Even though we’re on hiatus, I just found out that Bakuman バクマン。the movie comes out in a few days on Saturday 3 October in Japan. The movie is live action.
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I must say that I’m getting very unhappy with much of the manga that is being published in the US in English. It seems to be, except for a few seinen titles (usually at Ikki (VIZ) or one of the smaller publishers), either battle or romance (and bad romance at that), in mostly school life stories, is all that’s being published (with a small exception, recently, of beginner’s science manga for children).
You can’t find any josei out there, except for BL, most of which is so boring and forgetful, However, at least SubLime (VIZ) is picking up some of the classics and better titles with real story to them. None the less, it’s still romance and no other genres of josei than BL. Women aren’t second class citizens who only think about romance!
Almost all the shojo, with few exceptions (there may be some romance but there is great story and contains other genres), is (bad and formulaic) romance, with occasional battle mixed in, just as most of the shonen is battle (even something like the refreshing Bakuman バクマン。 by OHBA Tsugumi 大場つぐみ and OBATA Takeshi 小畑健 is still a friendly non-fighting battle manga in the competitions (battle) between the managaka’s in the story).
In shojo in the past, mostly shonen-ai, there were adventure (non-battle or very limited battle) series, etc.; however, not seen any of those in several years. There were also mystery in both shonen and shojo in the past and some other genres – historic, science fiction, comedies, thrillers, slice of life, supernatural, etc. You may on occasion find a smattering of these in a battle or romance manga, but not done well and not the main genre.
This is a sad state of affairs when you can only find mostly stories in two genres in the US in English if you’re reading manga. This is NOT the case in Japan. And with such limited genres it’s no wonder that the stuff out there is getting to be non-remarkable and forgetful and just not worth reading (it’s almost not worth picking up any Shojo Beat (VIZ) anymore from the unexceptional stories (except for 2-3) they’re picking up, poorer translations than VIZ‘s other series, and longer release times – too long – they’re treating female readers as second class citizens).
I can’t think anyone would be happy with such a limited reading diet; just as in life, you wouldn’t want a limited diet when it comes to food.
seattlekifujin 