manga for males
Feb. 26th, 2006 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
insanenekoA while back I had an interesting email exchange with a guy friend after I had sent him a link to an article on hikikomori. He started telling me about a manga about a hikikomori that he was following. He also proceeded to tell me about several manga he's following that he thought I might enjoy. I never actually see this friend much, but yesterday when our group had a get together we both showed up for, he lent me two series. Both are VERY male-oriented, but they have nice art and I skimmed them today (while snuggled under the covers--I hate rainy cold days >_<).
The first, NHK ni youkoso!, is being scanlated by some group or another. Here's a little intro I stole from the scanlators:
There's a huge conspiracy in Japanese society. The famous TV channel, NHK, brainwashes everyone with extreme cuties, making them starve for an nonexistant ideal... or so thinks the main character, Satou.
After living totally secluded (hikikomori) for 4 years, he meets one of his kouhai, and start developing ero-ero games with him. On the other hand, he meets with a (girl) sempai he used to love, and Misaki, who tries to help him cure his hikikomori...
A well-plotted critic of the modern Japan, broaching many topics such as suicide, paranoia, lolita complex, drugs, seclusion, lack of self-confidence, etc. The whole put through weird but really funny characters.
It is funny and perverted and kind of disjointed (characters--usually the main one--keep slipping into perverted and not so perverted fantasies so I get confused as to what is reality) and the characters are extreme. Satou starts out seemingly like a not too odd otaku hikikomori...but you find out that he's rather disturbed. As is Misaki, the girl (with her own problems you later find out about) who is trying to "save" him. But I couldn't really get into the story because I couldn't make a real connection to the characters. There were several moments that moved me, that were quiet and simple but very effective. Otherwise? Lots of insanity and weirdness.
I do love that the title is a Eva parody (at least, I think it is). And the covers! I swear they are parodies of the Eva DVD covers!
I enjoyed the second series, Genshiken, more because I could relate to it. I found out from some online searching that it's been made into an anime, and that both anime and manga are coming out in English. The book description from Amazon:
It’s the spring of freshman year, and Kanji Sasahara is in a quandary. Should he fulfill his long-cherished dream of joining an otaku club? Saki Kasukabe also faces a dilemma. Can she ever turn her boyfriend, anime fanboy Kousaka, into a normal guy? Kanji triumphs where Saki fails, when both Kanji and Kousaka sign up for Genshiken: The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture.
Undeterred, Saki chases Kousaka through the various activities of the club, from costume-playing and comic conventions to video gaming and collecting anime figures–learning more than she ever wanted to about the humorous world of the Japanese fan . . .
These characters are much more the normal otaku. I mean, they are fucking weird geeks, but at least it's very easy to imagine these people existing. I love the presence of Saki, the non-otaku. She livens things up for this club that really does nothing. I also love that Kousaka, the otaku who doesn't look very otaku-like, is so unashamed and unconcerned about how others view his hobbies. I enjoyed seeing the club members attending the Comic Festival (the parody version of Comic Market) and buying up doujinshi like mad. Even if the doujinshi all featured big busted women from hentai games or whatever. ^^; I could relate to the experience, but I was insanely jealous that these non-working college students could afford to spend so much money on such things. I know it's easy to blow hundreds of dollars at events like these, after all. But the best part about reading this manga? Volume 6 (to be released in English in July) has a female otaku who, after helping the club put out their first male-oriented doujinshi and other incidents, decides to embrace her inner yaoi fangirl and do a female-oriented doujinshi. I love how the club president asks if she's going to do "Scram Dunk" and she replies that she's going to go with "Haregan" this time around. So transparently obvious as to what "real" series they are talking about. XDXD But what made the yaoi fangirl in me laugh out loud:
She walks in on two of her sempai. Sasahara is pulling on the tie of a sempai who's going to graduate and is looking for a job. The tie was made by a cosplay maniac club member, so Sasahara takes a look at it and pulls on it:
She later imagines the scene as:
"What is this tie? Are you thinking of leaving me behind and graduating?"
"N, no, this is..."
"Do you think you can escape...Do you think you can forget me?"
"Ku..."
LOL! OH HOW I CAN RELATE. Though to tell you the truth I've never even fantasized slashing real people, especially the people around me.
In any case, she idly doodles Sasahara in her sketchbook, only to have it seen by Saki, the non-otaku. Saki thinks that she likes Sasahara, which mortifies her. She can't quite come out and say she was having fantasies of a gay encounter between her sempai, so she hopes to clue Saki in with a drawing of her "pairing":
Note: They don't really look like that. ^^;
Saki, being the complete and utter non-otaku, thinks she's into BOTH guys. Later, she shows the sketches to the other female otaku in the club, who picks up on it immediately (well, in 1.5 seconds). I actually had my friend asking me what "tsuyoki seme" and "hetare seme" were because of the jargon thrown in at this point. I wonder how the English translation will handle them? XDXD
I was reading the reviews of the manga on Amazon and had to laugh at this:
I like this series but it just seems that the characters in it are a little too obsessed with pornography. Porno animes, porno anime computer games, porno manga, porno amateur manga. I mean to me, at least this is not what anime and manga are truly about. It would be fine if this manga was honest and declared itself a sexual comedy with a superficial layer of manga and anime over it. It just doesn't seem grounded in a love for those mediums. I like this manga ok, it just could've been so much more.
Superficial layer? Porn and doujinshi are a very big part of the anime and manga experience. I think it's just as legitimate as any mainstream manga/anime. He just doesn't get it. :P
The first, NHK ni youkoso!, is being scanlated by some group or another. Here's a little intro I stole from the scanlators:
There's a huge conspiracy in Japanese society. The famous TV channel, NHK, brainwashes everyone with extreme cuties, making them starve for an nonexistant ideal... or so thinks the main character, Satou.
After living totally secluded (hikikomori) for 4 years, he meets one of his kouhai, and start developing ero-ero games with him. On the other hand, he meets with a (girl) sempai he used to love, and Misaki, who tries to help him cure his hikikomori...
A well-plotted critic of the modern Japan, broaching many topics such as suicide, paranoia, lolita complex, drugs, seclusion, lack of self-confidence, etc. The whole put through weird but really funny characters.
It is funny and perverted and kind of disjointed (characters--usually the main one--keep slipping into perverted and not so perverted fantasies so I get confused as to what is reality) and the characters are extreme. Satou starts out seemingly like a not too odd otaku hikikomori...but you find out that he's rather disturbed. As is Misaki, the girl (with her own problems you later find out about) who is trying to "save" him. But I couldn't really get into the story because I couldn't make a real connection to the characters. There were several moments that moved me, that were quiet and simple but very effective. Otherwise? Lots of insanity and weirdness.
I do love that the title is a Eva parody (at least, I think it is). And the covers! I swear they are parodies of the Eva DVD covers!
I enjoyed the second series, Genshiken, more because I could relate to it. I found out from some online searching that it's been made into an anime, and that both anime and manga are coming out in English. The book description from Amazon:
It’s the spring of freshman year, and Kanji Sasahara is in a quandary. Should he fulfill his long-cherished dream of joining an otaku club? Saki Kasukabe also faces a dilemma. Can she ever turn her boyfriend, anime fanboy Kousaka, into a normal guy? Kanji triumphs where Saki fails, when both Kanji and Kousaka sign up for Genshiken: The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture.
Undeterred, Saki chases Kousaka through the various activities of the club, from costume-playing and comic conventions to video gaming and collecting anime figures–learning more than she ever wanted to about the humorous world of the Japanese fan . . .
These characters are much more the normal otaku. I mean, they are fucking weird geeks, but at least it's very easy to imagine these people existing. I love the presence of Saki, the non-otaku. She livens things up for this club that really does nothing. I also love that Kousaka, the otaku who doesn't look very otaku-like, is so unashamed and unconcerned about how others view his hobbies. I enjoyed seeing the club members attending the Comic Festival (the parody version of Comic Market) and buying up doujinshi like mad. Even if the doujinshi all featured big busted women from hentai games or whatever. ^^; I could relate to the experience, but I was insanely jealous that these non-working college students could afford to spend so much money on such things. I know it's easy to blow hundreds of dollars at events like these, after all. But the best part about reading this manga? Volume 6 (to be released in English in July) has a female otaku who, after helping the club put out their first male-oriented doujinshi and other incidents, decides to embrace her inner yaoi fangirl and do a female-oriented doujinshi. I love how the club president asks if she's going to do "Scram Dunk" and she replies that she's going to go with "Haregan" this time around. So transparently obvious as to what "real" series they are talking about. XDXD But what made the yaoi fangirl in me laugh out loud:
She walks in on two of her sempai. Sasahara is pulling on the tie of a sempai who's going to graduate and is looking for a job. The tie was made by a cosplay maniac club member, so Sasahara takes a look at it and pulls on it:
She later imagines the scene as:
"What is this tie? Are you thinking of leaving me behind and graduating?"
"N, no, this is..."
"Do you think you can escape...Do you think you can forget me?"
"Ku..."
LOL! OH HOW I CAN RELATE. Though to tell you the truth I've never even fantasized slashing real people, especially the people around me.
In any case, she idly doodles Sasahara in her sketchbook, only to have it seen by Saki, the non-otaku. Saki thinks that she likes Sasahara, which mortifies her. She can't quite come out and say she was having fantasies of a gay encounter between her sempai, so she hopes to clue Saki in with a drawing of her "pairing":
Note: They don't really look like that. ^^;
Saki, being the complete and utter non-otaku, thinks she's into BOTH guys. Later, she shows the sketches to the other female otaku in the club, who picks up on it immediately (well, in 1.5 seconds). I actually had my friend asking me what "tsuyoki seme" and "hetare seme" were because of the jargon thrown in at this point. I wonder how the English translation will handle them? XDXD
I was reading the reviews of the manga on Amazon and had to laugh at this:
I like this series but it just seems that the characters in it are a little too obsessed with pornography. Porno animes, porno anime computer games, porno manga, porno amateur manga. I mean to me, at least this is not what anime and manga are truly about. It would be fine if this manga was honest and declared itself a sexual comedy with a superficial layer of manga and anime over it. It just doesn't seem grounded in a love for those mediums. I like this manga ok, it just could've been so much more.
Superficial layer? Porn and doujinshi are a very big part of the anime and manga experience. I think it's just as legitimate as any mainstream manga/anime. He just doesn't get it. :P
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 07:02 am (UTC)If you get a chance to see it, the anime is quite good as well; it follows the manga quite closely and some of the humor works even better with motion and voice. The second season is supposed to debut in October of this year.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 07:48 am (UTC)I'm glad to hear the anime is good. Sometimes the adaptation just falls flat, especially for a series like this. I guess I'll need to check it out. XD