Look! It Moves! by Adi Tantimedh #29 – What We Want Is… Knowledge!

There’s something more common in manga than in American comics: the desire to impart knowledge.  Sure, comics are primarily a vehicle for escapism, and for the most part, their creators don’t set out to accomplish much more than that.  However, manga often goes out of its way to use meticulous research on which to ground its stories or lend them an extra layer of meaning.  History and Science books consistently sell well in Japan.  Global news events are regularly reported, and that base of knowledge shows up in Japanese pop culture.  Thus, a loopy shoot-‘em-up homage to John Woo and action movies like BLACK LAGOON shows a better grasp of international affairs and warfare than the average American.  A dystopian cyberpunk thriller like EDEN: IT’S AN ENDLESS WORLD is a forum for considering geopolitics, terrorism, cybernetics, the military-industrial complex and epidemiology.  SPICE AND WOLF uses its medieval setting, pagan wolf goddess and traveling merchant to teach a refresher course in basic Economics and currency speculation.  GHOST IN THE SHELL, in all its iterations, is underpinned by questions about memory and identity in the age of digitization.  All in all, there’s a strong drive among manga creators to show the readers something they didn’t already know, if only to stand out from the rest of the more generic titles out there.

So what happens when Japanese comics creators turn their gazes back upon themselves?

In American comics, stories about comics creators tend to be the minority.  The general consensus might be that some guy sitting at a table drawing might not be particularly dramatic, though some people might beg to differ.  Real ability, after all, is to be able to portray the most seemingly mundane activities and events as insightful and dramatic.  Will Eisner has published THE DREAMER, an lightly fictionalized look at his early days as a fledgling cartoonist knocking on doors looking for gigs in the years before World War II.  Chester Brown and Joe Matt have done stories about themselves, though their careers as cartoonists tend to serve as backdrops more than the main subject.   Eddie Campbell has interweaved his life into material for his comics.  In Japan, there’s been a gag manga from the 1980s, EVEN A MONKEY CAN DRAW MANGA by Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma, which spoofed everything about manga and the industry to wacky effect.  Then there’s manga elder statesman Yoshiro Tatsumi’s recent A DRIFTING LIFE, his eye-witness account of the emergence and evolution of manga in Japan after the Second World War.

And then there’s BAKUMAN.

Creator by Tsugumi Oba and Takeshi Ogata, the writer-artist team behind the insanely successful DEATH NOTE, BAKUMAN is a complete change of pace from the franchise they created that became a pop culture phenomenon all over the world.  It’s a slice-of-life comedy-drama about two high school friends who decide to become mangaka and follows their progress from talented amateurs to promising newcomers to established pros in a comics industry that can’t afford to stand still, and so neither can they.  The initial gung-ho teenage high school comedy is like a Trojan Horse smuggling in the real substance of the series, which is a complete rundown of how the Japanese comics industry works from top to bottom.  As the hero and his writer friend go from fans to talented amateurs to talented newcomers to established pros by the time they begin college (which they attend only as a career back-up should they fail at making a living in comics), we’re treated to a virtual how-to in how comics are made.  For instance, I didn’t know manga scripts aren’t submitted to editors, but “names”, simply-drawn breakdowns of entire chapters.  You’re shown the submissions process, how editors discuss which new try-outs are selected for publication, how the published try-outs are rated by readers which determines whether the creators get to submit series pitches.  And when they get a series published, there’s still the pressure to keep the stories interesting enough to avoid cancellation, which are determined by readers’ votes.  You get the editors’ desperation in finding new material, in keeping existing series popular enough to avoid cancellation.  You get portrayals of other mangaka that are like archetypes: the genius savant who’s been living and breathing comics since early childhood who can tell what works and what doesn’t on instinct, the brash, punk rebel with the almost grotesque drawing style, the struggling second-stringer approaching middle age still desperately hoping to land a regular series, and the other type of genius, the moody, neurotic, self-obsessed moaner with natural instinct and talent who professes to hate comics, the business and work itself.  You see why artists need assistants to speed up the workload and make deadlines, the tantrums, the wars of attrition with editors, the panic when no good ideas come, what happens when creators are stuck with an editor who’s not on their wavelength, the health problems from overwork.  You’re even told about contract terms and page rates, which Marvel and DC tend to discourage freelancers from disclosing even to each other.   I don’t think there’s ever been a comic anywhere that so comprehensively exposes and teaches all the inner workings of the industry.  It’s also incredibly meta: the heroes have their manga published in Shonen Jump, the biggest comic title in Japan and also the anthology in which BAKUMAN itself is serialized.  Real life company heads and presidents make benign cameos, and even the artist hero’s chaste romance with his girlfriend is considered so unusual that it even becomes a manga series written by another creator.

It’s interesting to read BAKUMAN and compare it to the US comics industry.  There’s no pressure to make creators stick to a convoluted decades-old superhero continuity because there isn’t one – mangaka are expected to create their own stories and characters.  I’m sure US professionals will recognise some of the camaraderie and rivalries.  In BAKUMAN, the portrayal of the industry and its people is an idealized one.  In more than 600 pages of story so far, there’s none of the venal backstabbing or attempts at sabotaging someone’s work you tend to find in a competitive atmosphere.  Everyone is essentially honourable and well-meaning.  I suppose it’s how the Japanese like to see themselves, but that doesn’t lessen the rings of truth sprinkled throughout the series.  Ohba and Obata are clearly telling a story from their own experiences.

If BAKUMAN says one thing that’s absolutely true, it’s that there’s no happy-ever-after.  Life is a continuing series of struggles and you can’t afford to get lazy or complacent.  You have to earn every inch of triumph and success you get, so you’d better be doing something you love, or it’s going to be a frustrating, disappointing, wasted life.  It also shows that you need to be seriously obsessive to want to make comics.

BAKUMAN has been licensed by Viz for US publication in the near future.  I read some fan-translated chapters and looked through the original Japanese paperbacks at a Japanese bookshop.

Still not drawing anything at lookitmoves@gmail.com

© Adisakdi Tantimedh