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OTAKU_BELLE

                                             April 7, 2014

                                     And it might be best to read that
                                     first, so that you'll understand
                                     the degree to which the following
Posted as comment to:                is intended not to make sense.

   [ref]


I don't understand, what was so hard to follow about it?
(If you can follow the physical action in manga, you can
follow anything-- I sometimes think they all need to read
the complete works of Jack Kirby-- but then, what's really
going on in manga is an emphasis on different things--
American super-hero outfits are incredibly boring (so as
to be easier to draw, and presumably to symbolize public
nudity) and it's exteremly difficult to go back to them
after you've been reading the Black Butler, Skip Beat or
One Piece -- and what kind of wimp Otaku would balk at
issue 20?  You can't even get through "Hikaru no Go" in 20
volumes.)

Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" lost me early on
because he kept harping on sequence when he needed to talk
about narrative-- for which sequential images are just a
tool, not any transcendent breakthrough on their own (a
single panel "Far Side" is not a radically different form
than a multi-panel one).

And as for Wolves, yeah obviously there's "Wolf's Rain"
(a tad dull, but a Yoko Kanno soundtrack cures all ills,
except perhaps with "Earth Maiden Arjuna" which collapses
under the weight of bad 3D and is best listened to in
audio-only form).

But what's wrong with "Kamisama Kiss", anyway?
(Though I confess that I've just been watching the       (I switched to the
anime, but then it's one of the interesting cultural      manga soon after,
puzzles of J-culture, the anime only rarely differs       and like it better.)
much from the manga).  Anyway, I see you and raise
you "Fruits Basket" (though that has no wolves in it
either, though rats are prominent).

It is interesting to see Crooked Timber ramping up it's
coverage of otaku-fodder-- it may seem a little late to
the game, but it does put it way ahead of the rather
musty-and-fusty New York Review, for example.  I look
forward to the inevitable Serious Coverage of topics
such as moe and pedophilia, implicit racial issues,
reactions to post World War II trauma-- and an
interesting question with me: is shojou anti-feminist           SKIP_BEAT 
(or perhaps pre-feminist) or is it groping toward it's
own alternate conception of feminism?.                          TSUNDERE

And how about the thesis that the cooperative,
non-individualistic nature of Japanese culture
lends itself to an incremental, evolving
creativity-- a review of Azuma's "Japan's
Database Animals" might make a convenient frame.            OTAKU_BASE
                                                           
Though one might use that as a lead-in to the increasingly      
self-referential nature of manga/anime where otaku, where       
maid cafes and cosplayers are increasingly likely to appear     
in the narrative (Sket Dance, Steins;Gate, East of Eden).       
                                                                
                                                               
                                            STEINS_GATE

                         SKET_DANCE


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