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larryhammerOh, Japanese popular culture. Don't stop doing that. The output artifacts may be too much sometimes and exhibit disturbing cultural norms, but that's part of the charm.
Saint Young Men - One's Buddha! The other's Jesus! Together, theyfight crime share a cramped Tokyo apartment while on vacation from their respective paradises. No really, that's it: two bachelors living slacker lives -- who happen to be, well, Jesus and Buddha. Manga only, thank all the saints and bodhisattvas. And a best-seller in Japan. A handful of chapters are scanned.
Binchou-tan - The name is a pun: binchoutan is a kind of charcoal. Make a chibi mascot for a forestry company, put a piece of charcoal in her hair, call her Binchou and use an honorific that's a cutesy pronounciation of -chan, and you've got moe dripping off your anime spinoff faster than the viewer's insulin shots can take effect. Bonus points for the lush scenery porn, though. 12 fifteen-minute episodes, all fansubbed.
Three in Love - High school love comedy about a (semi)-stable threesome. Girl A is an academic star, cool and popular type -- the sort who not only gets adolation and gifties from younger girls but who revels in the attention from her "kittens". She is also competitive to the point of being unable stand losing and has a longtime crush on Boy C, a childhood friend, so when Girl B (the plunge ahead energetic type) asks Boy C out, Girl A insists that he also date her at the same time. Girl A comes to like her rival, and soon begins refering to B as her girlfriend as well -- even unto imagining the three of them married together -- to B's annoyance because, as she puts it, she is not a pervert. Ah, the joys of societal acceptance of bisexuality. Most of the drama comes from romantic complications from other boys. Licensed manga, a couple volumes out. Fair warning: this was the first serial by the mangaka (she was much better by the time she wrote Crossroad) and boy howdy does it show, in the storytelling (we pretty much have NO IDEA why Boy C is going along with this, at least so far) as well as the incredibly scratchy art.
First Girl - Like all Chiho Saito manga, this is hard to summarize without sounding stupid (YOU try it with Revolutionary Girl Utena) but here goes. 18-year-old Miu is sold as a bride by her mother, a professional lounge dancer, to a wealthy South American to pay off her debts -- only to get caught up in revolution, true love lost on a wedding night, a military coup, dancing tangos for a living, counter-revolution, angsty revolutionaries, a boat trip to New York, drug smugglers, dancing more tangos for a living (on Broadway!), and ... that takes us only halfway through, but rest assured there's still more cracktastic melodrama, all it perfumed with (what else?) Significant Roses. Oh, and there's a dog, too. All five volumes are scanned.
On the other hand, I await the day when someone deconstructs of the magical-girlfriend-falls-from-sky-into-shounen-hero's-arms story by taking the premises to their logically destructive ends, the way Neon Genesis Evangelion did for teen mecha pilots. Because until then, we'll have to put up with the likes of This Ugly Yet Beautiful World clogging the id-waves. Gah.
---L.
Saint Young Men - One's Buddha! The other's Jesus! Together, they
Binchou-tan - The name is a pun: binchoutan is a kind of charcoal. Make a chibi mascot for a forestry company, put a piece of charcoal in her hair, call her Binchou and use an honorific that's a cutesy pronounciation of -chan, and you've got moe dripping off your anime spinoff faster than the viewer's insulin shots can take effect. Bonus points for the lush scenery porn, though. 12 fifteen-minute episodes, all fansubbed.
Three in Love - High school love comedy about a (semi)-stable threesome. Girl A is an academic star, cool and popular type -- the sort who not only gets adolation and gifties from younger girls but who revels in the attention from her "kittens". She is also competitive to the point of being unable stand losing and has a longtime crush on Boy C, a childhood friend, so when Girl B (the plunge ahead energetic type) asks Boy C out, Girl A insists that he also date her at the same time. Girl A comes to like her rival, and soon begins refering to B as her girlfriend as well -- even unto imagining the three of them married together -- to B's annoyance because, as she puts it, she is not a pervert. Ah, the joys of societal acceptance of bisexuality. Most of the drama comes from romantic complications from other boys. Licensed manga, a couple volumes out. Fair warning: this was the first serial by the mangaka (she was much better by the time she wrote Crossroad) and boy howdy does it show, in the storytelling (we pretty much have NO IDEA why Boy C is going along with this, at least so far) as well as the incredibly scratchy art.
First Girl - Like all Chiho Saito manga, this is hard to summarize without sounding stupid (YOU try it with Revolutionary Girl Utena) but here goes. 18-year-old Miu is sold as a bride by her mother, a professional lounge dancer, to a wealthy South American to pay off her debts -- only to get caught up in revolution, true love lost on a wedding night, a military coup, dancing tangos for a living, counter-revolution, angsty revolutionaries, a boat trip to New York, drug smugglers, dancing more tangos for a living (on Broadway!), and ... that takes us only halfway through, but rest assured there's still more cracktastic melodrama, all it perfumed with (what else?) Significant Roses. Oh, and there's a dog, too. All five volumes are scanned.
On the other hand, I await the day when someone deconstructs of the magical-girlfriend-falls-from-sky-into-shounen-hero's-arms story by taking the premises to their logically destructive ends, the way Neon Genesis Evangelion did for teen mecha pilots. Because until then, we'll have to put up with the likes of This Ugly Yet Beautiful World clogging the id-waves. Gah.
---L.
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Date: 26 June 2009 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 26 June 2009 05:17 pm (UTC)---L.
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Date: 26 June 2009 05:25 pm (UTC)I love St. Young Men! It's so cute, Jesus and Buddha riding the subway, and girls asking Jesus if he's Johnny Depp.
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Date: 26 June 2009 06:17 pm (UTC)---L.
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Date: 26 June 2009 07:56 pm (UTC)fight crimeshare a cramped Tokyo apartment while on vacation from their respective paradises.See, I would totally read that.
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Date: 26 June 2009 09:10 pm (UTC)---L.