The Dreaming: Is out on the shelves, and online. I’ve still got my list of Australian bookstores up, and the latest preview chapter for the book is still up on the TOKYOPOP site. I’ve been told that “The Dreaming” has been sold out at Sydney’s Kinokuniya and Kings Comics, and that for Melbournians you can find it at Minotaur (see the list for details).
I’ve recovered from the worst of my flu, though I’ll probably have a residual cough for weeks. I also snuck some photoes of my Bangalore trip up on my LJ entry. But anyway, recently I’ve been interviewed by Kai-Ming Cha for Publisher’s Weekly Comics Week. For those who don’t know, it’s part of Publisher’s Weekly and you can subscribe to their email newsletter here. They on a one-week break so it’ll be out the week after, but it was a very fun interview and Kai-Ming asked some good questions. There is one question in particular that I replied in detail to, and which I’ve posted here for people’s interest.
As usual, it’s my opinion, so feel free to make any comments.
Question: On your website you have an essay that references the prevalence of Japanese manga throughout Asia, including Hong Kong, that has all but squeezed out local talent. There are other comments like this that have been made in countries like Thailand and China. With the strength of Japanese comics, local comics culture and style doesn’t seem to stand a chance. What are you thoughts on this?
You’ve just said my thoughts on this. *laughs* Local comics culture just doesn’t stand a chance, except for the nostalgia value of certain strips. Nostalgia does nothing though, besides recycling old material that may or may not be timeless, but if you’re not moving ahead and creating new material, you’re not expanding the readership for graphic literature. Mostly, if it can be said to be a “problem”, is that there isn’t a “manga culture” in whatever country the Japanese pop-culture juggernaut has colonised in the past 10-20 years. And it’s important to remember that manga comes attached with anime, video games, cosplay and J-pop; making it an all-consuming lifestyle that can be very appealing to young people. In theory, there’s nothing wrong with that because it should encourage said countries to develop their own comics, except that it’s not really happening.
Part of the reason is because manga that is read by children in Japan is exported and read by adults in other countries. Manga in Japan is very gender and age-conscious, so in theory, people over a certain age wouldn’t read certain kinds of manga (with exceptions ofcourse). Manga-reading Japanese adults read manga catered to their tastes, which are the sort of mature, adult-oriented (NOT meaning pornographic) manga that become best-sellers in their own right. Manga you barely see people reading overseas, because the 25 year-olds there are reading what 8 year-old Japanese kids are reading. That creates a bit of a problem in terms of choices for the 25 year-old casual manga readers who are tired of stories aimed at teenagers and want to read something more mature.
In theory, the companies can import the more mature Japanese manga and satisfy those readers, but in the Asian countries I’ve observed, it’s never really caught on. The trouble with salaryman and office lady manga, or seinen and josei manga, is that the latter appeals to more narrow, culturally-specific tastes. Teen angst and action-adventure is the same for teens everywhere, but people who have left high school don’t see salaryman manga as a reflection of their working experiences. Japan has a work culture and adult life that is culturally unique to that country, and other Asians who were casual manga readers as teenagers aren’t nearly as interested in salaryman or OL manga because from their point of view, it’s got nothing to do with their own lives. So the pool of casual manga readers shrink, leaving the young-at-heart to continue reading teen manga and riding the Japanese pop-culture wave.
This means that local comic artists are left to compete with teen manga for a readership that is adolescent at heart. None of them has been all that successful, because the Japanese do teen-oriented manga so incredibly well, and has multiple arms of the Japanese pop-culture machine helping out. There’s no reason for any local publisher to invest in local talent when they can get all the money-making franchises they need out of Japan, and they’re not interested in reaching out to older readers either. So in essence, you have a “manga culture” in manga-reading countries where unlike Japan, most readers are stuck in the “teen manga” phase. So the readership isn’t maturing at all, giving no incentive to produce mature works.
Afterthoughts: Sometimes the nationalism thing comes into it too. Some of Kaiji Kawaguchi’s work comes to mind – while it’s never stopped anyone from translating political/thriller manga in Asia, I find it uncomfortable to read manga about how the course or World War II may have been altered to have the Japanese win instead of the Allied Nations (and some such). These are clearly adult stories and not meant to be provocative to other Asian nations, but it shows a side of the nation that Chinese and Koreans particularly hate. World War II is a topic you rarely, if ever, see in shoujo and shounen manga, and perhaps for good reason.