my obsession continues
Nov. 5th, 2006 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
insanenekoWhen 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.
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.