Thoughts on the Manga Industry

In the last couple weeks, I have been thinking about the manga industry and how publishers are trying to fight against illegal pirating of digital material. What follows are my thoughts and I would love to hear what others have to say.

I've got an actual mangaka update, but I'll post that later.

Chrno Crusade and Slips in Time

Sophomore year of college I spent a lot of time in front of my laptop enjoying the massive amount of anime that was at my finger tips via the world wide web. One of those small treasures that landed in my harddrive was Chrno Crusade. I could expand on how slightly fan-girl I went on the show, but I'll just leave that to your imagination. At the time, I had no idea that there had been a manga until after I had finished the series.  Goggle opened my eyes to the fact that the anime and the manga have rather different endings.

Yet, the manga was not yet completely scanlated at the time, so I put it out of my mind. Except for the part that there were spaceships involved in the manga. That part stuck with me for a while. It IS very different from the anime in that regard.

I was at Junkudo a couple weeks ago when I saw the Chrno manga on a random shelf. Never mind that I have most likely walked down that same aisle numerous times before and never noticed it, but that time I did. I stopped and just started laughing. I'm sure the staff and any Japanese person around me stopped and edged away from the crazy foreigner laughing at the far end of the aisle. Needless to say, I went home and discovered that Chrno had finished being scanlated almost 5 years ago and that it was actually kinda short. I finished it in a day.

Cross Game - The end of the Adachi Marathon

I have finished my Adachi marathon and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. The mix of sports and comedy and romance is blended so well in all his works and it was entirely too easy to just keep hitting the next button on my computer until all hours of the morning. Cross Game is one of my favorites and I did stay up still morning to finish it. Then I moved on to the anime and found it just as satisfying even with some of the additions the producers and writers made.

Adachi continued balance of numerous genres in his works is always something that I am continuously impressed by. While one genre is always constantly in the foreground the others move sometimes silently but with purpose in the background. This leads to a slow build-up that doesn't seem rushed, but can also seem to be impossibly slow at the same time. It also leads to the quite importance that slowly builds until both parties are able to come to terms with it.

Katsu's Boxing

Okay, I have just decided to marathon all the Adachi manga and get them out of the way. I'm almost finished, so I'll be getting back to something different soon. No worries!

So, next sport on the Adachi list is boxing! It is pretty refreshing that he focuses on a different sport between each of his baseball manga. I would get pretty bored reading nothing but baseball all the time. It also gives him a chance to actually bring in stronger female heroines in my opinion. Girls can't play baseball in Koshien, sadly.

H2 vs. Touch

You know, I really only became a baseball fan while I was living in Japan. I'm not sure how to describe it, but you just cannot ignore the sport in Japan. It doesn't even matter what sport you're into, you will always hear somebody talking about it. Between their own major leagues and then Koshien and high school baseball, it's almost always on the news and most Japanese ask me if I like it or not. I usually end up disappointing them when I say that I am not such a big fan of the "Great American Past time". When I tell them that I'm a soccer fan, I usually win some respect points back.

So, I don't usually make marathons of certain mangaka, but after finishing ROUGH I decided to just start reading H2. H2 and Touch are considered 2 of Adachi's best manga and, since both of them are apart baseball, they are heavily compared. Now that I have read both of them, I shall weigh in my 2 cents on the topic. I know that Cross Game also deals with baseball, but I haven't gotten that far in the list, so I'll leave that comparison for later. It'll be fun to compare all 3 of them together.

ROUGH times with Adachi Mitsuru

Who knew a swimming manga could be so good? Well, with Adachi Mitsuru as the mangaka, you can guarantee that I did. I have not even tried to hide my love for Adachi Mitsuru because I could never be embarrassed of loving such a quality mangaka with such a lasting career in the business. He is a true mangaka's mangaka. He has written successful manga for many genres and, as I have stated in an earlier post, he really is the King of Romantic Comedy and baseball manga. There just is no contest for me. He knows how to balance out the characters and the sport so well that it becomes too easy to turn the page and keep reading.

I actually finished this manga in about 6 hours. It's that easy to read and I really enjoyed the change in sport. I an honestly not able to pull up a swimming manga off the top of my head. I would have to goggle search to even come up with another title.

BECKs' Musicology

I will just come right out and say it. I LOVED this manga.

Trying to make music the main theme in a manga is a very tricky undertaking. The mangaka is trying to get the reader to utilize one of the 2 senses that you don't use when you're reading; hearing. Yet Sakuishi is able to portray the feeling that music gives you without having the reader hear a single note. He leaves is up to the reader to imagine how amazing Koyuki's voice actually is and he also leaves most of the lyrics out as well; which I actually really liked. Instead of being focused on the words that were being displayed, the reader could focus on the images that were playing out before them.

The problems that the boys have involving the band and the music industry are very well played and thought out. Sakuishi made himself a solid manga here and any music lover will love it.