(no subject)

[flemmings]

To report only that Heisei Ghostbusters is still tough and still wordy, but not nearly as tough and wordy as Okano's Onmyouji which covers the same territory; that Youmi Henjou 4 is reported by Japanese readers to be as obscure as later Onmyouji, which is midnight obscure; that the brush writing of Youmi Henjou (all of it, but 2 at the moment) makes me wonder if I'm reading the actual words correctly; that this Kouring series of Okano's is dear God The Forgotten Beasts of Eld manga-ized: my spirit faints within me at the thought of what so innately perverse a mangaka has done with what I recall as a fairly yang-type story; and that, ray of sunshine maybe, Sumeragi Natsuki has been translated into French.

Comments

[incandescens]

Oh, interesting! Would you recommend any particular titles?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I've only read La voix des fleurs, which is about shapeshifters, one way and another; and Pékin, Années Folles, Tome 1: Les Coulisses de l'Opéra, which is indeed about Peking Opera singers. I think vol 2 is about young girls and their marriages, but I may be thinking of something else. Sous la bannière de la liberté was the one with the female general I didn't get far into, being distracted by New York and such, and fortunately they don't seem to have translated her manga version of The Emperor and the Assassin, which traumatized me for various reasons of WTF, language, and burying kids alive. Not her fault-- it was in the film as well.

Her stories are never quite what you think they'll be, in defiance of manga conventions. Her Chinese scenes are detailed and exact, like a photo of the time but with gorgeous artwork. I quote paleaswater, who should know:

Sumeragi Natsuki is in fact a bit surreal to me, because her style is just so Chinese, and her story is also very Chinese, but yet slightly off in a way that I could never put my finger on. It's almost like that comment in My Fair Lady -- she must be a foreigner, because her English is so perfect, and there's not a trace of accent.

The oddness of perfect pastiche, I suppose. She's a bit surreal to me too, not that I can judge the authenticity of her 'researched within an inch of her life' China. More like Taiga Drama, the year-long Sunday-night NHK historical blockbuster series. Everything is so *clean*. All the colours are so *bright*. It wasn't *like* that.