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The most famous Japanese woodblock print inspired French artists in the 19th century, and left a lingering impression of Japan as a place of mystery and natural beauty.
Japan has fascinated people ever since its opening to the west in 1853. Like its European island-nation counterpart, Britain, it has had a disproportionate influence on the world considering its relatively small size.
Part of this influence is due to Japanese culture and aesthetics, and anime and manga are a part of this. When I'm watching anime or reading manga, the things that intrigue me and that strike me as odd or funny or downright strange all come from the nuances of Japanese life that I, as a non-Japanese, don't understand.
Japanese society is still largely closed to outsiders. Much has been said about Japanese "monoculture" and group-think and lack of individualism. These are generalizations, of course, but there is some truth to them. And it's not entirely bad, as evidenced by the orderly behavior of Japanese citizens following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Working to preserve group harmony in normal times leads to civil order being preserved in times of emergency. The best of what Japanese people are was on display in the days and weeks following March 11 this year.
The disaster at Fukushima has dropped out of the headlines in recent months, but a sense of unease remains. People in Japan are doubting the word of TEPCO, the operators of the Fukushima nuclear plant, that the situation is under control. Some have taken to using geiger counters to measure radiation in their neighborhoods. And some in Tokyo - 170 miles away - have been finding it.
Naturally, the Japanese government would be loath to cause a panic, and evacuating 13 million Tokyo residents - many millions more if you include the suburbs - is a nearly unimaginable scenario. I know someone who flew to Tokyo a week after the earthquake, and while changing planes at Haneda Airport saw nothing but babies and their mothers waiting to board planes that were heading south.
I don't have the scientific evidence to back this up, but I have an uneasy feeling about Fukushima as well. Many have noted the cruel irony of Japan suffering a nuclear disaster, after being the only country to have been hit with two nuclear bombs in 1945.
After 1945, Japan had to remake itself. With hard work and a desire to put WWII behind them and look forward, they did so, becoming the richest nation in Asia.
That prosperity led to a flowering of Japanese pop culture, the existence of which we take for granted now as if it had always been there; but in fact, it needed the sense of possibility that came into being in the 1960s and after to truly flourish.
Japan faced a clouded and uncertain future before March 2011, with an economy that had been moribund for 20 years; an aging population and severely declining birth rate; as well as the usual issues of limited food self-sufficiency and literally no energy self-sufficiency. Now, should Fukushima turn out to be the slow-moving catastrophe that some fear it is, all that will pale next to this.
Since 1945, for the first time in its history, Japan has shared its art and culture with the world - and the world fell in love with it. Sixty-six years ago, this nation that tends to self-isolation opened its door to the world and basked in the sunshine. Now, with all that they're facing, I fear the Japanese may retreat into their hole and, like in a cartoon, pull the hole in after them. I fear that they may have had their summer and that it is now autumn in Japan - irretrievably.
I hope that I am totally and laughably wrong about Fukushima, but - I don't know. I know that all of this came to me when I was looking at the Edo period woodblock print at the top of this post and suddenly realized why I found it disturbing.
It's a tsunami.
There's a fly in the ointment in Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi - and his name is Chiaki Yoshino.
Or as we might call him - "The Clueless Uke."
Of the three couples in Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi, one is trying to rebuild a lost love relationship from the past (Onodera and Takano), one is between a cynical gay man and his trying-gay-on-for-size younger love (Kisa and Yukina), and the last is a love triangle between two hot men and possibly the densest uke on the planet.
Chiaki Yoshino is a best-selling shojo manga author and artist for Marukawa Publishing under the female pen name of "Chiharu Yoshikawa." His best friend from childhood, Yoshiyuki Hatori, or "Tori" for short, is his editor.
Tori has secretly been in love with Chiaki forever. Chiaki, as he is with most things, is completely oblivious to this fact and is simply grateful that his friend Tori takes such good care of him.
Not only his manga work but him personally, as in: cooking delicious meals for him, doing his laundry, etc., when he's not actually editing Chiaki's books, which is his full-time occupation.
In Season 1, Tori finally confessed his feelings to Chiaki, who was shocked and then... went with the flow, I believe it's called? ;) After being best friends for their entire lives, the two began a sexual relationship.
Now in Season 2, Chiaki is still getting used to this change in their relationship. But the course of true love never does run smooth and for the spanner in the works, there's another childhood friend: Yuu Yanase.
Yuu transferred to Chiaki and Tori's school in the 7th grade and became Chiaki's good friend. He and Tori barely tolerate each other, pretending to get along for Chiaki's sake, not that Chiaki ever notices those kinds of things (or anything else for that matter).
All three are now 28 years old. Chiaki is a hugely successful mangaka, Tori is his editor and Yuu is a talented artist who freelances for Chiaki and other mangaka. There's one problem.
Yuu has also been in love with Chiaki forever.
After Chiaki and Tori become romantically involved, Yuu finally makes his move on Chiaki. Chiaki, however, is as dense as a post and can see neither Tori's insecurity and resentment toward Yuu nor Yuu's maneuvering to get into a clinch with him however he can.
We might stop for a moment here to describe the personalities of these three men. Tori is tall, handsome, conservative and slightly stodgy. He's a workaholic who rarely smiles and who frequently scolds Chiaki for various faults like laziness when he's not taking care of Chiaki's needs like a mother hen.
He sounds controlling and unappealing, doesn't he? But Tori is also loyal, serious and devoted one-hundred percent to making Chiaki happy. He became an editor so he could remain close to him and has a secret romantic side that only Chiaki sees.
While Tori has always been Chiaki's best friend, Yuu is the friend that Chiaki can relax and just have fun with. When Chiaki and Yuu get together they horse around, do dumb stuff and let their hair down. Yuu has a sharp tongue and enjoys baiting Tori in Chiaki's presence, knowing he's safe as Chiaki doesn't recognize subtext and couldn't read the atmosphere in a room if it bit him in the behind.
At one point, Yuu confesses to Chiaki:
But Chiaki passes it off as a joke.
Yuu then schemes to get some quality alone time with Chiaki by taking him on an overnight trip to an onsen for his birthday. Chiaki the ditz has literally forgotten his own birthday and is surprised by the birthday cake and champagne Yuu arranged for them.
"Maybe that's why Tori was upset that I was going on this trip," Chiaki muses to himself. (YOU THINK?)
Yuu gets drunk and approaches Chiaki:
But of course, they're interrupted by Tori calling Chiaki to wish him a happy birthday. Guilt-stricken, Chiaki apologizes to Yuu and rushes home to be with Tori.
So we have:
1. Yuu telling Chiaki he loves him;
2. Yuu taking Chiaki on a special birthday trip;
3. Yuu trying to seduce Chiaki.
Chiaki's reaction, after all of this, is:
Rationally, it shouldn't even be possible that a human being could be this unaware of everything, but this is Chiaki.
It takes him several days, but finally the light bulb goes on:
After Tori breaks off a date with Chiaki due to a work emergency, Chiaki sees Tori at the train station talking to his old girlfriend from high school.
Instantly jealous, he goes to visit Yuu and downs a number of beers and sulks while Yuu engages in his favorite activity, drawing Chiaki.
Yuu taunts Tori on the phone with the fact that Chiaki is at his place, and then returns to the living room to jump Chiaki's bones. Literally. He pushes Chiaki down onto the floor and tries to kiss him, but Chiaki panics and punches him in the face.
(I'm kind of glad it wasn't a wussy slap. Chiaki may be an uke, but he's still a guy after all. ;))
He immediately apologizes to Yuu, but Yuu is in tears. "Why is it always Hatori?" he asks, but Chiaki doesn't have any real answer.
Tori then busts in and tries to punch Yuu himself, but Chiaki pulls him away.
Later that night, they reconcile after Chiaki learns that Tori's old girlfriend now works at Marukawa's printing contractor. It was work after all.
A love triangle always spices things up, but this one sticks in my craw. Why? I think it strains belief that Tori, the paragon of all things manly and virtuous, and Yuu, that sexy little schemer, are both in love with Chiaki the complete airhead, whose main expression is a blank stare half the time and a puzzled stare the rest of the time. How did this guy get the fevered attention of these two hot semes?
Of the three couples in Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi, I guess only two of them make sense. ;)
I purchased the Noir DVD box set recently. My decision to buy the DVDs was part of an ongoing inner process that I think most anime fans engage in to some extent. How do I support the industry that creates and produces the anime and manga that I love?
I haven't always been conscious of the need to support the industry. When I first became a fan some six years ago, I just bought things that I liked without thinking about whether the money I spent was being returned to the creators or not.
I've bought a lot of anime "stuff" over the years; merchandise like posters, playing cards (I have Gundam 00 and Hikaru no Go decks), wall scrolls, little art cards, pencil boards, keychains, T-shirts and other such items.
What I haven't bought too many of are DVDs. We've all heard that DVDs are what the Japanese producers want us to buy the most, as they represent the most profit. But DVDs are on their way out as the dominant method of viewing anime (or films or TV series - all entertainment in general). It's digital and streaming that is the standard now.
I know this is a touchy subject, but I have to talk about legal streaming/DVDs vs. fansubs and torrents.
My two novels Kaminishi and Portola Bay are both available as torrents. I know that when my novella Time Gone By is published next spring, that it will also wind up as a torrent. For each person that reads my books as torrents, that represents a loss of income for myself and for my publisher Dreamspinner Press.
I don't do torrents - that's my personal decision. However, I do watch fansubs for the anime that isn't available on licensed streaming channels such as Crunchyroll, Hulu, Viz, Funimation and the like. I recognize that that may make me a hypocrite in some people's eyes. The distinction I draw is that my books are available for purchase, while some of the anime series I want to watch aren't available on licensed streaming channels. If they were, I would watch them on those channels.
And even that situation is changing. A year ago, I was watching maybe a third of my anime on Crunchyroll and Hulu, and the rest of it was fansubs. Today, virtually all of the anime I am watching is available through licensed channels. I'm watching Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi, Gintama, Bleach and Naruto Shippuuden on Crunchyroll, Nura 2 and Persona 4 on Hulu, Guilty Crown on Funimation, etc. (There is one exception - which I'll discuss below.)
So how does one best "support the industry" these days? If the industry is going to digital/streaming not only for anime but for manga (Viz's manga site, JManga, Digital Manga Publishing's emanga site and others), will paid subscriptions be enough to keep the industry afloat here in North America?
I don't have any answers, but I think it's important to keep asking the questions. I know I'm more aware now of my obligation as a fan to support the industry. I've been a paid Crunchyroll subscriber from day one, and I'm considering paying to read manga on the Viz, JManga and emanga sites as well. I'm also buying more DVDs, like Noir.
Oh - and that exception? Bakuman is currently not available on any of the licensed channels. Here's my most recent DVD purchase:
It's Volume I of the first season of Bakuman. It was $18.74, some of which will go to support the Japanese creators as well as Right Stuf the distributor.
I am going to buy all of the Bakuman DVDs, both first season and second season. It will be several hundred dollars when all is said and done - and none of which would be supporting the industry had I not watched the series as a fansub first.
In whatever way you can - please support the industry. The worst outcome would be that anime and manga fades out from the North American scene because enough of us didn't do what we could, when we were able to do so.
