There Are Four Lights

It comes to no real surprise to anyone in the industry that Tokyopop has closed its Los Angeles office and North American publishing division. The company has been on shaky ground since Borders declared bankruptcy and companies cut ties with them—-Blizzard and HarperCollins. Last February, the company laid off several staff members, including its Senior Editors, the few people left in the company actually interested in publishing manga.

And that seems to have been what really lead to the shutdown; a manga publisher not focusing on publishing manga anymore. Granted, the fact that Borders owed them money when they went bankrupt was a big blow, but under the management of company founder Stu Levy Tokyopop began to invest more in his side projects like America’s Greatest Otaku—-a reality series filmed cross country. Levy has state flat-out that he has lost interest in books:

Wow #GDC2011 [Game Developers Conference] is blowing my mind. Why have I been stuck in such an old-school, out-of-touch industry for so long?! (yes I mean books!)

via twitter

Over at The Manga Critic, Katherine Dacey points out, “Levy’s interest in new media is well-documented, but coming on the heels of the editorial layoffs, his comments suggested a lack of awareness about how consumers viewed TOKYOPOP: as a manga publisher.”

I met Stu while I was a guest at Otakuthon in Montreal; a group of us hung out in old Montreal and he struck me as a very talented and quite nice guy. But if you’re not interested in publishing manga, then don’t run a manga publisher. It’s fine to want to do the Hollywood thing and film documentaries and reality series, but obviously its not going to help business if you’re a manga publisher.

Manga fans want to read manga. They don’t quite care about reality show road trips about otaku across America, they aren’t interested in behind-the-scenes documentaries at conventions (ask Jeff Nimoy, who canned the “Adventures in Anime” web series before it ever really even got started).

Tokyopop’s contributions to the North American manga industry are significant. They released unflipped manga, and took the plunged into publishing original content with their “OEL” line (a label I’ve never liked). But that endeavour shouldn’t take any of the blame whatsoever for the company’s downfall. Their OEL titles and creators never really got the  support and attention they deserved. The company’s American-style business model for contracts with these creators gave Tokyopop ownership of the titles, leaving creators with little options when the company ceased publishing of them, even before the closure.

That’s one of my biggest gripes with the company—-their American publishing model. In the Japanese manga industry, ownership of a series lies with the creator, the mangaka. Publishing companies simply have the rights to publish the series. This is not the case in the American comic book industry, where a series like Spider-man is owned by the company, Marvel. This difference has an effect on storytelling—-namely, mangaka have more freedom and control over the creative process. At one time, Viz looked as if they were interested in producing original content using the manga model, but as far as I can tell, never developed anything.

Who knows what will happen to the titles of the OEL creators under contract with Tokyopop, now that the LA office will close. I imagine they are at the mercy of Levy’s ADD whims. The right thing for him to do with be to step out of the way and let what’s good for manga happen—-getting good manga titles into the hands of manga readers.

There’s plenty of discussion in the science-based and secular humanist movements about how to get more women interested in joining and participating in atheist and skeptic organizations. As a writer and artist, an important part of my work is creating stories that are appealing to girls and young women. I thought I’d share some of my influences and the mode of operation I like to call “The She-ra Approach” when it comes to creating a female-friendly atmosphere.

The medium I work in to tell my stories is sequential art, specifically, manga—-a form of comic book storytelling originating from Japan and made popular by its animated counterpart, anime. Some of the appealing characteristics of the manga industry are the prevalence of both female readers and creators; something which sets it apart from the traditional comic book industry. I find that when American comics, movies, and animation attempt to portray positive images of women, they tend to create female characters that are quite masculine. As a young girl, I remember equating “girliness” with weakness, because most examples of strong women didn’t care about things like pretty clothes, makeup, doing your hair, and owning cute things. That is, until I came across anime, and not only discovered main characters that were girly, but that there was an entire genre devoted to female readers: shoujo.

The first anime series I became I fan of was Fushigi Yuugi by a female mangaka named Watase Yuu. The main character of the series was a cute school girl, Miaka, with brown hair and big brown eyes, just like me! She was interested in boys, clothes, and cute hairdos. She could be whiny, clumsy, and require rescue, but somehow, when it came to really important responsibilities, she came through—-she could resolve the story’s conflict without having to be “tough”. She was a different kind of heroine; one that could cry, be love-sick, and need the help of others. Even though she definitely wasn’t a perfect role model, Miaka made me feel it was okay to be girly.

Anime is one of the few forms of entertainment that has a high percentage of stories with female leading characters; Characters that seem powerful because they’ll have special powers, or can wield magic (women in Western storytelling are typically evil witches if they can use magic) but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily good role-models for girls—far from it. There’s plenty of garbage with horrible presentations of girls and women that make the Disney princesses look like feminists.

Luckily for me, I was born in the 80s! For a short time between 1983-86 there was He-Man and The Masters of the Universe and its spin-off, She-ra: The Princess of Power. Indeed, She-ra was the female version of He-man, but here’s why that didn’t make her simply a male character in a female body—-He-man wasn’t your stereotypical macho superhero. Because of concerns by parent groups over He-man’s hyper-macho appearance and the unusual action-based content of the cartoon for the time, He-man’s personality was written to balance his appearance. He was kind, empathetic, and demonstrated emotions and affection. I always got the feeling that his only motivation for being a hero was that he genuinely cared about others. Unlike most superheroes, who seem to need a rationale for using their powers, he didn’t need a justification for doing good, such as a sense of responsibility, a cause like justice, or a motivation like revenge. Being a caring person was reason enough.

The effect this had, when it came to creating He-man’s twin sister, was that a female character was being based off a male character that had traits which would typically be characterized as feminine. The result was a pair of equals who were well balanced human beings. As a small child, I grew up with two heroes who taught me that their traits—-bravery, empathy, strength, kindness—-weren’t exclusive to one gender or the other; these were the traits of good people. Period.

Masters of the Universe was one of the most successful cartoon franchises of all time, pioneering the production of animated series broadcasted daily, as opposed to the standard weekly Saturday morning schedule. When Mattel decided to create a spinoff geared towards a girl audience, the writers at Filmation approached the issue of expanding the He-man universe into one which appealed more to girls in a manner which has influenced not only my childhood, but my work as a storyteller as well. Although the aesthetics of the She-ra series clearly differs from Masters of the Universe with a more stereotypical “girl look” and its pastel palette (though MotU main character, Prince Adam, was dressed in a fabulous palette of light pink and purple) the content of the series kept what made Masters of the Universe popular: magic mixed with sci-fi action.

She-ra: Princess of Power had more female characters than Masters of the Universe but what’s most important is how they presented the higher ratio of women, the key ingredient to “The She-ra Approach”. The plot never drew any attention to the fact that She-ra, or any other female character, was a woman. She-ra was amazing for many reasons, but never because she was a woman. The lesson was never “Look, girls, She-ra saved the day and she’s a girl! She can do anything a boy can, and so can you!” I grew up knowing that women and men were equals because it never occurred to me to think otherwise.

Sure, She-ra was a series that looked more “girly” than Masters of the Universe. Many of She-ra’s friends were princesses, just like her. There was more emphasis on nature and magic than there was in He-man’s world. But, unlike most of the Disney princesses, She-ra (aka Princess Adora) and her friends were princesses because they were daughters of Queens, and not because they married a prince. When it came to the battle between Princess Adora’s nature-loving rebellion and Hordak’s destructive high-tech regime, there were men and women on both sides. Good and evil, caring or oppressive, these weren’t things that had any attachment to one gender over the other.

You don’t have to go out of your way to appeal to girls. I think there’s a danger in over-thinking what changes to make in order to have something be female-friendly. You run the risk of creating something that is so stereotypically feminine that it sends the message that girls can’t handle anything remotely masculine, or trying to stay away from stereotypically feminine traits so much as to give the message that anything feminine is undesirable.

There’s a short moment in the She-ra origin story, The Secret of the Sword (a film which is also the first five episodes of the series), which I find to be a good example of achieving this balance. Glimmer, the leader of The Great Rebellion, is introduced to Prince Adam for the first time (at about the 12:30 mark). She appears to be going over plans, but when Bow appears with Adam she takes the briefest moment to show her interest in seeing this new handsome friend, then immediately switches back to leader mode to check out the commotion going on outside, and even scolding Bow for causing a ruckus. I like this tiny detail because it shows that Glimmer is a leader, but isn’t stone-cold. Taking a moment to “Ooooh” over a cute guy isn’t associated with weakness.

The success of this approach is that the core contents of what was appealing about the franchise wasn’t changed just because they wanted to expand their product to girls. Boys loved He-man because it combined sword-fighting action with magic and space ships. There was no reason to take any of those things away when making She-ra. In fact, because the series didn’t alter that winning combination, the She-ra series had a strong following of boy fans tuning into the show as well. If you make something that’s good it won’t matter if it’s meant for boys or girls. As a little girl, the dark colour palette and castles shaped like giant skulls didn’t deter me from watching He-man, and She-ra proved boys would tune in to a show with a cast of women and scenery painted with pinks and pastels. The result was a franchise that not only gave girls good female role models, but exposed boys to them as well.

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Some geeky side notes: Masters of the Universe had strong female characters as well. Teela was captain of the Royal Guard, Queen Marlena (He-man’s mom) was a talented pilot and astronaut from Earth, and The Sorceress ruled Castle Grayskull and constantly gave guidance to He-man. Before you point out that the women in both He-man and She-ra were scantily clad, it should be noted that nearly every character was. Only a few characters wore armor (like Man-at-Arms, but c’mon, that was his name!) and pantslessness was nearly universal. I can’t count how many random background characters are old men wearing tunics sans-pants. This probably was due to the characters being modeled after the template for the action figures the cartoon was based on.

Pictured: Pantsless tunics aren’t just for girls!

My American beau and his family are celebrating Thanksgiving (I’m still in Canader), so I thought I’d write a light-hearted post. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I rarely watch anime anymore, so there are plenty of series I haven’t watched, but I thought I’d write about some of my all-time favourites.

Itazura na Kiss

This 2008 anime is based on the 1991 shoujo manga series by Kaoru Tada. It’s a romantic comedy about a highschool girl’s fight to be with her crush, who is apparently waaay out of her league—-she’s in the bottom of their grade and he’s the top of the class. It’s a cute series, but sometimes it’s hard to watch the fixation she has on the guy she loves—-reminds me of how stupid I was in highschool!

Saikano (Saishuu Heiki Kanojo)

I haven’t seen this series in a long time, but I remember really loving it. The art is adorable and if I remember correctly, the series is only 13 episodes long.

Fushigi Yuugi

This series has a special place for me because it’s the first anime series I watched–sort of my gateway drug into anime. I think it was the first time I saw a girly heroine. The main character, Miaka, cares about boys, clothes, and all sorts of other “girly” things, but isn’t stupid or completely useless. I’m a big fan of Yuu Watase’s work; she combines shoujo themes with some pretty great action sequences. Although it’s nice to have a very feminine main character at the center of a story, I wouldn’t consider Miaka a terrific role model. She’s completely obsessed with leading man, Tamahome, and has an unsettling fixation with eating (isn’t being skinny but constantly obsessing with eating large quantities of food a warning sign for a eating disorder?). Also, I’m not comfortable with the main premise of the story—-since Miaka is the Priestess of Suzaku importance is placed on her remaining a virgin to satisfy the god of Suzaku. And so, it was nice to be exposed to a girly main character back when I was still a tomboy, but the series isn’t exactly an example of a story that empowers women.

Ayashi no Ceres

Another Yuu Watase series, but this time, there is an element of critique towards the impossibly high standards when it comes to the portrayal of love and relationships in storytelling. A lot is said about the treatment of women in what the series has to say about masculinity.

Rurouni Kenshin

This shounen series is another one of my “firsts”. This series has some of the most beautiful fight sequences in anime (although they can be frequently interrupted with monologues). Kenshin is a great character and the series has a nice story. It’s a bit long at 95 episodes, but to be honest, I lost interest in the mid 60s when the the first story arc ends and then stops following the plot of the manga. There’s a weird second arc about some lame Christian character—-he’s not lame because he’s Christian but because he’s sort of another Battousai, like Kenshin, and is trained in the same style; this was pretty much the key plot point of the first story arc with Kenshin’s nemesis Shishiwhatever-zombieman. Dudeman, if you’re a Kenshin fan don’t send me angry emails—-you know just as well as I do that long-haired crucifix man is boring and redundant.

Lovely Complex

This series is just adorable and hilarious and you should watch it!

Peach Girl

I loved this series—-OH NO WAIT, I forgot…I hated hated hated this series. This series is frustrating horrible fluff. Horrible fluffy CRACK. I don’t know why I couldn’t stop watching and ended up seeing the entire series. The ending made me hate it even more. Arrrgh~! I dare you to watch all 25 episodes of crappyness. Look, Funimation offers an even more annoying version online—-the entire series, translated into an annoying dub.

NANA

All girls need NANA. This is the motto of the series’ website. This is absolutely my favourite series. Storytelling at its finest! The creator, Ai Yazawa, is a genius of character and plot development. It has a very honest feel about it. I find quite often that many anime series make an attempt to be meaningful and mature storytelling simply end up feeling pretentious. Either that, or they layer the plot with absurd amounts of symbolism so they can impress fans in a post-modernesque faux-academic manner. NANA doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not—-anime, after all, is entertainment. But it entertains while presenting its situations and character interactions in a wonderfully believable manner. Yazawa has a knack for making you relate to her characters. With the incredibly successful manga still ongoing, the anime awaits a second season.

Anime I’m still planning on finishing:

When I do find time to watch some anime, I continue to watch Honey and Clover. I remember liking but not finishing Skip Beat and would really like to finish Paradise Kiss, another Yazawa title. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave it in the comments.

My attempt at creating a skeptical hero with a mythological feel: Available as a wallpaper in widescreen, standard, iPad, and iPhone resolutions.

Our hero carries her skeptic shield, defending herself from credulity, and her sword that easily slices through bad ideas with the strength of Occam’s Razor.

Choose from two different versions for the iPad.

Your feedback is always welcome in the comments below. If you enjoy the wallpaper, please donate, so that this nerd can create more skeptical artwork! There is also a print version available from Cafepress.

Update: Prints are now also available through deviantART.

Last July, I spent a day filming for Nokia‘s Responsiveness campaign. I spoke about my work and latest series, Legend of the Ztarr, and how I’m hoping to relate it to skepticism and critical thinking (since I think those are important when evaluating how to response to the world around us). Please share!

Last Wednesday, I spoke at the Center for Inquiry‘s monthly science cafe, Cafe Inquiry. The talk and Q&A afterwards has been uploaded to YouTube in six parts:

Part 1 is my introduction and my explanation of skepticism and why I think it’s important. I also touch on why new age magical thinking and spirituality can be so appealing and easier to promote. My goal is to use storytelling to show skeptical values as virtues.

Part 2 is an overview of manga and why I’ve chosen it as a medium to tell stories that promote skepticism. I also speak about some series that have inspired me in my approach to doing this—-which is also an excuse to talk about Masters of the Universe.

Part 3 is about my series I’m producing, Legend of the Ztarr, and how I hope it will convey messages about critical thinking and humanism.

The Q&A discussion that took place afterwards is also available:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

For those of you who may not be familiar with anime or manga this rendition of four of the greatest scientists in our history might seem a little odd. For anime/manga fans reading this who aren’t familiar with ‘Charlie, Carl, Albert and Isaac’, this is probably confusing to you as well!

Since we’re celebrating Carl Sagan Day, I thought I’d create a little piece of artwork that has been floating around in my head for a while—-what Carl Sagan, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and Isaac Newton might look like if they were bishounen characters in a manga series.

I don’t get the chance to watch much anime anymore and when I do it’s not the big-name popular series like Naruto, Bleach, Death Note and er…is InuYasha still popular? It’s the shoujo series that I tend to be drawn to. Most of my favourite series are from the 90s, when I could actually be called a decent anime fan. But here are some ‘new’ anime series that I’ve enjoyed which I hope get licensed.

LOVELY COMPLEX

I was introduced to “Love*Com” when Viz licensed the manga and ran a preview of it in Shojo Beat. The story revolves around two classmates–Koizumi, a girl who is much taller than average–and Otani, a guy who is much shorter than average. They both have trouble finding a boyfriend/girlfriend because of their height. I’m a sucker for cute highschool romances and this series has the added charm of being incredibly funny. I’m pretty sure the live-action movie version of the series was licensed by Viz and released here in North America, but I would love to see the anime available. It’s on my must-buy list.

ITAZURA NA KISS

“ItaKiss” would seem like a fairly stereotypical shoujo anime series if you didn’t know that it’s based on an 11 year old manga series, which was fairly revolutionary in its time. A lot of what happens can seem a bit cliche, but I think it has been the manga’s influence on other shoujo series throughout the years that has made them now seem cliche. The manga series was left incomplete when the mangaka, Kaoru Tada, died do to a moving accident. The ending of the anime series was said to be based on the planned ending she had told her husband. The story is about a highschool girl in class “F” who develops a crush on the #1 student, Irie, a guy in class “A”. Unlike many highschool shoujo romances, Itakiss follows the two main characters after highschool and into their adult lives. Though I didn’t much like how dependant the main character, Kotoko, is on her love of Irie for her own happiness, the series was fairly addictive.

I’d love to add these series to my DVD shelf (especially since most of my small anime collection is made of VHS boxsets). I could mention NANA, though I already talked about that series in my last ‘Manga Break’ post, since it is absolutely on the top of my very short list of series I want. The good news is that Viz has licensed the anime version of NANA, but I haven’t heard an update on when it will be released. Again, I’m kinda out-of-the-loop when it comes to anime, but I’d say that Itakiss and LoveCom aren’t in the same league as NANA when it comes to success and popularity; which might explain why NANA has been licensed (manga sales of issues of NANA not only compete, but can beat sales records of heavyweight shonen titles like Naruto).

I thought I’d write a post about my new manga series, Legend of the Ztarr. If there’s anything that I like to talk about more than Trek, Star Wars, and science, it’s my LotZ manga. It also happens to be the thing I get to talk about the least. The end of 2007 was the year that I finally started writting the script for the series, and in 2008 I did character designs, storyboards, and finally the first chapter, which can be read online at www.legendoftheztarr.com.

Legend of the Ztarr is the story of a young girl named Adora Ztarr who lives on a peaceful little planet called Teri with her adopted aunt, uncle, and cousin. Her father, the Great Kalen Ztarr, was killed in the battle to overthrow The Emperor of the Known Universe. The series begins when two off-worlders, still loyal to the House of Ztarr, come to take Adora away from her homeworld, so that she can replace her father in the prophecy which fortells that he will destroy the Emperor.

The sword of Ztarr but once shall slay and end The Holy Emperor’s rein.” – The Third Prophecy of Jillian

I really enjoy creating Legend of the Ztarr; I think because, like most of my creations, it’s a story that I want to read. I’m not concentrated on creating something for a specific target audience and deciding what kind of characters and plotlines that audience will like. These are characters that I love and their adventures tell a story that I want to hear. And it’s my favourite kind of story: swords & sandals in outerspace!

My DeviantART account has a few sketches from the series I’ve uploaded. I recently updated the theme of its website (though the drawing of the blonde man on the far right needs to be replaced as soon as I finish colouring Myren). I’m working on storyboards for the second chapter, so it won’t be complete for a while yet. Also, I’m organizing a proposal for the series to pitch to manga publishers; I don’t think I want to go down the indy path like I did for Secrets of Sorcerers (not that SoS hasn’t done really well, it’s simply too much for lil artist brain me to keep track of inventory and invoices).

So tell everyone about Legend of the Ztarr and check out my youtube channel as well for a little video of me talking about LotZ (and the audio version my friend requested of me).

This (first) manga break is of my absolute favourite manga series, NANA. The series creator is Ai Yazawa and it’s still ongoing and serialized in Cookie (a monthly manga magazine in Japan). NANA is a hugely popular shoujo series; Volume 19, released last May, broke 2008 sales record by selling 780 000 copies in one week (the previous record was held by Naruto Vol. 42, which sold 505 000 copies in the week of May 2^nd). The series gets its name from the two main characters; both named Nana, which means ‘seven’ in Japanese. The two girls end up living together in apartment 707, in Tokyo, and become good friends despite their opposite personalities.

One of the Nanas is the vocalist in a band called The Black Stones (or Blast). She nicknames the other Nana “Hachiko” which is the name of a famous loyal pet dog in Japan (and ‘hachi’ also means ‘eight’). Hachiko is your typical girly 20 year old who jumps from relationship to relationship and from one job to another. Among the many contrasts between the two is Hachi’s lack of focus and her seemingly endless boyfriend hopping, compared to Nana’s passion to be a singer and her history with the one man she loves.

Yazawa’s artwork is gorgeous-the details in the changing hair and clothing is wonderful and really suites each individual character. But what I most admire about Yazawa’s work is her writing; the story is a beautiful mix of fantasy (the glamour of famous musicians, dating a celebrity, plentiful designer fashion) and realism (falling out of love, leaving home, struggling to find your life’s focus). No matter what situation the characters are placed in, Yazawa makes it all seem believable. In some manga, sometimes it can seem like a character is making a certain choice solely because it serves the story-but in NANA, every character responds to the situations in a manner which is true to their personality. The interactions that go on between the various characters make you believe that they all really could be living out their lives this way, somewhere in Tokyo.

NANA is more mature than the typical shoujo series you might find licensed here in North America. Personally, I would consider NANA more of a “josei” manga-geared more towards young adults than teens. I can imagine American promoters comparing it to popular teen TV dramas like the O.C. or Dawson’s Creek to try and market to the audience of those kinds of shows, but I don’t think that comparison would do it justice. The story deals with breakups, cheating, drugs, pregnancy, and other familiar drama themes, but none of it feels like it’s been dumped in-nearly everything that occurs in the plot feels necessary to the story-everything feels natural and, again, believable.

NANA was licensed by Viz, here in the US and Canada, and was serialized in their Shojo Beat magazine. It was dropped from the magazine once the story started to outgrow the Shojo Beat age demographic with its increasingly mature content. Viz continues to release the series in graphic novel format, which currently runs to about Volume 14. An anime adaptation was produced and aired in Japan in 2006. The license for the anime has apparently been acquired by Viz, but I haven’t heard any recent news about when it will be released.

I don’t often get the chance to watch or read new anime and manga series, so most of my favourite series are from the late 90s. NANA is one exception. I know I’m not the only one who finds themselves re-reading older chapters and getting sucked in all over again. The balance, flow, and emotion in both artwork and story make NANA one of those great manga series that remind me of why I fell in love with this type of storytelling.

Sara drawn as a Yazawa character?