Hagio Moto - A Drunken Dream and Other Stories
Whoo, Hagio Moto!
For people who don't know, Hagio Moto is one of the big names of shoujo manga who rose to prominence during the 1970s, when female mangaka began to take over from male creators in shoujo manga. She was also one of the first people to write shounen ai. Also, ever since writing my undergrad thesis on shoujo manga, I have been dying to read more of her, but it's hard to get hold of her stuff outside of Japan, much less translated into English.
This is a sampling of her short stories throughout her career: the stories range from 1975 to 2008. They're translated by Matt Thorn, and the book includes an introduction to her work by Matt Thorn and an interview that were both previously published in the special Comic Journal issue on shoujo.
Normally I don't pay that much attention to the physical bits of the book, but the production values on this one are really spectacular (thankfully, given the $25 price tag). Blown up comic panels introduce each short story, one short is entirely in color, and there are lovely color excerpts of Hagio's work in the interview. The one thing I am a little sad about is that it is too big to be shelved next to all my other manga, but that's really a minor nitpick.
I have had a problem getting into older manga before because of the art style. Although that held a little for this collection, it wasn't as big of an issue as I thought it might be, possibly because I was reading Rose of Versailles and started Hagio's "November Gymnasium" prior to this.
As expected, the short stories from the early part of her career are more cliched and have less depth to them. Even so, the art style of "Girl on Porch with Puppy" read more indie-style and less shoujo to me. And several of Hagio's shorts have little twists to them or are about subjects that are not expected. I particularly liked how she dealt with the love triangle in "Marie, Ten Years Later."
My favorites were probably "A Drunken Dream," which is a gorgeous fantasy/sf story of love and reincarnation (reincarnation! I was so there!); "The Willow Tree," a lovely, melancholy short that is nearly all image and very little dialogue; and "Iguana Girl," which hits rather close to home with its topic of a mother who thinks her daughter is an iguana. "Iguana Girl" in particular does a great job at making metaphor real.
I am more on the fence with "Hanshin: Half-God," which I think is one of Hagio's more famous shorts. On the one hand, the ending is great. On the other, I feel I've seen the use of conjoined twins in fiction before to demonstrate that divide between beauty and brains, in which one twin is physically and physiologically supporting the other. I was going to say that I dislike the use of conjoined twins as metaphor, but on thinking about it, I'm not sure how much of it is metaphor. And yet, I'm still very uncomfortable with the what I've seen of conjoined twins in fiction. So... YMMV.
All this said, the collection makes me want more of Hagio's full-length work even more. I'm not the best audience for short stories in general; I usually want longer work and find that a lot of short stories go over my head. I'd especially love more of her sf/fantasy, since the bits I loved most in the collection usually had a fantastical or sfnal bent to them.
... and now I am regretting not snatching up even more of her stuff when I was in Japan, even though it probably wouldn't have fit in my suitcase!
In conclusion: gorgeous book, some shorts I really liked, please put out more!
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For people who don't know, Hagio Moto is one of the big names of shoujo manga who rose to prominence during the 1970s, when female mangaka began to take over from male creators in shoujo manga. She was also one of the first people to write shounen ai. Also, ever since writing my undergrad thesis on shoujo manga, I have been dying to read more of her, but it's hard to get hold of her stuff outside of Japan, much less translated into English.
This is a sampling of her short stories throughout her career: the stories range from 1975 to 2008. They're translated by Matt Thorn, and the book includes an introduction to her work by Matt Thorn and an interview that were both previously published in the special Comic Journal issue on shoujo.
Normally I don't pay that much attention to the physical bits of the book, but the production values on this one are really spectacular (thankfully, given the $25 price tag). Blown up comic panels introduce each short story, one short is entirely in color, and there are lovely color excerpts of Hagio's work in the interview. The one thing I am a little sad about is that it is too big to be shelved next to all my other manga, but that's really a minor nitpick.
I have had a problem getting into older manga before because of the art style. Although that held a little for this collection, it wasn't as big of an issue as I thought it might be, possibly because I was reading Rose of Versailles and started Hagio's "November Gymnasium" prior to this.
As expected, the short stories from the early part of her career are more cliched and have less depth to them. Even so, the art style of "Girl on Porch with Puppy" read more indie-style and less shoujo to me. And several of Hagio's shorts have little twists to them or are about subjects that are not expected. I particularly liked how she dealt with the love triangle in "Marie, Ten Years Later."
My favorites were probably "A Drunken Dream," which is a gorgeous fantasy/sf story of love and reincarnation (reincarnation! I was so there!); "The Willow Tree," a lovely, melancholy short that is nearly all image and very little dialogue; and "Iguana Girl," which hits rather close to home with its topic of a mother who thinks her daughter is an iguana. "Iguana Girl" in particular does a great job at making metaphor real.
I am more on the fence with "Hanshin: Half-God," which I think is one of Hagio's more famous shorts. On the one hand, the ending is great. On the other, I feel I've seen the use of conjoined twins in fiction before to demonstrate that divide between beauty and brains, in which one twin is physically and physiologically supporting the other. I was going to say that I dislike the use of conjoined twins as metaphor, but on thinking about it, I'm not sure how much of it is metaphor. And yet, I'm still very uncomfortable with the what I've seen of conjoined twins in fiction. So... YMMV.
All this said, the collection makes me want more of Hagio's full-length work even more. I'm not the best audience for short stories in general; I usually want longer work and find that a lot of short stories go over my head. I'd especially love more of her sf/fantasy, since the bits I loved most in the collection usually had a fantastical or sfnal bent to them.
... and now I am regretting not snatching up even more of her stuff when I was in Japan, even though it probably wouldn't have fit in my suitcase!
In conclusion: gorgeous book, some shorts I really liked, please put out more!
Comment | Read Comments (
) | Link