Mountain Climbing and Kokou no Hito

As a manga reader, I find that the older I get, the more seinen manga that I read. Mostly I think it's just a maturity concept: There is only so many boob windows that I can take in shonen and so many pretty boys in shojo.

So it makes sense that my return to manga would be from a seinen title and also from a mountain climbing manga. Kokou no Hito is a seinen manga, based on a real Japanese mountain climber, written and drawn by Sakamoto Shinichi. This manga was a way for me to see if I am a fan of the mountain climbing sub-genre, and also a way to reapply myself to some serious and emotionally challenging topics.

Akagami no Shirayuki Hime and Women with Agency

Last post, I discussed how we were able to apply and connect Twilight criticism to the Japanese manga Black Bird. When looking at popular culture, from any country, I am always looking into what kinds of behaviors that piece is trying to teach the target audience. Does this show/book/song try to tell people what is considered masculine? Is it trying to tell women how to attract men? Are the young men and women reading that YA novel truly connecting and understanding what the author is trying to imply they are going through? How does that particular fandom respond to certain characters and what kind of fan enterprises are they embarking on? These are all questions that many pop culture critics and scholars research and expand on to further, scholastically, understand what constitutes "popular" and what a phenomena reflects back on to the culture that is consuming it.

While I was reading Black Bird, it was impossible not to see the obvious and tonal connections between the book/movie and the manga. As I said last post, Twilight could have been a shojo manga, it's tone, characters, and plot fit into the established genre so well. It was no surprise that the Japanese market picked it up and was widely popular. Never mind what unhealthy information about relationships the two imparted to its readers.

This post, I am looking at the complete other end of the shojo spectrum with a manga that's not too widely popular and a lot less soapy. Out of LaLa magazine, the one publishes Natsume Yuuchincho, comes the story of Shiyuki, or Snow White, is a rather inverted look at the fairy tale.

Mirai Nikki'

Now I'm sure that many of you have heard of Mirai Nikki, or 未来日記, as one of the brand new anime that is out this fall season. One day while I was loitering, I mean browsing, tsutaya I saw a whole wall proudly displaying all 12 volumes and it got my interest.

Usually I'm not much of a seinen, or young men, manga type. Call me a women, but most of the plots and action sequences are just way to bloody for me. Seeing things are you suppose to be inside of you outside of you is, in my opinion, one of the most disgusting things even. Hence why I never aspired to be a doctor and going to medical school.

I will admit that I almost stopped reading after the 3rd chapter, but I decided that I would read it if it killed me; which of course it didn't. By the mid point I was glad that I kinda forced myself to sit and read it. Esuno-sensei builds an intriguing plot and layers his characters and their developments well through the story. Of course there are points that have been done before and, to me, there was a little over kill in certain places, but all together it fits and builds a story that makes the reader think a little instead of brainlessly reading.

One of the obvious plot points Esuno used was extremes. There are extremes all over this manga, from the plot, to the characters, and to the scenes. Below is a small essay that I wrote about the levels of extremes that are presented in Mirai Nikki, and Mirai Nikki only.