manga

OK, so I read my very first manga ever yesterday. And I loved it. Here’s my question. Why don’t I listen to my own advice? I’ve been telling people for years that if you’ll just try whatever it is that you’re not interested in, you just might like it. I’ve said it about young adult books, graphic novels, vegetables… and now this. I was pretty resistant to the whole thing. But as part of my Trying New Things plan, I tried it. And I liked it.

Yesterday I read the first volume of Yotsuba&!, about a little girl who has just moved to a new neighborhood, and she is something else. There’s absolutely nothing that can put her in a bad mood. She’d loud and never slows down and breaks all kinds of societal rules, but she’s about the cutest thing ever and charms everyone who meets her, including the three girls who live next door. The first volume is mostly introducing the characters, leaving just a little bit of question for the next volumes. It was a lot of fun to read, and went really fast. Yotsuba drove me a little bit nuts, but I’ll definitely try the next volume.

I also read Kat and Mouse: Teacher Trouble, which I suspect is probably like manga-lite, but it was still a lot of fun. I’ve already checked out the second volume. Kat moves from public school in Iowa to a snooty private school in Massachusetts (I think), where her dad has gotten a new job. There, she meets Mouse, a self-described cool nerd, who fills her in on the cliques of Dover Academy, and becomes a quick friend. Very soon after they arrive (possibly the first day?), someone breaks into Kat’s dad’s classroom lab and steals all the microscopes. They leave a note, declaring that everyone in the class will receive a C or better, or the theft will continue. Kat recruits Mouse to help her catch the thief and stop the blackmailing. I really liked the art in this one. It really suited the girl-spy story.

And, while we’re talking about manga, I finally got around to reading an article in Wired about the manga culture in Japan and thought it was fascinating. The article was mostly about dojinshi , basically manga fan fiction. Apparently there are huge dojinshi conventions where all of these amateur manga creators get together and share/sell their interpretations of popular manga series. The article says that Japanese copyright law is just as stringent as ours, if not more, but these creators get kind of a free pass since it works out so well for the publishers. In some ways, they’re a link between the readers and the publishers – the publishers don’t have to spent a ton of money researching demographics and popularity of series – they can just go to one of these conventions and see who’s there, what’s being written, and what’s selling. Also, it’s allowing the next generation of writers to work on their craft and get noticed.

I think all of that is very exciting. I love the idea of fan fiction, even if I’m not interested in reading it or doing it myself. I love the idea of people creating new things when they’re excited about something. I think it’s awesome that there are teenagers out there who are so friggin’ excited about Twilight that they just have to write the next installment on their own, because there’s no way they can wait until the next book comes out.