Kare Kano

Hi everyone,

This is going to be a short post compared to my other ones because this is just going to be about a manga that I feel like writing about.

Kare Kano by Tsuda Masami

This manga is probably one of my most favorite mangas. It is a definite all time classic for shoujos as well so if you read shoujo, this is one story definitely shouldn't miss out. (But because it's kind of a mature read so I think it qualifies as a josei in some ways). Well I should actually say "stories" since this is one of those mangas where all the characters become close to your heart as you read and journey through all 21 volumes.

So, the reason why I felt like writing about this manga today is because recently I decided to reread/skim through the manga. I've always thought of it as like the bible of shoujo, the golden story that is shoujo at its best and brightest but I lost touch of it and felt like recently in about a year or so, I forgot what was the reason for why I thought that. Well, because I recently "reread" it, I've rediscovered this feeling and truly, it is (in my personal opinion) practically the bible of shoujo. It really is falling in love all over again. But it wasn't until I finished it that I felt this. I guess it's one of those mangas that has a process and by the time one comes to the end, one realizes just how wonderful the experience and journey was and reflect well on it. This definitely is one of the things I love about completed mangas (just in reference to one of my earlier posts).

Now this story touches on so many aspects. True love, Friendship, Loyalty, Youth (high school), Unconditional Love, Trauma, Family, and so much more. It really hits the core of adolescence in a sense because it really shines through the struggles to maintain or create an identity but also to retain/find one's self as "being yourself." It's because it hits on so much of reality (slice of life genre), it really does carry the reader through a lot and with that, you really feel compelled to love it and really do love it.

With so many aspects that it touches on, there are so many stories to tell as well.

Main story--I don't want to give too much away but the main character story is between a girl, Yukino and a guy, Arima. Both are top students, perfect models that teachers want their students to be, and great leadership skills. However their reality isn't what is reflected, their act is simply a theatrical performance of perfection and only when they meet each other do they crack through this performance with personal happiness within sight. However Yukino's reality is much more simply and exudes the happy and loving family environment she has always been raised in (plus her own little cunning and charming capitalistic attitude). Arima on the other hand has a much deeper and darker reality that he has buried since childhood due to the unstable environment he was raised in a "typical" crazy "noble" and successful family (all that pressure and expectation to uphold family legacy goes back generations before Arima. It's like he's a victim). This main story is spread out through most of the 21 volumes.

Within the 21 volumes, we take occasional breaks with insertion of a fun high school youth life with friends and well as get peaks into the stories of other characters. There are a lot of substories involving the secondary characters themselves (ranging in length from one to a few chapters long). I don't want to list them all since it's kind of a spoiler with introduction of new characters but I'll just say this. It's quite uncommon for any manga to reveal the background stories but this isn't just any manga. Not only do the friends get some background and their own little stories, but we even get to know about Yukino's parents as well as Arima's family history (this one is especially important in order for Arima to break the curse of the Arima family).

This style of manga, this is of an older generation per se (not that old though). It's not as fast pace and it's more "innocent" because it focuses on the more profound moments and relationships of life. It's as though with the complexity of the storyline and the multiple sub storylines, to go too quick of a pace would have ruined the manga but everything just moved smoothly for Kare Kano.

But I must stress that this is different for everyone. Personally, I picked up this manga when I was young (like 11 or 12) and what I consider quite ignorant and didn't really understand the meanings behind the profoundness of most of the mangas I read (the way I read novels was completely different from how I read mangas too back then). It was until I was in high school when I finally picked it up again online and read through everything with my full attention that I realized the greatness of the storyline. This isn't for everyone though and you might not have the patience to last 21 volumes that has not only the main storyline but also sub stories. However, it is definitely worth reading since it is a very different style from what we're exposed to (given what we have from the scanlators). Read it with an open mind and if you can't handle reading some parts, just let it sit for a day, take a break from it.

Sorry if I sounded like I butchered it and was repetitive. I started on this earlier in the week when I finished rereading Kare Kano and I was still really hyped up on the energy and love I felt for it. Personally, I call it the perfect shoujo youth high school life manga =) Friendship, Love, Loyalty, High school youth. It shows love comes in all different sizes and different ways. Also, despite it being an older style, it certainly has a lot of modern and beyond contemporary thinking (this may not be as clear until you reach the end of the story).

That's all, until next time,
tohukyo

(Lol said it'll be short...oops.)

Modern Romance Mangas and Sex

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.