Soryo Fuyumi - Eternal Sabbath, vol. 03-04 (Eng. trans.)

[oyceter]

Totally random note -- I can't seem to save and compile my custom layers; is anyone else having this problem? It's not my internet, because I've tested on a few computers, both on Firefox 2 and IE 6.

Comments

[fmanalyst]

Mine's friend's jealousy worked for me because of the stage of life they were at -- it wasn't just jealousy. I think people hit a point in their 30s when they start re-examining the choices they made and resenting the people in their lives who represent those choices. Mine's friend (I can't remember her name and I don't want to dig up the book) chose a relationship over her career, and then the relationship failed. Mine then seemed to her to represent what she could have had in her own life but didn't. I don't see that jealousy as "Mine has something I don't," but rather "Mine has something I could have had, but I made a different choice and look where it got me." I think that's common for people in that age group. If we're married, we look at our friends who stayed single, and think, "I could have had her career and been free of all these responsibilities." But if we're single, we look at our married friends and think, "Why do I have to be all by myself with just a job to show for my life

[oyceter]

Yeah, I mean, it does make sense for the context and etc., but on the other hand, it's yet another female friendship gone awry, thanks to jealousy. It's a hard line to draw sometimes. Also, I think it pinged me a little more because I've seen so few female friendships, much less healthy ones in manga (and in fiction in general, but that's a whole new kettle of fish).

It'd be interesting to see more female characters in ES who aren't Mine and Isaac's friend.

[justinelavaworm]

What about YA? Don't you think that's chock full of female friendships?

[oyceter]

Oof, yeah, good point. I do see a lot of female friendships in YA, and even more that have nothing to do with romance, thank goodness. And of course, my reading is sort of skewed, since I tend to pick up female authors more for some reason, so I think I am seeing more female friendships than most? Which is excellent and something I seek out

[fmanalyst]

You raise an interesting issue in terms of female friendships in manga. I'm trying to think of ones that I know are out there -- Sakura and Tomoyo, for one -- well, actually Sakura and her whole group of friends. Let me think about this, and I'll blog on it in the next day or so. Oh, another one just occurred to me from a shonen manga. Orihime and Rukia make for an interesting friendship, although Orihime seems to develop a little jealousy eventually.

[justinelavaworm]

Nana and all the female friendships in Paradise Kiss.

[oyceter]

Hrm, must think...

There's Kira and I-forgot-her-name in Mars, though that's usually a very distant second to the Kira/Rei relationship. Oyayubihime Infinity has a great sister relationship. Like Justine said, Yazawa Ai's series all have great female friendships and place nearly as much, as much, or greater emphasis on them than the romances (yet another reason I love Yazawa Ai!). Naruto has bits of the Sakura-Ino friendship, though really not very much.

Fruits Basket has Tohru and her two best friends, though they're often backgrounded to Tohru's relationship with the Sohma family. Tramps Like Us has Sumire and her friend, though often backgrounded to Sumire/Momo or Sumire/Hasumi. Her Majesty's Dog has Amane's best friend, though often backgrounded to Amane/Hyoue

[fmanalyst]

The manga that occurs to me as being all about female friendships, in all its varieties, is Azumanga Daioh. The only male character of any note is Kimura-sensei, and none of the female characters want anything to do with him. In AD, you have the friendships between the two teachers, their friendships with the group of students, the friendship of the students with each other, and smaller pairs of friends within the group: Yomi and Tomo, Tomo and Osaka and Kagura as the three dunces, Sakaki and Chiyo-chan, Chiyo-chan and Osaka, Kagura trying to compete athletically with Sakaki, Tomo trying to compete with anyone about anything because it's her nature to be competitive, and so on. I need to reread that series. It's such a delight.

[oyceter]

Oh! I had no idea! All I know about Azumanga Daioh is that there are cute chibi keychains of the characters. I think I need to go flip through that series now.

[fmanalyst]

I like the anime better than the manga, though they're both funny. The manga is more like a newspaper comic than a usual manga. It's rather like reading Peanuts. But basically, AD follows a group of girls through their high school years, culminating in graduation.