flemmings: (Default)
flemmings ([personal profile] flemmings) wrote2005-12-17 10:28 am
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An oddity. Since I started reading 12 Kingdoms I find it nearly impossible to read manga. I used to wonder how anyone could prefer novels to manga 'cause you know, pretty pictures and visual clues to help with text etc etc. But now I'm finding manga's lack of, umm, language context is it? a drawback.

It's stripped down dialogue, often without any story context to start with, and figuring out just what people are talking about, when they happily drop their subjects and verbs all over the map, is work. Japanese prose doesn't have the same ambiguity: or at least, Ono's prose doesn't. You always know who's talking to whom about what: no empty frames with only a dialogue bubble, no close-mouthed characters who may be either the speaker or the subject of the (minimalist and obscure) dialogue bubble, no dialogue-over that signals a transition to a new scene and does not apply to the scene it appears in. (And yes, Minekura sensei I *am* looking at you.) I'm sure it's possible to be just as opaque in a novel as in a manga if you put your mind to it, but 12 Kingdoms isn't. Well, much. A lot of this one was a slog because it's talking about political circumstances and slightly paranoid conjecture on the part of the speakers- the fact that he did this doesn't it mean that he's thinking that or could it mean that he intends the other?- but that's tough in English, as Dune (shudder) proved.

(Further 12 K natter, spoiler minimalized but don't read if you intend reading some day and want it to be blank slate.)

There's a lovely bit in the current novel (Second Taiki, as I call it) where Youko gets a letter from a new arrival asking to meet {the personage} who is presently a guest in Kei. Youko is not accustomed to the Chinese-ish writing fashion of this world. 'Umm ordinary greetings OK, apologies for sudden visit, umm, and then-- is it "please send an envoy to the guest house," or "please come see the envoy /at/ the guest house" or what?' She hands the letter over to the ex-Hou princess. 'Please bring {the personage} to meet the envoy now staying at the guest house.' I heart Ono. Ah yes, I know that one well.

Also Han-ou and Hanrin have just turned up. I thought from the little I'd heard that Hanrin would be rather like Sairin, sweet and young. Ahh- no. Now I want to see an encounter between Hanrin and Enki, just because. You know, for all Enki acts fifteenish and looks even younger, he's 500 years old, and here it shows.

[identity profile] shiny-monkey.livejournal.com 2005-12-17 08:36 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm just envious that you can read the novels, 'cos 9/10 of the manga I have are quick reads for five-year-old Japanese kids, while each tankoubon takes me... considerably longer than those five-year-olds. And that's with furigana for the kanji I don't know. One day I'd like to be able to read some of the seinen manga that I love that don't come with furigana, and eventually to be able to read novels, but all in good time, I suppose. In the meantime, the pictures keep me amused. =T

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2005-12-17 09:42 pm (UTC)(link)
'cos 9/10 of the manga I have are quick reads for five-year-old Japanese kids

I doubt it very much. Pre-school manga IME is all hiragana and about twenty kanji. Make that ten year olds and you're probably right.

[identity profile] shiny-monkey.livejournal.com 2005-12-17 09:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Mmm, yes, that's a point. Though I do have scattered here and there some pre-school picture books written entirely in hiragana and zero kanji ("きたないよ!" is one of my favourites), and a couple of anime story books wherein all the katakana have furigana. It was those anime story books, I blush to confess, that actually got me started on reading Japanese.

(and it's not your hobby, I know, but every time I see the Mouse from 12K I'm reminded of the first time I discovered a particular sculptor, the majority of whose work is very carefully-researched, and very popular, dinosaurs. The first non-dinosaur kit he produced was for Wonder Festival a few years back, and it was of the Mouse from 12K, and extremely well done ^^).

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2005-12-18 06:02 am (UTC)(link)
/Oh./ I don't do kits but I almost would to have a Rakushun statue. (Dust catcher. Dust catcher.) He's the coolest character, and for a wonder with cool characters, has no angst at all.

[identity profile] shiny-monkey.livejournal.com 2005-12-18 06:56 pm (UTC)(link)
But a very cute dust-catcher, and I'll admit, the first thing that made me notice 12K. Link to its page on the sculptor's site:

http://homepage3.nifty.com/kinryu/aa/12kokuki.htm

He's done other things from 12K but I think this is his best.

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 01:23 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, gorgeous. I'm not exactly taken with the modelling of the fur on the arm, but the face is perfect.

[identity profile] shiny-monkey.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 07:30 am (UTC)(link)
The good thing with resin is that unwanted textures can be easily changed in modeling. Did you see the second one he did (scroll down the page)?

[identity profile] mvrdrk.livejournal.com 2005-12-18 12:45 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, novels are so superior to manga aren't they. Except there are things manga can do that novels can't do well, like convey a look.

I decided not to start the Taiki arc but to go read the Tai prequel. It's a much harder slog - longer book, more text, and more internal dialog.

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2005-12-18 06:08 am (UTC)(link)
Oddly I found First Taiki a fast read just because it followed the anime so closely. There were times when I'd have been lost as to what was happening if I hadn't seen the anime. OK, so maybe I understand the problem some readers have with Tolkien's landscape descriptions. All Ono's mountain and cave words convey very little to me on their own, me not being a mountain person at all and certainly not those perpendicular formations China specializes in.

(Oh, and should explain for the nonBible readers that certain books of the Bible were called like that- First Peter and Second Peter.)