Gender issues galore: Manga/manhwa roundup

[dangermousie]

I spent my lunch break browsing manga in Borders. Two of the ones I ended up checking out with more than a cursory flip were the manga Afterschool Nightmare and manhwa Bring It On. Both of them, interestingly (and it was pure coincidence) play a lot on gender roles and stereotypes in a very subversive fashion.

Bring It On is a very cute Korean manhwa that is fluffy and funny and also plays on gender stereotypes in a very cute way.



Miha is a high school student. She is also an incredible tomboy. Not only does she have short hair *gasp*, but she can outfight, outrun, and outstamina any guy around. That is the result of her protective older brother’s training. Our hero Seung-Suh, OTOH is a typical bishounen: good-looking in a girly sort of way, with some messed up background and also rather tough. But also stubborn and spoiled, and a bit of a party brat. Their first meeting is a disaster as Miha finds a drunk Seung-Suh in school, assumes he is a perv and knocks him unconscious. (In an awesome, yes, this girl is strong and can wipe the floor with the guy, reversal, she ends up carrying him out on her back to stash him quietly somewhere). Next day Miha finds out the drunk guy is the new transfer student and needless to say, neither one is keen on each other. Each one is strong-willed and hates to lose, too, so it’s downhill from there for them. But totally a delight for us as it’s funny and fresh and OMG, they will so be an awesome OTP. As with most manga, I was doing fantasy casting in my head, and I could totally see King Jeong Hoon (Yul in Goong) as the male lead (he’s got the prettiness and the demeanor) and Han Chae-Young (the female lead in DGCH) as the female lead. Or Yoon Eun Hye, for the Yul/CG shippers :) Actually, I’d want Jang Nara (Patzzi in My Love Patzzi) for the role most of all, but I think she might be too tiny. Awww, hell. That would be awesome anyway. Jang Nara it is.

Did I mention that Seung-Suh is also tough fighting wise, and that the Korean obsession with hero piggybacking the heroine has already appeared in volume 1? Personally I prefer the whole 'hero carries heroine in his arms' a la Shin and Chae-Gyung in Goong but a good piggybacking is never amiss :)

Afterschool Nightmare is a lot more complicated.



The protagonist of it is a boy and yet not. No, it’s not the ‘she’s a girl, cross-dressing as a boy’ type thing. That would be normal. katranna mentioned to me, when we were discussing this, how manga alters your criteria for normal :P Frex the thing with FY:Genbu Kaiden where I just accepted Rimudo’s ability to turn into a girl at will to use his powers. It was sort of ‘of course, he turns into a woman in order to use his powers. But he is normally a boy. So?’ and I didn’t even think about it twice until I showed the manga to a friend who is not into manga and she was all o:o and WTF and totally taken aback.

No, the protagonist is a boy above the waist and a girl below. I am not sure how this works (as she gets her monthlys so it’s not one of those hidden organs things). The thing is, normally I’d say just a very flat girl, but the protagonist has a gf, self-identifies as a guy etc etc. So some sort of equivalent of pre-op transsexual (katranna’s comparison). Anyway, the protagonist, Mashiro, gets drawn into this weird alternate dream-reality he enters when he is asleep where some of the students of his normal, day school compete in violent fashion in order to ‘graduate’ (what that means is unclear but it’s ominous as once they graduate they disappear not only to be seen again, but their classmates forget their existence, in both dream reality and the real world). He can’t tell apart which one of his day classmates corresponds to his night competitors because they look like their ‘inner’ selves.

In addition to that, there is a triangle of sorts. There is Kureha, a seemingly sweet (but as the volumes go on, we find out very damaged) girl who Mashiro is rather sweet on and as the story progresses, the feeling is revealed to be mutual. Kureha knows about Mashiro’s secret (she is in the game as well, and all the participants in the game know) and doesn’t seem to be phased and views Mashiro as a girl. And then there is Sou, an antagonistic, also messed up guy, who is another game participant who becomes fixated on the idea Mashiro is a she and decides to pursue him.

Mashiro’s self-identification is one of the most interesting parts of the story for me. Despite the gender organs, Mashiro clearly views himself as a he. A giant part of the reason he is not interested in Sou is because Mashiro views himself as a straight guy: as in, he is a boy not interested in other boys. Another part is because he sees Sou’s perception of him as a girl as plainly wrong. And it is wrong. Mashiro acts, thinks, and identifies as a guy. And that’s the thing. Whichever way the triangle will resolve itself (I am not decided but think it will end as Mashiro-Sou, as Kureha is seeming more and more unbalanced and Sou does have deep feelings of some sort), if Mashiro and Sou are to get together, Sou will have to accept the fact that whatever the bio organs, his SO is a guy.

Another interesting thing is the severe level of messed-upness exhibited by everyone. Mashiro is actually the (relatively) normal one of the bunch. Leaving aside the secondary characters and their issues, Kureha is much more than the sweet front she puts out: she is very damaged and has borderline phobia of men, and Mashiro is an exception. Sou has an incredibly dysfunctional relationship with his elder sister which is incestuous on her part (at one point she kisses him on the mouth). These people need therapy. But not too soon as they are they are quite entertaining.

Here is a page with a good character list and descriptions.

Oh, and then there was Sensual Phrase but I really have no intellectual excuse for that one whatsoever. It's a very shoujo story of a hunky, famous band singer (guy) and a new lyricist (gal). It's full of angsty love, and evil rivals, and lots of sex (seeeeex) and glamor and very pretty boys. I have amused self by picturing random JE boys as the characters. And for the OTP? Definitely Yamapi/Maki. Has nothing with me wanting them on screen as a bona fide couple, nope :P



P.S. Is Please Save My Earth any good?

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Bring it on I've looked at. Sensual Phrase I'm told starts good and turns messy(rape, cheating, etc type stuff, iirc)

BUT!!!!

W JULIET! MORE BASARA!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

(rape, cheating, etc type stuff, iirc)

Heeee. You say it like it's a bad thing :P

WJuliet is really not my bag at all, artstyle-wise. I'd overlook it if the story gripped me but it didn't. Maybe later.

Re: Basara. One volume didn't really drag me in to go buy. It's interesting enough that if the bookstore had it, I'd check it out (and potentially get eventually really hooked) but not enough for me to go spend lots of $$$$ :(

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

see, any time you mention art, I am reminded of HYD(which I have spent years trying to look at more than 2-3 pages of)(not a criticism, it's just what I ALWAYS think of...because I've been trying to check it out for years and I just can't...and this is from someone who's beenreading US comics for 15 years and has put up with stuff that could literally make your eyes bleed)

That said, I rec tracking down the anime for Basara, as the art style is closer to conventional and it covers up to where it's about to get to the point where I get obsessive. It's also only 13 episodes, so not TOO much of an investment. Me and Basara is like you and the Mars dorama.

Also, re: Sensual Phrase: If I remember the rantings from various friends at the time, she's being raped while he's sleeping with the other woman...knowing it's the other woman. It's been a while. (I want to to the OW SENT the rapist, but I'm far vaguer on that one and may be thinking of something else altogether) But yeah, my manga friends at the time went from reccing it to telling me to never check it out...

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

she's being raped while he's sleeping with the other woman...knowing it's the other woman.

Hey, it sounds like the crack I'll like :)

Re: Hanadan. I would have never checked out the manga (because of the art) if I didn't watch the anime first and love the story. And even then the early volumes (before she got better) are something I skip. And with anime, it took me 20 eps to fall for it, precisely because of the art being so awful and I gave up initially and only finished because katranna kept pushing and because I am a completist. But that is the thing, I already had it in my hands. Not the case with Basara. WJ is in the bookstores, so I might check it out further at some point but I do have so much other stuff to read (not the time when I got into Hanadan).

So, short summary? Maybe :)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

SP: Well, if you WANT something that, knowing you, will have you screaming and throwing things at that point...(though, really, never have I been warned away as strongly)

Did I live near you, you would have read it all already...and watched it(course, getting you a copy of the anime is financially feasible for me...not so much the manga)

My W Juliet post(made after I finished the last volume and was really sad because it was gone, then I learned there is a W Juliet 2 and I have been happy and am waiting for Viz to get in gear and license it already) http://meganbmoore.livejournal.com/196155.html

I actually prefer the W Juliet art to quite a bit of the more popular art, it's just initially jarring because it's different...the first few chapters are also, I believe, her first published art ever, except may a couple short stories.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

...(though, really, never have I been warned away as strongly)


But hey, they get married at the end so I am all for it. This is going to be my next guilty pleausre manga now that Hot Gimmick (also with the raping :P) is done.

*off to check WH post*

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think I always end up dropping any guilty pleasure mangas I read, unless they become more *don't ask me what they are, I forget they exist after I lose interest unless I see them or someone mentions them* The only exceptions are Ken Akamatsu's stuff because A) his stuff is pure crack and B) for all the fan service, Love Hina is one of the best romance/relationship stories to make it over here. Therefore, I will always and forever follow his stuff(unless he starts sucking) even though the girls will always A) lose their clothes(accidentally and because of a male who will then be clobbered beyond a mere mortal's ability to survive) and B) Outnumber the guys at a minimum of 5 to 1(or, in the case of Negima, about 20 to 1)

BTW, I can also point you to scanslations of both Basara and W Juliet.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I hate scanlations. Hurt my eyes. I even dropped madly-obsessed about Fruits Basket in mid vol 17 because I needed scanlations break. It shows how much I adored it that I read two volumes that way and that I plan to continue this or next weekend. If they are in photobucket, it's only half bad but the dl and resize, reopen each image drive me nuts. But thanks :)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Thought you didn't like them, but was checking. I usually only read them if something gets me in a mad passion. I have those because I've been DLing them and they're 2 of several series I plan to do "scenes from" type posts in planned rereads.

I have some manga recs for you

[calledinvain.livejournal.com]

(Ok, i cannot take the sensual phrase seriously, because it's plastic shrinkwrapped and that means one of three things: 1) OMG THERE IS GAY SEX IN IT, 2) Adult Situations AND NAKED THRUSTING PARTS! 3) Way too much violence and gore)

but also because I peeked inside and nearly had a seizure laughing at one of the sex scenes. Let's just say a certain word, when spelled out, to represent a climactic event - it makes me laugh hysterically. I'm sure it's loads sexier in Japanese! but yeah....and the art with the elongated neck and the way the men are drawn annoys me, so that's my own shallow musings on the topic. It does amuse me that there is an actual Japanese rock band called Aucifer (tho in the older editions of the translated volumes, the band was called Lucifer) and that Takki is best friends with the lead singer.

ANYWAY, on to the manga recs (or you can play let's cast Maki and Yamapi in these roles, because that's half the fun!)

Bisco Hatori's (old) new series, Millenium Snow. Wow, her art really has evolved in Ouran, this was her previous work, and you can see the beginnings of her lush style, but this is much more scratched out, simplistic stuff. A story about a dying girl who meets a vampire boy - who's afraid of taking that final step into true vampirism, drinking blood. He also refuses to take the time honored tradition of making a human companion/blood bank and would rather spend eternity alone. Can Chiyuki (her name literally means a million years of snow) change his mind, and more importantly his heart? There's a chibi bat who looks after Toya (the vampire). Add in another boy with his own set of problems....

Kitchen Princess - is a fluffy shojo manga with real recipes attached! It's about a girl who is orphaned early on, and she decides she doesn't want to live without her parents, but is saved by a kind hearted boy. He gives her a silver spoon as a token of his friendship, and the little girl vows to find him and thank him when she's all grown up. And maybe marry him, because that's how these shojos work! Fast forward, and she's a teenage girl, leaving the orphanage to enter a prestigious academy, where all the students have some kind of special talent. She is outcast quickly when the students interrogate her and find that her ability to win eating competitions hardly elite material. A group of bitchy school girls later, our heroine finds herself with no real friendship prospects except for two boys - one's the president of the student council, and the other is just this annoying brat she argues with all the time. She slowly befriends both of them and cooks up a few treats. It's like a chibi version of Like Water for Chocolate - her passion's in her cooking.

*****Her Majesty's Dog****** Mick Takeuchi. This is a Big Gold Star Rec, because it features Japanese folklore traditions, an oblivious heroine, her plucky best friend, and the demon-spirit boy who's unabashedly in love with his master. It's about Amane Kamori, a sheltered village girl who leaves her village, guardian in tow, to go to high school in the big city. Her secret is that she's an extremely powerful medium who can control anyone or anything with word magic. (every medium or "manatsukai" has a bond with a guardian demon that does their bidding/shares power) Her guardian? When not in demonic lion-dog form, assumes the form of a very hot teenage boy, called Hyoue. Hyoue is hundreds of years old and is a powerful demon in his own right, but lately he's been feeling a little bit more than platonic concern for his 'mistress.' Will Amane ever get a clue that Hyoue loves her (truly, madly, deeply?) Will Hyoue's demon nature get the better of him? Will the other Hot Guy (you know there had to be another one) get Amane's affection instead?

The art is really pretty, the story line is awesome and funny, also treading in the dark and psychological, Amane is immensely appealing, Hyoue is just a big dumb demon dog, but he feels so much that you can't help yourself, and there's other mediums and guardians to meet (and Takeuchi sensei namedrops JE in her little notes), and really, is the series after Vampire Knight that I think is doing incredibly well. And also, you could totally slot Maki in the Amane role and Yamapi in the Hyoue role.

part two, because LJ IS A BUM

[calledinvain.livejournal.com]

Beauty Pop is another light and fluffy tale - a make over shojo. There's this team of boys that make over select girls to the acclaim of the entire school. They call themselves the scissors project, but they do more than just provide a good haircut and an all over beauty experience - they can change the girl's fortunes at school as well. The problem is, they're pretty elitist and if there's something really really wrong with you, well look elsewhere. Elsewhere happens to be in the hands of one Kiri Koshiba, a messy haired (but impeccably cut) girl who happens to be the daughter of a barber and a Hollywood FX artist. She also has hands of gold - and slowly, and rather against her will becomes known as X, and a serious thorn in the side of Narumi, the head boy behind the Scissors Project. No real romance yet, as Narumi's basically an idiot and too motivated by showing his father up as he tries to prove that he's the number one hairdresser in Japan (I Know, only in Japanese manga) and Kiri's too apathetic. This is mostly cotton candy relaxation reading.

Basilisk -Masaki Segawa. If you liked the movie Shinobi: Heart Under Blade, this manga expands the world of the ninja clans ino much more significant detail and is based on the famous novel that the movie (and a bajillion other things) adapted. It has gorgeous, evocative art, but is a bit on the violent and bloody side. Well, there's ninjas, what do you expect.

I have more, but the ones I've recced are ones I'm currently buying and collecting (ESPECIALLY HER MAJESTY'S DOG!)

Re: I have some manga recs for you

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I am sure there is sex in it. YAY. And HEE. Though the thought of a real band is hilarious.

Your recs (in this post and the post below) sound AWESOME.

totally slot Maki in the Amane role and Yamapi in the Hyoue role.


You sure know how to sell a manga! :) I am checking this out. I came across it a while back and thought the concept was a bit odd but hey, that was a while back and I've gotten into odder stuff by now :)

Re: hairdressers. It's making me think of twdrama Magicians of Love :)

well, I do sell it for a living.

[calledinvain.livejournal.com]

an inadequate, cannot begin to live the lifestyle I am accustomed to living, but hey, it's a living, yes?

I'll try to get to my scanner tomorrow and scan some art, but you can always check out gocomi's official website: http://gocomi.com/series/hermajestysdog/
for more information.

Another good manga, that I forgot to mention is Oyayubihime Infinity, and the manga that I was going to kick off my manga recs post with, because it deals with that favorite topic in manga - predestined/fated love. The manga's about reincarnation and a group of highschool misfits who somehow bond together despite the fact that one of them insists that the other one is his destined lover from a previous life - even though she doesn't think she is. Add in a subplot about a teenage idol queen, her jealous stalkers, a sister starting to wonder about life outside of her sister's comfortable shadow, and that entire destiny in a butterfly birthmark thing - and that's Oyayubihime infinity:

http://www.dccomics.com/cmx/?action=on_sale&i=5254

Re: well, I do sell it for a living.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

LOL on the lifestyle :)

Thanks for the link. And it looks really good. OI also sounds interesting. Ahhhh, too much manga, too little time!

Re: I have some manga recs for you

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I loudly and energetically second the Her Majesty's Dog rec. Love that one so very much.

*has book 6 waiting in bag for when she finished novel...except new Dresden Files book wil be here tomorrow, and it'll get pushed back*

Looked at Millenium Snow and will likely get it once I see what this week's shipment has(read: if i don't have 10 books coming out)

[fivil.livejournal.com]

Ohhh that first manhwa should SO be made into a drama. My brain went on fantasy casting mode as well. I think YEH would rock the role as she was called "Young Female Warrior" for being able to kick so much ass in the variety show X-man. And she played a tomboy character who did boxing in her first movie, she was very good as this straight-forward, unprissy girl who's not afraid to give people all sorts of hell. And she still looked gorgeous, so it worked out.

I watched ep 1 of DGCH, by the way, and liked it a lot - have the 2nd one downloaded and will watch tonight or something. I agree that by the looks of it, the girl in this could also be seen playing a spunky tomboy heroine type. :D

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I know! I was reading the manhwa and thinking what a cracktastic drama it would make. They should turn more manhwas into dramas. I want to see Snow Drop as a drama so badly. (With Hyun Bin and Sung Yuri as the leads).

Re: DGCH. So glad you like it! I think it's totally funny and the otp is one of my faves.