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Just finished reading this survey of manga written ca. 1983. At the time the world of Japanese comics was much smaller than today and many of it's aesthetic developments have occurred since (still Lone Wolf and Cub is from the 1970's, like many other great mangas, made before 1983).

Interestingly is that today the aesthetic styles of girl's manga have become more and more influential in boy's and adult manga. Essentially, the "moe" designs are a mix of girls manga style with sharper lines and angles characteristic of male oriented manga. Modern manga also is often much more angular and features much more lines draw with a ruler:

Manga of the 1970's:


Manga of 2010's


The quality of the art evolved a lot (now it's much more physical and "realistic", maintaining a strong sense of physical presence) since the 1970's.

This new manga is by the way Shomin Sample which is based on a light novel and I have been reading recently. It's pretty shallow (like most stuff based on light novels) but very entertaining nonetheless. Requires absolutely zero effort to be consumed. Very nice "fast food" manga.



Schodt updated his survey in 1996 with Dreamland Japan. I would highly recommend that if you liked Manga! Manga!, even though some of it is redundant if you read the earlier book, IIRC.

And I think Sharon Kinsella talks a bit about the evolving influence of girls manga on manga aimed at teen and adult males in her book on Adult Manga.

One "complaint" about Schodt's surveys (at least as surveys) is that they perhaps overemphasize gekiga and outsider or "extreme" manga, but then again that's what made those books so entertaining. For me at least...

For example I don't know how representative that Tatsumi manga that you posted (the one on the left) is of "manga in the 1970s", though he was undoubtedly influential on artists in Garo (an "outsider" publication). A lot of the people he influenced probably couldn't have produced slick, "realistic" manga for serial-publication even if they had wanted to because they were unpaid and worked outside of the assembly-line "studio" system mainstream artists have used since the 1960s to keep up with regular deadlines.



I see. The art of Lone Wolf and Cub is extremely impressive though and it's from the 1970's.

Overall though I can see a trend towards more straight lines and standardized body anatomy using circles and straight lines in Manga over the past 40 years with increasing degree of complexity. If you pick Shounen Jump titles only, you get stuff like:

1970's


2010's



Clearly, the art of Manga improved a lot over the past decades. Both these Manga pages are from the same magazine Shounen Jump, which is the most popular Manga magazine since the 1970's.

Also today the readers are older than in the 1970's, since Japan's kid population has halved since 1980, the Manga and anime industry moved more and more towards adults including the shounen magazines and hence now the art is more realistic. Also, in the One Piece movies the jokes used in the movies became increasingly more mature as well, comparing a 1999 One Piece movie to a 2013 One Piece movies there is a lot of changes in humor.



I was a movie buff when I joined this forum in 2012, after that I became an animation buff from March 2013 to October 2014 a period in which I watched about 1,500 hours of animation, since then I am a comic book buff, having read about 100,000 pages of comics since.

This is my current top 10 comics:

Lone Wolf and Cub
Nausicaa
20th Century Boys
Gunnm
Gunnm: Last Order
Yokohama Kadashi Kikou
Yotsuba
Berserk
Vinland Saga
Vagabond



Currently reading/read:

I the Female Robot

Chinese comic, very interesting and entertaining. Deals with themes similar to Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell but in a very humorous manner.

Jinzou Shoujo

Very disturbing horror gender bending shoujo manga. Reminded me of Parasyte.

Idol Pretender

Another gender bending manga, this time of a more comedic nature: guy drinks potion that turns him into a girl thinking it was cold medicine, decides to become a school idol to raise money to pay for another potion to try the inverse effect.

Moonlight Fromage

This time a gender bending gothic lolita manga.

Gunnm: Mars Chronicles

Decided to star reading something actually good for a change. So nothing better than continue reading Yukito Kishiro's masterpiece level storytelling in his new iteration of Gunnm.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Steelheart

By: Brandon Sanderson

"I've seen Steelheart bleed....and I will see him bleed again."





This book has an explosive opening and continues that pace for a few pages. I was immediately intrigued by the concept. An unknown event occurs which gives certain people 'superpowers', these people are known as Epics. They don't become superheros...they become super villains. Hundreds of Epics with a wide variety of powers now control most of the world, the most powerful one being Steelheart. A rebel group of humans, known as The Reckoners dedicate their life to hunting down and killing each Epic. David, a young kid whose the only one to ever see Steelheart, bleed, joins the Reckoners for revenge.

Sanderson is famous for finishing The Wheel of Time series from Robert Jordan when he died and Sanderson also has an insane writing output level, which rivals King. His most ambitious project is the ten book series "The Stormlight Archive" and a notably popular series of his is "Mistborn". Which "The Reckoners Series" he dives into YA fiction. The first book being Steelheart. The writing is intended for a bit of a younger audience, but it is still a well put together, thought out and executed story. Sanderson is quickly becoming a favourite author of mine due to the level of dedication he puts towards world building.

I'm intrigued to see how this book ends and look forward to the next in the series.



Some fan art work:







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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews





Really cool analysis of the sociology of manga. Interesting how Japan is indeed a third world country that still lacks it's own sense of self worth: they only starred to consider Manga high art after westerners praised the medium, then quickly museums all over the country starred showing exhibitions of manga. This reminds me of another book on Japanese culture, Moe Manifesto, which explains that historically Japan was a satelite of China, hence, the country's mainstream culture was taken from China, later Japan became a part of the western hemisphere and so it's center of cultural influence shifted to Europe.

So typically Japanese art like comics and animation becomes marginalized by its own society since it lacks an European equivalent. Even the names of manga demographics are made up in order to associate Manga with young people: adult in Japanese is written like young men and so adult Manga magazines become named as "young jump" or so.





Been reading this book, it's a dry academic reading (despite the pop culture style of it's cover) that the author wrote as his PHD thesis but still quite interesting. Although he does not go into deep analysis of specific anime titles instead focuses on the history of Japanese animation from it's incenption around the 1910's through WW2 and the post war decades. It focuses mostly on the pre-history of modern anime (which began much later, after Horus in 1968).





Cyberpunk is the shitte!



The art style of the early chapters of OMG is pretty crude, glad it improves quickly later on.



Really entertaining stuff. The blue haired boy looks really like a girl I had to read a lot of chapters before I was convinced he was a he.



Tokyo Ghoul is da shitte dude. Lots of gore and stuff.



Lolicom version of Tokyo Ghoul, more entertaining in some ways and much, much, much cuter.




Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure by Dan Baum
Reconstruction After the Civil War by John Hope Franklin
Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe
A Raisin In the Sun by Loraine Hansberry
Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution by Steven Poole


The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made by Greg Sestero
Walden by Henry Thoreau
Imperialism and Free Trade: Lancashire and India in the Mid-Nineteenth Century by Peter Harnetty

comics:
Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salt Sea by Hugo Pratt
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Vol.1 by Hirohiko Araki



Having read all of Henning Mankell's Wallander series a few years ago it always bothered me that a story called The Grave, also known as An Event in Autumn hadn't been translated into English. Yesterday by chance I found out that it is now available, so that's next for me.

I was also reading some Russian fantastic tales in the book Red Spectres, and there are two excellent stories in there involving mirrors.



A system of cells interlinked
Book 6 of Chung Kuo

__________________
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell





Pandora in the Crimson Shell: GitS meets Madoka, essemtially. Even Shirow did not manage to isolate himself from modern otaku culture, producing something quite quintessential in describing modern otaku zeitgeist.



Erased: Some really nice melodrama here, read the first 39 chapters and got seriously joked in it.



One Piece: Decided to read this untra popular classic once and for all. Pretty fun but the writing is a tad bit simplistic and excessive in the way it communicates with the reader.



Birdy the Mighty Decode 2006 remake Quite entertaining but still quite cliche.





Now that's some awesome manga there. Forget that crappy Hollywood movie, read this one. Recommended from Forbes, by the way.



Now I am in the mood for some GOOD manga: Kingdom. That's a real winner in the field of GOOD manga. And you also learn a lot of ancient Chinese history (well a lot of it is relatively accurate but a lot is made up, specially the army numbers).



Kafka-The Trial



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”


I had seen this title pop up on some of the websites I follow a while back and it was receiving abundant praise. A motley crew of spacers on the wormhole building ship the Wayfarer are en route to the job of a lifetime.

Nothing happens. Each individual has a token incident or experience on the way to "the small angry planet" and that is about it. Chambers seems to have developed all these characters separately and cobbled them together to justify a book.

There is never a true sense of impending doom or excitement and a lackluster sense of a climax at best. I did not suffer the read, but I don't get the effusive praise I was seeing.





there's a frog in my snake oil


I had seen this title pop up on some of the websites I follow a while back and it was receiving abundant praise. A motley crew of spacers on the wormhole building ship the Wayfarer are en route to the job of a lifetime
That could almost be the title of The Sparrow, although that book has some great characterisation. Might be more up your street? (Although be aware, the ending is.... um... blunt, and a bit of an ugly metaphor to wrap up the story. The journey is grand though.)
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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
I will keep that one in mind. Angry Planet was the first non-textbook I have read in a while. My current companion is



and it is colorful to say the least.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allan Poe [SHORT STORY] - ★★★★☆

Okay, so after seeing two films based on this short story (Corman's exquisite colour-radiating masterwork with Vincent Price and Epstein's French Impressionist tour de force masterpiece) I decided to read this short story in its original form (in English). However, firstly I stumbled upon a version of the story rewritten, so it's easier to read for those who still study English. I started reading and thought, hell, man, it's trivial, where are all the beautiful quaint and obsolete words. I'm no fool to read it in this form, so I went around and started reading the original version. And what a version it was. It contained some words I've never heard in my life before. That's why I decided to read in English. I mean, my Polish is perfect, reading in Polish will not improve my language skills. Reading in English however... Moreover, the opportunity to read the book in its original language... not to mention that for some reason reading in English is much more pleasurable and I feel much more interested in reading in general. The language used in the story creates a very grim and dark gothic atmosphere and I found the character of Roderick much more tragic than in the movie adaptations. Also, it's nice to see the difference between the book and every film based on it. If I'm not mistaken Epstein changed Madeline and Roderick into a couple, whereas Corman remained faithful to the original (which didn't stop him from introducing a cheesy subplot). All in all, an amazing read.

White Nights - Fyodor Dostoyevsky [SHORT STORY] - ★★★★☆

I'm a little bit unsure about this one. You see, I'm new to reading. I'm starting from short stories, because they're much more accessible given their shortness (just imagine trying to start from a 1000 page book; it's just like trying to become a movie buff by watching Satantango). I've seen 3 adaptations of this short story and I believe two of them are absolute masterpieces (these would be Cafe Noir and Bresson's Four Nights of a Dreamer) whereas Visconti's White Nights was almost as amazing. In other words, after seeing those amazing masterworks of film it surely was a weird feeling to confront their very source. I could immediately spot the differences in all of these. For example, the Dreamer's character in the short story seemed much more neurotic and the whole stuff felt much more melodramatic than any adaptation (especially Bresson's, who paradoxically by removing any emotions made the film the most emotive). You know, this guy immediately bursts into crying etc. But what about my uncertainty? It's just that the book didn't blow me away as the movies did. I know it's a terrible thing to say. Prejudice in art can be the worst thing you can imagine, but the truth is that even though I really liked the book, maybe even loved it, I don't really know how much of this enjoyment had its roots in me actually loving all these film adaptations. That's why I'm not suer if the story deserves four or five stars. Either way, it's amazing.

Patriotism - Yukio Mishima [SHORT STORY} - ★★★★★

Now that's what I call a masterpiece. I don't care if I've only read like 10 short stories in my entire life. This is a masterpiece! How could you say it with such a tiny knowledge about this branch of art? Well, I said the same thing about Werckmeister Harmonies back when I didn't know much about cinema, and here I am, 5 years later and it's sitll my favourite movie ever. I'm not claiming this will be my favourite short story forever, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. What did I really love abuot it? It's style, of course! Looks like my 'style over substance' belief I got from cinema fits literature perfectly as well! It's just that the use of words in this short story is so sublime and poetic, it elevates it to the highness of work of art. The story itself is simple, but very interesting, too, especially for non-Japanese. It's a compelling look at the history of Japan, its culture, but also themes much more universal. It's especially striking to me as an European, because its main theme - ritual suicide - is something incomprehensible. Here suicide was always seen as something shameful and sinful. In Japan it was perceived as an act of regaining honor. It shows how different our cultures are. The fact that Mishima commited suicide himself and that he wrote about the act so profoundly and idealized it adds another layer the the whole. In a word, a total masterpiece. I've seen the film based on the story before (directed by Mishima himself!) and loved it, but this short story may even outdo the film. By the way, I read this as well as every other short story I'm writing about here in English.