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Sliver Spoon: Week 14

Hiromu Arakawa has been one of my favorite manga artists since I watched Fullmetal Alchemist. Her storytelling and character designs are amazing. However, what makes her manga more special is the message she wants to give to the audience and how she deals with it. Silver spoon is basically a story of a high school boy who has no dream but came to an agricultural school just because he needs somewhere else to live. I only read the first chapter so that I cannot cover the whole thing. However, I can see she wants to say something with a story where a boy grows up not only physically. Already in the first chapter, I can see the change of emotion and think of the character and we could think about how the story will go. He came to school without no dream related to agricultural stuff. He entered the school with the best grade and after seeing some classmate, he thought they are not that smart and kind of look down on them. However, the classmates start the conversation about agriculture
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Week 8: Diversity of gender and sexuality in Manga and Anime

Gender and sex are the main controversial subject these days. Especially in a conservative country like Japan, I had never thought Japanese manga was open to LGBT subject so the class this week was very refreshing and great. The manga "My lesbian experience of loneliness" was impressive. It was not just about sexuality, it was more about finding myself and emotional progress of a person. She, the creator has depression and how her lesbian experience and circumstance around her makes her change was relatable and touching. I was afraid to be a "grown-up" "woman" when I was puberty, the image "woman" should have like the depiction of sexuality and make-up looked weird to younger me. Now I know that was because of wrong imagery of media and "female" just man biological sex, and I do have to do those things to be a woman but still what she felt was pretty similar to younger me. That helps me emphasize to her. Ran-Ma and "My brother
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Week 9: Shojo and Josel: Banafish

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Akimi Yoshida is known for her working and expanding the border of romance manga. Her work Bananafish is considered one of the best manga in 20th century Japan. The first impression I read this manga is that her drawing style is really influenced by Katsumi Otomo, the original artist of AKIRA. Shojo manga is one of the famous manga genres in Korea where I lived and I love shojo manga so Bananafish was easy to start reading. Ash is perfect when we just see him. He is smart, handsome and he got hard training from Mafia so that he is able to shoot a gun, even perfectly. Such an ideal boy. However, actually, his mother left him alone and the mafia boss with a sexual obsession with young boys abused him. I think he symbolizes people who do not know love or how to love. He is grown up in bad circumstance and cannot feel normal emotions. He should have hidden his emotions and feelings to live in the world. However, he met a boy named Eiji. He is the first and only person who comes to As
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Week 4: Alternative Manga and "I saw it!"

Manga has the power to send the message with drawings and story. Most of the Japanese manga I read had a long storyline, but with the chance of reading "alternative manga", I got more interest in short mangas and the characteristics of short mangas. I want to keep more focus on the manga we had in class "I saw it" which is a short manga by Keiji Nakazawa. The basic plot is an autological story that the story of himself about suffering atomic bomb in Japan. I am from South Korea which went through Japanese colonial occupation in WW2. I learned the history of WW2 from the perspective of Korea which was a colony of Japan. This comic book was my first step to see the history with the perspective of Japan, especially the 20th century. I was shocked by the realistic description of the actual situation and harm of the atomic bomb. I first thought just that this is horrible but now I realize that is the power of documentary manga. Showing the reality to the audience with
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Week 6 : Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and talk with George Cwirko-Godycki

Gibhli is one of my favorite Japanese animation company. I love the world and message that Hayao gives to the audience. Nausicca was one of the favorite anime films from Miyazaki. Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind is originally from a comic book by Miyazaki Hayao. The work contains the message of saving nature and the horrible result of human's greed. The polluted world is depicted very realistically even the genre is a fantasy. The main story is about the process of a girl who tries to save the world and nature. That the main character is a girl is an interesting thing for me since most of Japanese anime girl characters are depicted in sexualized or they exist for the assistance of the male characters. Japan suffered the atomic bomb problem resulted from a war in the 20th century and I think that affects the perspective of Japanese people. Miyazaki shows his negative perspective of war and polluted nature. They all know that the change of the world always affects the human bei
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Week 7: The Garden of Words with Dr. Shige Suzuki

This week, we got a chance to watch feature Japanese animation film named The garden of words and talk with Dr. Shige Suzuki. The movie is directed by Makoto Shinkai who also directed the movie "Your name". I thought that Makoto Shinkai has different taste from me since "Your name" was not that impressive to me. However, the garden of words came to me in a different way. Every background drawing was stunning like any other movie directed by him. The whole drawing style and color were amazing. Gihlbli has more desaturated color compared to Makoto's work. He has a talent for mixing color with saturated and natural colors. This film has a "boy meets girl" story but the story does not unfold in a cliche way. I think he tried to show the subtle change of emotion of the relationship of two different people and how they affect each other. This is pretty similar to his latest movie "your name", but this film has a slower tempo and it is more aimed
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Week 2: Ayako by Tezuka Osamu

Week 2: Ayako by Tezuka Osamu Tezuka, I can sure there is no one who had never heard of his name in manga fandom. Like everyone else, my first anime by him is "Astro Boy". It was such a surprise to read "Ayako" since I thought he only made mangas for children (though Astro Boy is kind of dark in some ways). The whole Tenge family is disconnected. They are blood-related, but for me, they do not care about each other. I think the broken family symbolize the jeopardy of war and insecure social and political situation and the ending that Ayako leaves Tenge family means hope. She cannot live exactly like other people since she has some background problems symbolizing the hurt of war or political problems at that time. I am not sure it is just Tezuka's story style of making a dark story, it has a huge impact on me. In Japan, it is possible to marry in a family or not a family but cousins can marry as I know. However, still, I think this type of broken family shows
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