Manga Maniacs
We spent days, nay, weeks coming up with a title for this blog entry. Indeed, we could have put this entry up weeks ago had it not been for our quest for the perfect title.
"Manga Maniacs" it is then. Great isn't it? We're rather proud of that title. So allows us to feel a bit self-satisfied.
(feeling self-satisfied...)
Anyway, on with business
Or so you'd think. Rather, in tried and tested Funny Little Men style, we'll talk about other things first...
Divine intervention
All you faithful Funny Little Men viewers will be pleased to know that we diligently watched a few more episodes of the new Haruhi Suzumiya season so we can give you our infallible opinion.
Turns out that our infallible opinion is a divided one. Normally, you would expect your beloved Funny Little Men to be in complete mind-unison. All one of us. In total harmony. But this has us a bit stumped.
We all agree it's not as good as the first season. But is that because it actually isn't as good as the first season? Or did we put the first season on such a pedestal that it always was going to be like that?
No, it actually has lost some of its spark. Some of the light has gone out in Haruhi's over-sized, glossy cartoon eyes...
(Click here to read the rest of our Funny Little Diatribe. We just ended up cutting and pasting it onto another page. Even by Funny Little Men standards it was getting too self-indulgent.)
So, what was that witty title again?
"Manga Maniac", wasn't it? Yes, you see, we spent hours coming up with th... oh, we already told you, did we?
So anime is not providing us with enough thrills. Now what? Will we finally give up on this juvenile obsession for all things trashy and Japanese? Are we ready to move on to more refined cultural explorations? Is the pope a Muslim?
Don't worry, oh faithful flock, we shan't stray that easily, 'cause guess what this entry is about! What? You already guessed? Clever you. Was the title a give away?
Why yes, it's about manga
Yes, welcome to the murky world of manga as seen through the eyes of your trash-cultural guiding lights in a world of good-taste darkness, the Funny Little Men.
For a history of manga, just read this article. And report back to us what it says, we're too lazy to read it ourselves. We'd rather read actual manga than articles written about them. Guess we're not big on theories then.
Our main source of manga-reading at the moment is Onemanga. An online repository for scanlated manga's.
Here at the Funny Little Men compound, we have quite a sizeable collection of printed-on-paper-manga's. All for research reasons, you understand. But nothing prepared us for the sheer number of titles at a site like Onemanga. At our last visited, there were more than 900 titles in their collection. Some of them running for more than 200 chapters. And it's likely Onemanga only covers a fraction of the total manga output of Japan.
When we say that Onemanga contains more than 900 titles, we get a sense of deja-vu. Why of course, it's just like with anime, quantity versus quality. And when it comes to quantity, manga completely trumps anime. Consequently, there is even more rubbish manga than there is rubbish anime. Anime seems to have a natural upper limit to the amount of rubbishness allowed. Manga doesn't have any such qualms. Anything goes. Maybe it's because mangas are so cheap to produce compared to anime, maybe it's the cheer quantity required. It's not unheard for mangaka, or manga artists, to produce anything from 20 to 80 pages a week. How can ink even physically dry in that amount of time?
To sum it up: manga = quantity and we're clearly idiots for trying to write a blog-entry about the subject. People have written entire books about it and only managed to touch on a sub-section of the entire range of manga's. Even we, amazing as we are, can't possibly cover all of manga in one blog entry.
But here's another strange problem: we like the idea of manga better than the actual manga's themselves (up to a certain level, that's true for anime too). Allow us to explain: the visual vocabulary of manga is much more developed and refined than any other form of comics. One should never look at manga's as individual drawings. That would be as short-sighted as reading the individual words in a book. Manga's rely very heavily on layouts. Manga's are the only type of comics where you really can talk about "timing" and "flow". The idea behind the visual language of manga is to capture emotional states e.g. when a character behaves childish, the drawing of the character turns childish... Other comics styles can feel very primitive and linear once you're used to the much more organic flow of manga.
What they do with that language, however, isn't always that good. Some of these manga artists are the equivalent of a brilliant guitarist who always plays naff songs. Yes, it's technically brilliant, but the content is just painful. However, a fellow musician should be able to detect the brilliance despite all the naffness. Equally, we believe it's possible to see some real qualities through the fog of naff in the world of manga.
Shut up and get on with it, Funny Little Men!
Yes yes, we know, this is getting to be a long entry. Maybe we should resort to the old "top three list" of our favourite manga's. We like our top three lists here at Funny Little Men. And we're pretty sure everybody thinks they're incredibly interesting to read.
But we shall not give in to such popular demands. This is no democracy, dammit. Here's the plan: we will mentally prepare you for manga. Tell you what the typical styles, cliches, returning ideas, sub-genres... are. Here's what to look out for:
Shounen (Shonen): Boys comics. Lots of fighting, camaraderie, humour, adventures and so on. The odd busty girl may get thrown in, not a requirement but always appreciated.
Examples: Naruto, Dragon Ball, Bleach, One Piece.
Shoujo (Shojo): Girls comics. Lots of emphasis on emotional development, relationships and romance, art is more flowery and impressionistic. Lots of mysterious, dreamy boys.
Examples: Hot Gimmick, Sailor Moon, Clover, Cardcaptor Sakura
Magical Girls: Young girl gets special power that involves transforming. Apparently it symbolises coming of age. Most ridiculed genre out there.
Examples: Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Shugo Chara
Harem: This has to be one of the most overused story lines in the whole of Japanese popular culture. Essentially, it's sex-comedy: Mediocre boy gets himself surrounded by at least three gorgeous woman, each with a different personality, but they all fall for the boy. Female rivalry, and hilarity ensues. It's even better if the girls are aliens, apparently.
Examples: To LOVE Ru, Kannagi
Ecchi: Soft porn. Lots of panty shots, fan service, tight clothing, magic spells that make clothes disappear, blushing faces that suggest arousal... but nothing actually ever happens. Often goes hand in hand with Harem.
Examples: To LOVE Ru, Princess Lucia, I's
Loli: Short for Lolita. Any sexualised imagery with uncomfortably young girls. You pretty much can't avoid it. Goes hand in hand with ecchi.
High School: Every other story in Japan seems to take place in high school.
Examples: Bleach, To LOVE Ru, Kannagi, Neon Genesis Evangelion
Yaoi: Soft gay porn. Made by woman, read by woman.
Gag Manga: Often overlooked here in the west. The humour probably doesn't travel very well.
Example: Super Cruel And Terrible Tales Of Mangaka
Slice of life: Very popular in japan. Gentle little observations about everyday life. Completely non judgemental. Can feel vacuous for western tastes.
Examples: Sketchbook, Bartender
Psychics: You can't have manga without gifted children. Oh, and there is always a secret governmental organisation. With unlimited funds. A governmental organisation with unlimited funds and the ability to keep secrets? That's even more unlikely than the psychics kids.
Examples: Akira, Alive, the Final Evolution, Neon Genesis Evangelion
Horror: Japanese storytellers excel at horror. Worth checking out
Right, time to press that "publish" button. See ya.