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On this episode, we discuss the tenth prompt in the Books and Bites 2022 Reading Challenge, read a manga! Manga are comics or graphic novels that began in Japan. Since you read them from right to left instead of left to right, they can be challenging at first. But thanks to the wide variety of subject matter, you should be able to find something you'll enjoy.
Books and Bites
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.
10_22 Books and Bites
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[00:00:00] Carrie: Welcome to the Books and Bites podcast. Each month we bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them. I'm Carrie Green and I'm here with my co-hosts, Jacqueline Cooper and Michael Cunningham.
[00:00:13] Jacqueline: Hi.
[00:00:14] Michael: Hello.
[00:00:16] Carrie: Today we're talking about the 10th prompt in the Books and Bites Reading Challenge, manga.
And of course, this prompt was inspired by our former colleague and co-host Adam Wheeler, who is a big fan of manga .
[00:00:31] Michael: He was? I didn't,
[00:00:34] Carrie: You're surprised? It's kind of like saying Michael is a big fan of horror.
[00:00:39] Michael: Yep. ? No.
[00:00:44] Carrie: So I know Jacqueline, you read manga sometimes because you lead the manga club for teens. But what about you, Michael? Was this your first experience reading manga?
[00:00:57] Michael: No, this was actually my third. I read one for a youth literature course I took a coup, a few years ago in library school and then I read one about a year ago.
[00:01:12] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:13] Michael: So I'm still fairly new to manga.
[00:01:16] Carrie: Yeah. So it is, I think, challenging for adults who have never read it before because you're reading from right to left instead of left to right. And you're reading from what we would consider the back of the book to the front of the book. Do you guys have any tips for, for reading manga if it's your first time?
[00:01:45] Michael: You know, I didn't find it too difficult to get started. I found it to be pretty easy to kind of find out which way it goes. I don't know.
I didn't really have any issues.
[00:01:58] Jacqueline: I think it kind of depends on the manga.
[00:02:00] Michael: Probably.
[00:02:00] Jacqueline: Like this particular one didn't have it. Kind of, the boxes were pretty straightforward.
[00:02:05] Michael: Yeah.
[00:02:07] Jacqueline: I have read one, I have read some where the bo there's like a box in the middle and like a giant box and it didn't really go with the flow of the, like a regular reading of something would, like a com, a regular comic book or something.
So I think it's, it sometimes depends on the monga and for me it
seems to,
[00:02:28] Carrie: Yeah. Yeah, I, I agree with that. Couple things that I noticed, like I, the first book I picked up to read or to try to read. It was a classic book that had been turned into a manga. It was Anne of Green Gables and it had a little chart in the back to tell you, or actually in the front to tell you, you know, to kind of guide you to the flow.
So I referred to that. But I think even though, you know, the story is not originally Japanese, like reading a story that you already know, I think can be helpful
[00:03:03] Michael: Yeah.
[00:03:03] Carrie: in figuring out just, just in getting oriented
[00:03:06] Michael: mm-hmm.
[00:03:07] Carrie: to reading that way. The other thing is if you read a manga on hoopla, there are some on hoopla, and you use the frame by frame function, it'll just automatically take you to the next frame.
So that's maybe a little bit of a cheat, but, But you know,
[00:03:26] Michael: hey,
[00:03:26] Jacqueline: yeah,
[00:03:27] Carrie: yeah. Whatever, whatever works.
[00:03:29] Michael: Yeah.
[00:03:30] Jacqueline: Right.
[00:03:30] Carrie: And I was looking up some information about manga the other day on Novelist, and it pointed out a couple things that I had noticed in the mangas that I read, but I didn't realize they were genre features, is that they, there is both internal and external dialogue, so you get the characters.
I think a lot of times you get the characters, what they're thinking in boxes as well as what they're saying. So I thought that was an interesting delineation from like a comic book that we would think of.
[00:04:10] Jacqueline: Yeah, I noticed that in this one they had the Lucy, one of the characters she had this inner dialogue and it was kind of funny because her,
one thing, the illustration, the depiction of her was different than the reg. Like the image of her was different than the the other dialogue.
[00:04:30] Carrie: Mm-hmm. ,
[00:04:30] Jacqueline: the external dialogue. I thought that was like an interesting feature that they did.
[00:04:34] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:04:35] Jacqueline: to give you that clue. Oh, this is her thinking.
[00:04:37] Carrie: Yeah. Mm-hmm. , and they're pretty short.
Most of them, or at least the ones that I picked. I did see some that were massively long and. Skipped those, but you know, you could probably expect to get this done in one sitting. I would, I would
say,
[00:04:57] Michael: yeah.
[00:04:58] Jacqueline: It didn't really take me that long to read it. I, I found that I thought it was gonna take longer, but when I just really made myself focus and say, Okay, let's go ahead, I ended up actually kind of enjoying it.
[00:05:09] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:11] Jacqueline: after I got, after I really got started. I haven't read a whole lot of manga, but in the past, I always kind of felt like it was somewhat of a chore where I would end up reading it the same page three or four times. And I think it was maybe the, the setup like of those particular ones was like, Okay, I read this page three times, , which way am I supposed to be reading?
But something clicked. I don't know if it was just the way that this was an easier one.
[00:05:41] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:41] Jacqueline: but it just seemed to like click more this time.
[00:05:45] Carrie: All right. Well, yeah, mine was, I think, fairly easy too, So we've got at least two easy ones to recommend. What about yours?
[00:05:53] Michael: Yeah, it was pretty straightforward, like
[00:05:55] Carrie: Okay.
[00:05:55] Michael: I didn't have any issues orienting myself to it.
[00:05:58] Carrie: Okay.
[00:06:09] Michael: My manga pick is Remina by Junji Ito. Junji Ito is a prolific horror manga writer and artist who, as I've come to learn, is hugely popular and has a massive following. My first introduction. To Junji Ito was his short story collection, Venus in the Blind Spot. I read last year on a recommendation which contained some original and utterly terrifying stories.
I found Ramina to be in the same vein of terrifying original blending elements of science fiction and cosmic horror to great effect. Remina opens with a mysterious planet from another dimension appearing in her galaxy after traveling through a warm hole in the Hydra constellation. Professor Ogero who makes his discovery, decides to name the planet actor's beautiful daughter Remina.
Remina, a shy and modest girl now thrust into the limelight, isn't prepared to be an overnight celebrity. She's immediately bombarded with requests for guest appearances, endorsements, and the undying love from the rabid fan base. Remina reluctantly signs with a agency to handle her, her overwhelming offers.
The world just can't seem to get enough of Remina. That's until her name's sake of a planet starts behaving strangely, moving at the speed of light straight for earth with every planet and star in its path disappearing. When news reaches the masses that the planet Remina has headed straight for earth, mass hysteria spreads across the world.
I state of worshiping Remina. They now accuse her of being a witch who's calling the planet to, to earth, to destroy it. And now they must kill her. To call off the planet before Earth is dev. I'm still really new to Ito's work and manga in general, but I've really enjoyed what I've read so far. I found Remina to be a subtly complex manga combining on a range of things like celebrity worship, mass hysteria, and even privilege
to an extent, I thought the artwork was exceptional, enhancing the writing and making it that much more terrifying and effective. I thought the rendering of the planet Remina in its surface was especially horrifying, reminding me of HR Geiger's visual design on the film Alien, but minus the machine element.
I paired this with a. Hitachino Nest White Ale brewed from the Kiuchi Brewery in Naka Japan, brewed in the Belgian wet style. It's a perfect refreshing beverage with notes of coriander, orange peel and a hint of nutmeg. It presents a nice juxtaposition from the madness to the sins and earth in Junji Ito's Remina.
[00:08:34] Carrie: So was your manga in the adult section or the teen section?
[00:08:37] Michael: This is in the adult section. Most of, I believe, most of the Juni Ito's work that we have, except for maybe one or two titles is in the adult.
[00:08:48] Carrie: Mm-hmm. .
Yeah. I, I was kind of browsing a little bit in the adult section, and I noticed it was mainly the horror manga.
[00:08:58] Michael: There's a lot of horror manga over there. Yeah,
[00:09:00] Carrie: That was in the adult section.
[00:09:03] Michael: Yeah.
[00:09:03] Carrie: It seemed like most everything else was in teen.
[00:09:06] Jacqueline: I wonder why?
[00:09:10] Michael: I don't know who, who purchases the graphic novels? .
[00:09:14] Jacqueline: Oh, well. So did you find that any particular illustration, particularly horrifying?
[00:09:21] Michael: The ones that I found particularly terrifying was when there's, there's a part in the story where they go, they try to land on the planet.
And just the surface topography is this utterly horrifying. If you ever watch the movie Alien
[00:09:41] Jacqueline: mm-hmm.
[00:09:41] Michael: and like the design of the creature and maybe the spaceship, it kind of reminded me that, but less machine and more natural, I mean, this was like tentacles and other things that are all over the place.
It's, it's pretty freaky.
[00:09:58] Carrie: Do you think, do the images make it more horrifying than reading a horror or did that not matter to you?
[00:10:07] Michael: Sometimes I think less can be definitely in horror, less can be more. But some stories I feel, feel like when it comes to maybe the cosmic sci-fi stuff, I think if you can see the visual
of what the author intends it to be.
[00:10:22] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:22] Michael: can make it let, can add or enhance the the poor.
[00:10:27] Carrie: I sometimes feel like that with graphic novels, that sad graphic novels are even sadder than sad books. Because of the image. Yes. Working with it, which is kind of why I stopped reading sad graphic novels. I was like, I just need like the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
[00:10:53] Michael: I know. I, I feel like you know, when I read a book, a novel, you know, you got, I have that movie playing my head
[00:11:00] Carrie: mm-hmm.
[00:11:00] Michael: but then, you know
[00:11:02] Jacqueline: mm-hmm.
[00:11:03] Michael: you can always kind of change it or you visualize different, but then when you have a graphic representation of it, it, I don't know, just it's right there and you can see it and it can be,
where you can, you can kind of downplay it in your head. You can't so much on the page.
[00:11:18] Carrie: Yeah. .
[00:11:19] Jacqueline: True.
Do you have these images come up when you're trying to sleep or anything like,
[00:11:26] Michael: Nah.
[00:11:27] Jacqueline: Okay. , Sorry, had to ask that.
[00:11:30] Carrie: He's totally insensitized.
[00:11:33] Michael: It don't bug me.
[00:11:45] Carrie: So the manga I read is called She and Her Cat. And the story is by Makoto Shinkai and the art is by Tsubasa Yamaguchi. She and her Cat is based on an anime of the same title by Makoto Shinkai. The manga is told primarily from the point of view of a rescued cat, Chobi, as she observes her human Miyu through the four seasons.
Miyu is a young woman just out of college who lose alone with Chobi in an apartment in the city. Miyu is struggling in her newfound adulthood. She has trouble socializing at work and she already feels pressure to get married. "It's like I'm the only one that's not accustomed to the world," Miyu thinks. Miyu seems sad and lonely much of the time.
Chobi observes her loneliness, but notes, ""I do not comprehend her sadness. Chobi loves Miyu and wants to comfort her. Though sometimes he expresses his loves in ways that seem slightly creepy as when he says, "she was beautiful as a lover" , or tells his cat girlfriend that he has a "Grown-up lover."
Hopefully these moments are just slightly mistranslations from the original Japanese because the overall tone of the book is sweet. It's a quiet and gentle read that might offer hope to anyone struggling with adulting. She and Her Cat makes a good introductory manga because the drawings and layout aren't too busy.
Once I got the hang of reading from right to left, I found it fairly easy to follow. I enjoyed the drawings' realistic depictions of both domestic and urban life. Chobi is especially adorable with his chubby white fur and enormous eyes. Enjoy She and Her Cat with a big bowl of Sapporo Soup Curry from the book Japanese Soul Cooking by Tadashi Ono.
Miyu loves to cook big batches of food and stock her freezer with them, but when she gets sick, it's her old college friend who makes soup to warm her up. Although most Japanese-style curries are thicker than the British-style curries they were adapted from, this chicken and vegetable curry from the city of Sapporo would be an ideal soup for when you're feeling under the weather.
The recipe calls for eggplant, zucchini, and red pepper. So it's also a great dish for using up the last of the summer vegetables. And then I had another short one that I wanted to mention, which is one that Adam recommended a while ago. Dragon Goes Househunting, story by Kawo Tanuki and art by Choco Aya. Uh, I read most of Dragon Goes Househunting, and it's a manga that Adam recommended on the podcast for the 2021 Reading Challenge.
It's about a timid dragon named Letty who is looking for a dream home with a help of a demon lord/ real estate agent. I found this one a little more challenging to read, but it is very funny. If you're looking for something a little lighter that pokes fun of typical dragon tropes, try this series opener. And you can learn more about the book from Adam in episode 58 of the podcast, Books from a Non-human Perspective.
[00:15:24] Jacqueline: That's interesting.
I think it's interesting that there's a lot of demons in manga. I'm not , . And the teams seem to really, Yeah, the teens really seem to, to like demons. Like those are some of the most popular ones,
[00:15:42] Carrie: huh
[00:15:42] Jacqueline: with the demonn.
[00:15:44] Carrie: Well, this what demon, I mean, this demon is also not scary. Like it's, it's more humorous than scary and it kind of plays with the.
Plays with the genre features, I guess, of traditional manga. But it is, it is pretty funny that he's also a real estate agent. ,
[00:16:05] Jacqueline: Aren't they all demons?
[00:16:09] Carrie: I wasn't going to say it, but...
[00:16:15] Jacqueline: Just kidding. I was just kidding.
[00:16:16] Carrie: And you know, I also think it shows that there is a lot of variety in manga because I found, you know this pretty gentle read about a young woman and her cat, but there's also funny stuff and
[00:16:31] Jacqueline: mm-hmm.
[00:16:32] Michael: Violent stuff.
[00:16:34] Jacqueline: Yeah.
[00:16:35] Carrie: Demons.
[00:16:35] Michael: Demons, chainsaw man.
[00:16:37] Jacqueline: You'd probably really like manga the more you read it.
Cause there is a lot of demons, but maybe I don't. The line between horror we were talking about, where is the line between thriller and horror or
[00:16:52] Michael: Yeah. You know, you know, like in her, in, in that case, you know, they're demons, but it's not, not necessarily horror.
[00:16:59] Carrie: Mm-hmm. ,
[00:17:00] Michael: so,
[00:17:01] Carrie: Yep.
[00:17:01] Jacqueline: Yeah.
For this month's prompt, I chose to read Fairytale, Volume one, written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima. Hope I pronounce that right. And one of the reasons I chose it is that many librarians consider this a core item for manga collection. Additionally, this year will mark this manga's 16th anniversary. Another reason I selected this manga is because it was announced during the Hiro Mashima Fan meeting livestream event that the anime spinoff of this Manga Fairytale a hundred Year Quest will be released this fall, and generally with teens when a manga is animated, it comes, the title and other titles by that author become quite popular.
The book's, Darkly Illustrated introduction explains to the readers that they're entering a magical world with villains who like to stir up trouble. The villains are meeting to discuss their problems, and the leader claims that the Fairytale Guild is a problem that they need to solve quickly. These characters not only let the reader know that Fairytale Guild members are the good guys, but they also introduce the reader to some of the villains.
The book opens with the young man Natsu, who was arriving on a train to the town of Hargeon. Natsu is a young boy who gets ill when he travels and eats enormous amounts of food. His best friend is happy, a magical cat who travels everywhere with him. Natsu is really a dragon slayer, and part of the Fairytale Guild.
Natsu and other members of the guild go on a quest to battle evil. Another main character is Lucy, a Girl Wizard. Lucy is very ambitious and wants to join Fairy Tale. She comes across a group of women running to meet a famous magician, Salamander, who claims to be the popular wizard Salamander, the fire dragon.
When they meet this wizard, Lucy, and a group of young women becomes starstruck. Lucy thinks she's falling in love with him, but doesn't understand why. "Why is my heart racing like this? Is it become, he's a famous wizard? Is that why my heart's beating so fast, or could I be falling in...?" Natsu and Happy are looking for Igneel, a fire dragon who's been misbehaving, and they wonder if this salamander is Igneel, since they've never heard of another existing fire dragon. When they hear all the commotion and realize that salamander is in the crowd of people,
Natsu breaks through the crowd of women who are gathered with hearts in their eyes in the illustration, and he begins shouting for. Is this Solomon or Igneel, a fire dragon who's been misbehaving, he wonders. Natsu's appearance breaks the low spell that the Wizard placed on Lucy, but not the other women. And Natsu explains to Lucy the Wizard is using illegal magical charms to trick women into falling in love.
The wizard realized that Lucy is gone and seeks her out because she's so beautiful. However, when Natsu sees Lucy with Salamander, he follows them and discovers that the boat is full of pirates and young women. This manga has a lot more going on after this, but I'll stop here because I don't wanna spoil it for the readers.
And the manga plot jumps around a lot, so it is confusing to follow the storyline. And I think there might be some translation errors because in many places this story just kind of doesn't make any sense. But overall, it's a cute story and I found this structure easy to follow, making it an excellent choice for someone who's just beginning to read manga.
And there's a glossary in the front that explains honorifics, which are English equivalents of Mr. and Mrs, et cetera. And it also talks about how they're used differently in Japanese culture. I believe this glossary is helpful to new readers since these play an essential role in Japanese language.
According to the author, they are often incorrectly translated because English language doesn't have the same nuances as the Japanese language. And I would recommend this title to 11 years old and up, even though the rating is 13 plus. I believe the rating is due to some sexual innuendos rather than the storyline or the plot.
There's often a lot of female objectification in manga and Fairytale is not exempt from this practice. For instance, in this manga, all the characters are depicted with curvy bodies and they're well endowed. Also, there's a scene where Lucy negotiates purchasing with what she refers to as her sex appeal to bargain for a lower price and that could potentially send the wrong message to young people.
I would pair this with a classic Japanese ramen since Natsu loves to eat large quantities of food, and I find that dish particularly filling the recipe I chose is from Pinch of Yum. I've used Lindsay's recipes many times, and they're easy to follow and very yummy.
[00:22:16] Carrie: What does the recipe include? What did the dish have in it?
[00:22:21] Jacqueline: It has eggs and carrots and of course it does have dried ramen noodles and onion and just kind of the classic ramen.
[00:22:30] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:31] Jacqueline: It's pretty good. And it typically, if you like ramen, I think you'd like it.
[00:22:36] Carrie: Yeah. I love ramen. The recipes I was looking at. One said it was, you know, for home cooking and it was like hand making the ramen noodles and you know, and the broth is like this very involved thing too.
So anyway, yeah, I decided, I decided not to, not to do. The curry seemed easier than the, the ramen, I mean, if you're, if you're doing like a, which I don't think there's anything wrong with, you know, for us making, making dried, using the dried noodles, either.
There used to be a, a really good ramen place in Lexington. I've seen another one, but I haven't eaten there yet. So you could potentially go out and get some ramen instead of, instead of trying to make it yourself too.
[00:23:28] Jacqueline: Yeah, she makes her own broth, but she doesn't make her own noodles. I don't know that I would wanna attempt making
[00:23:34] Carrie: yeah,
[00:23:35] Jacqueline: making noodles either. but she does call it homemade.
[00:23:41] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:41] Jacqueline: So
[00:23:44] Carrie: I've also seen a recipe, I don't know if I've talked about it on Books and Bites before, or not, I can't remember the chef. It is a pretty well known chef, but he has this trick for making, you know, like the store bought ramen packets taste better and it's putting a slice of American cheese in the ramen and it kind of melts and makes it all like, Yeah, I know.
It's interesting.
[00:24:15] Michael: Wow.
[00:24:16] Jacqueline: I like to put an egg in. I buy like a veggie ramen and I like to put it just a hardboiled egg just seems to make it, it makes it more filling and it tastes, I think it makes it taste better too.
[00:24:28] Carrie: Yeah. Put an egg on it.
[00:24:30] Jacqueline: Yeah.
[00:24:39] Carrie: Thanks for listening to the Books and Bites podcast. For more information about the Books and Bites reading challenge, visit our website at jesspublib.org/books-bites. Our theme music is "The Breakers" by Scott Whiddon from his album In Close Quarters with the Enemy. Find out more about Scott and his music on his website
adoorforadesk.com.