khyungbird (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} khyungbird) wrote,@ 2007-11-06 01:55:00 |
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In the spirit of dividing things up into categories, I've decided that almost all manga -- and almost all comics, books and entertainment media -- can be divided up into five basic categories. They are all intermixed to some extent, but I think they're good rough guides to how artists and authors approach their work.
(1) FANTASIES. Situations that the reader wants to imagine could happen to him-or-herself, or simply, wants to fantasize about. "I wish I had a girlfriend." (STRAWBERRY 100%) "I wish I had a boyfriend." (KARE FIRST LOVE) "I wish Japan would stop kow-towing to the U.S. and become the dominant power in Asia." (THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF JAPAN) "I wish I was really strong and could kick anybody's butt." (Shonen battle manga, superhero manga, etc.) And pretty much all adult and Boy's Love manga. By "fantasies" I don't mean stories about dragons and wizards, of course; I mean stories consciously created to "give the reader what they want." Tension and drama and "will it happen or won't it?" and surprises are not the point; in fact, too much of that will irritate the reader who really wants the pure fulfillment of their fantasy. Fantasies are almost always Mary-Sue scenarios where the reader identifies with the character, so you better not let anything bad happen to that character! Once you consciously decide to depict unrealistic human behavior or straw-man bad guys or implausible coincidences in the service of fulfilling the reader's dreams, it's a fantasy. Obviously I'm making "fantasies" into sort of the straw man bad guy in this theory, but do I like fantasies myself? I guess the truth is that the boundaries between "fantasies" and "entertainments" is a matter of opinion. For instance, in one of Rumiko Takahashi's panel appearances at San Diego Comic-Con, some fan praised MAISON IKKOKU for being "realistic." Takahashi's reply was along the lines of "Uh, actually, I consider it a fantasy." Perhaps my own fantasy, my own wish to imagine that some college student could have a five-year crush-turned-romance with his landlady, biased my perceptions of this romantic comedy manga.
(2) ENTERTAINMENTS. The difference between fantasies and entertainments is that in entertainments you don't know what's going to happen. (Or at least there is the veneer of unpredictability.) The chips are thrown up in the air at the start of the story, and the fun is watching them fall. If fantasies see the fictional world from a first-person "imagine what it would be like if this happened to you!" scenario, entertainments see the fictional world from a third-person scenario in which the identification with a given character is less clear or less unquestioned. The point is still to entertain the reader, but it is the world or the plot on the whole which beckons, not the particular character or the scenario surrounding that character. The appeal of an entertainment is the act of escapism itself, and the ensuing roller-coaster rides and cliffhangers and details that maintain interest. Entertainments are, perhaps, less goal-oriented than fantasies, although it's worth mentioning that most fantasies ultimately depict a sort of static state, because readers aren't interested in the frustrations, trials and tribulations of attaining (let alone losing) their fantasy; that sort of thing falls under entertainments. I'd consider most of my favorite stories to be entertainments more than fantasies, but am I being subjective and deluding myself? Are J.G. Ballard's end-of-the-world disaster novels in fact a "fantasy", not just an entertainment, because they clean the slate of one's own personal failures by suggesting that the whole world is going to blow up anyway? I guess that all entertainments must at least have some relevance to the reader's life to be entertaining. But if you really don't care about the reader, that's our third type of story...
(3) INDULGENCES. "I want to draw hot boys in suggestive situations." (LEGAL DRUG) "I want to draw big-breasted women." (IRON WOK JAN) "I love mecha, so I want to do a story with mecha in it." Indulgences are when the author is pursuing a personal interest or fetish without regard to the reader. (Although when the reader's fantasy and the author's indulgence coincidences, you can go ahead and prepare that 10-book contract!) In the commercial world of manga, most indulgences don't drive the story; instead they take the form of dojinshi, or author's notes, or quirky elements and weird art styles within a relatively commercial story structure. (JOJO''S BIZARRE ADVENTURE is basically a battle manga, after all, but did anyone tell Hirohiko Araki to draw his characters as increasingly glam, metrosexual contortionists? I think not.) Unlike fantasies, indulgences don't necessarily direct the structure of the story, although some artists have this freedom: small press artists in America, and the countless unsung dojinshi artists doing stories about cats or cooking or their favorite cars or elevator attendant uniforms or their trip to New York last summer. Or Joe Matt drawing comics about masturbating all the time. Or Mike Mignola working on JENNY FINN because he likes H.P. Lovecraft, and he likes drawing weird fish and tentacled monsters, so hey, why not? Nothing wrong with a good indulgence; this is where the style of the artist most often resides. At the same time, occasionally I'll read a manga which is simply too frivolous and fetishistic for my tastes. In a recent interview I conducted with Boy's Love artist Hinako Takanaga, she mentioned that she tries to keep in mind that other people may read Boy's Love aside from hardcore fans. So, perhaps she tones down the indulgence-meter. It's a delicate balance. But in short, for many artists, the ability to pursue their indulgences is the height of creator control in comics.
(4) EXPLORATIONS. Here is another form of artistic freedom, separate from indulgences: an attempt at realism. Perhaps Social Realism, concerned with real-world issues and politics and history; perhaps Psychological Realism, concerned with inner space and self-examination or the realistic analysis of made-up characters. (Of course, the story doesn't have to take place in a realistic setting... but the author must use that unrealistic setting to express something with broader ramifications and some perhaps symbolic relevance to reality, something deeper than "These are the different kinds of weapons loaded onto the Fafner model robots: the Aegis Shield, the Cluster Bomb, the Dragon Tooth, the Dimension Gun....") Basically, the artist wants to address ideas and issues, as much or more so than plot or characters. Within this, the storytelling may be subtle or heavy-handed, lighthearted or self-important. The difference between explorations and message stories is that the artist of an exploration is not entirely sure of what message they are trying to convey; or, they are trying to comment while remaining neutral (like Larry Gonick's CARTOON HISTORY OF THE WORLD books); or, their message evolves in the course of the telling. But it's often hard to remain neutral forever (unless you really have nothing to say); so many explorations are secretly Message stories or eventually develop a Message. The thing standing in the way of explorations in manga is the difficulty of balancing theme and character -- "character is the most important thing in manga," as they always say, although I think this can be carried to excess, staring into the character's big eyes at the cost of advancing the story or addressing deeper themes. (Although even in my own creative writing classes in college, telling the teacher "It's a story about the conflict between nihilism and idealism" usually led the teacher to ask "So tell me about the characters and plot.")
(5) MESSAGES. Works created not to entertain, not to fulfill the reader's fantasies, nor simply to educate and inspire thought, but to influence or convince the reader. Very rare in manga, and pretty rare in American comics as well; on the other hand, America has a long tradition of political comics and newspaper strips (POGO, DOONESBURY, '60s hippie-influenced underground comics, '80s punk-influenced anti-establishment comics, etc.), whereas in Japan, a combination of political apathy and reluctance to offend people has led to most political works being confined to dojinshi for the last twenty or so years. Then there's religion; message is the difference between Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's "respectful but neutral" explorative historical manga JESUS and books like MANGA MESSIAH and Jack Chick's famous proselytizing Christian comics. I'd really be interested in seeing more message comics out of Japan, frankly, although I don't know if I'd always like the message -- but that's something you've got to accept, right? On the other hand, if the message is too out there, the reader might always say, from their subjective standpoint "Ha, that's just your Fantasy!" (Which, for instance, is my opinion on EAGLE: THE MAKING OF AN ASIAN-AMERICAN PRESIDENT... but maybe 9/11 and George Bush made it hard to accept a manga in which America dismantles all its overseas bases and renounces all foreign wars.)
Poor Fantasy, taking all the cheap shots. But it's my livejournal and I cast the heroes and villains, so I'll say that the things I most appreciate in manga -- and fiction in general -- are good Entertainment, clever Indulgences, and thoughtful Explorations. And sometimes, a well-done, honest approach at a Message, whether or not I agree with it. While there is a lot of subjective blur between the categories, I think these are useful approaches for an artist -- or at least me -- to keep in mind.
