what I did on my summer vacation

[cerusee]

Since returning from vacation, I have done four things, and four things only: worked, stressed, bought manga, and read manga.* I've been buying stuff faster than I've been reading it lately--that's what happens when you work overtime in a bookstore--and I have a tall stack of books piled by my bedside I've mostly been ignoring in favor of the scads of Here is Greenwood** lent to me by a friend. Yesterday, I bought the first volumes of Red River, Case Closed, Doubt, and Hot Gimmick***, and was flipping through them while waiting for my coffee. I started comparing the first pages of each of them, and mulling on what makes for a really strong opening page.

The first page of Hot Gimmick, for instance, looks pretty weak in comparison to Red River. Hot Gimmick's first page is one full-page panel depicting a clear sky. The only text is the (then) anonymous narrator stating that she lives in company housing, and then explaining what company housing is. Not very riveting. Red River's first page is divided into three panels: two small upper panel, and one larger panel at the bottom, featuring the presumed protagonist, in a passionate embrace with a boy. The text is the protagonist's voice, identifying herself, and saying that this is her first kiss.

These are both multi-volume shoujo titles (last I heard, Hot Gimmick was up to about ten volumes in English, Red River around twelve); one a domestic teen romance/drama, the other a teen historical fantasy--both genres I like, and I know approximately the same amount of the story for both. If I were sixteen, and had ten dollars to spend, and my mother or father was standing a few feet away, urging me to just pick a book so we could go home--? I'd take Red River in a heartbeat, even though I'm pickier about fantasy titles than I am about domestic drama. I'm not sixteen, and I spend more on manga than on any other form of entertainment, so I bought both. But most people don't buy dozens of books based on casual recommendations, or because a customer liked it, or because they want to maintain a firm grasp on the unofficial title of "Local Manga Expert."


Nothing I bought yesterday, by the way, hooked me the way a really good opening page can--I can think of about four manga I've read in the last year where I picked up the first volume and was stunned by the first page: Alice 19th, Othello, Please Save My Earth, and Crossroad.**** When I say stunned, I'm talking about having looked at the page, with no sense at all of what was to follow, and instantly wanting to read on, but being so captivated by the sense of anticipation that I had to take a moment to just look at it. I don't mean "marveling at the art"--good art helps, but it can't, by itself, create that kind of emotional hook without the writing or the page layout to back it up. It's the kind of thing that can only be put together when the creator already knows what the heart of the story is, and when she has the skill to convey it in a few words or images.

When I got home, I spent an hour or so pulling manga I'd already read off of the bookshelves to look at the first pages again, comparing and contrasting, trying to figure out what the common elements were in the really good first pages, counting how many pages it took before I'd see, say, a clear image of the main characters, or hear their voices, or get a sense of the plot. I also sifted through the pile of unread books, making snap judgements about what I was most interested in reading, based on the first pages. I wondered if, should I ever get access to a scanner, I would have enough different titles to take all these first pages and do a serious comparison of them for, say, manga_talk, so I started counting, and realized I have seventy-three.***** Seventy-three different titles, mind you; the number of actual books is considerably higher, what with eight volumes of Tramps Like Us and ten of Petshop of Horrors and whatnot.


Which brings me to the real point of this post, which is that I need another bookcase. Again.



*Things I have not done since returning from vacation include: laundry, grocery shopping, or any cleaning of the apartment whatsover.

**Here is Greenwood is a classic shoujo school series which reads a lot like Maison Ikkoku or an Ai Yazawa title in the sense that you spend up to an entire volume not really liking the characters and wondering why this is so popular, and then, suddenly, in the second volume, you realize you're totally hooked and love everybody and would cheerfully read another fourteen or so books worth of it.

***Popularly known on my flist as "the manga of feminist shame."

****A Go! Comi title I bought literally the first time I saw in on a bookstore shelf, without even looking at it, based on the fact that it's a Go! Comi title. Go! Comi also publishes Cantarella and Her Majesty's Dog, two of the best new titles around that nobody besides octopedingenue seems to be reading. Shame on you all.

*****Seventy-six, counting the OEL.

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I've got volume 1 of Cantarella, but am only about 3/4 of the way trhough it because it's just not gripping me. Ah well.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

FROWNY FACE.

I dunno. Melodramatic historical Italian fantasy with a hot, bisexual, incestuous, menage a trois subtext might be a kind of niche taste, maybe?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It's the characters - there's no character that's interesting enough to grab my attention or sympathy, and the crack!manga component isn't high enough for me to read it regardless (One thousand and one nights being in the crack department). *whine*

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I've had that problem many times before. Generally, if there isn't someone around to shove, oh, eight volumes into my hands and assure me it'll get better, I won't bother to read very much of anything that doesn't have at least one character I like.

(What's One thousand and one nights? Any relation to the actual Arabian Nights?)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

My quick review of it. In the comments I've linked to the cover, which features the hot mad sultan. It's borrowed the structure from the Arabian Nights, but Scherazade is male with a sister who wants to marry him. :D

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Incestalicious, indeed!

It's so totally probably not my thing, but I'll try almost anything on recommendation, and also it vaguely reminds me of Petshop of Horrors. Off to the bookstore! Assuming I manage to pay rent this month, that is.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Lol. I have been reading Her Majesty’s Dog as well. I have about as many books as you, but I think our tastes tend to run a bit on the opposite shoujo side. (My must-haves are Hana-kimi, Host Club, Vampire Game, and Death Note.)I either haven't picked up any of those series, or have put them down after one volume. (Except for HMD) Out of curiosity how do you feel about titles that have the first page or two in color? (xxxHolic, Tsubasa, etc)

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Hana-Kimi is one of my Dearly Beloveds, as is Death Note (up until chapter fifty-something, anyhoo). Vampire Game, I know nothing of, although I will look at it next time I see it around. I took an instant dislike to the chaotic art style of the first chapter of Host Club, and have ignored it ever since; that's one of those things I'd read if someone lent it to me, or if sixteen billion customers bought it (I will read popular shit just to have a sense of what our target demographics are reading and looking for, even if I don't like it, which is why I bought Loveless. I am taking bets on whether or not I can get through it, though. Christ, but those ears make my stomach hurt.)

I certainly don't mind stuff where the first page or two is in color, although I think it hurts a book if colored pages are reprinted in black and white--painted color converted to grayscale looks hideous; I remember thinking that the art in the beginning of Maison Ikkoku was blotchy and awful, because I didn't realize it was originally in color. I'm inclined to think that as eye-catching as color can be, whether a book starts in black and white or color is less important than what kind of information you get about the protagonist, whether there's any focal point on that first page--it can have color or not, but what matters is how well it will work to grab someone's interest, not only in the art, but in the story.

(xxxHolic and Tsubasa, alas, I classify as "the CLAMP I hate." I just want 'em to finish X.)

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Everyone has a wacky, bizarre title and Host Club is mine for some reason. (I think it's the crazy twins.) Vampire Game is one of my favorites that isn't completed, but the next volume (15) is the last. CLAMP is hit and miss Sakura, Tsubasa and Holic are the only ones I have liked thus far.
I am not a fan of the color pages. I think they look funny, especially when compaired to the rest of the book.
what kind of shelving and what kind of order you you have your books shelved?

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Alphabetical by author. ^_^ I used to do it by title, which is how bookstores do it, but I felt silly having oh, four Yuu Watase titles all in different places, and arranging it by author helps me to learn and remember the names of manga-ka. Besides, that's how all my other fiction is arranged.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Ah. Mine is set up like the bookstore, by title. It makes it easier for me to leave a few volumes worth of space on the shelves where I know I have continuing series. My other fiction is agganged by book/series in general order that I liked the book. From The Last Unicorn> Harry Potter > Toni Morrison(yuck!)
What do you read outside of manga?

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

At the moment? Terry Pratchett. I think the last non-manga book I read that wasn't Pratchett was John Bettancourt's prequel to Amber, and that was only okay. Before the two-foot manga stack, though, I read science fiction, poetry, books about fairy tales and mythology, the very occasional comic book--that was severely curtailed in favor of manga--and anything people, espcially family members, recommend to me that they actually put in my hands.

[thawrecka]

I haven't read Red River at all, but Hot Gimmick is the manga of deep feminist shame and as enjoying as it's trainwreck is I never recommend anyone read it.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Hot Gimmick is the title I'm most often told not to read by people who follow it religiously. It's the Weiss Kreuz of shoujo manga.