OEL manga is a highly divisive subject among those who are fundamentally concerned with the semantic particulars of what makes manga and what gets called manga or not.

I haven’t really formalized by thoughts on the matter yet, but I think some of them began to crystallize when Naughty Ninja brought up Offbeat tonight, citing its excellence yet still hesitating to call it manga, let alone be comfortable with the existence of the term ‘OEL manga’ and conversational hoo-ha ensued.

But for the most part, I believe that OEL manga should be an aspirational ideal and not a marketing/publishing conceit, that ideal being that non-Japanese creators who choose to write comics using the forms and conventions of manga as a ‘narrative style’ rather than just its visual tropes.

For example, manga makes use of a lot of temporal decompression across multiple panels that spread beyond the confines of one page. For dramatic effect, an author can have one spoken line of dialogue running across two pages to preserve the emotional gravitas of that moment, which was pretty well described in the following ENGINE post by Josh Hechinger:

Manga’s big on what I call “Holy shit” moments. Dramatic reveals in the middle of the story. Lemme whip up an example real quick, using how I write scripts:

PAGE ONE Close, full on shot of VADER, staring down impassively.

- VADER: LUKE…

Close up of LUKE, barely hanging on to the outcropping. He’s determined looking, he’s got fight in him.

- VADER (off panel): I AM…

Extreme close up on LUKE. His eyes go wide with horror, his jaw drops. The piss has totally just been taken out of him.

- VADER (off panel): YOUR FATHER.

 

Hechinger goes on to elaborate that it’s this sort of “Da…da…DOM” pacing, that may be spread across multiple pages at the author’s whim, is in stark contrast to the use of end-chapter cliffhangers that Western media favors. In a Mark Millar comic, that line would be an entire page on its own with a glamour shot of Vader as if he’s wearing a shit-eating grin under his mask.

Naughty Ninja pointed out that the lack of manga-narrative style in Offbeat is in stark contrast to Svetlana Chmakova’s Dramacon which occasionally utilizes some of the ‘anti-grid’ busted panels that characterizes shoujo. But having not read Offbeat, the issue of whether or not it is manga is hardly my point.

To reiterate my above point, to talk of OEL manga is to talk not of big eyes, exaggerated hairstyles and other surface visual hallmarks, but rather is to talk of a world where if Even A Monkey Can Draw Manga, well then so can Gaijin! That, to me, is what OEL should be from a theoretical perspective.

But here’s a final thought: Fred Gallagher is clearly doing a very manga-style thing with MegaTokyo, at least from what little I’ve seen of his work. But it still fails to click with me for some reason, most likely because my brain is having trouble processing the use of such a culturally rooted narrative style as manga to tell the culturally uprooted experience of a gaijin.

It’s like Lost In Translation, manga-style, though Gallagher’s work clearly predates that movie by a handful of years. Which is actually pretty clever when you think about it, it just fails to click on a personal level for me. People insist its gotten very good, but the other problem is that I’m compelled to try to read it from the beginning and those early parts are awfully meh for me.

Warren Ellis describes webcomics as a place for creators to teach themselves, in the same way Glenn Fabry and Brian Bolland taught themselves through ‘American doujinshi’ so it’s quite possible that MegaTokyo reads this way as Ellis has called it on its initially embarrassing level of crudity in the same breath he uses to praise it. Okay, I’m off-topic.

In any case, manga is not just an art-style, but a specific cultural reaction in Japan. Quite honestly, having gaijin replicate that without being born of the same cultural circumstance might be seen as problematic, but that’s neither here nor there, and frankly, a whole ‘nother post altogether.

Paul Pope, a purported ‘rock star’ of alternative comics who has never shied away from congratulating himself, but makes some interesting observations from his experiences as a gaijin manga-ka at Kodansha:

…the best manga is character-driven. Take, for example, Lone Wolf And Cub. A great concept, a great story. It doesn’t matter that it’s about a samurai … that it’s about a father and son so much. It doesn’t matter, the setting so much, or the way that they look. You know what I mean? It’s about the personalities that are coming through the stories. The stories seem very medieval in a sense, like The Cantebury Tales. He goes on a journey, and hears these various people’s stories in these character sketches.

When I was working at Kodansha, they’d always want to reduce things to the most basic elements of character. You’d tell them, “I have this story…” and you’d start telling them all of these plot elements, and they’d say, “We don’t care–just show us the drawing of the character.” “This story is about a young girl, who’s doing XYZ,” or “This story is about a young man, who’s an honest young man in a place where everyone’s corrupt.” You know what I mean? That’s what they wanted to see. They wanted to see these characters.

And then, on top of that, you might have some sort of facade to make it more interesting, based on whatever people are interested in right now–you know, maybe this year it’s going to be golfing, because of Tiger Woods. Or maybe this year, ships are popular because of Titanic. I will say that one thing they did really well in manga was to capitalize on topical trends, because the artists are trained to work so quickly. If there was some movie that was really popular, the editors would say, “Make your manga so that people would want to see it as a movie.”

Carl Gustav Horn is an editor at Viz Communications, but I remember him best as a contributor to Japan Edge, the Gen-X-era coffee table guide to Japanese subculture. In one chapter, Horn explains why fandom’s desire for self-insulation from the unwashed masses and wannabe otakus makes little sense to him at all:

I never started an anime club at Pomona [College], as I never did in high school. In part because I still walked funny from those early club experiences, but mainly because I truly believed anime was for everyone. Viewed one way, it’s just TV shows, video, and movies; so why would you need a secret handshake to see them, any more than you do to watch The Blues Brothers or Northern Exposure? I would simply have showings of the anime on campus, as if it was unextraordinary film and television.

Rob Vollmar, the former ‘Occidental Tourist’ of the late great Ninth Art and is currently the co-creator of Bluesman. In an article entitled “Woman Seeks Manga“, Vollmar devotes a couple paragraphs to bemused wondering about the appeal of shounen-ai comics:

It is important to point out that while shonen-ai manga may have homoerotic themes in them, they are not, in their essential function, works of pornography. In fact, one of the most popular shonen-ai manga, Banana Fish goes on for dozens of volumes without any act of sexual contact between the two male protagonists… This palpable sense of delicacy, while not applicable to all manga … is still one of the central tenets of shojo manga and in place more often than not.

Given [its] immense popularity [...] the casual Western observer [is probably] wondering if millions of Japanese women are secretly fantasising about their husbands making love to other men. While not having a direct line into the psyche of Japanese women, it is my opinion that perhaps shonen-ai manga merely represents a sacred space for its creators and fans, where the masculine/patriarchal value system simply does not apply and they defend that space with the poison pill of “gay-ness” (these are straight men we are talking about repelling, don’t laugh!), thereby repelling potentially intrusive husbands and sons who would see such images and storylines as obviously not for them.

Previously >> Feminism in Shoujo Manga: Introduction

This article is the first installment of a series exploring feminism in manga marketed under the shoujo genre outside of Japan.

As of late, more pop culture enthusiasts have come to question the representation of women in manga, particularly those within shoujo. There are those who choose to interpret the soft-spoken heroine as an exemplifier of what they perceive as an inherent regressiveness in Asian gender roles.

The more forgiving choose to regard this as part of a simple cultural difference that can be overlooked in favor of shounen manga. Then there are those who enjoy shoujo well enough to not write it off as completely counterfeminist, but may not have found a way to articulate why this is so.

With this series, I endeavor to find a way to do so.

The immensely popular shoujo manga sensation known as NANA recently hit shores outside of Japan, and starts out strong for its first three volumes. It takes a more mature route than most shoujo titles, and seems to be a perfect place to start our feminist analysis of shoujo manga. However, being immensely popular has always been an invitation for mean-spirited cultural punditry.

I can already imagine a slew of women writing off NANA as another title wherein use of romantic tropes and melodrama makes it just as trite as all the other shoujo entries that have come before it. These naysayers would insist on “stronger female leads” or “girls who don’t need love to be happy”. And let’s face it, there’s no faulting a desire for ass-kicking heroines disinterested in romance.

But to look for feminist value in manga is not the same as looking for ball-breaking monuments to womanhood, as that would be a shallow reading of what feminist values are in the first place. It is not necessary for female characters to masquerade as men and claim masculine qualities to be deemed “strong”.

Proper representation should focus on what is truthful and free of delusion just as much as it should focus on the ideal and the empowered. The girl you find on the street is just as important in her mundane ordinariness as any other representation, complete with her flaws and shortcomings. And one thing manga has proven capable of is showing these women, resolutely mundane or extremely symbolic, as possessing genuine desire for change and self-actualization.

NANA begins with two young women on a train to Tokyo, both closing the final chapters of their late adolescence and journeying towards tumultuous adulthood. No two girls could be anymore different, or lead such disparate lives. It’s love that drives them to the city, but more than that, it’s a calling to find their true selves. Both these girls have the same name: Nana.

Nana Osaki is the emotionally distant vocalist for the band Black Stones, a mysterious girl with a cool exterior that bellies the personal turmoil of an abandoned heart. She comes to Tokyo to fulfill a dream: “to be able to live off music”. She stepped on the train with nothing but a pack of cigarettes, her guitar, and an unrelenting desire to sing in Tokyo.

Nana Komatsu is a country girl who has long suffered from the love at first sight sickness, and finds herself growing up before she’s completely ready for it. She longs to become her own woman in Tokyo, but carries a long history of dependency with her.

Initially, creator Ai Yazawa did not intend for the two to meet and NANA was originally the story of two separate lives — Osaki and Komatsu’s — as parallel narratives of the un-smooth course of true love. As such, the first volume weaves a stimulating tale of two separate hearts, and it is in the second volume that the manga grows into an entirely different creature.

When these two Nanas cross paths for the first time, their personalities grow distinct in the face of opposition: the two women possess an inexplicably entertaining chemistry that grows from their dichotomous contrast. Though they come from two different worlds, they form an immediate bond that grows tentatively but steadily throughout the story.

“Hey Nana. You were a stray cat strutting, so free and full of pride. But I could see your open wound. And without really thinking, I just chalked it up to another cool thing about you. I never realized how much you hurt.”

Nana Osaki walks and talks with a nigh impenetrable air of cool surrounding her every move and word. She is ostensibly self-reliant — unaccustomed to relying on anyone but herself. Her passion for music was first introduced to her by others, but she has made that a fervent dream of her own. That which is admirable in Osaki is immediately apparent, with her strong personality and cigarette-flavored aura, her daring make-up and shocking attire.

Her understanding of loneliness, love, and the treacherous dependency that spans between the two emotions is apparently more sophisticated than that of Komatsu’s. This rocker girl’s tight-lipped nature and reservation towards revealing herself color her a more mysterious creature. But while Osaki’s inner feelings are only apparent to the reader with every few panels, Komatsu seems immediately transparent and is the main voice which we follow.

Komatsu is the “more vulnerable one”, eager to “make it on her own” and working towards her own simple dream: a large house with a picket fence, a husband and a rewarding career. But her dreams are a patchwork mess full of holes made mostly out of the fact that she appropriates these aspirations almost for the sake of owning them.

Her weakness for any semblance of love makes her initially sympathetic, but soon grows a tad tiresome as she hams up her role as girlfriend and continues to be blind to what a real relationship entails. For every moment that Komatsu tries to stand on her own two feet is a corresponding one in which she falls back into dependency.

Osaki provides the most convenient target for this dependency, and Komatsu often tells herself, “If only Nana were a man, I know she’d be the perfect boyfriend for me.” This more vulnerable Nana finds it easy to confuse any form of initial infatuation into full blown romance perhaps unwilling to take on the sense of responsibility or approach to compromise that love actually asks for.

“Yeah, but I’m 20 years old and need to know how to make it on my own! I gotta be a strong successful female role model for all the Nana readers!”

This is not to say that Komatsu (or Ai Yazawa herself for that matter) is completely blind to those shortcomings. If anything, they are meant to endear her to the readers as much as she exasperates and frustrates them. To write these traits off as undermining evidence shoujo’s credibility as a genre of empowerment is a completely wrongheaded way of looking at it.

This is because Yazawa intends Komatsu’s personal journey to be one in which she earns herself a stronger personality. The fact that she ends up taking one step back for every two steps she does forward is a deliberate part of this growth.

Osaki on the other hand is a character whose strength could also be her downfall. Despite the mythical cool she exudes, and the almost unrealistic standard of awesome she represents, her development is limited to the eventual chipping away off her exterior. As the plot continues, it’s easy to imagine that placing the reader as voyeur and breaking past her barriers is what will reveal what makes her tick.

Komatsu is a blank page to be written, her simple desires and passions leaving a wealth of potential. With this amount of room to grow in, we can cheer Komatsu along and watch her find her own dreams and shake off her dependent nature. Komatsu embodies that deep desire for change, and the difficulty of internalizing that desire. Komatsu’s road to betterment does not lie in a magical short cut formula nor does it automatically come with being cognizant of her own flaws.

As a commercial enterprise and minor cultural phenomenon, the NANA franchise is rather impressive. There’s a live-action film adaptation, album tributes to the in-fiction rock groups, a longer-than-average animated series. There are even NANA-themed accessories for the iPod Nano. All this merchandise comes underwritten by the tagline, “Every girl needs Nana,” which by my reckoning is strangely apt in its self-seriousness.

This is because NANA presents us two women so starkly polarized, standing at extreme ends yet somehow meeting in the middle and somewhere in that middle it’s easy to imagine the innumerable shades of women to be found there, a place for every girl and a personal coming of age story for every one of them. Maybe every girl does need Nana.

NANA is less a manga story of the romantic lives of its two leads, and more a story that details the unceremonious passage from child to adult. With that passage comes the rude awakening that they are living in a world far and away from the rural idleness and rock and roll adolescence, and the challenges that come with realizing a dream and the wants of the heart. It’s a story of the converging paths both Nanas take towards their future in Tokyo, and the friends and loves that take them there.

We apologize for the lack of updates here at Bento Physics, but Naughty Ninja and I have been really busy. Juggling our responsibilites such as her day job and my thesis work has proven to be challenging. Yes, you heard me right - Naughty Ninja works now so she can earn money to support the material for this blog - such as manga, anime and lots and lots of coffee.

All the while, I continue to maintain my useless standing in society as a perpetual student, but that’s okay, because earning money is what girls are for. See how feminist we are like that?

Ix of Yuri to Boushi to Hori no Tabibito deconstructs a track from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and examines the appeal of Japanese appropriation of Western rock by using the phenomenal manner in which bread culture has been appropriated as a point of comparison in order to come up with some interesting conclusions:

However, the genius in which some Japanese rock and pop songs are written, I believe, is embedded in the way they embrace Western culture. Let me give you an example. I went to Japan last year, and one of the things that made a great impact on me was bakeries. You can’t go 500 yards inside any largish Japanese town without finding at least one bakery.

And these aren’t your regular run down British affair, oh no. Bread is an extremely big business in Japan [...], but the types of bread on offer may surprise many Western bakers. For instance, Kare-pan; a deep fried doughnut type bread with curry inside, when the most adventurous thing we put inside ours is jam. Even more controversial, Meron-pan - the fusion of two different kinds of dough (cookie dough and normal sweet bread dough).

It’s as if Japanese bakers took one look at Western rules for baking, gave it the finger and just did whatever they wanted. In the UK: starchy things like potatoes in sandwiches? BLASPHEMY!”

I had heard of Queenie-chan before Bento Physics came to being, but I am glad to have rediscovered her excellent musings particularly this rant about the nature of role models, personal fantasy and manga (bold emphasis mine):

“[...] I just came back from the NarutoFan forums, with it’s legions of shrieking fangirls who live, breathe and drink “Naruto”. They all probably fantasise about becoming really powerful female ninjas, and romancing equally powerful, handsome male ninjas - which is a pretty good fantasy to have. Now, “Naruto” is a shounen manga, but the discussion we’re having is the effect manga is having on young female minds, no?

And the discussion has leaned towards shoujo manga, because it’s assumed that young girls tend to read shoujo, right? Well, NarutoFanatics prove one thing - young girls are just as likely to have power fantasies as young boys. And girls who are inclined towards power fantasies will seek in out in whichever manga provides it, which is usually not shoujo romance.

So if you’re worried about impressionable young girls, keep in mind that only a small percentage of them are impressionable in the way that people ought to be worried about. The majority are probably too sensible to take it seriously, or would rather be given a fantasy world where they can be a powerful adventuress and go butt-kicking with alot of handsome warrior-types.”

One of self-proclaimed love swami Warren Ellis‘ musings that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is a bit old, but is worth linking anyway. It’s about why manga’s ’small format’ fuels comics literacy (at least with respect to Japanese commuters):

See, that right there is a big part of the manga success — those things go in a coat pocket or in a backpack. It’s why paperbacks were such a revolution: they were cheap and they could be stuffed in a pocket. Dave Gibbons, talking about the later Martha Washington books he did with Frank Miller, talked of his desire to do a “roll it up and stick it in your pocket comic”, which speaks to why that form lasted so long.

Portable culture is crucial to any society in motion. Manga in all its indigenous forms has been a thing built for Japanese commuters. Part of why that style of anthology doesn’t play so well in America is that America’s a culture of private cars, not public transport.

Personally, if I’m going to spend an hour or two on a train, I want something I can stick in my pocket. A paperback book, or a copy of LONE WOLF AND CUB or something similar. [...] But mostly, it’s a form/ambition thing. You’ve got 90 pages and a perfect portable format. Write something so important that people have to carry it with them - because they can.

Frederik Schodt, professional manga enthusiast and J-pop academician recently wrote at Japan Times Online about manga as a learning aid for the Japanese language and makes some very informative distinctions about the varying differences between how different manga-types use the language differently:

It may be easier to start reading gender-neutral or male-oriented stories, rather than girls comics, because the page layouts are less abstract and more orthodox. It also helps to read stories on familiar subjects, and for that reason I recommend avoiding samurai-oriented jidaimono (period pieces) as all but the history buff will find the unfamiliar terminology daunting. When I was learning Japanese, I liked a tragic-comedy, “Otoko Oidon (I am a Man),” about a starving student living in a four and a half mat tatami room, because I lived in one, too. 

Seth Johnson of Gnostic Lone Wolf Poetry talks about how episode counts affect television storytelling, whether in longform multi-season serials or as compact single/double-seasoners:

The 26-episode show, however, seems to have a particular sort of pacing to it. A common progression I see, is the one found in Trigun and Mai Hime, where roughly the first half of the show is devoted to comedy-(insert genre) and after that it’s dark-(insert genre) as, the characters now being familiar, the humour of the audience is taken advantage of to elevate the pathos of the drama by comparison to what preceeded it. More generally, most 26-episode shows seem to split into two 13-ep arcs, though they aren’t self-contained arcs most of the time (you generally need to watch from the beginning).

JP Meyer of “a fairy tale of love and courage” brings up the difference between American anime fandom and English-speaking anime fandom and how the two can never be assumed to be the same thing:

The ANN blogs just started a few days ago [but so] far, we have two posts about Anime Expo, one on recently-licensed live-action titles, and two on American tours by two Japanese musical acts. These are all anime-related, just like posts on an anime blog well, are supposed to be. There is however, a huge difference here: they’re not about Japan, but rather about America. This band is touring in America. These doramas are being released in America. Here are fun things to do at this con in America. Contrast this to what anime bloggers generally blog about: These are the upcoming new anime this summer in Japan. These figures go on sale next week in Japan. A man in Japan stole a little girl’s swimsuit and shat in it.

The representation of the female in shoujo manga has at times been misinterpreted or dismissed as anti-feminism fodder. This is despite the fact that most content is created by a large number of female mangaka (numbering in the hundreds), and is meant for a significantly large female audience. This affinity between creator and consumer almost guarantees the production of beautifully crafted stories brimming with honesty, depth, and respect towards the female condition.

In an interesting article entitled American Girls’ and Women’s Comics : White Space, Rachel Nabors covers what others have already recognized as the gap in the comic market, and encourages women to become creators and be more vocal in their opinions of female representation. A part of the article includes (bold emphasis my own):

Q: Isn’t shoujo manga enough?
A: Sure, if you don’t mind subtly throwing away all the feminist ideals our mothers fought for in during the Women’s Liberation Movement. Japan is not what you would call “female friendly.” In Japan, it is acceptable for a man to grope a teenage girl on the train. I recall reading that a hideously large percentage of young women only go to college to seek husbands then drop out when they get married. Women are still considered inferior in business and the glass ceiling is more like a brick wall.

This chauvinistic attitude is visible in Japanese comics. Even in stories like Kare Kano that seem to champion strong young women, the females inevitably give up their own will, dreams and hopes in favor of adopting their sweetheart’s.

I imagine Nabors’ intent is to enjoin women to throw off the dependence on manga (shoujo or otherwise) as a proxy means to fill the female gap in comics. Perfectly understandable, but it doesn’t quite justify her sweeping generalizations, and outright fostering of misconceptions.

While I strongly admire the intent of her message I feel inclined to educate her on the baselessness of these misconceptions, but such well-intentioned commentary would be doomed to appear as bitchy nitpicking. Perhaps as the overeducated otaku, I should understand how a Westerner would look at us Asians so strangely, especially since so many of the books she owns are written from that Western-stranger perspective.

I discussed the matter at length with Samurai Tusok, and he has an amazing way of bypassing the geek babble and insulted sputtering, and distilled it into the following, in the form of a comment on MangaBlog:

First of all, [Nabor’s] dismissal of shoujo as counterfeminist pabulum is based on a picture of shoujo manga that is filtered entirely by whatever gets exported to the U.S., as if that were somehow representative of shoujo in Japan itself.

That’s like drawing conclusions about the value systems of independent filmmakers based solely on films distributed by Miramax. But the fact is that manga distributors seem to focus on a ya-lit audience of pre-teens and up, an audience that they’ve concluded to not be interested in manga featuring something more than counterfeminist pabulum.

Oh, and to say that “In Japan, it is acceptable for a man to grope a teenage girl on the train.” is two hundred fifty six shades of problematic. That train molesters are rampant is not the same as being ’socially acceptable’.

At any rate, Ms. Nabors has compelled me to actualize an idea that’s been brewing in my head for the last few days: a series of articles discussing the various feminine values found in shoujo manga. To be specific, those that make their way outside of Japan.

I won’t stand to see a perfectly wonderful art form like manga and its shoujo genre to be written off as uniformly counterfeminist, moreso by someone who reduces it to nothing but the product of a culture of Asians-as-Patriarchal-Savages.

As such dear readers, I shall endeavor to do everything within my power to showcase the ideological plurality to be found in manga, and that feminist messages can indeed be found in your local bookshelves.

I was initially oblivious to the marketing appeal of Gunslinger Girl, an anime which features a prepubescent girl solemnly holding up a SIG-Sauer P239 as its primary promotional image. Yes, I am the special kind of numbskull who fails to notice the combination of submachine guns and forlorn innocence as a calculated attempt at moé appeal.

Gunslinger Girl’s premise is that of a near future Italy in which a counterterrorist group, euphemistically known as the Social Welfare Agency, ‘rescues’ young girls in critical physical condition and discarded by society. Then they turn them into doe-eyed killing machines with cybernetic enhancements.

It’s the kind of fiction-packaging whose depth is seems to be visible from the surface: “Does military exploitation know no limits?! God save the children!” The kind of conceptual substance that appeals to resolutely self-serious anime fans who think Ghost in the Shell qualifies themselves as deep-thinking existentialists.

However, this smattering of speculative fiction tropes becomes nigh invisible at some point, mostly because Gunslinger eschews high octane action scenes in favor of decorating each moment with the elegance of neoclassical Italian scenery and solemn piano music. As it stands, gunshots are few and far in between — with every bullet acting more as an infrequent exclamation point than as pure visceral thrill.

This is because the meta-sci-fi existential implications of Gunslinger’s premise are secondary to the interpersonal relationships and character drama. Rather than being concerned with what is ethically humane or not, the series chooses to focus on the girls’ traumatically sheltered lives and their arrested emotional development.

As a series of relatively self-contained stories, Gunslinger strikes an elegiac chord primarily through the awkward relationships of these girls, particularly with their Handlers, who act as paramilitary surrogate father figures, most of whose parenting styles are some variation of Tough Love.

If Gunslinger Girl can be faulted for anything, it is that it has no concern for anything resembling a larger plot or resolution. Even though each vignette is placed against the backdrop of a war between the fanatical Republican Faction and the morally ambivalent Social Welfare Agency, the relationship between it and the character drama is tenuous at best.

Inevitably enough, one starts to recognize that Gunslinger is not about bad-asses in kawaii dressing designed for people with a lolicon fetish. But rather, Gunslinger cuts to the heart of what what moé appeal is really about — the need to protect and nurture that which appears to be in need of protection.

These girls have nothing left to live for, but yet they are placed in a conscienceless existence devoted to murder. Thus, they are constantly working for the approval of a welfare organization that has little to do with the humanitarian, waiting for the day they die knowing that they can never grow up.

Naughty Ninja just discovered a very bizarre magical bishoujo revisioning of the Powerpuff Girls, which suffice to say is the strangest cultural feedback loop I’ve seen. It defies Understanding, and by that I mean, trying to comprehend it in some form other than a mindwank academic fuckpiece piled with CTheory-type textual hypnotics.

I mean think about it: The Powerpuff Girls was born from a mutant blend of exported Japanese kawaii aesthetic crossbred with the aesthetic affectations of children’s storybooks. And now Cartoon Network wants to take that and pump it BACK into the J-pop machine.

Crazy!

Naughty Ninja recommends the following related links, she came across them mostly because she was dying to know what the magical transforming sequences looked like:

Official Demashita!Powerpuff Girls Z trailer on YouTube - Features glimpses of the revamped Professor, Mojo Jojo, Mayor and Ms. Bellum.

D!PPGZ Wikipedia Entry - Small and not entirely well written, but details some of the key differences between the original and upcoming series.

Online Power Puff Girls Doujinshi at Snafu Comics - Fans claim the new anime series is based on this, or “how things should have been done”. Enjoy the doujinshi for what it is, with cameos from Samurai Jack, Courage the Cowardly Dog, and Dexter the boy genius. Unfortunately, it features tasteless energy balls in the first arc. It makes up for it with Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon parodies in the second.

The form, spectacle, and popularity of yaoi (boy and boy love comics) has always been of high debate and controversy. Most experts and pundits can't even settle on a definition, let alone finalize speculations of why the biggest fans of yaoi are heterosexual women. The following two articles supply an introduction to yaoi, and cover various topics at differing depths from entirely different approaches to the subject matter. (All bold emphasis mine)

Mark McLelland attempts to phenomenologically understand the genre in "Why Are Japanese Girls' Comics Full of Boys Bonking?"

These stories about men bonking created by and for women do not trivialise gay life because they are not about 'gay' men. In women's yaoi fiction, homosexual love has been naturalised which is why so many of the stories are situated in futuristic fantasy societies where the political divides over sex and gender issues that polarise contemporary communities are largely redundant.

"Yaoi Ronsō:Discussing Depictions of Male Homosexuality in Japanese Girls' Comics, Gay Comics and Gay Pornography" by Wim Lunsing is a more recent one that's a heavier but rewarding read:

In 1992, Satō Masaki, a gay activist/civil servant/drag queen, harshly attacked yaoi—using the term in a personifying manner: he attacked women who draw and read yaoi—with the phrase: 'yaoi nan tte shinde shimaeba ii' [that yaoi may die]. He did this in the minikomishi [small-scale non-commercial magazine] Choisir, a feminist magazine devoted to the discussion of female sexuality by women. He felt that his human rights as a gay man were harmed by women drawing and enjoying yaoi manga. He compared them to the 'dirty old men' [hentai jijii] who watch pornography including women engaging in sexual activities with each other. In addition, he accused yaoi of creating and having a skewed image of gay men as beautiful and handsome and regarding gay men who do not fit that image and tend to 'hide in the dark' as 'garbage' [gomi]. In addition, he attacked them for creating the 'gay boom', a media wave of interest in gay issues sparked by women's magazine Crea, which, according to him, did nothing for gay men at large.

*Above image taken from the two volumed manga Passion; story by Shinobu Gotoh and art by Shoko Takaku.

There’s little dispute among most that ‘harem anime’ love comedies thrive on formula. Few distinguish themselves beyond the pretty boys and physical comedy for one to be even worth recommending against another. As Theodore Sturgeon put it so eloquently, “Ninety percent of everything is crud.” However, every once in a while, a promising gem emerges from the rabble. After all, Sturgeon’s famous words also implied that ten percent of everything ISN’T crud, and that in my opinion, is certainly the case for Ouran High School Host Club.

Its clear that Ouran is unapologetic in getting its shoujo on — an immense amount of roses, sakura petals, and intricate lace borders decorate the opening sequence (as well as in the episodes themselves) with a clear ironic intent, and bounces to the beat of an opening theme reeking of hyperactive genki energy. The opening theme, Sakura Kiss, has the earnest Chieko Kawabe sings, “The reason for which people fall in love, is different for everyone but– maybe you’re my love.” the last hopeful sentence sung in sweet Engrish.

Essentially a fast paced comedy, the titular Host Club of Ouran is an exclusive social group where six gorgeous boys surround themselves with things of beauty and using their refined manners to entertain female guests with innocent fliration. The most engaging component of Ouran is in the intense polarization between its protagonist, Fujioka Haruhi, a “studious commoner” student on scholarship who could care less about the high society trappings of opulence, beauty and wealthy refinement and Tamaki Suoh, the Host Club’s reigning bishounen King.

But the show’s penchant for the unapologetic does not merely lie in its self-conscious air of visual winks and nudges, but in the metafictional gags as well, which while not entirely novel are witty enough in execution. In one instance, Tamaki declares, “Yes! This is a love school comedy to begin with! Haruhi and I are the main characters of this love comedy. Obviously, the rest of you are homo side characters.” He finishes by brandishing a stick and drawing a line between his importance to the plot and the supporting characters ostensible destiny as mere filler.

It has been pointed out by viewers that Ouran has the potential to be the next Fruits Basket, but seven episodes in, and we’ve yet to see any deep emotional confessions, romantic hijinks, relational development, or dark and painful familial past. The general flow of the show seems to swing between two basic plots: Tamaki’s awkward and bizarre attempts to gain intimacy with Haruhi and his crusades towards granting the wishes of the heart to men and women alike.

If there’s anything it can be faulted for, it’s that it doesn’t give much of an impression that it plans to go anywhere in particular with its premise. Nonetheless, even though I may not know what’s going to happen at the end of the road, I’m pretty much enjoying the ride.

Related Links Sakura Kiss, Anime Opening - On YouTube. Not of the best quality, but you can generally get the feel of the series.

For Richer or Poorer - A large fansite dedicated to both the anime and manga title. Holds an obscene amount of content: information, profiles, summaries, screen captures, galleries, a forum, etc.

Ouran Koukou Host Club Icon Awards - As always, livejournal supplies a healthy amount of fandom, both in healthy and wanky variants. This particular community concentrates on themed icon contests.