flyingskull (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
flyingskull) wrote2007-08-11 07:17 pm
flyingskull) wrote2007-08-11 07:17 pm
When Completely Different Universes Collide
So my brother came to see me cuz he's a nice man and brought his lover cuz his lover is a hunk and also a nice man and, instead of chit-chatting with his sister and allowing her to drool on the Hunk, he dumped a box on my table and said: "READ IT AND WATCH IT AND DO NOT DARE JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS UNTIL YOU'VE READ IT TWICE AT LEAST!" in scary capslock of Intensity. It's not easy - and not normal for him - but he cowed me into obeying. I meekly opened the box and GAAAAAAAAAAH! Manga! Anime! Ohshitohshitohshit my brother's gone bonkers... MUUUUUUUUMMMMM!!!
But, being transfixed by Brother's Glare of IntensityTM, I did open the book and was immediately shouted at.
"It's the other way around, you shallow woman of no Japanese knowledge!"
Scary, I tell you. My bro had never been a Japanese fan, especially. He doesn't speak Japanese, he never went to Japan (I have, I liked Kyoto, disliked Tokyo, spoke with English-speaking hotel persons and that's it), he'd never indicated any interest in Japanese comic books and yet there he was, forcing me to read with menaces. I studied the instruction on How To Read The Other Way Around, and proceeded.
Gravitation, by Maki Murakami
First of all, let me tell you that I was biased, I was biased a LOT, against mangas. Because of the drawing style. Which just goes to show that all biases are truly based on ignorance. *sigh* Anyway I read and read and read. My bro and his hunk-lover had long gone, the night was not so young anymore and I couldn't stop reading. And, right after I finished the thirteen books, I started re-reading them again. It wasn't the story, it wasn't the characters, exactly - mind you, the characters are pure gold - it was the collision and subsequent fusion of two completely different styles of storytelling that fascinated me no end. It still does.
There's this fast-and-furious farce that is the story of one of the protagonists, Shuichi, who's a singer and has a band and goes on to fame and glory with it that's Dadaist in its absurdity of incidents and events and even manages to reach Surrealism every now and then. We have a giant robot panda for no reason whatsoever, we have managers who wake the singer up with gunshots to his - admittedly very small - brains and punctuate arguments with bazookas thus incinerating, but not killing, the boy. We have river-like nosebleeds that signify joy, we have oceans of tears at the slightest provocation and, mainly, we have a constant deformation of the face and body into monstruousness or infantility. Not exactly funny, because way over the top, but Rankin-funny: recurring gags, annihilation of the fourth wall and so on.
Then there's this dark and twisted tragedy that is the story of Eiri that's treated completely seriously and sensitively as it unfolds not unlike a thriller (we get bits and pieces of it dribbled here and there and we get to know it all only towards the end), and a very realistic thriller at that. Eiri is a best-selling writer of love stories who's an asocial bastard who won't say a kind word to anyone - including family - if he can help it, and he can help it almost always, who's cold and emotionless on the surface, who has a frightening capacity for unbridled violence; who wants nothing to do with his fellow human beings; who uses people mercilessly if he can get away with it, and he can because he's too pretty for words; who is, and this is not a contradiction because Murakami is a VERY good writer, incredibly vulnerable and rather ineffectual at defending himself.
The whole thing is seen by both POVs at the same time, which is what I find amazing, and the story revolves about the reciprocal infiltration of both universes. That's pretty advanced writing, y'know? The Shuichi Farce World smashes into the Eiri Tragedy World when the two character meet and fall in love (oversimplification, Schuichi falls into a crush which grows and Eiri falls into a trap which crushes him) and it's quite compelling to see how Eiri gets progressively Dadaist-Rankinian while Schuichi is forced to have a real tragic event and a real tragic insight.
I still don't know how Murakami managed the balancing act, but it's a joy to behold. It's so well layered too. It's a collision of two personalities, symbolised by the two narrative styles and tropes. Its theme is not that love conquers all, because actually love conquers nothing here, but that explosively declared passion and fiercely hidden passion can and must meet and meld if one wishes to be a complete human being and find the right degree of expression for one's intelligent passion. I'm quite sure I'm not reading too much into it too.
The cartoon is well enough, what I liked best is that one is supposed to have read and re-read the comic to fully understand it; it's like a really well-done canon respecting fanfic, in a sense. It ignores some things and explores parts that aren't that developed in the comic. What it lacks is the violently opposing styles that make the comic so memorable, though.
The icon? Ah yes. That's Eiri, just after having beaten to hospital, if not to death, a friend of the pitiful (he is, Murakami is VERY good at creating three dimensional characters) villain who had Shuichi gang raped and took photos. Eiri gets the film and the villain, Taki, says: "You have the eyes of a murderer." thus gaining the Jane Award for Noticing Important Things (Eiri has murdered two, or maybe three people. He had a VERY solid reason, but that changes nothing) and Eiri replies while licking the blood from his arm: "That's a bold accusation. I never heard that before. All the girls usually tell me how much they love my eyes..." I kind of like that expression.
I'll end with one of my favourite Eiri 'love words' to Shuichi. "Shut up! You're like an itch that never heals." Now, that's an original way to define love.
But, being transfixed by Brother's Glare of IntensityTM, I did open the book and was immediately shouted at.
"It's the other way around, you shallow woman of no Japanese knowledge!"
Scary, I tell you. My bro had never been a Japanese fan, especially. He doesn't speak Japanese, he never went to Japan (I have, I liked Kyoto, disliked Tokyo, spoke with English-speaking hotel persons and that's it), he'd never indicated any interest in Japanese comic books and yet there he was, forcing me to read with menaces. I studied the instruction on How To Read The Other Way Around, and proceeded.
Gravitation, by Maki Murakami
First of all, let me tell you that I was biased, I was biased a LOT, against mangas. Because of the drawing style. Which just goes to show that all biases are truly based on ignorance. *sigh* Anyway I read and read and read. My bro and his hunk-lover had long gone, the night was not so young anymore and I couldn't stop reading. And, right after I finished the thirteen books, I started re-reading them again. It wasn't the story, it wasn't the characters, exactly - mind you, the characters are pure gold - it was the collision and subsequent fusion of two completely different styles of storytelling that fascinated me no end. It still does.
There's this fast-and-furious farce that is the story of one of the protagonists, Shuichi, who's a singer and has a band and goes on to fame and glory with it that's Dadaist in its absurdity of incidents and events and even manages to reach Surrealism every now and then. We have a giant robot panda for no reason whatsoever, we have managers who wake the singer up with gunshots to his - admittedly very small - brains and punctuate arguments with bazookas thus incinerating, but not killing, the boy. We have river-like nosebleeds that signify joy, we have oceans of tears at the slightest provocation and, mainly, we have a constant deformation of the face and body into monstruousness or infantility. Not exactly funny, because way over the top, but Rankin-funny: recurring gags, annihilation of the fourth wall and so on.
Then there's this dark and twisted tragedy that is the story of Eiri that's treated completely seriously and sensitively as it unfolds not unlike a thriller (we get bits and pieces of it dribbled here and there and we get to know it all only towards the end), and a very realistic thriller at that. Eiri is a best-selling writer of love stories who's an asocial bastard who won't say a kind word to anyone - including family - if he can help it, and he can help it almost always, who's cold and emotionless on the surface, who has a frightening capacity for unbridled violence; who wants nothing to do with his fellow human beings; who uses people mercilessly if he can get away with it, and he can because he's too pretty for words; who is, and this is not a contradiction because Murakami is a VERY good writer, incredibly vulnerable and rather ineffectual at defending himself.
The whole thing is seen by both POVs at the same time, which is what I find amazing, and the story revolves about the reciprocal infiltration of both universes. That's pretty advanced writing, y'know? The Shuichi Farce World smashes into the Eiri Tragedy World when the two character meet and fall in love (oversimplification, Schuichi falls into a crush which grows and Eiri falls into a trap which crushes him) and it's quite compelling to see how Eiri gets progressively Dadaist-Rankinian while Schuichi is forced to have a real tragic event and a real tragic insight.
I still don't know how Murakami managed the balancing act, but it's a joy to behold. It's so well layered too. It's a collision of two personalities, symbolised by the two narrative styles and tropes. Its theme is not that love conquers all, because actually love conquers nothing here, but that explosively declared passion and fiercely hidden passion can and must meet and meld if one wishes to be a complete human being and find the right degree of expression for one's intelligent passion. I'm quite sure I'm not reading too much into it too.
The cartoon is well enough, what I liked best is that one is supposed to have read and re-read the comic to fully understand it; it's like a really well-done canon respecting fanfic, in a sense. It ignores some things and explores parts that aren't that developed in the comic. What it lacks is the violently opposing styles that make the comic so memorable, though.
The icon? Ah yes. That's Eiri, just after having beaten to hospital, if not to death, a friend of the pitiful (he is, Murakami is VERY good at creating three dimensional characters) villain who had Shuichi gang raped and took photos. Eiri gets the film and the villain, Taki, says: "You have the eyes of a murderer." thus gaining the Jane Award for Noticing Important Things (Eiri has murdered two, or maybe three people. He had a VERY solid reason, but that changes nothing) and Eiri replies while licking the blood from his arm: "That's a bold accusation. I never heard that before. All the girls usually tell me how much they love my eyes..." I kind of like that expression.
I'll end with one of my favourite Eiri 'love words' to Shuichi. "Shut up! You're like an itch that never heals." Now, that's an original way to define love.
no subject
I'd love to offer something of more substance to say - but right now I need so much to go to sleep. Although, I did think of this: What you've said here, it is all quite true, isn't it a terrible shame the balance and thoughtfulness has seemed to go out the window with Ex? (and the less said about the Remixes the better - though, somehow I still have a bit of admiration for Murikami, the woman is quite mad, but brilliant) I do like what you say about the anime, that it is like a fanfic in a way. If the series was a particularly wonderful fic, the Remixes and Ex are the badfic.
no subject
That said, GO TO SLEEP!
Ex is something I'm reserving judgment about, though the idea of Eiri feeling safer when blind is fascinating and at the same high level of the 12-book novel. I'm also scared to death of Riku. Someone said he had shark eyes and that someone was RIGHT. He's more like a revenant than a child. Another interesting thing to see develop. I don't know. I need about ten more volumes of Ex before I'll know how to judge it.
The remixes are utter Dada. She grabs bits and pieces of the story, shakes them in a porn container and throws the result IN-the-face of the fans. Part of it is doing exactly what the worst fans are doing: pairing pretty faces with no sense or rhyme; part of it is a commentary on hidden aspects of some characters done in the form of cruel and unnecessary porn. There's a lot to see in the remixes as well, if one can get past the SEX, I mean. Take # 5. It's true that the relationships between Eiri, Tatsuha and Touma are exactly like that in a non physical sense. Both Tatsuha and Touma abuse Eiri using emotional blackmail. Yes, well, Shuichi does the same...
See? Murakami is a genius and SOOOOO brilliant. She does things that are lovely to analyse. I count the anime as fanfiction because she has no part in it, and it shows.
See you when you wake up. :-D