Skip to main content

Week 3

For this week, I read a little of Golgo 13, and all of Cigarette Girl and Abandon the Old in Tokyo.

The gegika we read this week, I feel like, closely resembles more of our modern manga than does earlier works of manga. Not only do the "dramatic pictures" more closely resemble the style of modern manga, but also the way the stories are told. Especially Golgo 13, in my opinion, which continues to be serialized to this day.

I thought Abandon the Old in Tokyo and Cigarette Girl were particularly interesting, because they  both were kind of slice of life, but discussed serious day to day topics. I feel like the characters are also drawn to reflect this--many of them look very similar, and I feel like that reflects the everyday person, that these things could happen to anyone. The stories aren't necessarily concluded by the end, but they are common themes. The titular "Abandon the Old in Tokyo" is especially an interesting one to me, as Asians have to deal with familial piety a lot and it is interesting to see the view of the resentment that could build from it as well as the regret that occurs.

However, even with that said, I think one of my favorite stories from the works read was "The Taste of Coffee" from Cigarette Girl simply for its lighter tone and positive story.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 10

Isekai! I'm actually very familiar with isekai, since it's the hot manga craze right now. I read quite a handful of them and The Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime  is one of my favorites. I think it's because it handles the reincarnation much less like a "self-insert" of the author's self, and it's more about this man turned slime and how he's starting to govern a whole country on his own. Another favorite of mine is So I'm a Spider, So What?  It's about a girl who was killed in her class, but is reincarnated as a spider. These two are my favorites of the isekai genre so far not only because the web novels started early on in the isekai boom so they're less like the "mainstream" isekai now, and they're quite unique. The spider isekai focuses a lot on our MC's struggles being a weak spider, and fighting and growing into a stronger spider. It deals a lot with healing, getting damaged, and being a (giant) spider scaring ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 12

Contemporary manga! I've already read A Silent Voice --both the original one shot and the entire manga! It's one of my favorites for how uniquely it makes you look at the troubles a deaf person faces, as well as the change of someone who used to be a bully. But enough about that, because it'd just be me reiterating something I've already read. This week I read a bit of Silver Spoon ! I am a huge fan of Full Metal Alchemist , but never had read her newer, latest manga. I always think it's interesting how mangaka can make you feel passionate towards something you'd never really been interested in before. Arakawa is writing about something she herself knows, since she was raised on a farm. I feel like Silver Spoon is slightly alike another manga I've read before, Shokugeki no Soma . Except, while Shokugeki no Soma is mostly written for fanservice and shonen stereotypes, Silver Spoon takes itself a little more seriously due to different authors. We're a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 13

I read some of Oishinbo and I wanted to discuss one of the chapters I found interesting this week, which was the chapter on tea. I didn't find it interesting because of the tea, in fact tea wasn't talked about that much. Rather, I found the concept behind the chapter more interesting. It was the reflection of a Japanese-American senator who came back to Japan to find that all his old friends became wealthy, and seemingly lost their "spirit". I find it ironic, because the mangaka puts America in a good light in the senator reminding both the viewer and the characters of the manga to not consume too much and not to lose their Japanese spirit and heritage, yet America is one of the biggest countries that pushes capitalism and consumerism. So, to me, it's ironic that the Japanese-American senator is sick of the wealthy lavish displays of food from his old Japanese friends. Though, it makes sense given his background that maybe he's also tired of American displa...
1 comment
Read more