipulating minds of children to make them killing machines. You have sons and daughters killing their parents with no remorse. Even Tenma, the protagonist of this story, trades his scalpel for a gun. A person, who was once a savior, is now a killer. These bakemono that appeared in Monster is within our scope of reality. The comic illustrates how the bakemono is not only outside us, but within us as well. And as long as we know that it has the capability to exist, it remains a constant threat in our life.

From here, we learn that there are two faces to the bakemono in Japanese comics. There are monsters that exist outside of us and there are those that exist within us. Both have the ability to harm people and both also have the ability to teach people how to overcome it. And no matter which manga I’ll be reading, I will end up finding a monster there, not simply because the Japanese love it and it thrills them to see change in their supposedly conformist society, but because this is their way to show to people about the reality of change.

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. If I must say, the chronic presence of the bakemono in manga is only a reminder of that old scientific saying that the only thing constant in life is change.

And as long as this equation is true, then I’ll be expecting that monster in that manga I’m reading. I guess, that’s the cue for me to face my darkest fears.

A couple of people have asked me recently on how they can use mangas to actually study Japanese. I don’t think I’m truly an expert at this, but I can share my experience on how manga has helped me understand the language. The truth is, I can barely brag about my Level 3 certification but I can say, by my experience, that reading manga does help a lot in building my vocabulary and grammar. I must admit that it’s the very reason why I started learning Japanese in the first place.

Beyond the usual route of taking classes, mangas provide an avenue to learn more words and grammar patterns which can open up more areas for knowledge and understanding. Besides, for me, it was the best way to put to use the Japanese mangas that used to gather dust in my closet. I think we can relate to that one point in time wherein we merely bought Japanese mangas to support the mangakas. If you’re up for it, then I hope this entry encourages you to take those mangas out of the closet. I cannot guarantee that you will be an expert in Japanese after reading this (you definitely won’t be close to an expert at all!), but at least you can start your learning process and proudly say that you managed to at least read that Japanese manga that you bought.

So, are you ready to start your Japanese?

For starters

Before we actually start, there are some things that you would need to maximize your learning experience.

1.Japanese Manga
Of course, we first need the manga. If there’s a requirement for it, it has to be your favorite manga. If you don’t like the manga, then you won’t even bear through all the text just to read it. If you are starting, with absolutely no knowledge of hiragana and katakana, then it would be helpful to have a manga that has furigana. Most shounen mangas from Shounen Jump and Shounen Sunday have furiganas with with their mangas. If you have access to Children’s manga (like Doraemon), that would be greater even. Shoujo titles from Hakusensha (Lala, Hana to Yume) would also have furigana with their titles.

If you can read some bit of hiragana, katakana, and some kanjis (and how to write them), then stepping up with some seinen and josei mangas would be great to take your Japanese to the next level.

2. Japanese – English Dictionary, preferably one with a hiragana and katakana chart
Whether it’s the old school Merriam dictionary or an electronic one (doubt you can use this though, but if you do, cool), it is important that when you’re starting you have a hiragana and katakana chart with you along with an Japanese-English dictionary. If you can’t find one because quite a couple of kids have been studying Japanese too, then Meguro Language Center will have a Hiragana and katakana chart for you and Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC will become your best friend.

Eventually, you’ll want a more sophisticated dictionary. The Nintendo DS has a great Japanese – English, Japanese – Japanese dictionary. This will be a lot helpful if you want your dictionary portable. Alternately, if you can’t find words in either dictionaries and you think it’s too slang that it’s probably otaku-related already (e.g. Fujoshi, tsundere, etc.), you can check out Bangin’s blog!

3. A Grammar Guide
This is just as important as the Japanese-English Dictionary. Without this, the words wouldn’t make sense at all (and you’re bound to misunderstand what you’re reading.) If you have access to Japanese Grammar books, that’s great. The grammar book I use is Minna no Nihongo. Others might recommend to you better books. Whichever is really convenient for you, really. Lately, there’s been some great online grammar guides that can help you distinguish your ni from your no. Guide to Japanese.org and Jgram.org are great places to start. The DS Japanese-English dictionary also has great notes for grammar words.

4. Determination
You definitely need this because it is a difficult process especially if you’re doing this as self-study on the side. Without determination, you won’t even get past the first bubble. So you’ve got to be determined to finish the first volume. I used to read a chapter of my first Japanese manga, Kare Kano vol. 9, for a week (or month if I get lazy). It was really hard, but once you’re done, you’ve got such a great sense of achievement that you just can’t wait to read the next volume.

5. A friend who knows Japanese WELL and is willing to help
For me, this helped a lot. I’m forever grateful to my friends and teachers who are always happy to answer me whenever I ask them stupid questions about the silliest words and grammar patterns (especially slang speeches which are EVERYWHERE in manga). If such friends are unavailable to you, there are different forums dedicated to Japanese language (in some cases, manga translation) that can help you. And you can prolly find your own friends there.

With those in mind, I’m pretty sure you’re ready start reading. I’ve set 4 stages to studying Japanese. This is how I studied the language and how I’m continually trying my best to master it. This is not the common path to take, but I think it’s just as enriching as those that are usually taken.

Stage 1: Crawling through all the kanas and the kanjis.

The first hurdle I encountered in reading my mangas were my kanas and kanjis. In the beginning, they were all scribbles to me. I had to first distinguish what is hiragana and katakana and what is kanji. This is where your hiragana and katakana list comes in. It will let you know which is kanji and which is hiragana and katakana. If you’re an absolute newbie to Japanese, and your manga has furigana, then reading through the manga will be a breeze since you can ignore the kanji and just read through the furigana. Furiganas are kanji-reading guides. They’re usually beside a kanji to help the reader know how that kanji is read in Japanese. And with the help of the furigana, you can easily match it up to the word with your dictionary. The trick here is memorization. Try to memorize the shapes of the hiragana and katakanas. If you can even try to write them (just for retention), all the better.

Of course this is tricky because some mangas won’t place furigana for commonly used kanjis such as watashi, ore, and iu. It can also be tricky when the entire sentence is in hiragana and you can distinguish where one word starts and where another ends (I still encounter this trouble myself!). My only advice is be prepared for it and try to memorize the shape of the said kanji. It’s meticulous, confusing, and difficult, but eventually, with enough reading, you can finally recognize that watashi refers to “I” and hito refers to “person”. The more you expose yourself to reading the more that you can get used to reading some hiragana, katakanas, and kanjis. Of course, this part is just the tip of the iceberg. What’s the use of knowing how to read it if you don’t understand how and why it’s said? This is where your grammar comes in, one which will probably make your manga reading a lot more difficult than it already is.

Once you can manage your hiraganas and katakanas, you can start studying your kanjis. Kanji workbooks and a dictionary with kanjis (this is where your electronic dictionary or Jim Breen will really help!) can be your best friend. Nintendo DS also has a bunch of great kanji DS games. Learning how to write the kanji and how to read it can make your life a whole lot easier later. Eventually you can manage to read kanji combinations without the help of dictionaries.

Stage 2: He gave what to what!?!

Recognizing and reading the word is half the problem. The next and most important part of learning Japanese is learning the grammar structure. There is a great likelihood that your first bubble won’t have an easy grammar structure. My advice is to read up ahead on grammar. If you want to read your grammar patterns before you read your manga, then that’s cool. That first bubble would be a lot easier to read.

Sometimes, I like getting lost in the dialogue. I usually find the main words first, the noun, adjectives, and the verb, then look at the words that serve as prepositions or what I would informally say as ‘grammar markers’ and then check grammar sites like jgram, guidetojapanese, or my Minna no Nihongo. I will check how those markers make sense to the other words. Eventually, you manage to memorize the grammar patterns and like hieroglyphics, you can decipher what that first bubble is talking about.

To be honest, this is the most difficult part in understanding Japanese through manga. There is a great percentage that you won’t easily find the grammar markers for the dialogue in manga because some of these dialogues are either in modern slang and dialect. This is where friends who know Japanese can help. They can either help you in understanding that pattern, or either guide you where to look with regards to that meaning.

At times, to help my learning curve, I check English translations of that manga (if available). I would try my best to resist reading just the translation, but rather, understand why that person translated that bubble in that manner.

The more you read, the more words you encounter, and eventually the more patterns you’ll remember. Forget it if the words are totally uncommon words like mahoutsukai or youkai. The point is before you got to those words you actually encountered words that are common to the Japanese tongue.

Stage 3: 絶対負けない！ (I won’t lose!!)

If you have reached this stage, it means that it’s probably months or even years since you started reading Japanese. Reading Japanese doesn’t mean you’re a master of it. By now, you can probably understand the language but yet only have a quarter of understanding of the whole language. This is the time you reinforce your knowledge of Japanese. The time wherein you move out of the furiganas and start reading some seinen manga. If you’ve reached this far, it means that your love for manga is beyond that your favorite title. Along the way you have embraced the culture behind the language and probably has a broader perspective about Japan, one that is beyond ninjas and shinigamis.

So how do you take it to the next level? This is the time I would suggest getting formal classes in Japanese, one that is a little above the basics and one that is a little before the intermediate. Seriously, without this, you cannot tie some loose ends together. If you have the chance to be in an intensive course, that’s great. If you have the chance to even go to Japan and study the language there, even better (since you’re immediately immersed in the language).

Some of my friends don’t do this and instead immerse themselves deeper in Japanese either by playing Japanese video games (from PS2 RPGs to MMORPGS), reading light novels, even visiting Japanese sites, or listening to drama CDs, or watch your anime raw. Some even start writing entries in Japanese sites such as mixi. Although, that’s kind of impossible now since they restricted it from foreigners. The point is, exposure is the key to mastering the language. The more you read, speak, write, listen to a language, the more it becomes second nature to you.

By doing these, you’re finally at that point where you’re pretty much slowly letting go of that dictionary you’ve always had in your bag. The key here is immersing yourself in the language everyday and have someone correcting you or guiding you.

Some people (myself included) do personal translation of series we love that are yet unnoticed by licensing agents in the US. There’s a wealth of great manga out there, many of which are still untranslated and would barely reach American shores. So if you love that manga and you want to pimp it to everyone, go ahead and translate this manga with all your might. My good friend Melz is doing this for the last few volumes of her favorite series. I’m doing this for Moyashimon and for a couple of series I’m interested in. Translating is a great way to understand the fluidity of Japanese dialogue, at the same time, it’s the perfect way to brush up on your vocabulary.

The first two stages can get you as far as Grades 1 or 2 Japanese. This stage will help you to make the language a part of your tongue and your thought pattern. In this stage, Japanese has seeped into your mindset that when you read a manga, you no longer translate it to english and it sometimes frustrates you to even translate it to english because you find it meticulous since you understand it in Japanese anyway. Unless of course, if you love the series so much that you want to pimp it to your non-Japanese reading friends.

For my own personal ‘training’ regimen, I’m focusing reading on seinen mangas that tackle topics ranging from economics to bacterial infection. I’m currently subscribed to Morning and the magazine has a wide array of topics. The ones I faithfully read are cooking related (and yes I love reading those cooking terms), although some stories also pique my interest as well. When I read my Morning, since it’s just a magazine, I scribble on dialogues that has words or grammar patterns that interest me. I highlight a word and then write what it is and what it stands for. This is helping me recognize that word so that when I encounter it next time, I’ll definitely remember its meaning and how it’s read in Japanese. Of course, I won’t suggest this if you are reading tankoubons (but if you can’t resist, use post-its!!).

Stage 4: Validation

Some may not take this stage, but for me, I take this as a validation of what I know and where should I improve. Every first weekend of December, there is a test given internationally called the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, more popularly known by it’s acronym, JLPT. The JLPT’s a perfect avenue to test you on how much Japanese you know and understand. There are 4 Levels to JLPT, wherein the 4th Level is the lowest and the 1st is the highest.

The test tackles your understanding of vocabulary, grammar, listening, and comprehension. My JLPT experiences are always funny, whether I pass it or not. You shouldn’t take the test as one that hinders your growth in Japanese. Instead, use it as a leverage to know your weak points and how you should improve yourself.

This year, I’ve started to seriously study for my Level 2 Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) for next year. Yes, I’m spending two years to study the language since Level 3 only required 300 kanjis and JLPT2 requires around 1500 kanjis. For this year though, I decided to improve my vocabulary and grammar by reading more manga. I know, it sounds silly and many Japanese language students are critical of this, but over the years, I realized that reading manga is a great tool to get used to the language. It is not the ONLY nor is it the BEST way to learn the language, but it is definitely a fun alternative to overcome your fear of Japanese.

If you’ve got other suggestions on what you guys did (or is still doing) to understand Japanese, please leave a comment. Hopefully you can give me (as well as readers of this entry) more tips on how we can improve our Japanese. Currently, my brain is exploding with all the kanjis. Thank god, reading manga is making the experience a lot more fun than writing that kanji over and over again for 10 times.

And so I round things up, just like before, about the fun things and the good things that I read and played with in 2007. I managed to read a lot of good new manga and reconnected with the old. :3 I did a couple of recommendations for mangacast already so we’ll just stick to the fun titles that I had fun with this year.

This year was all about Moe for me. Moe and otaku culture got me strong this year so pardon mates if these are fan-frenzied choices. :3 Maybe it’s all that toy collecting. Or maybe I’ve been reading Heisei Democracy and Ace too much. :3

Lucky Star. A story about nothing and everything. This totally got my heart ablaze especially with Konata’s Otakon (Otaku Spirit). The humor is simple although you do need some otaku knowledge to get past Konata’s jokes. I cannot stress enough how much i enjoyed watching this and how this has changed my karaoke habits forever. Must I add that I love it so much I preordered the nendoroid konata? Oh yeah. love.

Darker than Black. Bones struck gold with this one for me. It was a good well paced story with enough action to keep the fanboys going. I personally loved Hei’s team and how they stick together to the end. This really isn’t a Moe selection, but Mao’s got enough Moe for all of us. :3

Moyashimon. Bacterias talking and fermenting. I’ve been hooked on fermented items this year so to see the bacterias behind just makes my heart flutter so. I cannot resist Oryzae and for 3 months, I was wishing I had that talent to see them. But sadly I can’t. But thank god for Moyashimon. :3 Love the manga too. The covers rock.

Kekkaishi. I’ve been loving the manga for some while and now that the anime is out, I’m totally hooked every week. I love the story, the kinship between the brothers and the families that nurture and protect them. The story is well paced and I see that there’s no rush to follow to the manga (Oh yeah! No filler arcs… yet.) And if you played the DS game, oh darn it’s wicked!!

Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei. I actually started following Shonen magazine because of this. But yeah, a manic-depressive suicidal teacher and a plethora of lovely students to his call and beckon is worth getting desperate over. I enjoy this series in the sick and twisted humor way.

Lovely Complex. Ah~ High School Manzai Love. <3 <3  Seto no Hanayome. Yakuza mermaids. What more can I ask for? :3
Nodame Cantabile. Because I’m a fangirl.

Gintama. Oi. This came out last year, so why am I pimping it? Because it deserves pimping. yo. And I’m using that as a lame excuse to place this image in my website.

All in all. It was a great year. :3 A very fun year, I might add. :3  There wasn’t enough drama but there was lots of comedies this year. Or maybe I was really just choosing the comedies. :3 I hope next year would be just as fun! I look forward to next year! :3