Saturday, January 7, 2006

I Do Like Writing Rants, Thank You For Asking
Well, there went the last of my respect for Tokyopop. Bye-bye! The moment I saw an ad for "Peach Fuzz" I knew things weren't going to work out between us. Toktopop appeals to giggly preteens who don't like reading books without pictures. I am no longer a giggly preteen. And this sudden burst of "American manga" (which is technically impossible, as I will explain), as shown by the fact that more than half of the new series in the News Blast were by non-Japanese people, is the last straw. Shutterbox I like. It's good stuff, and in the spirit of manga while keeping an American way of writing. "Cinemanga" I could ignore since I've never seen anyone buy it, so it's not harming the general populace as far as I can tell. But now, it's over. I'm sorry. I see now that you nabbed Gravitation not because it was awesome, or because it had quality as well as something new to the American market. You got it because it was popular with the fangirls and would make a lot of money. That is unacceptable.

Here's my explanation about th term "manga" being applied to American-made, manga-style comics. Ahem. The word manga is a Japanese word. Therefore it applies to the Japanese thing it describes, in this case comic strips and graphic novels, and to any other comics, as long as the person using the word is speaking Japanese. If the manga was produced in America, it's not actually manga, it's just drawn and set up in the manga style. Also, "manga" from Korea and China are also not actually manga. If it's from Korea, it's manwha, and if it's from China, it's manhua (I believe; correct me if I'm wrong). This same rule can be applied to other situations as well. For instance, the word samurai is used by the Japanese to indicate a swordsman or warrior who fights for his lord. Europe had at one point a similar concept of knights. We don't call them samurai though, do we? Even if a knight were to put on samurai armor and carry a katana, he would not be a samurai. Katana, also, can only be used to describe a Japanese sword, or a sword as spoken by a Japanese person.
*deep breath* So this is why Shutterbox and Peach Fuzz are not manga. Why Peach Fuzz is CRAP is pretty self-explanatory.

By the way, has anyone noticed how all sorts of companies are trying to jump on the graphic novel bandwagon? I saw a Kid's Bop (*shudder*) commercial the other day, and apparently there is now a comic adventure that comes with the CD. Copycat much? It's also a bit ironic, in Cinemanga, how there is a Cinemanga of the Yugioh Movie, but no manga. Guess why! Because the Yugioh Movie was contrived by the nasty Americans who want to ruin good shounen anime, so there was never any real manga equivalent. I don't know if there's any manga corresponding to the real Yugioh movies.

Oh, and karate starts again tomorrow. Er, today. Wish me luck; I'm rather out of practice. ^_^U
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