Happy anniversary! Congratulations to Johanna on the second birthday of Comics Worth Reading, one of the most literate and readable comics blogs on the web.
My favorite things: Following up on this thread at The Engine, David Welsh lists his favorite manga.
Good reads: The Asia Times has a thoughtful article on the xenophobic manga Hating the Korean Wave, which is allowing a certain segment of Japanese society to get a bit more exposure.
Manga or not? At Comic Book Resources, Erik Larson has a rambling but interesting column on manga versus regular comics. It’s more of an extended meditation than an advocacy piece, and I get the feeling that his tastes are pretty eclectic. Also at CBR, Calling Manga Island looks at two new horror series from Viz, Claymore and D. Gray-Man.
Roll over, Joe Camel: Asahi Beer is rolling out an ad campaign in the UK featuring manga-style ads. The story says this is “synonymous with Asahi’s contemporary image,” but it sounds suspiciously like marketing to kids to me. (True fact: My four-year-old niece refers to Red Dog as “Clifford beer,” although she knows it’s not for her.)
Naruto continues to move toward world domination: From ICv2 comes the news that the Naruto anime will run at 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday on Cartoon Network, in addition to the new episodes on Saturday night.
I browsed through Ken-Kanryu while waiting for my wife in Kino the other night, and I must say that it’s pretty insulting to Koreans. There are some good points about how Koreans generally disliked Japanese while vice versa is true, but the bits about Japan colonialsm is just flat out false. When I visit Futaba (2ch.net) I also get the same feeling, that many young, nerdy Japanese men are tired of the fact that gorgeous Korean men are now the media darlings in Japan, while there are less than flattering portrayal of Japanese men in dramas and movies like Densha Otoko (story about an Otaku meeting a hottie on a train). I don’t think the general public, especially women, is going to give up their Winter Sonata with this anti-Korean wave, but it is worrysome that the young men of the country is harboring such resentment to Korea.
On the bright site, there are just so many cross-over figures in terms of entertainment in both Japan and Korea that for the most part the picture is brighter than Ken-Kanryu made out to be. Many young Korean talents actually get their start in JAPAN (BoA, Mink, to name a few), and more Japanese staples like SMAP is becoming huge in Korea as well. If you just look at pop-culture in general, there’s no such thing as Ken-kanryu. It seemed only to exist in the world of the male otakus and old right-wing hardliners. Maybe that’s why they have to result to a manga to get the message out.
One little tidbit: the version of ken-kanryu I read actually has a new section which tried to rebute the criticism received from Japan and abroad… in a manga format, where the main manga charaters tried to argue against the NY Time article on the book, etc. After all it’s quite an old manga. There’s also a letter from reader section which of course they only print those who agreed with them. Pretty pathetic.
[...] Update: Thanks very much to Dave (who indirectly points out my age, hee hee), MangaBlog, and my many wonderful commenters for their good wishes. 9 comments so far [...]
Concerning the CBR Eric Larson column — it was very fascinating to see how Larson sees manga. Sad to see that he finds it interesting, he does not in fact really read it from a story standpoint. Great/original comic plot/stories like Deathnote or Genshiken are not being read for the story… not sure what to make of that other than: it’s coming. Manga is growing as an industry and these perceptions will disappear. Erik Larson will look back and think how dated his comments were.