Category Archives: manga moveable feast

MMF: Fruits Basket – Shigure

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“I want to spoil her rotten. I want to trample her to a pulp.”

When it came time for the Manga Moveable Feast to do Fruits Basket, I pretty much knew I would be writing about Shigure Sohma. He’s the character I keep coming back to even now, the little thorn in the side of the entire storyline, trying to free people from the bonds they have with their God by cutting into their flesh until they squirm free in their agony. He’s a manipulator, and you’d swear he finds people’s emotional pain amusing. The anime, sadly, never got to the point in the story where this really comes out, so we mostly just see him there as the goofy ‘yay, high school girls!’ guy who occasionally gives Tohru sage advice. No one who finishes the manga is left with that impression.

Hatori, who is one of the people who probably understand Shigure best, and he once noted that Shigure needed to be careful in all his manipulations that he didn’t break anyone. Which, in many ways, is what Shigure *is* trying to do. He’s trying to break the curse, even if it’s not directly – trying to get it to snap and crumble away from Akito. And well, if that means breaking other people, then so be it – at least they’ll have someone around to pick up the pieces. Right, Rin? (Chapter 107, which implies Shigure was aware of what Akito did to Rin and let it happen in order to prove a rather sadistic point, is probably his worst moment.)

Speaking of that chapter, Shigure and Rin discuss the curse, and note that it should break within their lifetimes. But that’s not good enough for Tohru, who is painfully aware of what Kyo’s fate is to be – and how easily he seems to accept it. After briefly running off, Shigure goes to get her – and delivers another stunning speech, clearly intended to push all of Tohru’s buttons and weak spots. It’s quite an interesting contrast to earlier volumes, where Shigure can be seen cheering Tohru up or giving her a gentle push in the right direction with a few kind words.

But if Tohru wants to save Kyo, time *is* running out, and Shigure can’t simply sit by and watch her stress out over whether Kyo is pushing her mother’s memory out of her life. He’s mean – talking about how the curse *is* a curse, and not just some cute ‘we turn into animals!’ thing. All the Zodiac feel horrible about it, and Kyo is, as Shigure notes, a reminder that it could be worse – they could be him. Tohru, notably, stops Shigure’s monologue with a hand outraised and her head down – she can’t bear to hear his words anymore. I was reminded of the way she stopped Akito from abusing Yuki very early in the series, when she and Akito first met. It’s probably my favorite Shigure scene in the series.

Of course, it’s not just about Tohru. All of Shigure’s actions, everything we see him set up throughout the book, is designed to drive people away from their God and break the curse – so that he can have Akito all to himself. Shigure is a very possessive lover, and does not take kindly to having to share. It’s quite telling that the only time we really see him filled with hatred for anyone, it’s for Kureno – the man who is currently closest to Akito. And so he pushes at Akito – harder than he does anyone else, really – and watches as she does break. There’s only one moment where I think Shigure wonders if he went too far – he asks, after Tohru falls from the cliff, whether Akito pushed her – but it all works out well in the end.

This is the odd thing about the series. Everything seems to work out well in the end. Shigure never apologizes for anything he does, but I think in his mind he doesn’t *have* to – after all, everyone ended up happy. The curse is broken. Tohru wasn’t seriously crippled and is now with Kyo. Hatori has gotten over his first love and is opening up to Mayuko. Rin has chosen to embrace Haru and stop trying to ‘protect’ him by shoving him away. Same with Hiro and his relationship with Kisa.

In a way, I’m strangely reminded of Usagi from Sailor Moon. I once discussed the Outer Senshi Haruka and Michiru with my friend John, who has mixed feelings about the two of them. In the real world, the two outers would be right – Usagi’s idealism and super purity would be ripe for abuse, and it’s sensible to be pragmatic like the two of them. But they fail to realize that they aren’t in the real world, they’re in Usagi’s manga, and she’s the star. Therefore she is always right, and they are forever proven wrong. Likewise, Shigure’s actions don’t seem wrong to him at all. I’m sure if anyone tried to call him on it, he’d note how happy everyone is after the end of the series.

That said, we do occasionally see stabs of regret. Shigure notes early on that he is ‘the filthiest’ of the Zodiac, and I think knows that his relationship with Akito – even post-curse – is not a healthy one, but doesn’t particularly care enough. He once wondered what would have changed if he’d dreamed about Tohru. Leaving aside the horror that fills me if I imagine Shigure with Tohru, I think that it’s one of those hypothetical questions that will never get a true answer. So much of what Shigure is – everything that drives him – stems from that dream of Akito, and his love of Akito, and his need to possess Akito. Perhaps, now that he has everything he wants, he can find the time to get in touch with the nice young man who gave Tohru advice on how to deal with multiple problems.

MMF: Cross Game

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Sean here, introducing another guest post. I think my three Cross Game reviews as well as my overview of Mitsuru Adachi say what I want, and I don’t want to either repeat myself or spoil future volumes. So I’ve asked another old friend of mine, David Tai, to contribute an essay. David is, like last month’s guest Stefan Gagne, an old-school fanfic writer. He’s also a huge Adachi fan, and had a great deal to say about Cross Game.

For many people, Cross Game will be their first encounter with Mitsuru Adachi.

Adachi’s manga has been published in the US a couple times in the past, a series of short stories eventually compiled into “Short Program” and “Short Program 2”. The Short Program manga were released by Viz, but were not widely exposed to what is now a much larger US audience. While diverse in nature, the short stories are reminiscent of O. Henry in that they explore people, how they interact with others and their use of irony and twist endings.

In Japan however, it is his long-running serials that he’s best known for- from his first (Nine) to his most recent (Asaoka High School Baseball Club Diary: Over Fence), he establishes his characters and premise early on, and then spends much time engaging in world-building and in adding wrinkles and delightful new dimensions to his characters. However, Cross Game is the first, and hopefully not the last, of the long-running serials that Viz has brought to the US.

In approaching Cross Game, one has to first understand that Adachi has done many baseball manga; Nine, Touch, H2, Cross Game. Each succeeding baseball manga is essentially re-invented for a new generation of Japanese readers, but there are certain tropes he always uses: his protagonist, a perfectly ordinary high school boy; the sweet and lovable heroine that every schoolboy falls in love with and with whom the protagonist gravitates towards; a tragedy that propels his protagonist and his heroine onto a new path towards maturity; and baseball, in which the protagonist develops tremendous skills and is used as a metaphor towards growing up.

Cross Game, his most recent completed baseball serial, hits every one of those tropes, but twists them in different ways. A good deal of Adachi’s writing is written with a certain wink for the audience (his promoting of other Adachi series) and a play on certain expectations. Previous iterations of his manga have played on the ‘tragedy’ trope, but usually to indicate the end is near; here, though, the tragic incident happens nearly immediately, leaving experienced Adachi readers wondering exactly what to expect.

Small touches like that keep things fresh for the experienced Adachi readers. For those who have yet to read Adachi, however, they will find that Cross Game showcases what readers appreciate most about Adachi: his refusal to take himself too seriously, his willingness to develop the story at a steady pace, his ability to introduce little elements that become realized later in the story, and most of all, the slice of life moments in which he develops his characters in small ways as they move, slowly but surely, towards the end of their story. It is this character development that is perhaps his greatest strength. Adachi’s characters evolve with a maturity and care that is difficult to find in any literary form, let alone manga.

Ko Kitamura, Cross Game’s protagonist, is first met here as a young schoolboy, unlike most Adachi protagonists. As such, he has a young child’s concerns: avoiding getting beat up by the school bullies, getting his allowance (usually by hawking his parents’ products), and dealing with ‘that girl’, Wakaba Tsukishima.

Adachi spends an entire volume developing what he titles ‘The Season of Wakaba’. There are many little moments showcasing just how close Wakaba and Ko are, the way Wakaba drives the unmotivated Ko to do things, the little struggles between Ko Kitamura and his young crowd, and Wakaba’s sisters (all the Tsukishima girls are named after leaves, hence the four-leaf clover in the Cross Game logo) with whom he has varying levels of friendliness. Adachi displays a deft touch as a minor scene where Wakaba notices Ko making a list for his parents’ store leads into scenes with much deeper meaning, when she presents him a list of what she would like for future birthdays that ends, at age 20, with an engagement ring.

And then tragedy strikes; Wakaba, who has shown every signs of being that Adachi heroine he so typically uses, dies. Mourning ensues, and then the ‘second season’ begins, as Adachi skips several years. One of Adachi’s subtle tricks reflects the death of Wakaba: the logo reflects this change in seasons. The logo for volume 1 has four fully-colored leaves, but thereafter, every other volume displays 3 normally colored leaves, and one discolored leaf.

The second ‘season’ begins, as the protagonist enters high school. All proceeds a bit more to expectation with the protagonist starting to deal with high school and with girls.

And it is then that we realize that the heroine of Cross Game is not Wakaba, but Aoba Tsukishima, the sister who hates Ko with a passion. Aoba is not your typical Adachi heroine. While most Adachi heroines tend to be sweet, tender, and supportive of the protagonists, Aoba stands out as every bit resistant to the calm acceptance of Ko. Where Wakaba would have believed and supported in Ko unconditionally (as has been typical of his heroines in Rough, Touch, and countless others), Aoba pushes Ko away any chance she can. A common trope for manga, but for Adachi, this is a drastic change – in practically every other story he’s written, the heroine and the protagonist naturally gravitate towards each other until all that’s needed is a confession of love.

Because Aoba and Ko are often at conflict, the story takes on an air similar to Touch, another of Adachi’s manga in which family colors how the heroine and the protagonist interact. For both Ko and Aoba, the shadow of Wakaba hangs over them heavily. For Ko, it is the great love of his young life, the one who kept him focused and motivated, and for Aoba, the big sister whom she loves more than anything else is missing from her life as a calm buffer.

It’s Wakaba’s ghost that motivates them both in different ways- Ko takes his motivation for baseball from Wakaba’s dream of Koshien, the baseball tournament to which all Japanese high school baseball players aspire to. The birthday gift list that Wakaba gave to Ko remains a driving motivation for Ko years after she’s gone, the most tangible physical reminder he has of her dreams. The influence of Wakaba on Aoba does not play out till later in the manga, but hovers over her nonetheless, in minor ways.

Wakaba’s shadow can be seen with other characters such as Akaishi, the bully who grew up to be Ko’s mentor catcher because he loved Wakaba and wanted to fulfill her dream, and Momiji, the youngest Tsukishima who over time realizes she cannot take Wakaba’s place. And while other characters are not directly involved, even they get caught up, as Ko’s pursuit to fill that dream encompasses them. Even the taciturn slugger Azuma is drawn in, finding his own dream of Koshien mirrored in Wakaba’s. And as more and more people find their dream through Ko, he becomes Wakaba’s most enduring legacy – because she saw his greatness before anyone else.

For people who have certain expectations of sports manga (Protagonist learns new skills! POWERS UP! Greater challenges lie ahead!), you don’t get that here; what you see at the hands of Mitsuru Adachi is the maturation of people paralleling the development of their skills.

And yet it is not Ko Kitamura who develops the most over this series as he goes from a person who lacks motivation without Wakaba’s encouragement to a self-driven pitching Ace determined to live up to her dream. It is Aoba Tsukishima who develops the most. Her self-assurance of being the ace pitcher in middle school has to give way to the reality in high school that she confronts being a girl in Japan’s male-oriented baseball culture. It is perhaps no wonder that she fights her best to find ways to fit in with the team, and her adversarial relationship to Ko highlights that.

It is not until Ko showcases his undeniable talent that Aoba’s character arc starts to develop, and the shadow that Wakaba left upon her begins to play itself out; Aoba had known of Wakaba’s dream, but denied it, in large part because of her own dream, in which she would date someone who could throw a 100 mph fastball. And it hinders Aoba, because Wakaba had told her that Ko could do it… and that she shouldn’t take him from her.

And so while Ko’s arc plays out and it becomes apparent that Ko is destined to fulfill Wakaba’s dream, the question of how Aoba’s arc plays out becomes paramount, and brings a new angle and twist; rarely does Adachi really play out how his heroine develops, as he does here with Aoba. Ko may be the protagonist of this story, but it is Aoba’s development that drives it. It is Aoba’s pitching skill that Ko emulates in his drive to fulfill Wakaba’s dream, and it is Aoba who helps Ko develop and refine his skills while struggling with her own Wakaba ghost. It may have been Wakaba Tsukishima who saw the potential in Ko; it is Aoba Tsukishima who sees that potential realized, and begins to see what it is that her sister fell in love with. It is Aoba who struggles to accept her feelings about Ko, and she even lies to herself about it. As a result, then, Cross Game shifts from Ko Kitamura as soon as his future as a pitching ace is clearly established to the inevitable confrontation between Wakaba’s ghost and Aoba’s dream.

Mitsuru Adachi begins Cross Game with Ko Kitamura, and ends it with Aoba Tsukishima, and in the process, turns out perhaps his most well-rounded sports/romance manga.

Because It’s Funny: Rumiko Takahashi and Characterization

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I can’t find a copy of the interview in question, but someone once asked Rumiko Takahashi why Nabiki Tendou, a girl who in the first couple of chapters of Ranma 1/2 seemed to be a fairly normal Japanese girl, turned into a money-loving shark who would gladly sell out her family and friends and seemed to have no conscience or soul. Takahashi’s answer was “because it’s funny.”

I was reminded of this while reading Stefan’s post yesterday. Much of what I tend to think of as Ranma, including many characterizations that are almost thought of as canon these days, was never actually used by Rumiko Takahashi in the canon material. It was stuff invented by fans for their fanfics in order to make the characters easier to write, give a third dimension to, or just make more bearable. So we got ‘fanon’: Nabiki uses the money she extorts to finance repairs to the dojo, for example, or Kasumi being far more savvy than she lets on and using her yamato nadesico persona as a front. And yes, it could go the other direction as well: Akane hits Ranma because she is mentally unstable and needs psychiatric care.

See, Takahashi gave us, in both Urusei Yatsura and Ranma, great characters who it’s easy to love. We want to see them succeed, we want to laugh at their stupidity. But they are not fleshed out. They aren’t three-dimensional. They don’t feel real. They feel like characters in a goofy shonen manga that will do anything for a laugh. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Comedy is not pretty. It’s simply funnier to watch people be horrible to each other, and much easier to do so if they all can fall into basic patterns of behavior. Akane will jump to conclusions and hit Ranma. Ranma will say something insulting and thoughtless. Lum will get jealous and zap Ataru. These are the cornerstones of the series. And over the course of the series, while there is slight forward progress, if it has to be sacrificed so that we can see a huge pile of cast members screaming and hitting each other? So be it.

Of course, both UY and Ranma were turned into successful anime. Like all anime, they had to find ways of expanding the source material: if you animate 16-page chapters for a series, you’ll run out of material far quicker than you’d anticipate. Some of the ways they did this involved the characterization: the characters were softened, and didn’t seem to be such moral vacuums. At the same time, their traits were exaggerated for the comic effect that animation can provide. So you have Akane hitting Ranma even MORE. And it’s the anime, more than the manga, that fans are familiar with. As a result, these characterization seemed to stick more than the manga ones, even if they’re sort of once removed.

The same thing happened with Urusei Yatsura, where Mamoru Oshii, the series director for several seasons, had several battles with Takahashi about the direction of the series. And indeed, if you watch the UY anime Ataru, Lum, and the others get several ‘Awww, they’re really sweet after all!’ moments that just aren’t in the manga itself. Not to say the manga never had those moments. But they were much less common, and I think Takahashi preferred her characters to be petty, vindictive, and spiteful in the long run. That made plotting and comedy easy.

Comedy’s hard to write. Much easier to be dramatic. As a result, when you take series that give you some fun and fascinating characters, but then don’t do anything with them (no one reads UY or Ranma for the plot), and throw in an anime that sometimes exaggerates or softens said characters depending on the director or episode… well, you’ve got a recipe for fandom controversy. Bashing and Ship Wars didn’t start with Bleach, after all. Writing realism into Ranma and UY became a common theme in the mid to late 90s, and continues on a smaller level to this day. And if you try to realistically write a girl who habitually punches a man so hard he flies several city blocks… well, you’re going to have issues.

(On a side note, this is one reason why, much as I love it, I have some problems with Maison Ikkoku. Takahashi essentially did the same thing as Ranma fanfic writers, which is taking her wacky characters and placing them in a setting with far more realism, and realistic leads. Godai and Kyoko, however, despite their faults, were no Ataru and Lum. They were sympathetic people we really wanted to root for. As a result, when Mrs. Ichinose, Akemi, and especially Yotsuya messed with them for the lulz, I got a lot more irritated then I would at UY or Ranma characters. It just felt like it hurt more.)

I was unfamiliar with the concept of ‘bashing’ till I got into Ranma fandom. I didn’t see it quite as much with UY (though it was there), mostly as most fans liked the pairing of Ataru and Lum, and there were never any realistic rivals presented for the fans to argue over. Ranma, though, with the introduction of Shampoo and especially Ukyou, had alternatives. Both were harem series, but Ranma is a harem series in the modern definition: nothing ever gets decided, and the fans argue about who the lead guy will end up with till it dissolves into a screaming match. UY and Ranma both had ‘semi-open’ endings, where Takahashi implied that the couple would eventually get together… but didn’t actually show it. Therefore there is, in the mind of many, no canon pairing: Ranma and Akane did not get together in the end, therefore they are NOT together.

And yes, other characters got bashed as well. When you take a series about a bunch of insane goofy teenage martial-artists seriously, you suddenly realize “Hey, she’s a psychopath!” or “Hey, his motivations are guided by a misplaced hatred!”. Psychoanalyzing to death is the order of the day. It can make for good drama – hell, I did it myself back when I wrote Ranma fanfics. But it can also have some unfortunate consequences. There’s a line running from Ranma through Love Hina right to Harry Potter, a line which has fanfics whose basic plot can be described as ‘Lead male gets a backbone, decides to man up and shows the girls who’ve been tormenting him what for’. Part of this is a side consequence of weak male leads, which at least Ranma does not have to deal with. But it gets a bit unrealistic when the cast starts behaving in ways that are not remotely close to the source material. And much of it is driven more by ‘I hate Angry Girl X’ and shipping than anything else.

In the end, I started to ask myself, is it okay that Ranma and UY are essentially two-dimensional? They don’t have depth of characterization, even though they have great characters. There is no hero’s journey. Ryouko Mendou is hurling grenades and laughing like a loon in the final volumes, just as she did in her first appearance. But it’s still funny. And there is a wide variety of plots, especially in UY, where it seems that Takahashi could never stop thinking of insane material that made me impressed at her twisted mind. (A robot alien teacher shaped like a chalkboard eraser?) It’s a question of what one wants out of the material. Do you want wacky, Osaka-style comedy shenanigans? Well, you are the reason Takahashi is one of the richest manga authors in Japan. If you’re watching or reading Ranma or UY for the romance, or to see Akane come to terms with the fact that Ranma isn’t a pervert and she should stop leaping to conclusions… then she must be a very, very frustrating author for you. Perhaps you should write a fanfic about it?