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branchandroot) wrote2010-01-05 05:57 pm
branchandroot) wrote2010-01-05 05:57 pm
The difference between manga and comics
Actually, this is a lot broader than that, but that was one of the places this post started. The other was Rana's comment on a different post, words to the effect that the fan-cultures in question seem to divide themselves based only on some very fuzzy Orientalism.
I agree that fuzzy Orientalism is the most regrettably common way Western fans of similar media from different national/ethnic groups (eg comics and manga) express their differentiation. That particular expression is generally a lot of hot air, yes.
But I also think there are real fan-culture differences, touching on though not always rising directly from the mother-culture differences of the sources. This is my attempt to articulate the ones that I've seen. Warning: generalizations ahead, though not baseless ones.
ETA: To elaborate, this post is based on my own and my circle's experiences in various fandoms; unfortunately I managed to phrase things rather more generally and universally than I quite realized at the time. *rueful* None of the following is actually meant to be a Declaration Of How Fandom Is Everywhere. That said, the experience in question is not a narrow one, and I think the following is representative of a significant section of manga (and anime) fandom participants.
One major fan-culture difference is Japanophilia. Not the study of another culture, though it can in a few happy cases evolve into that, but the fad for and valorization of the surface and trappings of another culture. It makes me twitch, but there it is. However much some of us headdesk, this exoticization isn't going away anytime soon and it is a significant fan-culture difference.
Another is what we might call the discussion tropes of the fandoms. These tend to evolve from a handful of defining features in the sources where they cross with the developing tenor of the fandom culture. A recurring discussion in comic fandoms, for example, revolves around the hypersexualization of women, and how objectionable it is to reduce all the women to a set of tits and an ass. Manga fandoms do not have this discussion (ETA: I should have phrased this as something more like "this discussion or similar ones regarding the rendering of women as two-dimensional objects who exist for the benefit of men and not as fully realized characters"), not as a Known Issue, not in the open, despite an at least equal tendency to appalling objectification in the source material. Instead, the discussion usually gets pushed into private mode before it really gets going. See above, re: Japanophilia and valorization, also re: headdesking. On the other hand, the original language itself is a discussion point largely peculiar to Western manga fandoms, as will generally be the case with a translated source. It expresses as everything from language lessons to fights over transliteration systems to the eternal localization vs. "direct" translation battle, and knowledge of those debates acts as one of the shibboleths of manga fandoms.
Then there's actual style and content in the source. There has always been a certain give and take, between this particular two-set, of artistic style, and as US comics (the only ones I can speak to from experience) diversify it's becoming more evident, but there are also story tropes that are still distinct. How else, when they arise from two separate mother-cultures? To name only one, multiple genres of manga have, for decades, toyed with explicit homoeroticism in a way that comics in general do not. The genre diversity itself is another example, and the variety of story-types told in manga format. The symbolic language is, and can only remain, distinct as well. Curiously enough, such story tropes do not result in many fan-culture differences that I have seen, except insofar as manga fandom can, for example, show a more intense defensiveness, sometimes devolving into outright gay-bashing, over reading and enjoying explicit gay (only not real gay, which is a whole nother essay) romance, porn and slapstick. (ETA: I did not phrase myself with enough specificity here; I am aware of the voluble gay-bashing in comics fandoms. What I refer to is the particular "screw for my enjoyment while I deny you the right to live" double-mindedness that shows up among fen who are trying to have their cake and bash it too. The key word, here, is defensiveness.) The different story tropes I would put down as a distinction between the sources, but not one that manifests much in fandom culture outside of the actual preference for the style and content of one group of sources or another.
Now, what I would be interested to know is: do the same kinds of differences show up in the Western fandoms of Western and Asian TV? Or of Western bands and Asian bands? And do they manifest in gaming fandoms? That last especially interests me, since the game sources seem to be the most self-aware of the trans-Pacific trade.
ETA: As per suggestion, I would like to point out that I have not been present for the bulk of wrangler discussions on associated issues. These are thoughts going off in a different (somewhat) direction, so please to be not be bringing other fights in here. I am an unaligned polity.
ETA some more: Will not be replying to further comments on this one because work has descended for the term. Talk among yourselves if you like.
I agree that fuzzy Orientalism is the most regrettably common way Western fans of similar media from different national/ethnic groups (eg comics and manga) express their differentiation. That particular expression is generally a lot of hot air, yes.
But I also think there are real fan-culture differences, touching on though not always rising directly from the mother-culture differences of the sources. This is my attempt to articulate the ones that I've seen. Warning: generalizations ahead, though not baseless ones.
ETA: To elaborate, this post is based on my own and my circle's experiences in various fandoms; unfortunately I managed to phrase things rather more generally and universally than I quite realized at the time. *rueful* None of the following is actually meant to be a Declaration Of How Fandom Is Everywhere. That said, the experience in question is not a narrow one, and I think the following is representative of a significant section of manga (and anime) fandom participants.
One major fan-culture difference is Japanophilia. Not the study of another culture, though it can in a few happy cases evolve into that, but the fad for and valorization of the surface and trappings of another culture. It makes me twitch, but there it is. However much some of us headdesk, this exoticization isn't going away anytime soon and it is a significant fan-culture difference.
Another is what we might call the discussion tropes of the fandoms. These tend to evolve from a handful of defining features in the sources where they cross with the developing tenor of the fandom culture. A recurring discussion in comic fandoms, for example, revolves around the hypersexualization of women, and how objectionable it is to reduce all the women to a set of tits and an ass. Manga fandoms do not have this discussion (ETA: I should have phrased this as something more like "this discussion or similar ones regarding the rendering of women as two-dimensional objects who exist for the benefit of men and not as fully realized characters"), not as a Known Issue, not in the open, despite an at least equal tendency to appalling objectification in the source material. Instead, the discussion usually gets pushed into private mode before it really gets going. See above, re: Japanophilia and valorization, also re: headdesking. On the other hand, the original language itself is a discussion point largely peculiar to Western manga fandoms, as will generally be the case with a translated source. It expresses as everything from language lessons to fights over transliteration systems to the eternal localization vs. "direct" translation battle, and knowledge of those debates acts as one of the shibboleths of manga fandoms.
Then there's actual style and content in the source. There has always been a certain give and take, between this particular two-set, of artistic style, and as US comics (the only ones I can speak to from experience) diversify it's becoming more evident, but there are also story tropes that are still distinct. How else, when they arise from two separate mother-cultures? To name only one, multiple genres of manga have, for decades, toyed with explicit homoeroticism in a way that comics in general do not. The genre diversity itself is another example, and the variety of story-types told in manga format. The symbolic language is, and can only remain, distinct as well. Curiously enough, such story tropes do not result in many fan-culture differences that I have seen, except insofar as manga fandom can, for example, show a more intense defensiveness, sometimes devolving into outright gay-bashing, over reading and enjoying explicit gay (only not real gay, which is a whole nother essay) romance, porn and slapstick. (ETA: I did not phrase myself with enough specificity here; I am aware of the voluble gay-bashing in comics fandoms. What I refer to is the particular "screw for my enjoyment while I deny you the right to live" double-mindedness that shows up among fen who are trying to have their cake and bash it too. The key word, here, is defensiveness.) The different story tropes I would put down as a distinction between the sources, but not one that manifests much in fandom culture outside of the actual preference for the style and content of one group of sources or another.
Now, what I would be interested to know is: do the same kinds of differences show up in the Western fandoms of Western and Asian TV? Or of Western bands and Asian bands? And do they manifest in gaming fandoms? That last especially interests me, since the game sources seem to be the most self-aware of the trans-Pacific trade.
ETA: As per suggestion, I would like to point out that I have not been present for the bulk of wrangler discussions on associated issues. These are thoughts going off in a different (somewhat) direction, so please to be not be bringing other fights in here. I am an unaligned polity.
ETA some more: Will not be replying to further comments on this one because work has descended for the term. Talk among yourselves if you like.
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In a way I'm trying to step back from the specificity of "what the heck do we do with this stuff in the archive?" and look at what I have actually /seen/. What I've seen is that there are, indeed, cultural differences in the fandoms which seem to be, how to put this... not always directly linked to the cultural differences of the sources themselves.
Having said that, if I were to attempt to apply the observation to the archive categorizing, I suppose I would say that it seems likely the fandoms in question would resist a media-only categorization. Sometimes that will almost certainly be for reasons I disapprove of a lot! But I do think that will need to be taken into account. That's the self-identification of the fandoms in question, and while some of the reasons for it should and must be questioned I think trying to impose a new identification or organization using the archive as a lever would be unproductive. On the other hand, I very much agree that a schema that perpetuates orientalism is a Bad Idea.
For myself, I think media-based supercategories could combine reasonably well with fandom-culture-based subcategories across the board. Looking at how fast the numbers of fandoms are mounting, I think some kind of subcategory will be needed for most supercategories real soon now! I like the idea of acknowledging the different cultural origins of the sources, because claiming that there is no difference seems to be as egregious an act of erasure as is using someone else's life as one's bling.
Okay, I'm starting to wander off and need to go to bed. Thanks for a thought provoking comment!
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I should note, before I go any further discussing what the AO3 can and can't do, versus my opinions on the matter, that I'm really not trying to speak for the AO3-as-a-whole here - I'm only offering my own perception, which could be missing a few nuances or whatever. But I can at least offer some more insight into what it looks like from a wranglers' perspective, and what I know is on the table and what isn't, yet, and what it's helpful to bring to our attention.
Although honestly, pretty much any suggestions you think would be useful would be welcome - as a reader and creator of transformative works, you are exactly the AO3's intended audience, and who it's eventually meant to be designed to cater to as best it can, and if it's not working for you, the AO3 would love to know why, preferably multiple times, in extensive detail. Trust me, they want the feedback. They're special and wonderful that way.
I agree there are differences - I just am not sure if they're any greater than the differences between the English-speaking fandoms for RPF for Western musicians and RPF for Eastern musicians, and all the wranglers for those categories seem to agree there's really no good reason to split those categories up, and likewise across the board for the other categories, and I do feel that something's getting stomped on if we keep the field of sequential art and animation the special media-category snowflake it currently is because of its split down hazily-defined (and hella offensive) "geographical" lines. It's not really a matter of claiming they're identical, any more than lumping DBSK fandom with My Chemical Romance fandom is meant to claim such a thing - it's just housing them within the type of media they both come from, and this is something that will hopefully be more obvious when the category page gets overhauled to include blurbs for each category explaining what all goes under them.
If we could come up with another consistently defined schema for the categories that was more specified, I'd be at least cautiously supportive, because I am someone who favors greater specification where it's possible and where it doesn't cause excessive confusion and that would be more intuitive for me.
But I can't figure out how to make that idea work, and so, for now, I'm standing behind this solution as the one that makes the best sense in terms of being implementable as well as coherent.
The AO3 will, however, eventually, have subcategories and the supercategories we'll need to put them in; AD&T calls them "metatags", and they're as of yet just a gleam in the coders' eyes, not even a zygote of any written documentation, but believe me, you're not the only one waiting
impatiently for the day when they're usable. This is one of those "it's, er, still in beta ..." things, you see. And when we have those metatags it may be time to bring this discussion up again - because we'll be able to more capably handle the idea of splitting up media type by genre, then - but we may have found a totally different solution by then, so who knows?no subject
*grins* I am currently showering the archive with feedback, while I'm still on term break. And asking for things that will require significant re-coding. I'm sure somebody thinks "oh god" when they see my email address again.
*nods* I understand the feeling that the a/m special snowflakehood is symptomatic of some pretty wrongheaded thinking. I agree that the current arrangement needs to change somehow. When thinking about how to change it, I have to wonder about browsing patterns. If someone is browsing through the categories at all, presumably they are either looking for a fandom they know the name of or else looking for something related to a fandom they are already familiar with. It's that second case that I think would be served by grouping comics separately (in subcategories) from manga. And, presumably, if they wanted to broaden out into "any sequential story art" they could click on the supercategory instead. One of the things that this entry and all the comments has clarified in my own thinking is that the self-identity of (many) manga and comics fen are distinct, and that it would be *fishes for the right word and falls back on* problematic to deny it wholly. So, yes, throw them all into the same supercategory! But give them subcats, when possible, that respect that self-identification.
...that sounded dreadfully prescriptive, didn't it? "In my personal opinion" should be appended to all that!
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The next time this discussion officially raises it's ugly head, I just may quote you on this.
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*whines* But what about my self identification? ;D
But seriously, I feel like there's a subtext to these types of conversations that people who disagree with the current majority in (for example) US anime/manga fandom (and I do agree that it seems to be the vast majority currently) aren't real anime/manga fans. I identify as a manga fan, and I'd prefer to see manga treated as one type of comics. I don't think it's the majority view, but it is the view of at least one manga fan.
My AO3-specific issue is this:
1. We need to put manhua and manhwa somewhere. That somewhere can't be called "Anime & Manga".
2. Our "Comics" category already includes comics that aren't part of the standard manga/comics divide (Calvin & Hobbes, for example) and whose fandom is totally unrelated to superhero fandom.
3. J-dramas and other subcategories that would be useful to have separated out aren't. They're in with all the other TV shows (or whatever their media type is).
I can see various responses to this situation, but mine is that I want to combine anime/manga with cartoons/comics.
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