What the kids are reading in the Japanese countryside - manga vs the fantasy novel
We don't get too many pygmies out here in the hills surrounding Miyoshi - the odd wild boar, a few raccoon dogs, plenty of snakes and even the occasional bear-sighting, but no pygmies to date. Yet it was pygmies that woke my daughter last night, leading us to exchange beds at around midnight.
After freezing the soles of my feet on our wooden (is it really wood? ... but it's so thin) flooring, I picked my way across the fantasy novel-strewn floor of my daughter's bedroom and found the warm haven of a recently vacated bed. I turned off the light and was assailed by a galaxy of glow-in-the-dark stars. It took me by surprise. I turned on the light and had a closer look around my daughter's room. Fantasy novels everywhere.
The fantasy novels are not to blame for the pygmies - that was a re-run of an old Ally McBeal episode that she caught a few minutes of - but her world is populated by strange creatures and peoples created by the authors of the books she reads. She used to read a lot of manga, all the rage overseas now - but manga is old hat in our neck of the woods. What she and a lot of her fellow Japanese sixth grade classmates are really into are fantasy novels.
Don't get me wrong, manga is still extremely popular, but top of the lending list at the local library (an oasis of sophistication in a down-to-earth country town) is a fantasy novel series. And here's the thing - you would think that with all the expertise that goes into creating manga-worlds that these fantasy novels would be the preserve of Japanese authors, but that's not the case. The top of the favourites list in our corner of Miyoshi are works translated into Japanese from the pens of Emily Rodda from Australia, Darren Shan (a 33 year-old Londoner), Kai Meyer (a German), Dianne Wynn Jones and Philip Pullman (the UK writers), and Christopher Paolini (an absurdly young American).
The manga is of course the perfect book for the ancient Japanese art of "tachiyomi". The word basically means to stand and read. In bookstores all over the country, you can find lines of people reading manga from cover to cover, thereby saving them the trouble of forking out their hard-earned yen. Reading a manga does not take all day. However, my daughter has taken the art of "tachiyomi" to new levels.
Last Saturday she read the final installment of the latest fantasy series "tachiyomi" style in the local bookstore. While she was reading I went off to do some of my own fantasizing over the flat screen TVs. Forty minutes later I returned to find her on page 85. After buying the groceries and the beer she was nearly halfway. I went home and left my wife with her. An hour or so later I called up to find out that she was still standing strong and on page 270. "Not long to go, come and get us." I did and was met by a red-eyed, blinking child with aching feet and a mind full of dragons.
Manga versus the fantasy novel. It is a tough one to call. Recent trends see manga as a growing export and the fantasy novel a growing import. My daughter says that manga are good but she prefers to read about "dragons and stuff" and apparently Japanese authors don't seem to write about them.
After freezing the soles of my feet on our wooden (is it really wood? ... but it's so thin) flooring, I picked my way across the fantasy novel-strewn floor of my daughter's bedroom and found the warm haven of a recently vacated bed. I turned off the light and was assailed by a galaxy of glow-in-the-dark stars. It took me by surprise. I turned on the light and had a closer look around my daughter's room. Fantasy novels everywhere.
The fantasy novels are not to blame for the pygmies - that was a re-run of an old Ally McBeal episode that she caught a few minutes of - but her world is populated by strange creatures and peoples created by the authors of the books she reads. She used to read a lot of manga, all the rage overseas now - but manga is old hat in our neck of the woods. What she and a lot of her fellow Japanese sixth grade classmates are really into are fantasy novels.
Don't get me wrong, manga is still extremely popular, but top of the lending list at the local library (an oasis of sophistication in a down-to-earth country town) is a fantasy novel series. And here's the thing - you would think that with all the expertise that goes into creating manga-worlds that these fantasy novels would be the preserve of Japanese authors, but that's not the case. The top of the favourites list in our corner of Miyoshi are works translated into Japanese from the pens of Emily Rodda from Australia, Darren Shan (a 33 year-old Londoner), Kai Meyer (a German), Dianne Wynn Jones and Philip Pullman (the UK writers), and Christopher Paolini (an absurdly young American).
The manga is of course the perfect book for the ancient Japanese art of "tachiyomi". The word basically means to stand and read. In bookstores all over the country, you can find lines of people reading manga from cover to cover, thereby saving them the trouble of forking out their hard-earned yen. Reading a manga does not take all day. However, my daughter has taken the art of "tachiyomi" to new levels.
Last Saturday she read the final installment of the latest fantasy series "tachiyomi" style in the local bookstore. While she was reading I went off to do some of my own fantasizing over the flat screen TVs. Forty minutes later I returned to find her on page 85. After buying the groceries and the beer she was nearly halfway. I went home and left my wife with her. An hour or so later I called up to find out that she was still standing strong and on page 270. "Not long to go, come and get us." I did and was met by a red-eyed, blinking child with aching feet and a mind full of dragons.
Manga versus the fantasy novel. It is a tough one to call. Recent trends see manga as a growing export and the fantasy novel a growing import. My daughter says that manga are good but she prefers to read about "dragons and stuff" and apparently Japanese authors don't seem to write about them.
posted by jh at 12.1.06
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