Butterflies, Flowers Volume 6

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By Yuki Yoshihara. Released in Japan as “Chou Yo Hana Yo” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Petit Comic. Released in North America by Viz.

Things have been going fairly smoothly for our couple lately, well, at least as smoothly as you can get in a soap opera melodrama sort of world. And given this, it will come as a surprise to no one that various bad things happen in this volume to try to break them up. This involves both Choko’s self-doubt (she finds out that Masayuki had an ex) and new characters arriving on the scene to be impediments. Unfortunately, the fact that two of these new characters are introduced one right on top of the other sort of makes it feel a bit as if Yoshihara is tossing in complications to extend the series out.

One thing I noticed right away is that there’s very little of Masayuki being an over the top lunatic, something which was both the main fault and the saving grace of previous volumes. Despite the occasional Gundam reference and outbreaks of ludicrous violence, he’s really mellowed out now that he and Choko are together, and doesn’t feel the need to be obnoxious about it anymore. There’s one sex scene at the start of the volume, and it’s probably the sweetest one we’ve had in the series. Now if only he could stop himself putting tracking devices in her underwear…

Choko, on the other hand, is still having issues, mostly as she’s the female viewpoint heroine in a josei series, which means she’s plagued by self-doubt and concerns. Hearing Masayuki once had a lover who wasn’t her makes her jealous, even when she doesn’t know quite how to deal with it. She handles the introduction of a new man to the office much better, first attempting to work with him in order to help her friend Makie avoid an arranged marriage, and then fending him off once he starts to fall for her. Luckily, Otaki is somewhat socially inept, so she thinks he’s merely being rude to her when he tries to give her a ring. (?!) The arrival of Masayuki’s ex, Kaori, comes right on top of this, and to be honest feels a bit like overegging the pudding. Especially given she’s just as bad as you imagined she was going to be, threatening Choko right off the bat.

Overall, the manga is getting subtler about both its romance and its drama. There’s still humor (I loved Masayuki’s reaction to finding out Suou and Makie were in love), but it’s nowhere near the level of early volumes. Likewise, the relationship between Choko and Masayuki, despite its hiccups, also seems more mature and has come a hell of a long way from that job interview at the start. It’s nice to see, but I do feel that I didn’t get as into this volume as much as previous ones due to a lack of ludicrousness. Without Masayuki being grotesque and over the top, Butterflies, Flowers feels like another romance manga, just with a bit more spice as it’s josei. I’m hoping the last two volumes bring back a bit of me staring in awe at the sheer gall of it all.

Toriko Volume 4

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By Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

When we last saw Toriko, he was dealing with both a mother and baby Battle Wolf, and a vicious killer robot. Sadly, the robot has just killed the mother wolf, leaving Toriko as angry as we’ve ever seen him. Because this is Jump, the motivations are spelled out so they’re easy for all to understand – Toriko will never get angry at an animal, as they act on their basic instincts, even the worst killers. But humans? Man, they can be nasty and horrible. And that gets Toriko mad. So we get a big ol’ battle between our hero and the supposedly invincible robot, which ends the way you’d expect a Jump battle to end.

The main thrust of this volume is the arrival of Sunny, who is another Japanese manga cliche, the gorgeous young man who only likes beautiful things. We’ve seen this effeminate type with Yumichika in Bleach as well. Even worse, his powers involve hair sensors that can instantly tell him everything about the others around him, and Toriko describes it as akin to being ‘licked’, complete with art demonstrating how Toriko views this. This sort of thing is not helping Jump’s image of catering more towards fujoshi now, but is still kind of amusing. More to the point, Sunny is one of the Four Kings, an equal to Toriko, and seriously badass… when he can be bothered, of course, as he doesn’t want to go after things that aren’t beautiful, or can’t be made that way.

And I continue to be fascinated with Komatsu, the comic sidekick character. Unlike a number of these types in Jump stories, Komatsu is not trying to get as strong as the hero, or even strong in general. Komatsu knows his limits, and is content to simply stand back and let others take on the hideously dangerous things. And of course, his talents as a chef are superb, causing even Sunny (who had ignored him previously as Komatsu is not ‘beautiful’) to sit up and take notice. I particularly liked Komatsu noting that he gets even happier when people praise his knife rather than himself, something that apparently comes up a lot in his character. In terms of using the non-powerful character, Shimabukuro continues to do a great job.

If there’s a fault in the manga, it’s that I continue to not care about any main overarching plot. We meet some bad guys here, but they’re typical ‘mid-level boss’ bad guys, with their leader maybe being a cut above. The fact that we get a ‘capture level’ panel next to each animal once it appears reminds you that this is very much a fighting manga meant to resemble a fighting game, with Toriko and company moving on to take on stronger and stronger opponents, no doubt while finding out about the conspiracy that haunts their world. It’s nothing you have not read in eighty other Jump mangas. But I’m not really sure that matters. Toriko is big dumb goofy fun, and you read it to see the heroes grin while punching things. It doesn’t have much of a goal beyond entertaining, and it succeeds in that regard.

The Merchant of Venice

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By William Shakespeare. First published in Britain in 1623 by Edward Blount, William Jaggard, and Isaac Jaggard. Review copy from ‘The Arden Shakespeare: Third Series’, edited by John Drakakis.

When I reviewed The Taming of the Shrew, one of the things I did was discuss how I might stage it if I were directing a production, giving advice to the actors, etc. However, to be honest, this is not something I can do with The Merchant of Venice, as if I was asked to direct a production I’d likely see if they wouldn’t mind something a bit easier to stage today. It can be argued about how controversial it was at the time of writing, but it’s hard to read Merchant now without having issues with the way that the cast treats the Jew, Shylock.

First of all, this play is concerned with a lot of things, but the two things it’s most concerned with are law and money. Especially money. The play is called the Merchant of Venice, after all. Money can be used to raise your status (which is probably the main reason why Antonio is wiling to help his friend Bassanio win Portia, even if many modern productions play up that it’s for repressed love for Bassanio), but money can also be used to make money, which is the business Shylock operates. He is a moneylender. The people of Elizabethan times had a very odd relationship with such ‘usury’, inasmuch as they needed it to keep the economy going, but all their teachings told them that making money for the sole purpose of making more money was sinful, vile, etc. Therefore, why not give the job to someone who it was perfectly acceptable to hate anyway? Hypocritical, but gets around the problem nicely!

As with most Shakespeare plays, critics and scholars argue constantly about what Shakespeare really meant when he wrote the play. Was Shylock meant to be played as an evil cunning soul who was willing to cut out Antonio’s heart for a grudge? Certainly other Jews in drama of the time, such as Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, fell into the over-the-top villainy category. On the other hand, Shylock is quite sympathetic for a villain, and even more so in modern times. His speech starting “Hath not a Jew eyes” is justly famous, and one wonders why Shakespeare would make a villain so three-dimensional. (Of course, Shakespeare did this to his villains all the time – take a good look at how compelling the role of Richard III is.) Is Shylock a villain? Or is he the wronged party? Certainly his forced conversion to Christianity – thought of at the time as quite a light sentence – seems unspeakably harsh now. But if he’s the tragic hero, what does that make the others?

Speaking of the others, let’s look at Portia. She’s a great female role, one of Shakespeare’s strongest comedic heroines. (The definition of comedy throughout this essay is the one of Shakespeare’s time, by the way.) Yes, she’s abiding by her late father’s rules in regards to who she marries, but she seems to be quite content with that, and manages to end up with the right man in any case. It helps that her other two suitors – a comic African stereotype and a comic Spanish stereotype – are so goofy, of course. (See, and you thought it was just the anti-Semitism that would be trouble!) Her defense of Antonio has some wonderful set pieces, and she shows herself to be cleverer than anyone else there. She even contrasts with Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, who also gets the man she wants but does so by defying her father rather than obeying him – and we seem to think that Portia ended up with the better life. Unfortunately, because of the way that we view Shylock, we have to change the way we look at Portia, as well as the rest of the cast. They look, not to put too fine a point on it, cruel and callous.

Now, certainly part of this was deliberate. As always, Shakespeare will never write one point of view when he can show us three or four, and I’ve no doubt that his contrast of the way Shylock treats Antonio and the way that the rest of the cast treats Shylock is deliberate. I don’t think he meant his audience to side with Shylock, or even be uncomfortable, but he wanted them to see the parallels. That said, it makes it quite difficult to stage Merchant today as anything other than a gripping tragic drama. And even in productions where you have sympathetic, likeable Shylocks, you’re still left with the fact that he shows himself to be willing to cut out Antonio’s pound of flesh. Plus you have the issue of Shylock’s last scenes being in Act 4, which leaves you a final act of light-hearted romantic hijinks with rings and promises between a bunch of people who were, in dramatic terms, loathsome earlier on. Why should you care what happens to them after Shylock leaves? (The movie from 2004 gives an epilogue, showing Shylock returning to his Jewish community and being shunned, and many modern productions also show that Jessica remains hated and despised by the rest of the cast, including her husband.)

A good Shakespeare play always inspires constant debate, which no doubt makes Merchant among his very best. As a historical document it’s excellent, as a play on paper it’s fascinating even if history has made it unpalatable. As a play in the theatre I’d love to see what other performers and directors will do with it. I just wouldn’t want to be the one in charge, as I don’t think there’s a way to please everyone in this production the way I think you can (albeit trying very hard) with Shrew or Much Ado. Nevertheless, everyone should read it, if only for two of Shakespeare’s best characters, Shylock and Portia.