Chicks Dig Time Lords

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A Celebreation of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It. Edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea. Published by Mad Norwegian Press.

This blog is mostly for manga reviews, and I’ve been reading manga for almost 15 years now, so it’s a relatively old fandom of mine. But I’ve been a Doctor Who fan literally my entire life; some of my earliest memories are being utterly terrified by The Mutants when I was a little kid watching PBS. And I was reviewing Who online back before I even knew what manga was. Doctor Who is ingrained into my sense of self.

And it would appear I’m not alone, as can be seen in this fantastic collection of essays put out by Mad Norwegian Press. The book talks about female Doctor Who fandom, but as the back cover notes, you don’t have to be female to enjoy it. You just need a love of Doctor Who – no matter what the era.

I grew up in the States, so I didn’t have quite the same experience of ‘boys-club’ that female fans in Britain and Australia did. There always seemed to be a bunch of female Who fans at the conventions I attended as a kid. However, I certainly noticed the male bias – and tendency towards very male arguments – when I joined rec.arts.drwho in 1994. (It was on USENET! Remember USENET?) So a book like this was a lot of fun for me to read as it lacked a lot of the peevishness and entitlement that I saw on the old newsgroup.

The book is, more than an analysis of being a female Doctor Who fan, a celebration of Doctor Who itself. You can feel the enthusiasm and joy bubbling up from its pages. Favorite Doctors, identifying with companions, dressing up, drawing art, writing fanfics, writing smut… every aspect of who fandom you can think of is covered here, along with a reminder that Doctor Who’s very nature helps to keep the fandom alive, that it is (as several essays note) a fandom that regenerates and renews itself as its show does.

Not that the book is all squee. There are several articles on New Who that seem a bit dismayed at the portrayal of females in the series, and I found myself nodding in agreement a lot of the time. (I adored Donna, and felt what the Doctor did at Journey’s End to be a horrible decision.) But of course, none of this stops the writers from still being fans. Nor will it stop me. I can’t, at the moment, imagine not being a Doctor Who fan. Sure, I’ll disagree with things, or hate episodes and plots. But stop being a fan? Bah.

When I finished the book, there were so many essays I wanted to go back and reread. Helen Kang’s cultural analysis of the show and how peer pressure affects our fandoms growing up; Francesca Coppa’s essay about Nyssa, one of my favorite classic companions; Tammy Garrison and Katy Shuttleworth’s adorable Torchwood Babiez comic/essay; K. Tempest Bradford’s thoughtful article on her love of Martha and how the show’s writing keeps disappointing that love; and Christa Dickson’s argument in favor of the fandom having a healthy love of sex in the TARDIS.

But most of all, it made me immediately want to write my own essay dealing with my life as a Doctor Who fan. I had to rewrite this review a few times as I started rambling on about Peter Davison on WEDH 24, or Sylvester McCoy becoming *my* Doctor (which is usually the first question you get asked by fellow fans). But of course, my Doctor Who fandom essay can wait for another time. This is about Chicks Dig Time Lords, which merely inspires such thoughts. It reminds you how open, how BIG this community is. It makes you want to rewatch your episodes, to go to a convention, to sew a giant scarf, to get involved, And it leave a giant grin on your face. I can’t recommend it enough.

I Hate You More Than Anyone! Volume 5

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By Banri Hidaka. Released in Japan as “Sekai De Ichiban Daikirai!” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by CMX.

Despite the fact that Kazuha still hasn’t confessed to Maki, this volume is very much about how a couple starts off – awkwardly, with lots of blushes and little fights turning into SERIOUS BUSINESS. Kazuha’s general personality does not help here at all, of course.

Contrasted with this is Senko, who’s just as emotional but a touch more sensible – well, she thinks so, at least. Senko proves to be easily manipulated in an incredibly hilarious scene where Honjo talks her into going out with him. The expression on his face as she walks right into his trap makes me remember why I fell for this couple hard. (Later in the volume, Kazuha realizes that Honjo likes Senko, and the idea of them as a couple makes her freak out. This freak out leads to possible the funniest line in the entire manga, from her little brother Ichihisa: “Oh noooo! Senko-chan! Kazuha-chan is tripping!”.)

The ‘date’ turns out to be Mizushima’s wedding – Maki decided to trick Kazuha and make it a suprise. It’s a lovely wedding (western-style), though it does show one of the difficulties in translating Japanese to English. Manami, Mizushima’s bride, speaks in a ‘third-person cutesy’ sort of way, saying “Manami wants” instead of “I want.” Another character later in the volume also slips into this on occasion. It’s common in manga with ‘cutesy’ girls, but over here I think it just looks childish. (Another funny moment, when Kazuha discusses the wedding with her mother, and her mother starts teasing her: “Ichihisa takes after his mother 100%.” She does – we’ve seen that evil grin on teenage Ichihisa in the pre-IHYMTA Akiyoshi arcs.)

We then get Valentine’s Day, which leads to more angst for Kazuha – she’s never given anyone chocolate before, even her teachers, so has no idea what to do for Maki. It doesn’t help that Maki gets drowned in chocolates from all his admirers. Kazuha stresses, then eventually decides to not do the chocolates thing, as she wants to not be like all the other girls. (We’ll see what she decides on in the next volume).

The Valentine’s arc also has the one big flaw in the volume, however. A new character, Miharu, is introduced. She’s Arata’s childhood friend, and clearly has a crush on him. And coincidentally, she appears just as his crush on Kazuha is about to be resolved! I don’t dislike her, but her entire arc, here and in the next book, reeks of ‘I need to get rid of this guy, let me invent a girl to pawn him off onto”. It’s awkward, and I feel if this was how she wanted to do it then Miharu should have been there all along, especially as we had many scenes at Arata’s school before this. It underlines how Hidaka-san basically plots on the fly for this series (compare this to, say, Tears of a Lamb’s tight structure).

Overall, though, this continues to be funny and heartfelt, and even though the romance aspect is still going nowhere fast, you root for these people to find happiness. In fact, the only thing stopping Kazuha and Maki getting together now is her reticence, and that won’t last long. I’m sure that the manga will end next volume! Well, unless the author throws a huge spanner in the works. But she would *never* do that…

Gin Tama Volume 17

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

Another excellent volume of Gin Tama, which introduces another major character, and has a better balance between its goofy gag manga and its serious samurai action.

The majority of this volume deals with Tama the robot girl, first introduced to us as just a severed head, and the attempts of what seems to be everyone in the world to retrieve her. Naturally, she ends up at the home of our heroes, and after a highly amusing chapter where they try to access her memory but merely end up playing her like a Nintendo RPG, the robot armies start arriving to kick ass and take over the world.

Of course, we soon find out that this goofy plot is more serious than we thought, and that Tama is no ordinary robot girl. There are some nice fakeouts in this middle bit as the real villain is revealed, and you begin to wonder (as do our heroes) how pure his motivation really is, especially since that motivation seems to be for mass slaughter. (Really, for a Jump gag manga, Gin Tama has a damn high body count. Certainly higher than Naruto, Bleach, or One Piece.)

The enemy captures Shinpachi, so Gin and Kagura are off to the rescue, along with Tama, whose personality has been implanted into a killer assassin maid robot. With one eye. Never let it be said that Sorachi does not know his core audience. This leads to one of the funniest moments in the volume, where Tama puts a CD into her mouth and starts playing the Rocky theme to inspire our heroes. (The anime actually topped this, mocking music negotiations by having her play a “Rocky-ish” theme and Gin lampshading that they must not have been able to afford the rights.)

In the end, though, this is less about cool action and goofy jokes, and more about what makes a person’s soul. Tama is having to deal with people willing to fight and die for her, and the concept of the samurai, both of which pretty much blow her mind. When she finally comes to accept that, she’s able to make the emotional leap that she needed, and in the end can sacrifice herself as well. (Of course, she returns, if only as a head again, and we’ll see more of Tama in future chapters).

The best part of the manga is Gin snarking back at the villain. The whole volume has been gently mocking the robot maid concept, and Gin finally throws it back into the faces of those who love the fetish.

Gin: You’d force your own daughter to commit murder? Blind obedience… is that what you wanted, Daddy? A daughter who’d never leave you and never die? You don’t want a daughter… you want a robot maid.

For a series with as many strong women as Gin Tama has, this is particularly apt. The most popular females are the ones who can punt a man’s aass through a wall.

The manga flags towards the end, with two chapters focusing on buying a Wii (or rather, a Bentendo Owee). As always following an arc with somewhat serious issues, the author follows it with pure gag manga for comic relief. Seeing the cast cutting into lines and trying to play date sims is funny (Katsura, as always, wins the humor award, both for dressing up as Mario and for trying to buy a Famicom – behind the times, as always). Still, it’s light stuff compared to the earlier chapters.

If you aren’t reading Gin Tama, you’re really missing out. I’d argue it’s the 2nd best manga in Jump right now, behind One Piece. Highly recommended.