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Ima Who?
I have an earache and I feel lousy which means it's time to do what I never do and watch TV. Or rather, watch something *on* the TV. Or rather, go down to Honest Ed's video and rent some back seasons of Dr. Who, a series I've never seen. Tell me, ye that know, which Doctor do I want, supposing it's available? Take your time- Suspect Video doesn't open for three two hours yet. (Man I type slow.)
June reading list is pathetic: WA 6 all together finally, and finally finished Ima Ichiko's Five Box Stories. The latter is a collection of early(ish: mid 90's) mild BL stories, first published in a magazine that's long gone and then persistently shopped around by one of her editors for several years until someone agreed to print the collection. (Is now in bunko as well. Editors know what they're doing.) Ima has an afterword about how she thought these stories were safely gone and buried and now here they are in tank again, thank you for reading them and now please go and bury the book in a deep hole in the back garden mmkay? Proving that no one likes their early stuff.
I agree that these aren't the best of her work, but the reason to me seems that the focus of BL- two guys in love- is necessarily too narrow for Ima's range. She excels at ensemble: duets are too confining for her but man does she pull off stunning sextets. No pun intended, because in fact that's not true: there's no overt sex and no need for overt sex, and indeed I can't imagine what overt sex would look like if Ima drew it. Embarrassing, I think, in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kickinpants' way of 'Oh gee I interrupted you two guys, lemme just go refill your water pitcher here.' Watching two yaoi guys or BL guys having sex is fine: sex is what they're there for. Watching one of Ima's *people* having sex feels like an intrusion on someone's privacy, and so she doesn't show it.
So of course these stories are all about two guys in love, or falling in love, or dealing with the ramifications of being in love. At least two of them are delicate bittersweet stories where the guys only realize they're in love far too late to do anything about it: the missed opportunities and connections never made that life is all about. One story blew me away with the delicacy of a character's conflicted emotions about the man who adopted him; of course that's the one Ima says the editor blue-pencilled with 'I haven't a clue what you're trying to say here.' "And I was all sniffy and annoyed and redid parts to her suggestions, and now I look at it and think 'I haven't a clue what I was trying to say here.'" Well, FWIW the inkblot resonated with *me*, sensei.
Probably these stories seem slight in themselves because I'm comparing them with the long ensemble piece that is 100 Demons. It's more enlightening to compare them with other BL. Here's Ima's take on gakuenmono, where the guys do indeed end up screwing under the futon covers on a winter's eve: but where the emotional action that's the centre of the piece is never stated overtly. Here's her university pieces, where (what we eventually learn is) a couple is on the outs, violently so, in the first story: and then the second story, set several years earlier when both were students, gives us the POV of the seductive dangerous lover in the first one-- and he's nothing of the sort. One surmises that years of dealing with his ambivalent and close-clammed boyfriend have made him what he is in the first story. It's all a world away from 'rape of the bespectacled Council President after school hours' kind of story one finds elsewhere.
But the final proof that Ima isn't a BL mangaka at heart is that the most successful of her stories (Weird Guys- FTR, the one that deals with host clubs) is successful largely because there's a woman involved. She's someone who'll grow up to be one of Ima's trademark demented and managing females (the wife in Almost Paradise, Ritsu's aunt Tamaki and his grandmother as well, probably) but at this point she's young enough that you can see why she's demented and why she needs to manage. It's an unconscious behaviour that springs from being a victim of circumstances and resenting it.
In a way the demented female/ femme formidable in Ima reminds me a little of the same type in Austen. There's no doubt that their social situations go a long way in explaining the need to make their surroundings be what they want them to be. If Ima's women are on balance less neurotic about it than Austen's, the explanation probably is that late 20th century Japan still offers women slightly more opportunity and independence than early 19th century England. Slightly more: I note that the ruthless female in Ima tends to be in business for herself, which is a tough row to hoe in Japan. (And we'll mention that Grandmother, quite as overbearing with people if less shrill about it than her daughter, is as traditional as you can get. But that may be what happens when a woman tries to have the same kind of authority outside the home as she is legitimately allowed to have within it.)
Yes well. As I say, BL's focus is too narrow for someone as broad of scope as Ima. But Weird Guys is still a great piece of ensemble acting, right down to the pair of okama at the club who get huffy with the naive hero: 'just cause we talk like *that* doesn't mean we're *like* that.'
June reading list is pathetic: WA 6 all together finally, and finally finished Ima Ichiko's Five Box Stories. The latter is a collection of early(ish: mid 90's) mild BL stories, first published in a magazine that's long gone and then persistently shopped around by one of her editors for several years until someone agreed to print the collection. (Is now in bunko as well. Editors know what they're doing.) Ima has an afterword about how she thought these stories were safely gone and buried and now here they are in tank again, thank you for reading them and now please go and bury the book in a deep hole in the back garden mmkay? Proving that no one likes their early stuff.
I agree that these aren't the best of her work, but the reason to me seems that the focus of BL- two guys in love- is necessarily too narrow for Ima's range. She excels at ensemble: duets are too confining for her but man does she pull off stunning sextets. No pun intended, because in fact that's not true: there's no overt sex and no need for overt sex, and indeed I can't imagine what overt sex would look like if Ima drew it. Embarrassing, I think, in
kickinpants' way of 'Oh gee I interrupted you two guys, lemme just go refill your water pitcher here.' Watching two yaoi guys or BL guys having sex is fine: sex is what they're there for. Watching one of Ima's *people* having sex feels like an intrusion on someone's privacy, and so she doesn't show it.So of course these stories are all about two guys in love, or falling in love, or dealing with the ramifications of being in love. At least two of them are delicate bittersweet stories where the guys only realize they're in love far too late to do anything about it: the missed opportunities and connections never made that life is all about. One story blew me away with the delicacy of a character's conflicted emotions about the man who adopted him; of course that's the one Ima says the editor blue-pencilled with 'I haven't a clue what you're trying to say here.' "And I was all sniffy and annoyed and redid parts to her suggestions, and now I look at it and think 'I haven't a clue what I was trying to say here.'" Well, FWIW the inkblot resonated with *me*, sensei.
Probably these stories seem slight in themselves because I'm comparing them with the long ensemble piece that is 100 Demons. It's more enlightening to compare them with other BL. Here's Ima's take on gakuenmono, where the guys do indeed end up screwing under the futon covers on a winter's eve: but where the emotional action that's the centre of the piece is never stated overtly. Here's her university pieces, where (what we eventually learn is) a couple is on the outs, violently so, in the first story: and then the second story, set several years earlier when both were students, gives us the POV of the seductive dangerous lover in the first one-- and he's nothing of the sort. One surmises that years of dealing with his ambivalent and close-clammed boyfriend have made him what he is in the first story. It's all a world away from 'rape of the bespectacled Council President after school hours' kind of story one finds elsewhere.
But the final proof that Ima isn't a BL mangaka at heart is that the most successful of her stories (Weird Guys- FTR, the one that deals with host clubs) is successful largely because there's a woman involved. She's someone who'll grow up to be one of Ima's trademark demented and managing females (the wife in Almost Paradise, Ritsu's aunt Tamaki and his grandmother as well, probably) but at this point she's young enough that you can see why she's demented and why she needs to manage. It's an unconscious behaviour that springs from being a victim of circumstances and resenting it.
In a way the demented female/ femme formidable in Ima reminds me a little of the same type in Austen. There's no doubt that their social situations go a long way in explaining the need to make their surroundings be what they want them to be. If Ima's women are on balance less neurotic about it than Austen's, the explanation probably is that late 20th century Japan still offers women slightly more opportunity and independence than early 19th century England. Slightly more: I note that the ruthless female in Ima tends to be in business for herself, which is a tough row to hoe in Japan. (And we'll mention that Grandmother, quite as overbearing with people if less shrill about it than her daughter, is as traditional as you can get. But that may be what happens when a woman tries to have the same kind of authority outside the home as she is legitimately allowed to have within it.)
Yes well. As I say, BL's focus is too narrow for someone as broad of scope as Ima. But Weird Guys is still a great piece of ensemble acting, right down to the pair of okama at the club who get huffy with the naive hero: 'just cause we talk like *that* doesn't mean we're *like* that.'
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Mind you, I may hope the DVDs come with subtitles because my ear for English accents has degraded terribly of late. Is what happens when you stop watching BeeB productions on Masterpiece Theatre and random Yorkshire Television series on CBC, and start watching anime instead.
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Hope this isn't too late! Just got in ^__^
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The story I think I liked best was the first university one, possibly because it was the most straight forward of the bunch. The host club one was great, but I kept wanting more of it. In fact, all of these stories were like vignettes - little set pieces or peephole views into much longer, more complicated stories that exist in another universe.
In spite of Ima's comment, it's got it's lovely bits (you can see where her later stories start to form here) and some of it's that lovely, vague, watercolor stuff I love. My issue with Almost Paradise is it lacks that watercolor feel, it's got a much more TV-series in you face feel.
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The host club one though- yeah, it had material for a whole tank of story and would have been even better with a more leisurely narrative. The artist story of course really did have a whole background settei that she drew in her doujinshi. (Mhh- Ima Ichiko doujinshi. Wonder if they exist anywhere?)
I always find her art style too down to earth for true vague watercolour feelings, though I see what you mean. (Oddly when it comes to pure pictorials, like her colour illos, it's *all* pale watercolour and hence frustrating when you return to the here-and-nows of the series: and for all the ghosts demons shikigami and dragons of 100 Demons, the series is unbudgingly here and now.) But I've been reading Hatsu Akiko stories in Nemuki, who's steeped in that atmosphere, and anything less misty moon registers as Right Here. However you've put your finger on why I find Almost Paradise unsatisfying: TV indeed.
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(OK- no Davison for me ever.)
Besides Suspect only has Baker, and then a medley of very early b&w eps 'never shown in the United States.'
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I even watched Dr. Who in the hospital after having my oldest son 27 years ago. A dedicated fan. :-)
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There will only ever be two true Sherlock Holmes for me...Basil Rathbone and Peter Cushing. ...of course being Governor Moff Tarkin was pretty cool too although on a different level
sorry flemmings for jamming up your space. Again!
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My personal favorite is number 3, Pertwee. He had velvet jackets, and ruffles, and UNIT, and Bond-like devices. In that regard, you might start off with his first episode, "Spearhead from Space," which was produced on film stock rather than video (how shiny). Therein you also get nekkid doctor in an odd Victorian shower (which I cannot praise too highly for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture). Pertwee seasons also had the slashiest incarnation of the Master (in the form of Roger Delgado), whose weapon of heinous evil, the Tissue Compression Eliminator, looked remarkably like . . . something else entirely.
(I'm also fond of Colin Baker doctor for the general insanity, even as I acknowledge that his episodes weren't all that, and that Peri's faux-American nasality is ear gouging and her Huge Tracts of Land are eye popping.) Tom Baker doctor I can live without; I may be the only person on the planet who tended to dislike his stuff. As for Davison doctor . . . eye-candy qualities aside, I've found him rather touchy and unpleasant in viewing terms; however, his inadvertent sparkage with companion Tegan reconciled me to him more or less. I also think some of the Davison eps were more ambitious in terms of content; for instance, "Kinda" / "Enlightenment" were meant to function as an extended Buddhist parable.
Whew.
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And I must assume from the eps I saw last night that indeed the show's meant for kids primarily, at least in its earliest incarnations?