#theres tons of good manga but my brain really does not like reading manga in a digital format

[koukoupepia]

i havent watched an anime in uhh. 6 years. unless i count promare which is a movie. there's probably new stuff out there that i’d like if i watched it but maybe my interests have just changed 

[jagaimogoshujinsama]

rambling about shin men and hyu/kan. its long and self indulgent but if ur curious where my brains been at recently here it is

ive been in an out of a couple fandom interests recently, im still following new shin chan episodes closely (and i’ll get back to subbing some eps probably, at some point)...

anyway the past couple weeks i got, weirdly, super into hyu and kan as a ship. even though theres not a TON of content to work off, and also theyre ostensibly a het ship which can turn me off (and did at first, when i first realized kan is a ~secret girl~, in fact i have my reaction in writing

but then i gave shin men more of a chance and rly grew to appreciate all of the characters and.. the thing as a concept, and BOY!! i love kan a lot, like a heck of a lot. and since shes a girl who deliberately takes on a lot of masculine attributes its very easy to read her as genderqueer or transmasculine or even a trans dude straight up - though as a demi...gender?? person myself i like reading her as Soft Transmasc, because projecting onto cute little cartoon ppl is my favorite thing to do

so one of my main questions when i encountered this series was: who came up with this and why? what IS shin-men? this post will be me trying to explain it to myself:

shin-men was a concurrently-running anime AND manga series created in 2010 to celebrate the 20th year anniversary of shin-chan. the anime is obviously more well known, but the manga chapters tell the stories quite a bit differently and provide some more backstory - i own the first two volumes with the third on the way. the anime is awesome because it was seemingly spearheaded by Masaaki Yuasa (the kaiba dude), and as soon as I saw the first episode i assumed Shin-Men was his brainchild from start to finish. i’m not sure EXACTLY how much was his creation, conceptually speaking, but it is true that he finalized designs and a lot of basic concepts for the characters.  (parabon is straight up hyo hyo!)

(from masaaki yuasa’s super huge sketchbook, which runs in the 40-50 dollar range. let me know if you find it cheaper anywhere ill accept a used copy with heavy spaghetti stains)

yuasa boarded the first five episodes of shin-men, and a subsequent 8 episodes were released with different boarders (primarily yuji mutou, who’s been a heavy hitter on shin-chan since 1998). yuasa’s 5 episodes are beautiful - i mean look at this

yuasa always brings an otherworldly, dreamlike quality to whatever story he’s telling. on shin chan he generally seemed to prefer fun AUs and outlandish stories about buriburi zaemon that would allow him to invent colorful new settings and costumes.

that’s what’s so refreshing about shin-men - it’s the first time the show completely abandons its core cast of characters and focuses on NEW ones, in a universe with different rules. except, just kidding, because shinnosuke is still the main character, he’s just red now and called gou. so even while shin-men is TECHNICALLY breaking the fundamental rule of shin-chan - that shin is the main character who is in every single episode no matter what - it’s still abiding by it, and it still feels like shin-chan. that’s not criticism, though - i like the various alt-universe appearances of shin-chan characters in the shin-men universe. my favorite is matsuzaka, who is called “matsuzakaroni”, is STILL a kindergarten teacher even in this very alien universe (and despite the fact that she, i think, hates it?), and most uncannily of all, gets hit on by gou?? also gou is an adult i think, in this universe’s rules, he’s just really short like all of the other shin-men who are also adults?? i mean, i THINK? why does nobody in universe ever seem to mention how tiny these apparent grown-ups ar

anyway i’m not an expert on shin-men. despite my efforts i don’t really understand exactly where it came from or where gou’s ears are

i hope some day someone will create really good english subs of it, though i realize that’ll be a serious effort since yuasa’s episodes ABOUND with onscreen text - fuck, just imagine editing the moving gossip clouds on botswanawana to have english text. how would you even do that.

but i do wanna talk about kan a little and why shes cool thats the topic of this post

kan akaluislar (thats her last name..) is one of the 5 shin-men, superheroes with elemental powers who all look like a 5 year old named shinnosuke nohara from another universe, but don’t think too much about that. kan’s the only one who doesn’t actually have a superpower - she’s the Iron Man of the group, like, literally she’s tony stark, she’s the super wealthy and successful president of a major automobile company and rules the school in her home country, Detahoit. (which is maybe a pun on detroit? i’m not sure what’s up with that name)

anyway in addition to being iron man she’s also Transformers and Fullmetal Alchemist, she’s all three of those guys. she turns into a car a lot and transports her teammates everywhere. she also OWNS a car and drives it around when she’s not being a secret car superhero. is that bitterly tragic, or does kan secretly PREFER to be the car? is that her darkest fantasy? to be a full time car instead of a car-driving ceo? that is my headcanon

kan guards the fact that she’s female from the group, convinced they’d treat her differently. specifically, she’s convinced gou and nyoki would hit on her (confirmed), sui would bitch her out for not having a proper skin care regimen (that’s sui’s big thing, by the way, is that he’s a bitchy youtube beauty vlogger), and - worst of all - hyu would kick her out, since girls can’t fight.

...which seems like a pessimistic view of hyu. hyu is the wind elemental in the group - he’s buff and a little dopey but kind hearted and sweet, the noble hero type. also a bit of a spoiled prince.

each member of shin-men gets a yuasa episode dedicated to them, and hyu’s episode - his main arc, really - centers on his love for kan, which he keeps secret, despite the powerful curiosity of his country’s gossipy citizens.

what interests me is the disparate ways the anime and manga handle this plot thread. the anime treats hyu’s crush very earnestly, maintaining an undercurrent of quiet affection from him that appears in the majority of its episodes. the manga, however, emphasizes kan’s disinterest in romantic advances from both gou AND hyu, then practically drops the topic of hyu’s crush. it doesn’t exactly defy or contradict the relationship they have in the anime, however -- but it makes me sad, because hyu’s crush on kan is extremely cute and endearing. (as a sidenote, gou’s thing for kan is also pretty  cute, but it only exists in the manga, and, well - it’s not really a /romantic/ crush.

the shin-men manga makes a lot of different choices to the anime, and since the two were released concurrently i have no idea which “version” of any one story was the “original” - and in some cases i’m sure there isn’t an “original” version of a story, just two different ones. sometimes i really prefer the anime’s decisions (not drawing eyelashes on kan) and other times i’m... not sure what to think (the manga chapter with pimawari does NOT focus on kan, so did the anime decide to highlight kan’s relationship with pimawari because... kan’s a girl?? did they really do that? am i over thinking this?)

the manga does a GREAT job of fleshing out kan, though, even though it does so by torturing her, endlessly. she gets trapped inside of a washing machine. then has to use up all her fuel exploding out of the washing machine. the good news is, kan can repair washing machines, we learn this in episode 5 of the anime.

but be it manga OR anime, kan and hyu frequently wind up as partners who work well together, and its understandable. kan and hyu have private lives that mirror each other, both of them being high-profile and wealthy, pressured (kan by her conniving older sisters, hyu by his palace’s grand chamberlain) to settle down when neither of them is particularly interested, both preferring the life of a superhero. their private lives seem lonely and neither of them has any friends outside of shin-men. but within shin-men they team up frequently, and (being natural leaders) the two of them tend to take charge and stand out as The Responsible Ones.

(pointing = leadership)

this is what sells me on them as a couple - that they have this core of collaboration and mutual care in their superhero lives, which could build into a supportive friendship in their personal lives.

i very much love that hyu has a crush on kan despite thinking kan is a guy. that angle never comes up in the anime, though its lightly touched in the manga - and yuasa explicitly addresses it in his earliest notes. to quote,

“kan (iron shinnosuke) is the only girl within shin-men. since only men can be shin-men, she wears an iron suit to conceal the fact that she's female from everyone. and since she doesn't have a superpower, she relies on the power of her suit. hyu (wind shinnosuke) secretly likes kan but keeps thinking things like "could it be that i actually swing that way.." (lol). eventually, he's the only one who knows about her true self, but hides it from everyone so it won't be known.”

so, kan’s expectation of how hyu would react, having a sexist freakout and banning her from battle? apparently not representative of reality. which is good news because, even if kan doesnt want a love connection, she DESPERATELY needs a friend whom she doesnt feel the need to hide her private life from.

and at th end of the day thats what makes me happy: the idea that hyu can be this friend to kan, and they just chill out together, smoke a bong, get their truant son gou to cook them some curry, consolidate oil and wind technology to make both of their countries more sustainable and energy efficient, kiss etc.

im so curious if vol3 of the manga will give me any further insight.. i doubt it but im excited anyway