Yeah, Deb brought up Barthes. But before she did, I was already browsing through my shelf of lit. crit. due to something else Starwing said -- about the responsibility of writers to deal with the ghosts of their texts.
Of course you both answered bit, and the thread moved on. But my mind sort of wandered off in a totally different direction -- how KT would be affected by the need to pander to his audience if he was pressured by his mode of literary production (i.e. Shonen Jump). It's literary analysis by economic overdetermination, but its not entirely implausible.
I realize, of course, that this is already going into the sociology of literature and totally so way off the pairing debate it's almost off-topic, but er... I did my thesis on this stuff. I was thinking it would be awesome if I could find any material on the editorial policies of Shonen Jump and how it affects mangakas. There might be a precedent somewhere of editors (or even fans) dictating the outcome of a manga's OTP. Unfortunately, this sort of essay is not something I can just wing :)
@ Wicked Liz: Yeah, D is awesome. He's so overpowered, it's great. Luckily for me, my local comic book store always has those novels in stock.
@ Laurie: As you may have been able to tell from the post I made at BA, I'm not too fond of the responsibility of writers to deal with the ghosts of their texts. Like, plenty "ghosts" exist simply because readers are stupid (case in point, Harry x Hermione. No one I know in real life interpreted that as a viable pairing).
What you're talking about relates closely enough to the pairing debate. It's way more interesting than any dumb talk ala "IchiRuki rulz, u r stoopid," and "no wai!1! uz are dum for not seeign iChiOri as tru luv!" And, hey, if you look at the Bleach Pilot, there are some Ichigo x Orihime undercurrents there (in addition to the Ichigo x Rukia ones), so there is a possibility Kubo may have gone in a greater IchiRuki direction in the manga in response to editorial feedback.
For a precedent of editors/fans dictating a manga's one true pairing, the only good example I can think of is Urusei Yatsura, by Rumiko Takahashi. For those unfamiliar with it, the series revolves around the relationship between Ataru Morobishi and Lum Invader. Yet, if you read the first few chapters of the first volume, you can see that Takahashi appears to eliminate Lum from the manga in the second chapter.
Interesting, considering that Lum was the symbol of the series once it became popular, and there are rumors that the editor wanted Lum brought back into the foray (way back in Chapter Two, heh). Also, the relationship dynamics between Lum and Ataru in the first few volumes are considerably different than they are once Urusei Yatsura hit its stride. In the beginning, Ataru seriously seems to hate Lum and it appears that he'll eventually get her out of his life; again, this contrasts later volumes of the series.
Looking over what I said, I think I should stress how early the direction of the Urusei Yatsura manga seems to change (it doesn't even appear to nearly as much in the anime). Consequently, I believe an editor's influence on the progression of the story decreases over time. As a story develops, certain events get set in stone and it becomes more and more difficult to undo these past occurrences and alter the flow of the story because of this. A plot revolving around a man's quest to get revenge on his father's murderer for 90% of a novel can't abruptly focus on his sidekick's love life in the last 10%, if you catch my drift. It's like creating a drawing with ink; every line--or plot thread--you put on the canvas boxes you in towards a specific picture, and you just get a mess of lines if you attempt to change things too late in the game.
To tie this into Bleach, Ichigo x Rukia is the relationship I believe Kubo has been trapping as the inevitable outcome, whether he has intended this or not. At this point, it's nigh-impossible for him to develop another romantic relationship for Ichigo or Rukia believably, in my opinion, as those two's feelings for each other have been too strong, too frequently in Bleach.
Re: Winging Itlaurie_bunterNovember 27 2007, 05:24:55 UTC
I was actually amazingly happy with your rebuttal since it echoed a lot of my own thoughts.
Anyway, this is what I started to write and then abandoned due to RL:
It is not the author's responsibility to project and account for every possible variable reading of his work. The act of writing is one of choice -- the author's choice -- to tell a particular narrative as he sees fit. It is not the author's responsibility to predict and stave up potential criticism of his work; such a task would only hinder him writing at all. Unless one is writing science fiction (and not all science fiction would touch upon it), alternative versions of a particular scenario in a single text is not necessary, unless one was writing something postmodern like Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch.
It is in fact the role of the critic to bring to light the silences of the text, and whether the author is successful or not in the creation of his narrative. Some critics go about this task with the assumption that the author is dead; others, however, provide to use other tools of analysis. Personally I still lean towards Marxist (Adorno school), post-Marxist and postcolonial readings, so I find it necessary to to situate a text within its social, economic and cultural context.
Once a work is published, there is no turning back, and further editions of a particular work usually only correct typographical mistakes, not plot issues.
I only got so far. Sigh.
I never read any Urusei Yatsura but I'm familiar enough with the sight of the tiger-striped bikini. Anyway it's a pretty good example of the type of editorial interference I'm looking for. :D I'm pretty sure there are more instances, I just don't know it all right now!
The problem is, I feel that I want to write a nice, long scholarly paper on this thing, footnotes and all. Argh. I must be nuts to actually miss that kind of writing!
There's this short piece in "Abandon the Old in Tokyo" by Yoshihiro Tatsumi about a shonen mangaka who gets fired after his series loses popularity with the kids. He goes around for a day hating all the kids he sees, until he bumps into another publisher who offers to give him a job drawing hentai. All throughout this, he has the runs so there's a metaphor running through the story, about art and sh*t.
Since Yoshihiro Tatsumi is supposed to be a 70's underground mangaka, it makes me wonder how prevalent this sort of problem is among artists in Japan. Hmm. I mean, you have all the doujinshi by established artists, who use the alternative publishing medium as a way to get out stories they otherwise can't write... so why the need for an alternative venue if they really have creative control over everything (writing, pencils and inking)?
my brain is tied up like a pretzel, but I'm loving this, laurie
I could basically copy-and-paste this into the pairing debate but what's the point? I would probably get no good criticism of my points (or none whatsoever) and it would hardly be original.
As for your incomplete essay, I can already see one potential problem: you mention there be no turning back once a work is published (which is true, no matter how much computer-generated crap George Lucas adds into his old movies), but what's interesting about multi-volume books and manga, in particular, is that the entire story isn't published at once. This is what allows arguments about "ghosts" needing to be accounted for possible, after all. Any essay you may write on the subject that doesn't take into account this facet of manga production will be full of holes to poke at.
Maybe you should check out Urusei Yatsura. Unusually, it's one of the few series I would recommend the anime over the manga...though the first few chapters are interesting to look at to see how much Takahashi's art has changed. The second movie, Beautiful Dreamer, is definitely worth a watch (I'm getting a credit card so I can buy it; that movie is way too frickin' hard to find/download). Unfortunately, it is not easy to find downloads of the anime, and buying DVDs for a 200 episode series is rather costly.
Yes, you are nuts to miss scholarly writing. I much prefer to use informal voice without worrying about my sources.
Other examples of editorial/fan influence...Rurouni Kenshin? Didn't Watsuki think about killing off Kaoru in the Revenge Arc, but reconsider after his fans voiced their disappointment? Hmm, really popular mangaka, such as Akira Toriyama (and Kubo Tite?), are told to delay their endings and drag the story on.
Speaking of Toriyama, he's an excellent example of the author's power to make their own choices. In response to his readers nagging him for a Bulma x Yamcha relationship, he paired Bulma with Vegeta just to spite them or so I heard.
Concerning Yoshihiro Tatsumi...I have to think about that a bit.
Of course you both answered bit, and the thread moved on. But my mind sort of wandered off in a totally different direction -- how KT would be affected by the need to pander to his audience if he was pressured by his mode of literary production (i.e. Shonen Jump). It's literary analysis by economic overdetermination, but its not entirely implausible.
I realize, of course, that this is already going into the sociology of literature and totally so way off the pairing debate it's almost off-topic, but er... I did my thesis on this stuff. I was thinking it would be awesome if I could find any material on the editorial policies of Shonen Jump and how it affects mangakas. There might be a precedent somewhere of editors (or even fans) dictating the outcome of a manga's OTP. Unfortunately, this sort of essay is not something I can just wing :)
Reply
@ Laurie: As you may have been able to tell from the post I made at BA, I'm not too fond of the responsibility of writers to deal with the ghosts of their texts. Like, plenty "ghosts" exist simply because readers are stupid (case in point, Harry x Hermione. No one I know in real life interpreted that as a viable pairing).
What you're talking about relates closely enough to the pairing debate. It's way more interesting than any dumb talk ala "IchiRuki rulz, u r stoopid," and "no wai!1! uz are dum for not seeign iChiOri as tru luv!" And, hey, if you look at the Bleach Pilot, there are some Ichigo x Orihime undercurrents there (in addition to the Ichigo x Rukia ones), so there is a possibility Kubo may have gone in a greater IchiRuki direction in the manga in response to editorial feedback.
For a precedent of editors/fans dictating a manga's one true pairing, the only good example I can think of is Urusei Yatsura, by Rumiko Takahashi. For those unfamiliar with it, the series revolves around the relationship between Ataru Morobishi and Lum Invader. Yet, if you read the first few chapters of the first volume, you can see that Takahashi appears to eliminate Lum from the manga in the second chapter.
Interesting, considering that Lum was the symbol of the series once it became popular, and there are rumors that the editor wanted Lum brought back into the foray (way back in Chapter Two, heh). Also, the relationship dynamics between Lum and Ataru in the first few volumes are considerably different than they are once Urusei Yatsura hit its stride. In the beginning, Ataru seriously seems to hate Lum and it appears that he'll eventually get her out of his life; again, this contrasts later volumes of the series.
Looking over what I said, I think I should stress how early the direction of the Urusei Yatsura manga seems to change (it doesn't even appear to nearly as much in the anime). Consequently, I believe an editor's influence on the progression of the story decreases over time. As a story develops, certain events get set in stone and it becomes more and more difficult to undo these past occurrences and alter the flow of the story because of this. A plot revolving around a man's quest to get revenge on his father's murderer for 90% of a novel can't abruptly focus on his sidekick's love life in the last 10%, if you catch my drift. It's like creating a drawing with ink; every line--or plot thread--you put on the canvas boxes you in towards a specific picture, and you just get a mess of lines if you attempt to change things too late in the game.
To tie this into Bleach, Ichigo x Rukia is the relationship I believe Kubo has been trapping as the inevitable outcome, whether he has intended this or not. At this point, it's nigh-impossible for him to develop another romantic relationship for Ichigo or Rukia believably, in my opinion, as those two's feelings for each other have been too strong, too frequently in Bleach.
Reply
Anyway, this is what I started to write and then abandoned due to RL:
It is not the author's responsibility to project and account for every possible variable reading of his work. The act of writing is one of choice -- the author's choice -- to tell a particular narrative as he sees fit. It is not the author's responsibility to predict and stave up potential criticism of his work; such a task would only hinder him writing at all. Unless one is writing science fiction (and not all science fiction would touch upon it), alternative versions of a particular scenario in a single text is not necessary, unless one was writing something postmodern like Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch.
It is in fact the role of the critic to bring to light the silences of the text, and whether the author is successful or not in the creation of his narrative. Some critics go about this task with the assumption that the author is dead; others, however, provide to use other tools of analysis. Personally I still lean towards Marxist (Adorno school), post-Marxist and postcolonial readings, so I find it necessary to to situate a text within its social, economic and cultural context.
Once a work is published, there is no turning back, and further editions of a particular work usually only correct typographical mistakes, not plot issues.
I only got so far. Sigh.
I never read any Urusei Yatsura but I'm familiar enough with the sight of the tiger-striped bikini. Anyway it's a pretty good example of the type of editorial interference I'm looking for. :D I'm pretty sure there are more instances, I just don't know it all right now!
The problem is, I feel that I want to write a nice, long scholarly paper on this thing, footnotes and all. Argh. I must be nuts to actually miss that kind of writing!
There's this short piece in "Abandon the Old in Tokyo" by Yoshihiro Tatsumi about a shonen mangaka who gets fired after his series loses popularity with the kids. He goes around for a day hating all the kids he sees, until he bumps into another publisher who offers to give him a job drawing hentai. All throughout this, he has the runs so there's a metaphor running through the story, about art and sh*t.
Since Yoshihiro Tatsumi is supposed to be a 70's underground mangaka, it makes me wonder how prevalent this sort of problem is among artists in Japan. Hmm. I mean, you have all the doujinshi by established artists, who use the alternative publishing medium as a way to get out stories they otherwise can't write... so why the need for an alternative venue if they really have creative control over everything (writing, pencils and inking)?
my brain is tied up like a pretzel, but I'm loving this,
laurie
Reply
Here's the post I made at BA that made me feel like not posting in the Pairing Debate thread for such a long time:
http://www.bleachasylum.com/showpost.php?p=28497&postcount=249
I could basically copy-and-paste this into the pairing debate but what's the point? I would probably get no good criticism of my points (or none whatsoever) and it would hardly be original.
As for your incomplete essay, I can already see one potential problem: you mention there be no turning back once a work is published (which is true, no matter how much computer-generated crap George Lucas adds into his old movies), but what's interesting about multi-volume books and manga, in particular, is that the entire story isn't published at once. This is what allows arguments about "ghosts" needing to be accounted for possible, after all. Any essay you may write on the subject that doesn't take into account this facet of manga production will be full of holes to poke at.
Maybe you should check out Urusei Yatsura. Unusually, it's one of the few series I would recommend the anime over the manga...though the first few chapters are interesting to look at to see how much Takahashi's art has changed. The second movie, Beautiful Dreamer, is definitely worth a watch (I'm getting a credit card so I can buy it; that movie is way too frickin' hard to find/download). Unfortunately, it is not easy to find downloads of the anime, and buying DVDs for a 200 episode series is rather costly.
Yes, you are nuts to miss scholarly writing. I much prefer to use informal voice without worrying about my sources.
Other examples of editorial/fan influence...Rurouni Kenshin? Didn't Watsuki think about killing off Kaoru in the Revenge Arc, but reconsider after his fans voiced their disappointment? Hmm, really popular mangaka, such as Akira Toriyama (and Kubo Tite?), are told to delay their endings and drag the story on.
Speaking of Toriyama, he's an excellent example of the author's power to make their own choices. In response to his readers nagging him for a Bulma x Yamcha relationship, he paired Bulma with Vegeta just to spite them or so I heard.
Concerning Yoshihiro Tatsumi...I have to think about that a bit.
Reply
Leave a comment