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sixohsixoheightfourtwo · 2 years

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“yaoi” and “gei” (gay) manga are different genres specifically bc actual mlm in japan didnt feel represented by yaoi (since… you know… its made primarily by and for non-mlm, mostly het women) so they had to make their own Gay Manga LOL. personally i’d say yaoi being inherently from a fetishistic perspective makes it Problematic but that’s just me!

right, but (assuming this is re the stuff I put in the tags of that one post) the mangaka this person recommended as 'mlm' was Nojiko Hayakawa who is 1. female (according to mangaupdates.com) 2. has 'I draw BL' in her twitter bio 3. again, according to mangaupdates.com, mostly draws BL manga that gets published in BL-specific magazines.

I get the point you're making but this specific instance was not someone talking about gay manga made by & for gay men but someone trying VERY hard not to call something by the name it was written and published under. I am not wild about the term BL but it's the generally accepted international term for the genre so that's what i would tag it as u know.

I do want to say a couple of other things, one of which is that there's plenty of popular gay mangaka who are totally bonkers fetishistic - As Is Their Right! - eg gengoroh tagame (him MOST of all), jiraiya .... some of the things yaoi gets criticised for are def present in gay manga, certainly in gengoroh tagame's work - eg misogyny and erasure of women, characters who don't consider themselves gay, absolutely WILD consent issues. (years ago people used to post old scanlated gengoroh tagame on tumblr. INDESCRIBAble frankly.) But this is art from 25 years ago and gay manga has I'm sure moved on. I don't know enough about it! practically none has been licensed / published in english. (I thought of 'my brother's husband' btw but turns out it was published in a seinen magazine)

And the other is that BL media has developed and continues to change; the content is changing and the audience - certainly the audience today - is not just comprised of cis het women, it just IS a bit more complicated, partly because it's become so international: I absolutely am not an expert here (i have read some fumi yoshinaga. I have seen some thai dramas) but i'm writing this having just got through about half of this literally 2.5 hr long seminar 'The History and Transformation of BL in Asia' and a couple of things stood out to me (I took notes because i take notes for everything) :

one of the academics, Akiko Mizoguchi, says that as a child she read Moto Hagio, Keiko Takemiya etc, the 'beautiful boy' manga of the 70s: the characters didn't necessarily grow up to be gay in the comics but it was possible to imagine them doing so; this helped her realise her own homosexuality

she says recent BL has transformed somewhat from the old-school extreme seme-uke, 'not gay', heteronormative stuff to a genre where protagonists who identify as gay 'engage in realistic episodes' eg about coming out, in a way that's 'more advanced' than the reality in Japan - ie not exactly realistic - but it can function as a model for overcoming homophobia - she refers to this as 'transformed' and 'transformative' BL, and argues it has activist potential.

BL in Thailand is popular with and written by BOTH women AND same sex attracted men ... the academic Thomas Baudinette breaks down the fandom as 21% male, 78% female - far from an even split but this is really quite a lot of men. Thailand has (unlike most countries) hung on to the term 'yaoi' - they talk about y-novels, y-series, y-comics etc.

He's also done research into BL in Japan and found - controversially - that there ARE japanese men who read and enjoy BL manga, though he doesn't give stats. He argues that whether we see something as BL or as gay depends on who is consuming the text, not on who the creator is.

listen anon this is way too long already and it's late where i am but tbh I think what i'm really saying is that the picture is complicated and these genres are capable of doing many things. I also think we tend to be really focused on analysing bl media and tend to under-report fetishism in mainstream media: there's jarringly gratuitious stuff in mainstream shounen manga and anime.... but most of all i DOOOO really recommend the video of the talk i mentioned . genuinely REALLY interesting and touches on all these issues And more.

#it's 11.20pm where I am and i am going to sleep #Compare if u like the idea of the m/m fanfiction audience. The stereotype was always that it was middle aged cis het white women #But 1. that wasn't totally true even back in the 70s (some of the early slash writers were lesbian or bi) and 2. it's REALLY not true today #asks #anons

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littleeyesofpallas · 4 years

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Shaman King - Name Games

I didn’t really intend to expand this accidental series of Bleach posts outside one series, but I was looking back at Shaman King, what with the new anime having been announced, and to be honest there’s not a lot to pick at in this particular regard --a lot of the names are pretty straight forward, or just not Japanese, and the O.S. are all similarly named, predominantly in English or with pretty straight forward Japanese epithets.

Like, for example Amidamaru’s name is just written as Amida[阿弥陀] as in the Japanese name for the Buddha, Amitabha, and -maru[丸] super common super generic suffix for boys’ names. All his attack names are accordingly Buddha themed. There’s no real obscure or obtuse kind of references or anything that isn’t really self explanatory. It does tie into Yoh’s general attitude and personal philosophies being zen influenced, which I guess takes a bit of a leap if you’re not familiar, but again it’s pretty obvious.

Then his Over Soul names are all things like:

阿弥陀丸 = “Amidamaru”

スピリット・オブ・ソード = “SUPIRITTO OBU SOODO” = “Spirit of Sword”

...白鵠 = “...Byakko ” = 白:“White,” 鵠:”Swan”

Really straight forward. English readers really weren’t missing much. Or at least if they were reading Mankin Triad’s scanlations. (I’ll be honest, I never read all the Viz prints front to back.)

But you know what are some fun kanji readings that TOTALLY get missed in English? The actual names of the main character. And granted, a lot of characters in the series aren’t Japanese so they don’t all get fun clever names, but the Asakura family is like one big running joke...

So, in-world, the family itself starts in Japan in the 900s with an orphan child named Asaha(麻葉) Douji(童子) whose names read as “Hemp”+”Leaf” and “Child(implicitly a boy)” but also an archaic reading meaning “Scholar" or depending on context “Sorcerer.“

For a little context, despite Japan having rather notorious modern marijuana policing, hemp was actually a widespread and integral crop in Japan for hundreds of years so it’s not an uncommon component of names in the first place. It’s also the basis of a very common pattern in traditional Japanese fabric printing (and you’d probably seen it before in period settings in anime, manga, J-dramas, or film) it’s called Asanoha(麻の葉) and you’ll notice is the exact same kanji as the name Asaha.

The boy, Asaha, grows up to be a powerful onmyoji and changes his name to Asakura(麻倉) Hao(葉王) meaning “Hemp“+”Storehouse/Warehouse/Treasury“ and “Leaf“+”King.” Considering the name “leaf” clearly refers back to the family name’s, “hemp” I really hate to admit it, but Hao’s name is basically “Weed Lord” of the family “Weed Stash.“ If it wasn’t clear this is also why Takei draws a lot of cannabis leaves in association with Yoh(葉) whose name is just written with the same kanji as Hao’s for “Leaf” but with an alternate reading.

Yoh’s super chill and laid back personality and his ever present headphones for relaxing to are all part of this theme in his name. This theme is also why he’s a fan of Soul Bob (aka totally-not-just-Bob-Marley) and why Soul Bob posters are everywhere in the background of Shaman King. The Asakura family crest, adapted from the Onmyodo five-path star, also resembles a leaf not unintentionally --I don’t remember if they openly refer to that fact in-world or not.

But as we follow the rest of the family tree from there we get the ancestor Yohken(葉賢) from 500 years ago, Yoh’s grandparents Yohmei(葉明) and Kino(木乃), his mother Keiko(茎子) and father Mikihisa(幹久), and eventually his son Hana(花). Also the branch family’s Yohkyo(葉虚), and his kids Ruka(路菓) and Yohane(葉羽). And you’ll probably already notice a lot of those names use the same Yoh/Ha(葉) that is the basis of both Yoh and Hao’s names.

So the rest of the family’s names go...

Yohken(葉賢) = “Leaf”+”Wisdom” which, at face value, is just naming him as a wise shaman. But it’s also basically a cheeky euphemism for “stoner logic.”

Yohmei(葉明) = “Leaf”+”Insight” synonymous with Yohken’s reading.

Kino(木乃) = “Tree”+”From/<posessive indicator>,” so “Hemp Tree” basically

Keiko(茎子) = “Stalk/Stem”+”Child” but keeping in mind that -ko(子) is just a super common suffix for girls’ names, so it’s not like she’s being called explicitly child-like or anything, her name is basically just “Stem Girl”

Mikihisa(幹久) = “Stem”+”Longtime” but I’ll come back to him...

Hana(花) = “Flower” but also a phonetic play on ha(葉) + na(ナ) from his parents’ names

Yohkyo(葉虚) = “Leaf”+”Void/Empty” (haha that’s the same “Hollow” used for Hollows in Bleach) As the head of the disgraced branch family of the Asakura house, his name reflects that he’s not part of the family, despite the family surname, by basically just calling him “No Leaf.” Technically it could also read “Fruitless Leaf” which kinda sticks to the plant imagery better, but makes a little less sense when he has kids...

Ruka(路菓) = “Way/Path/Road” + “Fruit” I assume this is meant as “Way of Fruit” like a metaphor for the fact that she’s been tasked with leading the branch family to success, and not “Road Fruit” as in fruit you’d find on the road, or by the side of the road. Although that does kind of fit in its own way.

Yohane(葉羽) = “Leaf“ + “Feather“ which I think is a play on the fact that when traced back to Jodai era(700s CE) etymology both words shared a common root word, reflecting the fact that he’s got the same ancestor as the core family, but has developed differently but in parallel.

So I said I’d come back to Yoh’s dad, Mikihisa, because as an outsider who married into the Asakura family he has an original family name other than Asakura. His full name is Miki(真木) Mikihisa(幹久) which read as “Truth“+”Tree” and “Trunk/Stem“+”Long Time“ which has some nuance to it. Obviously “Long Time Trunk” and “Tree (of) Truth“ evoke the image of an old and venerable tree with a thick and many ringed trunk. That image plays into Miki’s role as a Shugenja --there is a whole lot going on with the history of the religion, more than I can reasonably summarize, but the thing to know here is that the popular image of Shugenja in media leans into them being ascetic monks, living in the wilderness, generally forest mountains, with an association with Tengu.(Tengu are frequently dressed in Shugendo attire.)

So, the forest man is named after a big tree, pretty straight forward... The clever bit here is how once he takes the Asakura name his name can be read to match his wife’s, as the (幹) in Mikihisa and (茎) in Keiko can both read as “Stem.”

Unrelated to anything, but it’s always super weird to me that English translators insist on calling him “Mickey” (they did the same with Kaoru Miki in Revolutionary Girl Utena....)

And while I’m talking about outsiders, I’ll bring in Anna as well. Her given name is actually just written in katakana as An’na(アンナ) so, unlike Mikihisa, her name in English is untouched. But her family name Kyoyama (恐山) is written “Fear/Dread/Awe“+”Mountain“ which is both a description of her character as an imposing figure in Yoh’s teen life, but also a reference to Mt.Osore(恐山) where she first meets Yoh, which is both home to a famous Buddhist temple and a mythological location of the gate to the underworld. It is of course written with the same kanji as her family name but pronounced differently, as you can see.

The American, Alumi(アルミ) Numbirch(ニウムバーチ) is obviously named after Aluminum, as all the Patch are named after metals. I’m not really sure why the “-birch” part is in there? It might be an obtuse play on the fact that the Japanese White Birch is also called the Siberian Silver Birch, and her dad is Silva? It feels like a bit of a stretch, but I can’t think of another way “birch” would be relevant to her name. But otherwise she’s not really related to the family theme.

And not at all related to the Asakura’s, but beautiful androgynous British boy detective, Lyserg Diethel is named after the hallucinogenic compound Lysergic acid diethylamide. (aka LSD/Acid) The drug themes is part of why his spirit is named Morphine. She is a nature spirit of (of course) a poppy flower. The other reason she’s named Morphine is because Sherlock Holmes --from whom Lyserg gets his inverness cape aesthetic-- infamously used recreational morphine (and cocaine) to alleviate himself of the lethargy of being without a case to solve.

#shaman king #Shaman King Flowers #yoh asakura #asakura hao #asakura hana

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filliteapot · 5 years

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so, what shoujo manga are your cup of tea? can you mention what you wanted to say about dessert margaret, you got me interested

First of all: I do love shoujo manga. I enjoy romance stories and see no shame in this. Also I hate when people trash on shoujo only bc it’s shojo and go with that ‘omgnoanotherstupidromanceforteengirls’ as these people won’t ever admit that such a story may show something from a different perspective and is no worse than any generic shounen they praise. But at the same time I kinda get where they are coming from - as I also appreciate when the romance isn’t an end in itself, and characters aren’t walking tropes and I can feel like they have other problems than that. Joseis are more satisfying in this regard, so now I kinda switched to them (though sometimes the diffrence is thin). Soo— when I hear ‘Margaret’ I immediately think ‘oh and now we gotta talk about ROMANCE and NOTHING ELSE’ and in my current state of mind it’s kinda too little to get me interested. I love when you can see characters grow, change their vision of the world, solving problems with friends, parents, lovers, choose their own way to live and be themselves. I love when love interests are also important friends and people who support them. I love stories that make me feel like this world is a better place than we may think when we have hard times (even if these stories have some psychologically heavy stuff - but have some hope within).

So, choosing from shoujo, I guess I’m leaning towards older stuff from Hana to yume or Lala which may be named shoujo but is mature and serious (while having flowers and romance but let’s be honest there are flowers and romance in the real world too and no one calls it unnatural). So, I’m sharing my recs or things that caught my attention but I had no time or mood to get into them yet.

(It got longer in process than I expected, even if I included only things that came into my mind right away, so I put it under the cut.)

I started wriring this post thinking about nowadays series and in process learned about oldschool series that were serialized in these magazines and wrote a bit about them too.

Hana to yume

everything by Takaya Natsuki

Please save my earth by Hiwatari Saki

Tokyo crazy Paradise (need to finish) and Skip beat (need to READ) by Nakamura Yoshiki

NG life by Kusanagi Mizuho

LaLa:

everything by Midorikawa Yuki

Mekakushi no kuni by Tsukuba Sakura (fffave)

Ouran High School Host Club by Hatori Bisco

Kare Kano by Masumi Tsuda (need to read it, as i liked the beginning but put it on hold)

Betsuma (Bessatsu Margaret):

Ando Yuki’s works

Kimi ni Todoke by Shiina Karuho (i got an ask about this one recently, you may check it in my knt tag)

Cat Street by Kamio Yoko (it’s been years since I read this but I remember that characters growth and dealing with traumas were major themes and the story was quite hopeful)

Mashikaku Rock and other things by Watanabe Kana (this author mostly writes short series or oneshotes but I adore her style and… idk, how real and kind they feel)

Margaret:

Sugars by Yamamori Mika

Futsuu no Koiko-san by Nagamu Nanaji

Short Cake Cake by Morishita Suu

Some works by oldschool authors like Ikeda Ryoko (Versailles no bara) and Honda Keiko were there too. Wow.

Dessert:

Ohayou Ibarahime by Morino Megumi (i still need to finish it but it surely is not a superficial story)

Koi Wazurai no Ellie by (idk it makes me laugh)

Mairimashita Senpai by Mase Azusa (not sure where its going but enjoyable so far)

Betsucomi - I seriously had no idea Basara and Kaze Hikaru were serialized here but they were. In short, some stuff from this magazine which isnt oldschool still seem more like josei to me.

Kirakira to Yoru ni Furu by Fujio Nami (my underrated and probably not scanlated all time fave)

Joou no Hana by Kaneyoshi Izumi (still need to contnue this one and also her new series as I liked the beginning)

stories by Motomi Kyosuke (i appreciate her humour and am kinda meh about her ‘serious and heavy’ parts of the plot but i couldn’t wrtite this post and ignore her)

Haruyuki Bus by Usami Maki (oneshotes collection, has average stories as well as good ones, I enjoyedit overall)

Tsuki to Mizuumi by Ashihara Hinako (i also tried her Piece but liked this oneshot collection better, esp the first story)

Gosh betsucomi even has stuff by Hagio Moto, an oldschool author I want to check

#recs #replies #shoujo #una sorta teapot #teapot shoujosei defender

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raifuujin · 7 years

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meganegz replied to your post: For picture purposes, I have the raws for DC/MK to...

different sites sometimes have different scanlations. at least on KissManga, most of them seem to be facing the right way, barring a few instances- at least so far, anyway; I’m not caught up yet. also, I don’t think that the manga would allow for a perfect translation all of the time. but I guess, both for scan quality and for translations, we have to make do with what is available. ;-; makes me hella sad; as for quality, I’d love to see the earlier episodes in a cleaner

meganegz replied to your post: For picture purposes, I have the raws for DC/MK to...

format than what can readily be found from old fansubs. I DO wonder why they never get replaced; although, it could be that sometimes, since it’s already got a translation (of a kind), some people might not be willing to put in the effort for another one. it makes me quite upset, I must say. (I bring up the early ones in particular, bc while occasionally kind of janky-looking, the older styles had more character- and in one phase, cone’s proportions actually look decent.

I actually looked at KissManga scans for the chapter I was looking at, but it was the same scans that were terrible everything. It’s been my experience that most sites use the same scans for everything I’ve read, so I tend to just stick to the one I’m used to.

I don’t need a perfect translation, but when what we have uses ‘Akuba’ instead of Hakuba, ‘K-Ko’ instead of Keiko, ‘A-O-Ko’ instead of just Aoko, ‘Master theft’ instead of ‘Phantom Thief’ (I might not know Japanese, but I do have the raws, and ‘Kaitou’ is a word I know full well how to recognize), and has the sentence 'The copter is too closed. I cannot use the hangrider', I question how much of it actually is accurate. Small mistakes speak of worse mistakes overall. (And they edited out the preview of code, and constantly had a character referring to another character by a name he never heard, and just so much more wrong. A perfect translation is an inaccurate one, yes, but there’s still a difference between good ones and bad ones.)

Chapter-wise, even I managed to find pretty good scans for raws. Maybe not all are the best, But I don’t think any have been the poor quality that was first available and used for the ones hosted on manga sites. I’d be willing to try doing a basic typeset using my raws, but again, issue is I’m not sure of translation, and I don’t want to use what’s available to read.

#meganegz #Entirely only talking about DCMK since that's the only series I amass on my computer and bookshelf #I'd scan the special volumes or movie manga that I have if I had any idea if the scans would be used #I also have the Gosho short stories (treasure edition)#And want to get 3rd base Fourth #But I end up only making scans of random pages for icons

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