Of late there has been something of a hullablo over suppouesdly 'dangerous' Shoujo comics in Osaka prefecture.  It raises an interesting set of issues, what exactly can any liberal, pluralistic, democratic society do to control the distribution of materials that some people may find offensive but others have the right to create and consume.  This is at best an extremely delicate balancing act.  When such a controversy arises in society that places a high value on public consensus it blurs the lines even further.  Japan is a country that at times intrigues me and at others, confounds me.  The Japanese constitution enshrines an absolute right to freedom of expression but censorship laws go unchallenged, or even if ruled unconstitutional they remain on the books.  The need for consesus and cultural tradition has largely kept the Japanese Supreme Court from becoming what the allies intended it to be.  It was hoped it would be a court not unlike the US Spreme Court, acting as a co-equal branch of government and counter balancing the power of the legislative and executive, that has not been the case.  Sadly the Japanese judiciary is lacking a Thomas Franfurter, Hugo Black or Earl Warren.  Lacking a strong proponent of individual rights on the bench a bizarre duality continues to exsist where nearly anything can be published, so long as you somehow alter or cover up genetallia.

     While I appluad Japan for all that it has done to become a more open and forward looking society I am also keenly aware that in some respects it remains trapped in its feudal past.  This leads to the contradictions noted above, and many others.  A pacifist nation with the worlds third largest navy, an enviromentally concous nation that is awash in concrete, a trading nation that remains somewhat hostile and even discriminitory toward outsiders.  I appreciate Japan for what it is, but like my own nation I refuse to view her through rose colored glasses just because she is foreign and distant.  I see both the good and bad, and I appreciate all the more for how much more good there is than bad, for no one is perfect, because perfection is boring.

Go here for full background on the Osaka story.

(And I am well aware of the irony of posting this directly above a dirty picture post.)

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 01:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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     Viz will be hammering North America with a virtual tsunami of Naruto beginning in September, with twelve volumes of manga being released between then and December, plus another DVD box set, and plenty of related merchandise.  So could this be too much of a good thing?  I don't think so, after all Naruto is insanely popular, and given that all of this will be hitting during the fourth quarter (christmass shopping season) Viz has hit upon a marketing master stroke that will please both their bean vounters by raking an insane amount of jack and hardcore fans by bringing the US releases of Naruto to be near concurrent with the Japanese releases.  I for one say bring it on, there can never be too much manga in US bookstores for me.

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 05:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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O.K. so light isn't exactly a word one would use to describe hikikomori.  But this is one of the best manga to come down the pike in a long time.  Following the adventures of a real live hikikomori and the girl that is determined to save him, or maybe accidently kill him is a great read.  It manages to deftly mix humor and human emotion in just the right way, unlike some books where you wish you could slap some of the charachters for their inabillity to see how things really are Welcome to the N.H.K never lets this happen.  It works because it is a book about people.  Real, flawed human beings, no magical powers, giant robots or ninja, just people who struggle to deal with their own personal flaws and failings.  This series sets a standard for other slice of life books to follow with its realistic portrayal of some of the problems currently facing real people in real places, yet it manages to leave you wanting more at the end of each volume, rather than feeling like shooting yourself or to beat down the protaganist for their utter lack of spine and or common sense.

Three volumes out so far from Tokyopop.  For mature audiences. (18 +)

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 01:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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    Manga, I have some, ok  a lot, but its not like I have problem.  I mean I don't keep a hyper detailed list of every volume of it that I own.  I have two such lists, one on my laptop and one on paper.  I know I don't have the most extensive collection in the world but it keeps getting bigger and bigger.  Here is a picture of my Manga bookcase,

and another angle for good measure,

At the moment I have 253 volumes of manga, not counting issues of anthologies like Shonen Jump and Comics AG, or the old pamphlet style manga.  Not seen in the photos above are a number of volumes that I have since purcahased and at least one new series I started buying. (Welcome to the N.H.K. which I highly reccomend)  It seems strange now but I can remember when all of my manga didn't even take up a single shelf on a smaller bookcase, now it has begun to migrate to the wall built in, and that is coming perilously close to being filled as well since in houses all of my anime DVDs.

More DVDs and Manga now fill the shelf where the Slave one toy used to be, having finally sold all of my old Star Wars collection recently. 

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 05:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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