What is "manga lifestyle"?
Is is just me or did Tokyopop quietly drop that phrase from the vocabulary of their press releases? Anyway, that's not the point. I wanted to talk about a movie and a TV show that actually are about, well, the "manga lifestyle."
KOI NO MON (OTAKUS IN LOVE)
Mon Aoki is an artist. A struggling artist. See, people just can't understand how great his art is. For he is an artist that makes manga. WITH ROCKS.
Our eccentric hero meets a young woman named Akashi Koino, who also happens to be a manga artist. Unfortunately, she is one of the more ... consumerist variety, creating doujinshi to be sold at Comiket, and also engaging in various forms of cosplay, which is how she spends her first night with Mon.
Thus begins a relationship that is at once dysfunctional and charming. Enter the proprietor of a "manga bar" (the next step up from a manga cafe, obviously) who just so happens to be a former big-name artist in the vein of Tezuka, right down to the beret when he actually draws, and soon a competition develops for Koino's affections. A competition that will only be resolved by entering a talent contest in a manga magazine and seeing who wins.
As a love story, this one truly pushes the boundaries of weird, and "normal" people just won't get it (they can go watch Winter Sonata for all I care anyway). But those who are "in" with the visual subculture will laugh along with the kookiness and cuteness and seeing themselves reflected in these passionate, obsessive characters. Dare I say it is more genuinely otaku than Train Man/Densha Otoko, which was kind of a mainstreamist story anyway, because it says that if you have otaku problems then you must first wash them out with grooming and fashion and only THEN will you find true love. But in Koi No Mon, these wild, otaku characters find true love with each other, sacrificing NOTHING, and keeping all their idiosyncrasies intact because they have found someone who can accept them AS THEY ARE. You don't need an internet to explain THAT.
Furthermore, our mythical train-riding hero was only a consumer anyway; he had all the figurines and manga volumes and anime DVDs and ero-games but never knew the true joy of creation like the characters of Koi No Mon did. Irrepressible fanboys are one thing; looking into the psychology of actual artists and creators is a totally different experience (I know first-hand how mentally deranged they can be) and this movie is one that truly brings it to light.
Plus, Koi No Mon has a cameo by Hideaki Anno! Does Train Man have Hideaki Anno? I don't think so!
Koi No Mon is based on a manga series of the same name.
HIMITSU NO HANAZONO
The title of this comedy J-drama is a pun: it means "The Secret Garden," but also "The Secret Hanazono." For you see, famous shoujo manga artist Yuriko Hanazono has a secret: she doesn't exist. Yuriko Hanazono is the pen-name of four eccentric brothers who just happen to be phenomenally good at creating hit girls' comics.
It has not gone unnoticed by viewers that this premise is basically a reverse-gendered CLAMP.
Kayo Tsukiyama discovers Hanazono's secret when she gets transferred from the fashion magazine at her publisher to the girls' manga magazine. The life of a manga editor is not an easy one, and managing four wacky brothers producing the magazine's flagship series just makes it tougher. Gradually Kayo learns the ways of the manga business, and maybe ... just maybe ... could there also be shades of romance?
Obviously, this is not a hard-hitting documentary exposé of the manga business. It's a TV comedy, and so has been romanticized and dramatized for effect. But from a character perspective, it gets a lot of things right, from the aforementioned mental derangedness of creative types to the frazzled state that editors end up in when faced with those creative types. We always hear about how hard it is for the artists; this one takes another direction with the editor's point of view.
I was expecting to go into the winter drama season all a-gaga for Hana Yori Dango 2 (and I still am, as a confessed Maowota after all) but Himitsu no Hanazono has definitely captured my heart in its own way. First off, it covers my field of expertise*, but more than that, it's a cute, fresh outlook on that field of expertise. It's like, you make a comic about comics, you're not anything special; Joe Iconoclast is sitting in his mommy's basement thinking he's the next Scott McCloud or some crap. But a mainstream TV show about comics, that actually manages to appeal in some way beyond the nerd level, that's something. Also, I really want to see which guy Kayo ends up with.
*Ha ha!
And really. A male version of CLAMP. Win.
KOI NO MON (OTAKUS IN LOVE)
Mon Aoki is an artist. A struggling artist. See, people just can't understand how great his art is. For he is an artist that makes manga. WITH ROCKS.
Our eccentric hero meets a young woman named Akashi Koino, who also happens to be a manga artist. Unfortunately, she is one of the more ... consumerist variety, creating doujinshi to be sold at Comiket, and also engaging in various forms of cosplay, which is how she spends her first night with Mon.
Thus begins a relationship that is at once dysfunctional and charming. Enter the proprietor of a "manga bar" (the next step up from a manga cafe, obviously) who just so happens to be a former big-name artist in the vein of Tezuka, right down to the beret when he actually draws, and soon a competition develops for Koino's affections. A competition that will only be resolved by entering a talent contest in a manga magazine and seeing who wins.
As a love story, this one truly pushes the boundaries of weird, and "normal" people just won't get it (they can go watch Winter Sonata for all I care anyway). But those who are "in" with the visual subculture will laugh along with the kookiness and cuteness and seeing themselves reflected in these passionate, obsessive characters. Dare I say it is more genuinely otaku than Train Man/Densha Otoko, which was kind of a mainstreamist story anyway, because it says that if you have otaku problems then you must first wash them out with grooming and fashion and only THEN will you find true love. But in Koi No Mon, these wild, otaku characters find true love with each other, sacrificing NOTHING, and keeping all their idiosyncrasies intact because they have found someone who can accept them AS THEY ARE. You don't need an internet to explain THAT.
Furthermore, our mythical train-riding hero was only a consumer anyway; he had all the figurines and manga volumes and anime DVDs and ero-games but never knew the true joy of creation like the characters of Koi No Mon did. Irrepressible fanboys are one thing; looking into the psychology of actual artists and creators is a totally different experience (I know first-hand how mentally deranged they can be) and this movie is one that truly brings it to light.
Plus, Koi No Mon has a cameo by Hideaki Anno! Does Train Man have Hideaki Anno? I don't think so!
Koi No Mon is based on a manga series of the same name.
HIMITSU NO HANAZONO
The title of this comedy J-drama is a pun: it means "The Secret Garden," but also "The Secret Hanazono." For you see, famous shoujo manga artist Yuriko Hanazono has a secret: she doesn't exist. Yuriko Hanazono is the pen-name of four eccentric brothers who just happen to be phenomenally good at creating hit girls' comics.
It has not gone unnoticed by viewers that this premise is basically a reverse-gendered CLAMP.
Kayo Tsukiyama discovers Hanazono's secret when she gets transferred from the fashion magazine at her publisher to the girls' manga magazine. The life of a manga editor is not an easy one, and managing four wacky brothers producing the magazine's flagship series just makes it tougher. Gradually Kayo learns the ways of the manga business, and maybe ... just maybe ... could there also be shades of romance?
Obviously, this is not a hard-hitting documentary exposé of the manga business. It's a TV comedy, and so has been romanticized and dramatized for effect. But from a character perspective, it gets a lot of things right, from the aforementioned mental derangedness of creative types to the frazzled state that editors end up in when faced with those creative types. We always hear about how hard it is for the artists; this one takes another direction with the editor's point of view.
I was expecting to go into the winter drama season all a-gaga for Hana Yori Dango 2 (and I still am, as a confessed Maowota after all) but Himitsu no Hanazono has definitely captured my heart in its own way. First off, it covers my field of expertise*, but more than that, it's a cute, fresh outlook on that field of expertise. It's like, you make a comic about comics, you're not anything special; Joe Iconoclast is sitting in his mommy's basement thinking he's the next Scott McCloud or some crap. But a mainstream TV show about comics, that actually manages to appeal in some way beyond the nerd level, that's something. Also, I really want to see which guy Kayo ends up with.
*Ha ha!
And really. A male version of CLAMP. Win.
1 Comments:
Oh how I wish to sit on the porch with some girl under the pale moonlight and tell her I will sacrifice NOTHING LOL
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