As delighted as I was to see Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness reviewed in Entertainment Weekly, I have to say… A-minus? What does it take to please you people? You’re just playing hard-to-get, aren’t you?
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Break out your medical equipment, because this week brings another exciting chapter in the ongoing bone density test that is Hot Gimmick. In volume 11, will readers find any evidence of the continuing development of a spine in put-upon heroine Hatsumi? Does it really matter when the manga is so tawdry and absorbing? Mely doesn’t call it “The Manga of Deep Feminist Shame” for nothing. And with only one volume left after this one, who knows what might happen?
Dr. Tenma continues to flee law enforcement and make total strangers better people in the third volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster. It’s just like The Incredible Hulk television series, but with neurosurgeons and serial killers instead of salt-of-the-earth carny folk and down-on-their-luck truckers.
The first anniversary issue of Shojo Beat arrives in comic shops as well, featuring the debut of Vampire Knight and a how-to series from shôjo high priestess Yuu Watase. Back in my day, an anniversary issue meant Wonder Man was coming back from the dead again. This strikes me as a decided improvement.
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MangaBlog’s Brigid makes some excellent points on the yaoi-flap that wasn’t:
“This conversation makes me hopeful that there won’t be a major backlash against yaoi manga, or any other mature manga. If there is, we on Team Comix need to keep in mind that Christians are not monolithic. The most visible members of the religious right may thunder on about the evils of porn and the ‘homosexual agenda,’ but the people in the pews are more reasonable. (Certainly that’s been my experience as a Catholic.) Dismissing or insulting them will only make things worse, and possibly alienate a group that’s really on our side.”
That matches my experience precisely, that “the people in the pews” are often mortified by the people who appoint themselves as leaders or spokespeople (and that phenomenon doesn’t confine itself to conservatives by any stretch of the imagination).
I do find myself rather irritated that potential opponents would conflate yaoi with the gay agenda (whatever that is), which is the equivalent of conflating romance novels with the feminist movement. Yaoi manga may feature people of the same sex in romantic situations, but the stories themselves are generally froth with no agenda whatsoever beyond escapism.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, if there has to be a backlash against some category of manga (and I’d rather there wasn’t), I’d hope it would focus on something more complex and challenging than, say, Sweet Revolution.