October 18, 2005

  • [fascinated]  Oh my dear paws and whiskers!

    Y'all might recall that Dmitry's initial, voluntary foray into English
    was through the vehicle of anime, or manga, books.  I thought they
    were frightful but in the way of teenagers, he considered them
    delightful.

    Not sure how he's going to feel about this:


    Manga meets late, very conservative romance author Betty Neels. 

    To quote Dave Barry, I am not making this up:  Harlequin Ginger Blossom: A Girl in a Million TPB

Comments (9)

  • ROFLOL  That is the anti-manga.  My 16 year old daughter would be revolted.

  • Death! mayhem! ick! bleh!  English shoujo - I'm going to die!

    They could at least have gotten an artist who can actually draw!

    *is revolted*

  • If it was an artist who could actually draw, he or she wouldn't be drawing manga, now would they?

  • Oooh, that's cold. Not a fans of big eyes and small mouths, eh?

    The truth is, though, this kind of manga has been around for a long time. Popular with the young girls in Japan. Pray you don't have to deal with some of the other genres of manga out there. I can't even go into detail.

  • Eeehh well, actually, in Japan, like Mr. Truk77 said, manga is really popular and it's considered something of an accomplishment to be able to draw manga well, and have a good story at the same time... something I've never been able to accomplish.  There are mangas that look more realistic, but the bit you have up there is pretty shoujo-ish, and the more shoujo it gets the more unartistic the... uhm... art gets.  The eyes just keep on getting bigger... and pretty soon you find yourself accosted by bishi-bubbles and pink flowery backgrounds... bleh.

    I prefer shounen manga myself, which is more of the action/adventure type (the art is usually less flowery and closer to reality, too) and doesn't focus almost entirely on the hero/ine's romantic/psychological problems, which is an area that shoujo manga excells in.

    And yes, I am that 16-year-old daughter mentioned above.

  • One of my mother's brothers was in Germany in WWII and fell in love with a local maedchen.  He intended to marry here on the spot, until his 9 siblings raised a fit.  So, he reluctantly came back to the states after the peace was settled, sans Leanne. 

    Leanne, no dumbkopf her, figured out a way to get herself to New York, where she finagled a job as a nanny for a wealthy family in Manhattan.  Her idea was to learn English by hanging around little children all day.  Her employers recommended she also get her hands on comic books, as these were in very simple English.  And they had pictures too!

    Leanne's English began to deteriorate rapidly, to her employer's dismay and puzzlement.  Until they discovered her reading some of the comic books while their children were napping.  Viola! She had simply gone to a news dealer on the street and asked for comic books.  He gave her some to purchase.  They were all Uncle Rhemus and B'rer Rabbit comics.

    I think her employers secured for her some Superman or something like that.  A year or so later, she married Uncle Bill.

    Fr. B

  • That's an awesome story. Superman to the rescue!

  • [snort] That's too funny, Bill!

  • To this day, I'd give anything to hear Uncle Rhemus and B'rer Rabbit done with a sturdy German accent overlaid.  Must have been truely awesome.

    Fr. B

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