your daily dose of manga-related ranting
Jul. 8th, 2005 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceruseeHello. Wait. Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the bad dubs? I think fanboys and I have very different standards for what makes a good or bad dub. Elitist little pricks. Oh noes. Eva will be seen by an even bigger American audience. Now the world ends.
>_>
::cough:: Moving on.
Apparently, the English release of 20th Century Boys is going to be delayed until after the full English release of Monster. This is at Naoki Urusawa's request, because he wants people to be able to see the evolution in his art style. I'm disappointed that I'm going to have to wait on 20th Century Boys (not least because it's ongoing, and I'm not even up to date on the latest Japanese volumes, because I stopped reading scanlations when it was licensed), but that seems like a valid reason to me. I wondered about the incessant delay on Monster (I think they had Monster licensed for months before they announced a release date), given that it's been complete for ages, and it's the natural predecessor to 20th Century Boys. Here's to hoping that Monster comes out in a timely fashion.
Headline from USA Today: "Japanese manga takes humongous step." Shut up, USA Today. "Japanese manga" is redundant. Say "Japanese comic books" if you worry about people not knowing what manga is.Elitist fangirl Ceru, get back in the box.
The CosmoGIRL thing? It's not Japanese-language, nor is it translated from Japanese. The author of the strip, Svetlana Chmakova, is not Japanese. But her characters have big eyes and live in Tokyo--hence, manga. They're doing that thing where they say "manga," because god forbid we should call a comic book a comic book. (Remember: comic books=bad and stupid. Graphic novels=art. Manga=if it is in any way, shape or form, even peripherally related to anything Asian, even if it's just that the author once visited Beijing when she was five. Or even if they didn't, but felt like calling it manga because comic books are teh ick, but her comic books are SPESHUL.) KILL KILL KILL.
Actually, the article does at one point call her work "manga-style," instead of manga, which is perfectly fucking okay with me, because heaven knows there are real stylistic differences between American and Japanese comic books, and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging your influences, or trying to emulate a style you like. But there's still blatant misuse of terminology all over the place, and it makes my inner prescriptivist squirm and shriek. This isn't language shift in response to genuine need, it's marketing shit and people who have no idea what they're talking about. Manga is hot, manga is the buzzword, and so like all buzzwords, it's being overused to the point of having no actual meaning.
In other news, while I have no intention or reading them, I heartily approve of the Harlequin romance/manga adaptation thing.Manga-style. Style! Arrgh! They talk about the "younger audience," and what they mean is, they're going to actually try to create and sell English comic books for girls again. Go, Dark Horse. They still get mad props from me for standing by the editorial decision to flip Ghost in the Shell.
Anyway, the part about this article that pushed me over from irritated-in-passing to raving madgirl was the "Japanese manga" thing. Because not only is the phrase redunant, it's an inaccurate redundancy here. Of the four manga-related phenomena they mention in this article--CosmoGIRL, the Harlequins, the novelizations, and Shoujo Beat--Shoujo Beat is the only one that is both Japanese and comic book-related (in the sense that it's pushing translated Japanese imports even harder at girls in hopes of expanding the American market, which does matter to Japanese creators). English Harlequin comics, novelizations, and manga-style comics mean diddly-squat to the Japanese, who are in no way involved in the process. In other words, even if you think manga is a generic term for comic books, and that it's necessary to distinguish between American manga and Japanese mangathan I will come to your house with a baseball bat, see if I don't it's still not a humongous step forward for Japanese manga, because it's a step forward for American manga.
>_>
::cough:: Moving on.
Apparently, the English release of 20th Century Boys is going to be delayed until after the full English release of Monster. This is at Naoki Urusawa's request, because he wants people to be able to see the evolution in his art style. I'm disappointed that I'm going to have to wait on 20th Century Boys (not least because it's ongoing, and I'm not even up to date on the latest Japanese volumes, because I stopped reading scanlations when it was licensed), but that seems like a valid reason to me. I wondered about the incessant delay on Monster (I think they had Monster licensed for months before they announced a release date), given that it's been complete for ages, and it's the natural predecessor to 20th Century Boys. Here's to hoping that Monster comes out in a timely fashion.
Headline from USA Today: "Japanese manga takes humongous step." Shut up, USA Today. "Japanese manga" is redundant. Say "Japanese comic books" if you worry about people not knowing what manga is.
The CosmoGIRL thing? It's not Japanese-language, nor is it translated from Japanese. The author of the strip, Svetlana Chmakova, is not Japanese. But her characters have big eyes and live in Tokyo--hence, manga. They're doing that thing where they say "manga," because god forbid we should call a comic book a comic book. (Remember: comic books=bad and stupid. Graphic novels=art. Manga=if it is in any way, shape or form, even peripherally related to anything Asian, even if it's just that the author once visited Beijing when she was five. Or even if they didn't, but felt like calling it manga because comic books are teh ick, but her comic books are SPESHUL.) KILL KILL KILL.
Actually, the article does at one point call her work "manga-style," instead of manga, which is perfectly fucking okay with me, because heaven knows there are real stylistic differences between American and Japanese comic books, and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging your influences, or trying to emulate a style you like. But there's still blatant misuse of terminology all over the place, and it makes my inner prescriptivist squirm and shriek. This isn't language shift in response to genuine need, it's marketing shit and people who have no idea what they're talking about. Manga is hot, manga is the buzzword, and so like all buzzwords, it's being overused to the point of having no actual meaning.
In other news, while I have no intention or reading them, I heartily approve of the Harlequin romance/manga adaptation thing.
Anyway, the part about this article that pushed me over from irritated-in-passing to raving madgirl was the "Japanese manga" thing. Because not only is the phrase redunant, it's an inaccurate redundancy here. Of the four manga-related phenomena they mention in this article--CosmoGIRL, the Harlequins, the novelizations, and Shoujo Beat--Shoujo Beat is the only one that is both Japanese and comic book-related (in the sense that it's pushing translated Japanese imports even harder at girls in hopes of expanding the American market, which does matter to Japanese creators). English Harlequin comics, novelizations, and manga-style comics mean diddly-squat to the Japanese, who are in no way involved in the process. In other words, even if you think manga is a generic term for comic books, and that it's necessary to distinguish between American manga and Japanese manga
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no subject
on 2005-07-08 06:01 pm (UTC)They're all comics, of one form or another, but I am perfectly happy using "manga" to refer to even the OEL manga (original English language - better term than 'Amerimanga'), because I am attempting to sell a manga-style comic to a company that calls it manga. If they will potentially pay me, I'll call it whatever the hell they want me to call it.
no subject
on 2005-07-08 07:13 pm (UTC)I'm sure there are some creators who are guilty of misappropriation--I remember a guy who turned up on fandom_wank claiming that his wife's comic was manga because a) it had gay stuff, and b) he thought manga was better than comic books, and he didn't want his wife's Art confused with comic book trash--but the guiltiest parties in my eyes are the publishers who've turned it into a buzzword, and the reporters who can't be bothered to do any research, have no idea what they're talking about, and just parrot what the PR departments tell them.
because I am attempting to sell a manga-style comic to a company that calls it manga. If they will potentially pay me, I'll call it whatever the hell they want me to call it.
The nature of the bandwagon may bug me, but I don't think I can blame artists for jumping on it unless they run around telling people not to confuse them with those trashy comic book artists. Hunger and ambition I can forgive, just not pretention and ignorance. And you know your shit.
no subject
on 2005-07-08 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-07-08 08:01 pm (UTC)