My issues with manga. (part I)

Ok. First of all, anyone who has seen my deviantart account, or my webcomics, or even my banner will be puzzled at the title of the post. After all, I must like manga, if I'm so heavily influenced by it, right?

Well, of course. I do like manga. I have a pretty big collection of manga in my house, have read even more manga due to my wok, and admire a lot of japanese artists, as well as the people who are influenced by their style* But that doesn't mean that I don't have certain issues with it, and with the assumptions people make about people who like manga, and about people who don't like manga.

When I decided I was going to use this blog to write about comics and such, I originally said (I don't remeber if I actually posted that or not, but let's assume I did) that I wasn't going to talk about manga. I do that in my work. I review about three manga every two weeks for my job, and that's a lot of manga, especially if you take in account that there are some mangas that I read for review purposes that aren't picked for publication. So I was totally against the idea of doing even more reviews for my blog, even for those manga that I had already read.

There's a lot to be said about the idea of 'too much of a good thing', especially when half of those manga aren't that great to begin with.

Now, obviously I've changed my mind, mostly because due to the nature of the reviews, my personal opinion isn't important. I've got to be as impartial as I can, and sometimes, that can be a bit frustrating **

And that's my first issue with manga. That, for many fans, if you like one manga (or even, say, twenty), you must like all manga. Every single genre, every single author, and not find any possible flaw in comercial hits like Naruto or Death Note, and if you don't think the hit of the season is the best thing since sliced bread, then you're a hater. Maybe it's not that extreme with fans from the USA, but in Mexico, you can't say that you like, say, Saint Seiya, but you find its treatment of Greek Mythology and female characters reprehensible (True story, a friend of mine was actually threatened with physical violence for daring to say that she found plot holes in Saint Seiya, and that she didn't like Evangelion. And not just threats. She was actually followed to the bathroom during a convention, and barely managed to escape getting beaten. For not liking an anime, if you can believe that). You can't like Tokyo Babylon but find CLAMP's treatment of cross generation romance sickening at best and problematic at worst, and so on. The almost cult-like following that some animes get is one of those things that actually put me off anime and manga, and the reason why some titles are in my 'only if boss asks' list.

This of course, goes hand to hand with the idea that some fans have that somehow, manga is inherently superior to comics. I have no idea where that one came from, or why is so popular. Of course, there's also the opposite, and t comes to a point where manga-fans don't talk to comic-fans and vice-versa, and, even worse, they sneer at each other. It's like superhero readers and independent comic readers all over again. And meanwhile, there are hidden jewels that go unnoticed due to this attitude.***

Finally, or at least for this part, is the eternal idea that 'Girls love manga' and 'Girls draw manga'. Sure, I'm a woman, and I like manga. But my best friend is a woman, and she doesn't like most manga. And there's a thousand women like her. I don't know if Nicola Scott likes manga, but I can swear her style isn't manga no matter how broad your definition of manga is (Well, unless it is so broad as to include every single comic style). On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Adam Warren isn't a woman and whatever else you may say about him, his style is very manga-influenced. And the problem with this particular stereotype is that it alienates women. Both as readers and as artists. Sure, offering a particulary good manga to someone isn't alienating, but if said someone is a woman who happens to be saying that she wishes there were more strong female characters in, say, X-men or Avengers... it's not going to go well. It's just like saying "No, you can't play with this toys, but here, have a Barbie."

There's also a lot to be said about the myth that manga is somehow more 'girl-friendly'. Yes, it does has a lot more genres than the mainstream american comic industry, and yes, it appears easier for a female author to publish and become popular, however that doesn't mean that there aren't problems, starting with the division of stories 'for girls' and 'for boys'.

But I already went way too long, so that will be for another post.

*I'm not going to go now in the whole mess that is the whole debate about if manga can only be done in Japan or not. That's for another post, another day.
**That is not to say that it doesn't slip from time to time. But my editor is cool with that and understands that there's a point in which no one can find something good to say about a title, no matter how much you're grasping for straws.
***And that's not going into the art style situation, and the thousand of 'how to draw manga' books that are around now. Because, yes, if you're only copying manga you're doing it wrong, and it will take years to unlearn what you're doing now. Oh, I know. I'm still on the process of unlearning many things.