Greetings.
It’s the 2nd of June, the first month of the summer season. It’s also the month in which in two weeks, I’ll be having my final exams for this quarter of the academic year so I haven’t really thought much about what I was going to post for this week (not to mention the terrible timing I have starting this blog).
But first off, before I go any further in terms of blogging in general, I want to notify readers that I've decided to make my blog a weekly “hobby” I will try to keep up with. It also helps give me time to think and write about a topic.
Okay so…since I haven’t exactly thought about what I wanted to post for this week so I did this in a short amount of time while multitasking between my final project I'm working on and this so this will be a choppy read.
You see, I’m a shoujo/josei reader. Over the years I’ve read a lot of mangas within these two genres—shoujo more than josei since it’s what I started with. Anyways, I’ve been thinking that there is this constant use of the motif of sex in romance mangas especially within these two genres for modern mangas--21st century. And of course, some utilize it better whereas there are many that just don’t…
Back then, most shoujo mangas didn’t utilize sex as a motif the way more modern mangas do now. In relationships in “old” shoujo mangas, sex was more traditional to the sense of “taking things to the next level (of intimacy).” These days, mangas seem to use sex as some sort of short cut or “quickie” to romance and love.
….Sorry I’m not sure how to say this since I’m also kind of distracted with trying to finish this asap while trying to explain my opinion well. I’ll try listing again like my last post….
“Old” shoujo mangas-
1) Sex was more of an intimate “taking things to the next level” sort of ritual for a couple. In this sense, it’s much more traditional in terms of relationships of love.
2) It was usually written in at a moment that was perfection for the manga as a whole and the relationship as well—as readers, we can actually see that there was this true love between the two characters. (eg. Mars, Kare Kano)
3) It wasn't something that was used to draw in more readers, it was more for the development of characters on an intimate level. (I guess this also has to do with the changing reading audience).
Modern shoujo mangas-
1) In contrast to old shoujo mangas, modern shoujo mangas often use it as a motif (not always the act of sex, sometimes just really obscene smut) to…I guess "sensualize" characters? I’ve read some really dirty mangas that are to the point of not being able to continue on. I’m not sure how to explain it so I'm going to speak from one of many experiences.I remember this one where they were two little kids, just elementary/grade schoolers—their level of intimacy was just so…UP THERE that it just wasn’t right at all!
2) Sometimes I feel like they use it for this morphed form of “Stockholm syndrome.” I won’t specify any mangas but I think it’s kind of like S&M characters with the M character seriously resisting until the S character sheds some sort of good will (the convenience of mangas). The worse is when they turn out to be childhood friends and it seems to make everything ok!! I guess another way one can put it is like "Gone With the Wind."
3) In effect of the constant sex motif, there are a lot of modern shoujo mangas that are more shallow and superficial. Some make it an object of humor that is frankly disturbing to me (to me) because they have degrading effects on certain genders.
Not all do this, there are some extremely worthy mangakas that are truly just great artists that utilize it in a more profound way (Sakurada Hina is the only person I can think of at the moment (at the moment!) but she’s just a twisted-ly delightful read)
….well this is just a touch of what I think it does. This doesn't apply to all mangas though. I know of great mangakas that don’t do this and there is a reason for the smut and mature tags but there are just so many that use sex and make the characters and stories just so very shallow. That’s the main thing I’m getting at actually. The fact that they don’t use it for some deeper meaning for the development of a relationship like old shoujo mangas. I know, if I don’t like it, don’t read it. Well since I get bored sometimes, I read them for the heck of it plus not all smut and mature tags are shallow. I never want to miss out on a good read so it sucks that there is so much hay surrounding the few needles.
Well anyways, this topic is very incomplete because I have so much more to say and I know that there are many mangas out there too that don’t utilize sex as I’ve stated. I want to touch on this topic at another time in the future especially for josei mangas since I mainly spoke about shoujo here but I’ll stop for now.
Also forgive me for focusing on negativity. It's quite biased so please state disagreements and maybe I'll use them for the next time I touch on this topic.
I know this is inadequate, but
Thanks for reading,
tohukyo.
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