my obsession continues

[insaneneko]

When I need to come up with the Japanese characters for a name or title, I sometimes get lazy (or am on a computer without Japanese input capability) so I google the romaji and look for a result that will provide the characters that I can then cut and paste. Well, I needed Konohara Narise's name in kanji so googled her and came across her official website suion. The most useful thing from that page is list of novels (which includes the illustrator).

An interesting link from her site is for the writing unit she is currently part of, Unit Vanilla. I don't recognize the other three writers, but it seems odd to have a four person writing unit, frankly. How does four people co-write anything in an efficient way? In any case, their first project Sasra is currently being published in Shousetsu BeBoy, to finish pretty soon. I assume a novel will be published some time afterwards. In any case, I was excited to see that the illustrator is ENJIN YAMIMARU, the illustrator of the Nijuu Rasen novels and artits of Voice or Noise, among other things. The introduction makes the story sound amusingly tragic: A couple had committed some sin/crime in the distant past and were punished with the horrible fate of being reborn to meet and fall in love with each other, but their love each time is forbidden. It sounds so bad, but with Konohara-sensei in the mix I can't quite dismiss it. I look forward to the novel to find out if it's any good (and to see the pretty pictures!).

Also came up with an interesting (but ultimately confusing) blog post regarding some discussion on AMLA that turned to how well BL novels will fare in the West. I do wonder why one of the first BL authors chosen was Konohara Narise, since as someone named Emi is mentioned to note that "Most Japanese BL readers find her works offensive and unenjoyable, and only a minority of core fans love them. Even her fans say that they have to be in the right mindset before reading one of her novels, and they often leave them with a ‘bad after taste’. (’Don’t Worry Mama’ is the lightest thing she’s ever written, but still…let’s just say her novels are not at all representative of the BL novel genre.)" Oh man, you can say that again.

On a side note, I found a basic attitude of some of the discussion mentioned based on a fallacy. They make it sound like Western works are all well-written...Um...Have they picked up and read some of the crap that are bestsellers? The writing can be atrocious! -_- Perhaps they have standards, but we are talking about the general public. As long as it's not illegible I don't think a lot of people will necessarily be turned off by not so good writing, sadly. (And come on, some of the crap manga that are insanely popular with the fangirls is pretty damn indicative...)

And speaking of BL in English, an interesting article titled "Drawn Together: The surging popularity of yaoi—graphic boy-on-boy comics—might be the genre's downfall", the type of article that can't help but make me chuckle as I see one generalization and/or simplification after another.

Comments

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Wow! 'Offensive and unenjoyable'? It kind of makes me wonder what her other stories are about. o_0 I imagine making the story be about some creepy stalkery-obsessive relationship that doesn't end in true love forever but rather in disturbing-codependence forever is the ne plus ultra of offensive and unenjoyable for readers, but you said this was an extreme for her. But clearly someone must like it, if the books sell well enough for her to be a recognized author.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

I think people will find a story offensive and unenjoyable simply because it betrays the expectations and conventions of the genre. While the stories themselves may not be extraordinarily twisted or disturbing, the characters don't act in accordance to loosely held the "rules of conduct" I tend to see in BL.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

I guess I can't really be offended by a story for failing to be written accordingly to the conventions of a genre... But I tend to be easily bored by genres, I suppose.

[wednesday-10-00.livejournal.com]

I saw that article too, and had a good laugh at their little pronunciation lesson. (See, this is why we should all just call it BL, not yaoi.) Also amusing is this blog (http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/MPerkins/?adate=11/04/2006) reaction. (This person is disturbed by stepbrothers? I guess they didn't read the article long enough to get to the part about Papa to Kiss in the Dark...?)

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Oh man, if they got a hold of Papa to...*chuckles* But why do these articles always take a rather extreme or unique example to make their point? Talk about not very good journalism (if that is what they are trying to do).

I don't really see "yaoi" used commercially. I don't know if it's because I'm oblivious and am overlooking its usage, though.

[wednesday-10-00.livejournal.com]

My guess is that they just don't know enough about the subject matter to realize what's extreme or not.

Heh, yeah, I think you haven't seen enough translated stuff if you don't see it commercially. Amazon marks all BL manga and novels yaoi (right in the title, like: "Little Butterfly Volume 1 (Yaoi)," so you can't possibly miss it) and DMP has either "Yaoi novel" or "Yaoi manga" on a big bar on all their books.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I wasn't bothered to say it on the ML itself but I suspect Konohara was picked precisely because she kept getting brought up in AMLA discussions! :P I think it's one of the places the publishing people watch to see what names are being bandied around.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Well, it helps that her writing is actually pretty good for the genre. I have no idea if the publishers look at that kind of thing, though.

[anderson-t.livejournal.com]

Hi, caught your link on my blog stats.

What is it that's confusing you about my entry? While the issue in the entry was how well BL novels [Light novels from Japan] will do in the West with ‘lit readers’. Light novels are, by their very definition, in Japan, written for and read by, fans of manga/anime. It's the same simple structure employed when making 'pulp novels' here in the west. The reason I chose to write about light novels from a BL standpoint is because 1 [I'm a creator and pundit in the genre] and 2. [the harsh reviews coming from 'lit sites' about BL novels]. What I brought up at AMLA was, what I think is being lost on critics is that many BL novels from Japan suffer from simplicity, and coupled with the unfortunate side affect of being translated from Japanese, just makes it harder for new audiences to unaccustomed to manga, to give them a try. They won’t make non-manga reading/anime fans like them all too much; but then again, die hard lit readers still turn their noses up at 'pulp’ [DH Press is licensing and producing those ATM] and fanfic. ^_-

As a fanatical Narise reader [I adore her work]; I wondered why DMP/JUNE chose to license her works to intro BL Novels to their BL manga market. Emi wondered the same; we 'were not dissing her' mind you, but because she does tend to specialize in morally ambiguous seme, and unusual relationship plots, she is an acquired taste. Considering the DMP/June age demographic, its little wonder many of the 'yaoi review sites' are chiming in with ew, and wtf. Narise fans know what she's all about--some young fen will never get it, nor will they try.

-Tina Anderson

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks for the background on the discussion. It makes a lot more sense that you are in part reacting to reviews that are judging the works from too high a standard.

I was very surprised to find out that Konohara-sensei's novels had already been translated. I can't imagine recommending her novels to most people in general, let alone the vast majority of people who read BL in English. Can who the illustrator of the novels be significant when the publishers chose the works they pick up?

[anderson-t.livejournal.com]

I’ve noticed with the DMP contingent {I know that sounds so insulting...] that it can hurt sometimes. There've been Novels released with a high name mangaka, and then their fans get them [DMP/JUNE shrink wraps even the novels] and these fans come to the forum highly angry because they've only got about five pages of art from their favorite mangaka, and a 'novel' that doesn't seem well written. [Basically because a. they're not fiction readers on average and likely didn't bother to read the book or b. they're lit savvy and wouldn't appreciate light novels or any form of western pulp either.] But again, the only time I've seen BL novels brought over with a known artist and an unknown [unknown in the west, mind you] writer, they always meet with the typical reaction described above.