FIRST TIME READING ‘MANGA’
Like many long-term residents in Japan, I’m not particularly interested in all the things that so many Western Japanophiles get so excited about, and manga is no exception.
Until now, I’d never read any. Neither had I read any graphic novels, except Daniel Clowes ‘Ghost World’, which I didn’t like, and a couple of Tintin (in French), which I did like.
But this year I’m into trying new things and pushing beyond my normal borders when it comes to reading. I’m supplementing my on-going exploration of Victorian novels with some modern reads, as well as trying things from different cultures. And so I suddenly thought about manga - why not give it a go?
Now before going into this, my opinion of manga and graphic novels was this : comics are basically for little kids, and / or lazy people who can’t be bothered to read real books, people who don’t have much of an imagination. Or massive nerds.
Let’s see if my opinion changed after my little experiment.
OK, so I decided I’d do it this way: I’d ease in with a Western graphic novel, then try a couple of manga. I enlisted the help of ChatGPT to pick some things out, and this is what we came up with:
Megahex by Simon Hanselmann
Yotsuba&! Vol.1 by Kiyohiko Azuma
Attack on Titan Vol.1 by Hajime Isayama
Alright, so let’s see how I got on with these three. I’ll review them, give my impressions and assign each a rating out of ten.
MEGAHEX by Simon Hanselmann
This comic features a house of unemployed slackers who just happen to be a green witch, a talking cat and a large talking owl. They sit around their filthy house being mean to each other, getting stoned and drinking a lot. This is quite a graphic graphic novel - some people might well be offended by some of the things that happen. It’s certainly not for the squeamish. My initial thoughts were that while I don’t mind the crudity, there’s never actually much happening in the way of plot or story. It seemed like it was trying to be ‘edgy’ just for the sake of it, which is not something I’m really into. Reminds me of those really bad comedians of the last couple of decades who think that shouting obscenities is somehow a substitute for actual jokes or witticisms. Or the work of Charles Bukowksi - I never got the point of that kind of stuff. Also, I had to ask myself - if the three main characters of Megahex were just normal people and not a witch, cat and owl, would anyone want to read it?
After a while, though, I got used to it, and started to quite enjoy it. Maybe the point is that nothing much happens. In one or two places, it is quite funny, and in the end I had to give it a 7/10. It’s pretty lazy, and often just out for shock value, but I read the whole thing and found it quite a refreshing break from my usual literary fare. Do I want to buy subsequent volumes of this? No, I think one is enough. Would I recommend it? Maybe not to anyone who is easily offended, but I think it’s worth a go.
YOTSUBA&! (Vol.1) by Kiyohiko Azuma
And now for my first ever manga. I went into this with a certain amount of trepidation - would I really be able to read something all those Western nerds are so obsessive about?
This manga is not any kind of superhero nonsense, or dystopian SF; rather it’s a gently humourous ‘slice of life’ type of story. It revolves around an eccentric small child (Yotsuba) and her father who move into a neighbourhood, and describes their subsequent interactions with the locals.
To my amazement, I really liked it straight away. The artwork is well-done, and the simple premise is somehow very appealing - Yotsuba, in her state of unknowing, blunders her way around the neighbourhood acting weirdly but also making friends. It’s wholesome and life-affirming, and hell, the world is in pretty short supply of that kind of feeling right now.
Even though this is probably aimed at kids (or is it?) I will definitely read more volumes of this. It would be pretty good for learning Japanese, too. I gave it 9/10, and would recommend it to anyone who wants something low-key and calming. I suspect this isn’t the type of manga most of the foreigners are into: no, that would be our next read…
ATTACK ON TITAN (Vol.1) by Hajime Isayama
OK, I already knew of this one from watching the live streams of YouTuber Sora the Troll , who likes making fun of the kind of people who are into this, the entities known as ‘weebs.’ This made me rather nervous to give it a go, but it was quite cheap, so what the hell.
‘Attack on Titan’ describes a world in which the humans live in small settlements behind high walls: outside, the huge ‘titans’ roam, giant mute humanoids who eat people. The humans have to be on the alert to prevent breakthroughs at any time. Some of the bolder ones join the groups who venture outside to check on the Titans.
OK, the story doesn’t sound too bad, right? In fact, quite exciting, and one immediately wants to know how this situation came about, among other things.
And then I started to read it. Holy shit. If you are a fan of this work, you might want to leave off reading this blog entry right now.
I absolutely hated it. I didn’t much care for the style of the artwork, and some scenes were very confusing, but that was not the main problem. The main problem was the dialogue. I have never read such badly-written attempts to represent human verbal communication in my life. Stilted, unnatural, full of clichés and ridiculous exposition, it was so bad it was actually funny. I thought it might be the translation, but no, the Japanese is just as bad.
Here’s an actual example of the stellar dialogue from this thing: in this case, some fresh recruits are discussing some meat they’ve stolen from the officers:
Character #1: “Let’s split it up later. Slice it. Slap it between some bread… Heeheehee…”
Character #2: “Put it back!”
Character #3: “That’s right! Ever since our territory shrank, meat has become incredibly precious!”
Character #4: “Don’t worry. Once we recapture our territory we’ll be able to keep more cows and sheep again.”
Character #2: “I see your point.”
Wow. Exciting stuff indeed, and so natural. It’s on about the same literary level as the comics I used to read when I was a kid.
Then we have the characters. I read the whole 226 pages out of sheer stubbornness, but I can’t really tell you anything about the main protagonists, because they were totally flat, cardboard-cutout tropes and I couldn’t tell the difference between most of them. As a result, I didn’t care about them at all - did some of the main ones get eaten by the Titans? I can’t even remember, and I certainly don’t care.
Finally, there is the problem of the deeper meaning of the story. Think about it. The people inside are afraid of the bigger people outside, who look like them, but are different and can’t be understood. The people are afraid of their community and people being destroyed by these big dangerous outsiders, so they are going to ruthlessly kill them in return.
It seems like a thinly-veiled metaphor for Japan’s deeply-rooted xenophobia, right? You can see a similar fear of outsiders and a desire to destroy them in many old Japanese folk tales.
So, I had to give this manga 3/10. That’s the worst rating I’ve ever given any kind of literature that I’ve read. I don’t regret reading it at all, the experience was worthwhile, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I have no idea why this thing is so popular and highly-rated. Perhaps it gets better as the series goes on? Perhaps the popularity is more the result of the anime version, which I can imagine being more immediate in its excitement.
CONCLUSION
So there we have it: this reading experiment yielded interesting results. To my surpise, I ended up liking the Western graphic novel a little bit; I really liked the ‘slice of life’ style manga I tried, and will be back for more; I hated the archetypal superhero / dystopian future style manga, and won’t be touching any more of that.
Do I still think manga / graphic novels are just for kids or lazy people with no imagination? No, not entirely: it depends what you’re reading. I suppose it’s like every art form - there’s a lot of crap, some stuff that’s middling, and then there are a few gems, and the contents of these three groupings will vary according to your tastes.
All in all, I’m glad I read the three books I chose - it was certainly an educational experience.