"forget the bull in the china shop / there's a china doll in the bullpen"

[larryhammer]

There is a common pattern in shoujo romance-dramas for the initial focus to be on the heroine and her issues but as the story progresses and these get resolved, to switch over to the hero and his issues, which are resolved in the series climax. Sometimes the balance is half and half, sometimes it tilts one way or another. A classic example is KareKano/His and Her Circumstances, which the author explicitly breaks into Miyazawa and Arima arcs. It's not a universal thing, of course, but the pattern is frequent enough to get noted.

As is that this sort of narrative shift happens markedly more often in shoujo (for teenage girls) than other demographics. I don't know how often this sort of flipping happens in josei romances (for young women), as I don't have enough data, but what I've seen suggests that more commonly, if it ends up being about the hero, it's about him from the start. Shounen (for teenage boys) tends to be all about the boys all the time, except when it's all about girls and What They Are Up To, while seinen (for young men) seems to start as it means to go on.

In the love poems of the Kokinshu, the shift goes the other direction: over the course of the generalized affair depicted in books 11-15, the initial love-longing poems are mostly from his point of view, the consummation and more or less happier parts are roughly equal his and hers, and the drifting apart and heartbreak are largely from her viewpoint. It is true that the Japanese to some extent inherited the trope of the lonely lady's lament from Chinese poetry, but that still doesn't explain all of it -- not when how the trope was expressed, not to mention all the other phases of the affair, came from native tradition.

What I can't tell is whether this arrangement is original to the editors (the way they first presented cherry blossoms as the premier spring flower), a general pattern for their time, or goes further back in history. I have a suspicion there's no evidence, given that as far as I know this is the earliest Japanese narrative of a complete love affair, as opposed to just snapshots in the form of single poems or an exchange.

Interesting to contemplate, though.

---L.

Comments

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

The focus of the anrrative affects what we take from it, which makes your comments particularly interesting.

[larryhammer]

Interesting, how so?

---L.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

If the focus shifts form girl to boy, then the regular readers will take that on board as part of their baggage. If girls remain the centre throughout, then that's the baggage they take on. I'd love to know how such shifts affect how people interpret the world and make choices.

[larryhammer]

Ah, yes. All part of the framing.

It's a slight tangent, but I'm reminded of author's comments about Bunny Drop, in which she specifically chose a man to become a sudden parent because she was writing for a female audience and needed the distancing in order to focus on the issues without it being person to her readers.

---L.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Yes--reinforced sense of expectation, if I'm understanding you correctly.

L.: I haven't read much of the early poetry in translation (which is largely why I've been following your DW posts), and thus I wonder whether it'd be too tortured to look at Kojiki and Nihon shoki for how their embedded bits of tale-narrative treat this. Too far from the stylized poetic genres? (Further disclaimer: I've read most of Kojiki once in Philippi's translation and maybe half of what Aston calls Nihongi, just once apiece; I am definitely no expert.)

[larryhammer]

I haven't actually read either Kojiki or Nihon shoki aside from what's translated in Cranston's poetry anthology, so I'm not the best person to answer this. My impression, tho', is that it's pretty clear that much of the poetry in them was not written as described, but imported into the occasion -- for ex, based on linguistic and stylistic evidence, some was written much later, while for others there's a disjoint between frame and content. So I'm not sure it's as useful for studying framing so much as reframing.

Ise monogatari strikes me as more fruitful, especially where it overlaps with the Kokinshu, which sometimes confirms and sometimes contradicts the Ise narrative.

---L.

[behindpyramids.livejournal.com]

Whoa, that's fascinating. I'm going to have to pay more attention to the shoujo I read.

Speaking of which...any recs?

Also, out of curiosity, how did you get into shoujo?

[larryhammer]

An extension of my reading (and writing) romances, especially YA romances. Shoujo stories, especially when not set in school, tend to appeal to me more than shounen, and seinen and josei are harder to get, and get handles on.

I've been thinking of setting up a personalized recommendations post, but until then, what sorts of things are you looking for / have liked? And do you prefer licensed volumes or scanlations?

---L.

[behindpyramids.livejournal.com]

You read and write romances too? Oh, my hero, my hero!


Please set up a post! It'd be awesome.

I...admit I prefer scanslations because I don't have the moohlahs for licensed volumes and often times the library doesn't have the full series.

Favorites:
Ouran
Nodame
Dengeki Daisy
Honey and Clover
Skip Beat
Fruits Basket

(I feel like I'm naming all the big series, but I like romances with lots of character development...totally fall for girl-disguised-as-guy hook line and sinker, and I love humor.)

[larryhammer]

So longer (5+ volume) older shoujo/josei romances with hijinx arising from doofball characters, who are sometimes hiding deeper character trauma. Right. The obvious suggestions are Hana Yori Dango/Boys Over Flowers, HanaKimi, and KareKano/His and Her Circumstances, but since they're obvious, I'll assume you've either read or didn't like those. Four that immediately come to mind are:

Cat Street (scans complete)
Kimi ni Todoki (ongoing, scans current)
Crazy for You (from the author of KnT, scans complete)
Kimi wa Pet/Tramps Like Us (scans complete incomplete, licensed volumes complete but OP)

and an extra bit of extreme silliness with no redeeming value WHATSOVER, Love Monster. (I am amazed at how much S&M imagery the author manages to sneak into the froth -- often accompanied by actual bubbles.)

ETA a link to my list of all cross-dressing series I know of.

---L.

[behindpyramids.livejournal.com]

You're awesome. Somehow I could never get into Hana Yori Dango (the bullying was so extreme!), or KareKano but I loved HanaKimi. Loved.

I've heard of Cat Street and Kimi ni Todoki but never read them. Haven't even heard of the other two!

So excited!

[larryhammer]

Start with Kimi ni Todoke, then. No cross-dressing, but there's some serious laughs, major character development, a genuinely non-jerk love interest, and the strong female friendships are even more important the romance. Plus Sawako drawn in chibi form? SO. DAMN. CUTE.

The Viz translation (7 volumes out, and popular enough to possibly be in libraries) is decent. The scanlation quality is all over the place.

---L.