I didn’t believe this at first but my good Japanese friend gave me a copy of a song, a fervent anthem for Shounen Jump! I don’t know if this is a real song but it seems to be sung by a real band named ザ・ブレッスン・フォア. They seem to have sung other anime songs such as Combattler V theme and the Kamen Rider theme.

The song is actually quite amusing and captures the spirit of the magazine’s kickass nature. So it tells you to share a punch or two with your siblings and never give up when you fall. Well, what do you expect from a song about Shounen Jump?

Enjoy listening to it. It’s quite a treat!

For those who wants to sing it, here are the lyrics. Sorry if I don’t translate it to romaji. A little pressed for time here. But for those who can read, enjoy!

君はもう読んだのか　うわさのマンガ　週に一度だけ会える男のドラマ
心をときめかせて　夢を求めて
おおお　ジャンプジャンプ　少年ジャンプ

ストラトスのエンジンが　とどろくサーキット
吹雪裕也の背中に狼の影
マシンに命かけて走りつづける
おおお　ジャンプジャンプ　少年ジャンプ

イケイケ両津　ひるむな両津
葛飾亀有公園前

投げるボールは快速球
すごいぞ村瀬　その手で勝利を掴めヤングジャイアンツ
負けず嫌い礼儀さ　意地を貫け
おおお　ジャンプジャンプ　少年ジャンプ

絶対通る　必ず受かる
お猿高　東大１直線

血潮交わした兄弟の
明日を背負い　遠く雄雄しく旅立て朝太郎
弱音吐かぬ根性ぶつけて進め
おおお　ジャンプジャンプ　少年ジャンプ

猛練習で最下位脱出　セリーグのオアシス
千葉パイレーツ

姉と二人で鍛えた　ワンツーパンチ
涙見せるな竜次　リングにかけろ
汗にまみれて育つ戦いの日々
おおお　ジャンプジャンプ　少年ジャンプ

いまだレックス飛び出せレックス　追いかける匂いは凶悪犯だ

走れ谷口　打て打て墨谷
団結だファイトだ　プレイボール

さえるグリーン踏みしめて　頑張れヤイチ
狙えバーディーイーグル　ホールインワン
はやる重い静めて　瞳凝らして
おおお　ジャンプジャンプ　少年ジャンプ

熱いロマンの青春を生き抜いて
飛べ輝け　さわやか万太郎
赤く燃える太陽　胸に焼き付け
おおお　ジャンプジャンプ　少年ジャンプ

Historie by Iwaaki Hitoshi
Serialized in Afternoon
Published by Kodansha

Life has its strange ways of twisting fate. It can take you to the deepest trench of fandom only to fish you out and show you something your heart has always longed for. In this case, it took a simple reminder of Parasyte and its author and how he has that strange new title running in Afternoon, Historie.

It didn’t take me a chapter to be swept away. A young man fleeing the Persian continent, dragging Aristotle with him in his makeshift pedal boat. The historian in me could not help but squee over this romantic tale of a young man following the footsteps of Odysseus. And did I add that you have Alexander the Great in manga?

Oh yes, Historie has one great history to offer.

Since these aren’t parasitic aliens, maybe I can read it with greater ease
Historie has been in my radar for some while after knowing that this was the written by the same author as Parasyte. When I had the chance to gloss over Parasyte, I immediately fell in love with Iwaaki Hitoshi’s style, more so, his manner of story telling. It’s much like reading Urasawa for me. You’re drawn by the protagonist into the story and then you see his eyes and his face change as things happen to him. It’s quite simple in terms of art, but really, their expressions say a lot.

Honestly, it takes a lot of courage for me to read Parasyte¹, hence when I found out that he was writing a new title, I thought I’d check it out. In a heartbeat, I found myself drawn back inside the room of my Ancient Western History class, caught in the tales of voyages and Athenian intellect.

Yes, Eumenes is a lot like Odysseus

Historie is a historical retelling of the life of Eumenes, a Scythian boy raised as an academic under the tutelage of a Cardinian merchant. His whole life he believed that the was a Greek like his family however, life takes a different turn when he found out about his Scythian roots and he was stripped of his rank and was sold as a slave.

As the manga puts it, Eumenes was like the Odysseus of his time. He had enough wits and balls to get him by and pretty much that’s what made him earn his freedom. His life could even compare to that of Odysseus. He was sold to a ship only to be caught in a mutiny and a shipwreck, landed on an island of barbarians, caught in a epic drama of protecting the town of his loved one, and then greeted by the Macedonian army upon his return to his hometown. His life is quite colorful for a young man, but as more of Historie unfolds, you know that Eumenes’ is bound for greater things.

OMG!! IT’S A PHALANX!!! *A*)

One of the sweeping images in the story was when the phalanx formation before Cardinia came into full view to Eumenes. Yes, the history fag in me could not stop squeeing seeing those legions of men shouting in unison and turning left and right as Eumenes passed through. I have only imagined such formations (and have seen some students fail to mimic them) but to see them in pristine lines and at attention within the bounds of a manga panel was just amazing. Iwaaki really illustrated them well, showing readers the imposing strength of the Macedonian army.

But more than that, as he details more of Eumenes’ life, you’ll also see the detail he spends in drawing the clothes, the town, the environment, and even the armor. Although the magazine prints are not as detailed, he compensates for it once he ports it for the tankoubon. Macedonian Greece is alive in Iwaaki’s hands. And for my benefit, Alexander the Great was a breeze to see on the manga. Ah! So handsome!

Again Khursten, you can’t miss it’s historical truthiness, right?

I actually started reading Historie with little expectation of its extent as a manga. As I said, the title caught me. But when I saw Aristotle fleeing for Cardia, I knew I was bound to read something amazing. I honestly don’t remember the exact historical event of this one apart from the key players of this period. There was Philipp II, Alexander the Great (and his horse Bucephalus), Aristotle, and Hephaestion. Eventually, I’m sure I’m bound to cross Darius the Third. Hence to see these key players come alive in a manga panel was an overwhelming event for me. Yes. I screamed from the top of my longs when I saw that young blonde Macedonian eyeing Eumenes. YES. I KNEW HE WAS ALEXANDER! OH GOD! HE WAS AMAZING! *A*)

However, despite this Macedonian spectacle, I’m greatly relieved that the story of Historie doesn’t focus on Alexander. We have read many tales of Alexander, from his heroism to his ghei. Hence, Historie was a breath of fresh air to the Macedonian spectacle, learning something new about this character named Eumenes, as well as seeing the lives of Phillip the II and Alexander through new eyes.

I’m honestly looking forward to Iwaaki’s retelling of Macedonia’s greatness. Really, if he can draw their phalanx this well and this early, imagine what that same army look like once the cavalry and the elephants are in. Oh god, I can’t wait to read more of this amazing manga.

On a segue, I got myself to reading more about Eumenes. Here’s Plutarch’s description of his life! Yeah, so now you know what you’ll be looking forward to with Historie.

1. I get creeped out easily. ;_;

Hrmm… a little late, but it’s better late than never! \o/

This year, rather than talking about the animes I’ve seen and loved this year, I’d share to you one of the best things I’ve had for a year.

I’ve always been hesitant to buy manga magazines. I think for the longest time, I’ve been pondering over subscribing to Shounen Sunday or Shounen Jump. For a while, I even pondered about subscribing to Kiss. Somehow, I never really had the chance to subscribe even if I was actually interested in it. Until last year, when a little trip to the grocery store got me wondering if I could actually get a subscription locally.

When 2008 started, I realized that a local Japanese Grocery store¹ carried the magazine, Morning. Now, I’ve been eternally curious about Morning since Ed from Mangacast spoke highly of it. More so, a couple of titles I’ve been interested in were running there, such as Kami no Shizuku and Kinou Nani Tabeta. It wasn’t my usual cup of tea (really, I was more interested in Shounen Jump), but I thought I’d give it a shot. So I bought a copy. The next thing I know, I was already asking the manager if I can get a subscription.

Sure, Morning doesn’t have the most popular titles among kids but it does have a great array of reads that I did not expect. It ranges from the unexpectedly cute with Chi’s Sweet Home to the intense Zipang.  As I flip through the pages, I fell in love more and more with the magazine, unexpectedly drawn to read stories that I’d probably wouldn’t give a second look if I was browsing a shelf. And for this I’m grateful for the magazine. Morning has nice stories to tell and if I hadn’t read the magazine, I wouldn’t know how wonderful these stories are.

In a year, I found myself enjoying a couple of titles. Here’s a rundown of my favorites currently running in the magazine.

• Kami no Shiziku (The wine manga we’ve all been dying to get translated!)
• Kinou Nani Tabeta (The Yoshinaga Fumi foodie manga we long to read about.)
• Piano no Mori (A story of a young boy who found love for music in the middle of a forest)
• Uchuu Kyoudai (A story of brothers gunning to take over space)
• Shima Shima (Can’t sleep? Then let the boys of Strip Sheep cuddle you to bed)
• Chi’s Sweet Home (Ah~ Cute little Chi~! Who can’t resist this kitty!?)
• Himawari (The dreams of a small town OL to become a mangaka²)
• Billy Bat (Urasawa’s Morning contribution. It’s becoming more trippy by the chapter! I love it!)

See, I didn’t expect to actually end up reading more than the 2 titles I actually bought Morning for.  Last year, they even published a New Year’s St. Oniisan chapter in Morning and I owe it to that chapter for introducing me to St. Oniisan.

If there’s one thing I love about Morning, it’s how their catch phrase is not a lie. On every cover of Morning, there’s a catch phrase that says “読むと元気になる” (When you read this, you’ll feel great). And certainly my mornings feel great, thanks to Morning.

1. For Metro Manila residents, this is Yamazaki, the Japanese Grocery store near Makati Cinema Square
2. Don’t know much about this, but I caught Himawari during this said arc

Do you love her dressed in a pristine school uniform, where her smiling face (and possibly panties or if your lucky, cleavage) grace every panel? Do you like her making bentou for the hero, sharing laughs right before he enters the greatest of his greatest battles? Or do you love her strong, the type who would smack the hero when he is wrong and is generally unforgiving to anyone who insults her short skirt but is soft to the hero who basically ignores her D-size bra? If she has one.

For years, legions of Jump readers, particularly women from the Western frame of thought¹, would write a post or two complaining why women in a particular Shounen Jump manga is often misrepresented. An interesting  rant came by my timeline today, a disheartened Katekyo Hitman Reborn! fan who cannot forgive Akira Amano for making cooks out her heroines. In her blog, she pines about why the female characters in Reborn have been ill-presented, nothing but dolls whose only purpose in the story was to make the boys look better.

Yeah. Right.

Seriously, this magazine was not meant for you

There are two key things that “Jump feminists” must remember when it comes to tackling feminism in Shounen Jump. First, the magazine is published in Japan, drawn by Japanese mangakas,  edited and published by Japanese publishers, and sold to Japanese people. Second, the magazine’s target market are Japanese boys ages 10 to 15. These two factors play a great role in building and creating the stories that are published in the magazine.

The least of the magazine’s concerns is a 10-yr. old Japanese boys going feminist, suddenly complaining that Kyoko is only capable of making an onigiri.  I doubt 10 year olds think this way. I doubt Japanese boys, or even men would actually hate her for that.

A lot of great points about differences in culture and perspectives has been pointed here.

To wrap it up, the magazine was built for a different set of people, with cultures and practices much different than ours. The Western feminist concept does not exactly apply to them. For them, being a woman has an entirely different meaning. Hence, you cannot force the Western concept of what makes a woman unto a working theory that’s already been established and deeply ingrained in Japanese culture.

Japan loves their women pure

Perhaps I will segue here differently from Kae, looking closer to the cultural side of Japan’s feminism on why authors tend to draw their girls like Kyoko and why we would probably be reading more of them in the future.

One of the most interesting readings I crossed was Mikiso Hane’s study² on how men, after World War II, preferred their women pure. In history, Japanese women were often portrayed as ghosts or sly creatures or crazy ladies who are out to teach men a lesson or two about humanity. The war has taught Japanese men the comfort of a woman’s doting support. The purity and the innocence of loyal servitude.

Women also appreciate this fact, despite Japan’s transition into a modern cosmopolitan country. They understand that their role as women is to help build and raise a healthy family. In fact, this is an accepted reality among women in Japan. Even if they’re career women, they also have to play the role of housewives. One of the most loved comics that’s still running in Japan, Sazae-san, presents a loving wife who has found comfort in taking care of her family. Sazae’s image is one of many that has become an institution in Japanese society. So much so that women dream to be like her once they start having families. I can go on talking about the women’s double burden, but for sure, Sazae’s image is something that men and women both revere. The image of a domesticated woman is highly appreciated in Japanese society.

And this was a facet of Japanese feminism that has been highly translated in manga. From Captain Tsubasa, all the way to Reborn, and even in mangas outside of Shounen Jump, the ideal Japanese girl would be someone who has this doting innocence, the sunshine in the hero’s life.

Her bento skills may make her appear very domestic, but these are the traits that the hero respects so much that he would have an unshakeable determination ( e.g., Tsuna’s Dying Will) to protect it, may it be driven by his affections or his stomach.

But really, do their images and what they represent matter?

I would like to believe that it is not what the heroine in Jump does that really matters. They can be strong tsunderes or they can be quiet girls. They can be important or unimportant to the story. I’d like to think that no matter how small or big their role is in the story, their existence is key in teaching boys how to relate, respect, and treat the girls around them. And I think this is what is primarily in the heads of the mangakas and the editors as they shape and build these women. Maybe there are higher things, but at the core, it all boils to this, for the intended audience of Shounen Jump. They’re actually there to make men out of the boys.

Boys who read this magazine are at a fragile age where they start to realize the stark differences between men and women. In my opinion, Jump does a great job in showing the strangely complex world of women (as much as they show us what a boy’s world is like too). On one end you have the strong and independent women like Hana, Nami and Sakura. On the other end you have Kyoko and Orihime, fragile girls who appears innocent at first but learns to understand their roles in the grand scheme of things and offers as much help that they can give, to the best of their abilities. I believe, characters in Jump titles are built to represent personalities in Japanese reality. This is pretty much a fact for any story, I think. But for those who think these are fragments of fiction, then let me share that yes, strangely, in my experience at least, I have met Japanese girls who are as polite as Kyoko, and some who are as sinister as Nami.

They exist not because the authors thinks their weakness makes the boys look better. That is a lame assumption. Looking back at tons of stories in Jump, their existence are integral to the growth of the hero and his relationships with other people. Even if they’re just a side character, they offer a lesson or two for the hero to learn from.

No really, they’re cool girls

You see, Jump Heroines, weak as most appear, are really great girls. I’ve explained above why they’re admirable to the Japanese. I’ve also shown why they exist in such a shounen magazine.

So do not diss these girls just because they make onigiris than join the boys in a big fight against phantom knights and giant robots. The girls represent so much more than just eye candy for the boys. Really, without them, we won’t have heroes to admire every time we open Shounen Jump.

1. Oh yes! Orientalism plays a key part here!
2. Found in Eastern Phoenix: Japan since 1945

I can’t get it out of my system. I’m compelled to spazz.

Three weeks ago,  Morning announced that they’ll be bringing a set of new titles for magazine, the first of which was a story named Billy Bat written by Naoki Urasawa. The story, as they published in the presses, is a mix of Mickey Mouse, Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Dick Tracy, and slew of other American comic icons combined. Seeing the cover art made me think once or twice about what Urasawa was up to. They even showed a cover spiel at the Morning website. First, it looked like a superflat Batman. Second,  honestly, it didn’t feel like it was Urasawa’s line of work. I started to think, was Urasawa undergoing some mangaka mid-life crisis and wanted trying something very new to him? Either way, I patiently waited for my Morning issue the next week. Maybe I’ll get my answers there.

True enough, Billy Bat was on the cover in last week’s issue and the first chapter was printed on a paper that reminded me of old American comics.  It was packaged in such a way that there were ads for Billy Bat and on it was a name that shook my senses over lunch: Kevin Yamagata. When I saw that name, I turned to my friend and told her, “I have a feeling that Billy Bat is not Urasawa’s work.” So I speculated to my friend a theory. That Billy Bat was a front and the real story revolves around the author, this Kevin Yamagata. I even imagined how in a chapter, the comic will pan out and it will show Mr. Yamagata working on Billy Bat. This was of course, my speculation. And really, a good part of me that week wanted to wait for the next few chapters before spazzing¹ because… it was a very different Urasawa and I found it difficult to see how the hell he will spin Billy Bat’s world and art in the same way he has spun the lives of Johann, Miyuki, and Kenji. So my theory is, if he managed to shift people’s vision of Atom in Pluto, he can do the same for Billy Bat. And so this week came, and you know what… Urasawa and I mindmelded².

See, I knew he was up to something. I JUST FRIGGING KNEW IT AND IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT. When my friend texted me about it over the weekend I was squeeing. By the time I was reading the spiel on Kevin Yamagata at the start of the chapter, I knew it’s bound to be greater. Not that I claim that I KNOW HIM by heart, but I had a gut feeling as a fan that he’s not going to settle for a regular story with Billy Bat. And now, I’m happy to spiel that there’s the usual Urasawa mystery involved with Billy Bat. I believe it will be amazing.

So now, we have an entirely different story from what has been said in the presses.

Billy Bat is an American comic written by a Kevin Nakazawa. You can say that Billy Bat’s story is as mentioned above, a noir Batman/Dick Tracy-esque tale about a private detective trying to clean up a dirty city. It’s quite popular although it suffers from editorials telling Kevin Nakazawa to keep on changing the story and keep it connected to Russian spies. So much so that it frustrates Kevin Nakazawa as the writer.

With two chapters, I can barely tell you what it’s entirely about other than this. There is that little mystery that Kevin’s neighbor is a being investigated by some coppers as a Russian Spy (which didn’t impress Kevin at all). And there is that mystery wherein one of the coppers said about Nakazawa’s Billy Bat was something he had seen when he was in Japan. The last one struck a note in Kevin and I think that’s probably where Urasawa-sensei is heading.

After seeing the second chapter, I’m completely excited by this venture. I honestly didn’t expect Urasawa to publish stories in both Shogakukan and Kodansha at the same time, in magazines that compete with each other³. Nonetheless, Billy Bat is a great addition to the roster of comics lined up in Morning. It’d be strange  to see Urasawa in Morning, but hey, if Billy Bat can keep me happy while I am reading, I guess Urasawa fits right smack in Morning⁴.

1. although at this time, I was already spazzing because I find his drawings cute
2. Insert my fangirling screams here
3. Maybe Urasawa-sensei’s just cool that way. You have any insights on this, Boss?
4. Just a note, the slogan of Morning magazine is 読むと元気になる- Yomu to genki ni naru - You feel energetic after reading this