and yes, that's him in my icon. Isn't he pretty? He can act well, too.

[cerusee]

I'm really going to need to see this: a live action version of Tezuka's MW, starring my adored, the talented and charismatic Hiroshi Tamaki (aka, the swoonworthy Chiaki from the live-action Nodame Cantabile. Hiroshi charmed equally with sex appeal and by his willingness to make the most ridiculous and undignified faces known to man when his character goofed around with the titular Nodame, played by the equally charming Ueno Juri). I think it very likely that Hiroshi will be just as deliciously watchable as a charming, murderous sociopath as he was as a grumpy conducting student haunted by an uncouth piano student. And he'll be wearing sexy glasses and a nice suit! It's Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow all over again, folks--I'm a lost cause.

Which reminds me, one of these days, I need to get my hands on the Nodame Cantabile live action DVDs, preferably with English subtitles and in a format my DVD player can handle. That series was incomparably fun, and good enough to rewatch.

Comments

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I really love the Nodame Cantabile manga--Matt Thorn bitches endlessly about how the English translation is botched six ways to Sunday, and maybe he's right, but if so, it's mostly botched in ways that aren't apparent to me--but the live action series is my favorite iteration of the story because of unapologetic goofyness of the very talented actors. And the prettiness of the actors.

You know, I've never traditionally gone for the undignified schtick, but I enjoyed it so much with Nodame that I should try other things in that vein. The yakuza thing does sound entertaining.

TOKIO! A friend of mine in my library program--a Japanese American woman who's spent quite a lot of time in Japan--is an unrepentant fangirl of TOKIO. Many's the cataloging assignment study session we worked on together that was punctuated by her giggling over something crazy her favorite--Tatsu, I think?--said on his radio show. I barely know what TOKIO is, but it all entertained me immensely.

[m00nface.livejournal.com]

I actually don't know much about TOKIO, but they're next on my list to learn about - I recently did a presentation on Japanese TV that mentioned Johnny's a lot, but I actually don't know much about any of them, so was a little embarrassed to admit how little I know when people asked me afterwards who my favourites were. I'm unlikely to become a particular fan of anyone, but I need to be a bit more knowledgeable at least. I've been looking up loads of Arashi stuff on YouTube since an Arashi fan stayed with me for a month, but I loved Nagase so much in My Boss, My Hero that TOKIO have to be next,

The way I see it, now I can read Japanese I'd rather not look at the English translations, since something will almost inevitably be frustrating. It's a shame when a series you love gets altered beyond limits you consider acceptable, but that doesn't mean those alterations have ruined it, or removed any potential enjoyment for the people who are reading it. I won't be checking out the translation of 20th Century Boys, for example, but I'll assume when I talk to people who have become fans through the English language version that their enthusiasm exists on a level unaffected by the translation, in the characters' actions and story rather than a particular voice of a character. It's that old complaint about characters in live action adaptations not looking the same as the novel characters in your head.

The yakuza thing is thoroughly entertaining! It has some touching moments, when Makio has to struggle to stay polite while people are laughing at him for being unable to answer questions in class or trying to start fights with him, and later on in the series when he starts realising that he's actually benefiting from high school and starts to question his life so far and his priorities from now, but mostly it's an out-and-out comedy, and I love it for that. Like I said, if it's unapologetic goofiness you're after then My Boss, My Hero is a great example.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I generally hope that the translations I'm reading are faithful in the most important ways to the original text, but my focus tends to be more on, "is this translation coherent? interesting? aesthetically pleasing?" rather than on minute details and literal meaning, which will generally escape me anyway. I wish the trend in licensed translations these days wasn't so much on literalism, because it doesn't make for any better a translation or more satisfying a reading experience, and it fuels a truly obnoxious and asinine sense of entitlement on the part of some of the more hardcore manga-reading population in the US, a sense that it is possible, desirable, and necessary that the English-language releases of Japanese comics perfectly reproduce the experience of reading manga in Japan...as a Japanese person, speaking Japanese as a first language, reading Japanese with some variable level of mastery, possessing Japanese cultural values and a Japanese understanding of history. And that's just not possible. It's an unrealistic, counterproductive goal, and an immature approach to intercultural exchange, which is always a two-way process. The literalism fetish is about the exotic other as much as it is about respect for the originating culture, and, argh, I could just go on and on.

(I don't mean to say I have no interest in the original material, or the nature of changes made, by the way, or to say that there's something wrong with people caring about how good the translation is--I just object to the puritanical proselytizing that's so common in the US manga fandom, and the negative influence they've had on the industry. I don't think it's healthy.)

If I had good Japanese language reading/speaking skills, I might also eschew the translations, because I'd be in a position to opt for a different relationship with Japanese cultural products, and it can be hard to adjust yourself to compromises and mistakes in translation, both major and minor. I might not, though--I find the process of adaptation absolutely fascinating, and a translation is, by necessity, a process of adaptation, so it might interest me more than it would irritate me.