#trant might but not in a bullying way

[secret-sageent]

he doesn't have to be real to call him batman. don't let your dreams be dreams

If jean Vicquemare were real I'd hear his gravely ass voice and call him Batman at least once a day

[brainbuffering]

12 Days of Manga (2022)

Day 2: Top 3 Shojo of the Year

1) My Love Mix-Up by Aruko and Wataru Hinakure from Shojo Beat (T: Jan Cash L: Inori Fukuda Trant E: Nancy Thistlethwaite)

[ID: English Cover for Vol 3 of My Love Mix-Up! The main characters all stare down at the viewer from above. Aoki and Hashimoto are at the front, grinning broadly, Ida and Akkun at the back. Ida has his usual stoic expression, whilst Akkun throws up a peace sign]

“Aoki has a crush on Hashimoto, the girl in the seat next to him in class. But he despairs when he borrows her eraser and sees she's written the name of another boy-- Ida --on it. To make matters more confusing, Ida sees Aoki holding that very eraser and thinks Aoki has a crush on him!

Aoki has a crush on Ida, a boy in his class. Hashimoto's eraser, which caused so much confusion among friends when Aoki borrowed it, is also at fault for making him flunk a quiz! Aoki, Akkun, and Hashimoto meet up at Ida's for a study session where Aoki and Ida talk about what they are to each other-if they can figure it out?!” 

I keep saying how I’m tired of High School Romance, and then I go and put My Love Mix-Up as my Shojo of the year. A series that is perhaps the most High School of High School Romances. I was drawn to the series through a combination of a £10 Waterstones Voucher, and the notion of a proper, actual love triangle that wasn’t just one girl trying to pick between her childhood best friend and an edgy bad boy(TM).

The confusion over the eraser* was an interesting plot device, and it’s been so much fun to see Aoki discover his bisexuality with the help and support of his friends. It would be really great to see them actually use the word “Bisexual” or even just “Gay” but I suppose I can’t have everything. At this point in time, just seeing a Queer Love Story in the pages of a mainstream magazine like Bessatsu Margaret is a joy! It helps place queer love as equal to heterosexual love, allowing teens to see themselves and their stories beyond specalist publications. 

Whilst it was lovely to see how accepting their friends are of their relationship and not have them deal with any homphobic bullying, I think the strongest story so far has been that of Aoki and his Cram School Tutor. So far he had not had to face up against any sort of homophobia, but now he’s had someone he respects become suddenly prejudiced towards him due to his relationship with Ida: something that should have no actual baring on his education, or his relationship with his tutor! Whilst said tutor is called out for his prejudice rather explicitly, I do like that ther were no slurs or out right bullying involved, just a series of assumptions and a change in behaviour that hurt Aoki’s feelings in a meaningful way. It didn’t paint the tutor as an evil villain, but rather someone who had made some mistakes and needed to re-evaulate their position on life, which he does!

This is an important lesson for readers of all sexualtites. Queer readers learn that they don’t have to put up with this kind of behaviour, and that they are justified in their discomfort and anger; meanwhile Straight readers learn what is and isn’t appropriate behaviour. Prejudice is of course something that is ingrained in all of us, and isn’t something that can easily be changed over night. However it is something that needs to be changed! It’s something we should all address within ourselves, and work on so as to make sure we don’t hurt those around us. Because confronting those harmful beliefs is the responsibility of the individual, not that of the oppressed.

The art work isn’t perhaps the greatest as Aruko admits to taking their time to adapt to digital, but it has definetly improved as the series has progressed and is helped imensely by Hinekure’s story telling. I was a little concerned that the series might start to drag on after a while, but hearing that it has ended at nine volumes makes me more confident that this’ll become a classic we’ll still be recomending in years to come.

I hope that these silly kids will get a happy high school ending.

* I’m British, but I’m aware of how Americans work and “confusion over a rubber” would make for a very different kind of story. Please do not write your crush’s name on a condom....

2) Kageki Shojo!! by Kumiko Saiki from SevenSeas (T: Katrina Leonoudakis L: Aila Nagamine E: Shannon Fay)

[ID: English Cover of Vol 5 of Kageki Shojo!! Ai and Sarasa dance ballroom style wearing pink/yellow versions of their school uniforms. Sarasa has a black 1770s European style millitary jacket with gold brocade thrown over her shoulders. The background is bright green with confetti, balloons and stars.]

“The ongoing tale that began with the omnibus release of Kageki Shojo!! The Curtain Rises. Follow the drama on and off the stage with the girls at the Kouka School of Musical and Theatrical Arts--and don't miss the anime adaptation!

Ever since she was a little girl, Sarasa has wanted to play the role of Oscar as part of the Kouka Acting Troupe, an all-female acting troupe similar to the Takarazuka Revue. But before she can do that, she has to attend two years at the Kouka School of Musical and Theatrical Arts. As Sarasa practices singing, dancing, and acting, she grows closer to the other girls in her year, including her roommate, the stoic former J-idol, Ai. Though Sarasa is great at making friends, her outspoken nature and grand ambitions earn her lots of enemies as well. Can Sarasa keep her upbeat attitude and achieve her dream of stardom?”

I originallay picked up this series because I follow the translator on twitter and enjoy her threads on translation theory so was curious to see what a series translted by her would be like. And I haven’t looked back since! 

The artwork is lovely, the stories are heartfelt and true to life. It doesn’t shy away from big topics like eating disorders, PTSD, and anxiety. The girls are all wonderful, but not always nice which is excellent to see! Even bitches like Hijiri are fleshed out and given reasons for you to love them.

Whilst the relationship between Sarasa and Ai leans more towards the classic “open to interpretation” side of things, on the whole the series is very queer inclusive. The very concept of it plays with gender so much, that it even started out as Seinen (manga for men) before transfering over to Shojo (manga for girls)! It says a lot about the series and how the inherent gendering of genres is outdated given how the first volume from its seinen days discussed bulemia in the entertainment industry, whilst the first volume of the shojo days talked about the long lasting pyschological damage the american fire bombing in WW2 did to innocent japanese citizens. Never has a turn page made me cry more than that one....

But High School Shojo is just fluff and nonsense, right? 

As a former theatre kid, it’s also been lots of fun to learn more about the different traditons of Japanese Theatre, with paticular regards to comparing all-female casting and all-male casting. Which is becoming a tragically more relevant discussion given what is happening in the united states at the moment with regards to drag performances. Seriously, who’s going to tell them that the original Juliet was played by a teenage boy? Or do those TERFs simply not care one way or the other about child welfare, and just want to force their backwards beliefs onto everyone else? But I digress.

Within the series there’s an interesting discussion had about the freedom of actors to play the roles they want, and what things might stop them. Some girls dream of playing the beautiful feminime leads but find that biology has made them too tall and broad, others want to play the macho hero but are considered too short and busty. Then there’s other physical limitations to be taken into account. Andou-sensei achieved his dream of playing the Phantom of the Opera, but had his carer then come to an abrupt end because of a sudden injury that lead to a permanent disability. He’s therefore had to find a new way to express himself and share his love for threate, something that took time for him to accept. This felt paticualrly relateable to me, as I’ve also had to adapt to needing to use a walking stick just to walk 20m, where as before I was running up and down a field hockey pitch on the regular!

Then there’s Sarasa who had to give up her dream of performing in Kabuki due to her assigned gender, but whose new goal in life is to play Lady Oscar from Rose of Versailles: a character that is widely considered to be Non-Binary/X-Gendered by today’s standards!

This series teaches us that Gender is a performance, and Sarasa Watanabe is the Top Star.

3) A Sign of Affection by suu Morishita from Kodansha (T: Christine Dasiell L: Carl Vanstiphout and Lys Blakeslee E: Ben Applegate and William Flanagan)

{ID: English Cover of A Sign of Affection Vol 5 by suu Morishita. Itsumi wears a yellow short sleeved paisley button up shirt and gently holds Yuki’s hand. Yuki is laying back on a white sofa, one arm crooked as she looks at the viewer. She’s wearing a matching yellow dress with large puff sleeves and a white hearing aid. They are framed in a circle by red, white and blue poppies.] 

“Yuki is a typical college student in all ways but one: She's hard of hearing. A chance encounter on a train leads to a serious crush...but will he give her a chance? A sweet and relatable manga romance from the creator of Shortcake Cake! Even with a hearing aid, the voices of others are an indistinct blur for Yuki. But she's never let that get in the way of a life arranged around her friends, social media, and cute fashion. She's browsing her phone on train when a tourist asks her for directions, and she's ready to panic...but the handsome Itsuomi steps in to help. It turns out her new crush is a friend of a friend, and Yuki's world starts to widen. But even though Itsuomi-kun can speak three languages, sign language isn't one of them. Can Yuki communicate her budding feelings? From the acclaimed author of Shortcake Cake, the hit shojo series with more than a million copies in print, this new work is sure to please fans of romantic stories like A Silent Voice, Kimi ni Todoke, and Love in Focus!”

The way this series uses lettering to enhance story telling makes me want to run around in circles and scream across the mountains like a cowboy. At some point I am absolutely going to be write a whole post about just the lettering, but for now, just trust me when I say it’s amazing. Heck, the reason I wait for the physical releases rather than reading the Simulpub is so that I can get the higher quality lettering experience!

In terms of the rest of the series though, it’s beautifully illustrated throughout and I love how everyone has such excellent fashion choices! I’m also reading Shortcake cake at the moment, and seeing the development in Morishita’s art and styling decisions really shows how well they understand the art of making comics! Nobody is doing it like them.

I’m always interested in stories featuring disabled protagonists where they’re not given magical cures or solutions to their problems, and seeing such a wonderful romance blossom between Yuki and Itsuomi has been delighful. It’s a series that really focusses on the importance of communication between couples, and how it’s okay to make mistakes but never assumptions.

Whilst I would agree with criticsim that Yuki is perhaps too isolated from the rest of the d/Deaf Community for someone who attended a Deaf School, I will say that she doesn’t feel that different to any other shojo protagonist as a result. She’s a “fish out of water” who, despite being wonderful and kind and inteligent, only seems to have two friends. Whilst that trope is overdone in a lot of Shojo, here it feels earned due to her disability! Or at least based upon some of my personal experiences as a teenager with epilepsy.

As the series has gone on, we have seen her reach out to the rest of the community, and I hope that we continue to see more of that. I find it very reassuring that Morishita credit their sign language consultant/collaborator, Yuki Miyazaki, in every single volume of the manga and promote her personal work on their twitter.

In terms of shojo, I think it’s also just really nice to read about university students rather than high schoolers. Not only does it mean that they’re closer to my age (Okay, Yuki is 19 and I’m 28 but ... still) but it also means they’re able to explore the world a little more, quite literally in Itsuomi’s case. Vol 6 is not yet out in English, but I gather from looking at some of the simulpub previews that their relationship is going to be developing into the more adult sector, both physically and in practicality, which makes me so happy to see! Not just because I myself am a disabled adult who has recently moved out of their parents’ place and look forward to some potentially relateable content, but because it’s so good to just see any disabled protagonist be allowed to be an adult and go through regular adult things!

Whilst I cannot speak for d/Deaf folks, i know from my experience with epilepsy that it can be incredibily isolating no matter how well meaning your ablebodied friends are, and moving from a place where your needs are always met to somewhere new is both frustrating, scary and -- to some extent -- reasuring as you learn what you can and cannot surive. That’s the journey Yuki is on right now, and I would like for the series to perhaps dive more into that element but equally seeing her relationship with Itsoumi develop is so delightfully romantic in a flower petals, stained glass window, Alan Menken Soundtrack kind of a way. It also feels like such a breath of fresh air for a disabled character to be allowed to be seen as desirable without it becoming fetishcistic. 

I don’t think this series is some sort of big revolution in the manga world. I don’t think people will be writing essays about it in the same way they do with Ed’s prosphetics in Full Metal Alchemist, or Clint Barton’s Hearing Loss in the Aja/Fraction/Hollingsworth run. But it’s still an important series that I think people need to pick up, if only for the master class in lettering.

SERIOUSLY.

IT’S SO GOOD

YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!!

THEY USE DIFFERENT SHADES AND TONES AND POSITIONINGS TO DETERMINE WHAT SHE CAN AND CANNOT UNDERSTAND.

YOU GET SUCH A CLEAR IDEA ABOUT WHAT HER LIFE IS LIKE AND THE MISCOMUNICATION TROPE IS SO WELL EARNED HERE. 

[ID: A old white man in a black cowboy hat and suit is superimposed over a desert mountain scape. He is screaming passionately,]

(End Note: Some of my enjoyment from this series also comes from the fact that Itsuomi used to live in Germany the same as me and so speaks in German sometimes, and since I can read German, I get to feel smug and knowledgeable.)

[warforthecrown]

Session 1: All The King’s Men

It promised to be a day for the ages, the exaltation of a commoner to noble status, an historic vote in the Senate, and possibly a new way of life for the people of Taldor. Just how influential this day would be could not be overstated.

They had each been hired separately by Lady Martella Lotheed, to assist her in her political ventures this Exaltation Day. Working towards the removal of the ancient law of primogeniture, the law that only the firstborn son could inherit, was a dream nearly made reality. Only this vote in the Senate remained. However for this to be made so, certain political alliances had to be formed, and broken. The need for “senatorial aides” was clear.

Gladius Auger was hired to find the true motives of Duke Centimus and Countess Aribelle Pace.

Alphonse Hallace had been hired to make sure certain donated artifacts would... disappear, to embarrass Earl Calhadion Vernisant, and weaken his position.

Norelor had been hired to convince the popular Baron Nicolaus Okerra to come around to a more forward thinking position, so that he in turn could influence others.

Jaul Stonebarry was hired as an assistant, to run between the others, and make sure that all jobs were completed in time.

Each of the “aides” were given a senate aide badge of an extinct family line, the Voritas family. These would allow them access to the gala, though make it clear they were guests and not able to vote, and also give them the ability to communicate with Lady Lotheed.

While standing in line to be allowed in, Jaul practiced his skills as a cutpurse, relieving a nearby noble of a few gold pieces, which he then immediately spent on commemorative flags being sold by a nearby merchant, distributing them amongst his new co-workers. Thankfully, before any more mischief could be done, they were pulled out of line by a guard for a random search, actually a guard with whom they shared a “mutual friend”. Having been cleared to enter, the group was allowed to ascend the steps into the Senate.

At first the group spread out to mingle in the Arcade of Triumphs, a small museum of Taldor’s history and military might. Norelor seemed somewhat bored as she scanned the crowd for anyone of note. Gladius quickly engaged the curator in discussion about the care of the artifacts within the Arcade, while Jaul and Alphonse quietly found the objects donated by Earl Vernisant. They were able to remove a couple of objects with no trouble, but it would take time and skill to take all of them.

Soon a crowd began to gather in the courtyard, as Princess Eutropia had arrived without being announced. She climbed atop a wall, giving an impassioned speech about the events to be held. While this was happening, Gladius noticed a servant taking some kind of alchemical creation towards a nearby apiary. The servant had been told it would calm the bees, but Gladius knew it would do the opposite! By stopping the servant, he narrowly averted disaster. After the speech, the group had some time to mingle, or to go about their assigned duties. Jaul easily stole another two artifacts, but the final one proved difficult for both him and Alphonse, until a clever plan using Alphonse’s raven familiar led to the buckler being taken and simply tossed over the courtyard wall. One task had been completed!

Norelor was not much of a politician, and she found herself exploring the Senate building more than talking, though she eventually found her way to the Senate Floor itself, where she found Baron Okerra, and the soon to be made Lord Kalbio. Her impassioned speech about the change of laws, and great beauty impressed the Baron, and entranced Kalbio, who had been feeling somewhat overwhelmed by all the attention. Baron Okerra began to understand that holding onto laws for laws sake was not helpful. Kalbio continued to follow Norelor throughout the night, and was delighted when she gave him the flag that Jaul had bought while they had been in the queue! Everyone was very surprised when Princess Eutropia was able to recognise the two of them, even in the crowd.

Gladius first made his way to the archives, where Duke Centimus was. A friendly, if awkward half-elf, Duke Centimus had lost the use of his legs in a riding accident some years ago, and hated being seen as only his injury. Gladius and the Duke were able to connect on their shared love of history, and the Duke revealed that a lot of the history of Taldor was actually struck from record, especially more... controversial subjects. The Duke was strongly on the side of Lady Lotheed and Princess Eutropia, as he believed that someone’s ability to rule was determined by their ability, not their gender or physical condition.

Lady Lotheed then called her aides together to discuss where things had gotten to, and to warn them of the presence of known bully Dame Malphene Trant. The aides would have to keep an eye out for her, her lackeys, and any trouble they may cause.

Soon Jaul found a small, out of the way area, and knew exactly what to do with it. He pulled a minor noblewoman away, and had some fun. Soon, another (her choice) joined them.

As Countess Pace was in the Gallery, Gladius and Alphonse attempted to entertain the children along with Wyssilka the Fantabulous and her troupe. Gladius was surprisingly good at entertaining children, but Alphonse was not. However between the two of them, they found that the Countess was willing to do whatever it took to gain influence, including voting in whatever way they majority went. Clearly, more work would be needed to influence her within the Senate.

It was then that Dame Trant appeared on the Gallery, roughly pushing a Junior Senator into a side room. The aides rushed to assist Junior Senator Dou, and were able to diffuse the situation before a fight could break out. They were then all distracted by the sudden arrival of the Grand Prince.

Trumpets sounded, red carpets rolled out, as Grand Prince Stavian III arrived at the Senate Building... and promptly disappeared into private meetings. In order to calm the confused guests, a light supper was brought out. Alphonse found he did not enjoy the food very much, and Jaul found he much preferred the serving staff, inviting another two people into his now very full “Nookie Nook”.

Following supper, the Senate convened. A number of minor votes and reports were held, and finally the vote that all had come to see. A great deal of arguments and debates occurred, and finally the vote was held. The final vote ended with 36 abstentions, 107 votes for, and 79 against. The law of primogeniture was repealed, and the Senate recognised Princess Eutropia Stavian I as the heir to the crown.

While waiting for the final statements by Grand Prince Stavian, Lady Lotheed pulled her aides aside and thanked them for all the work they had done this night, though she seemed a little exasperated with Jaul. There would be the Exaltation of Kalbio the Weaver to nobility, and the night would be done.

Everyone crammed into the Senate Floor as Stavian stood above them, Kalbio by his side, as Stavian made his speech 

“I’m sure many of you have had the opportunity to meet Kalbio here. He is a man of the people, elevated at the urging of all the ladies, lords, senators, and aides present in this chamber. I think we should all give him a rousing applause, to commemorate this momentous change in his life.”

After the applause abated, Stavian continued

“I understand your parents sacrificed everything to help you reach this day, my boy. Saving up for your apprenticeship and the tools you needed to achieve greatness. And today you are a grateful son, no doubt making them proud. I too understand what it is to sacrifice; I have given so much for the people of this nation: a brother, a son, a lifetime of service. Even my own daughter’s loyalty. But unlike you, Lord Kalbio, these Taldans—my children, truly—are not grateful. They scheme and plot, dream of hanging their dutiful father and placing a woman—a woman, sir!—on the Lion Throne! And they have seen fit this very day to induct you into their conspiratorial ranks. And that is why here, now, you, Lord Kalbio, will be the first among them to die.”

Stavian plunged his dagger between Kalbio’s ribs, and the Senate was sprayed with his blood.

In the sudden rush of anger and confusion, Prince Stavian’s guard began attacking the assembled nobility. Those who had weapons or magic jumped to fight, but the guards had been better prepared. Blood made the floor of the chamber slick, and the aides attempted to help fight, but as the guards came with their greatswords... a flash came from the aides badges, and there was only darkness and the smell of earth.