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Category: Manga

Information and discussion about the latest in Japanese manga.

Harlequin at Yaoi Con – Really?

I don’t know what I have against this company, except that they’re known for producing sappy romance novels involving happy endings with heterosexual couples getting married and having babies. There’s always the stereotypical alpha male hero and the blushing – OMG, I hate him, but I love him, but I can’t have sex with him – heroine. I…HATE…THAT. In fact, I think this type of romance novel is the very reason I’ve never read one before I started writing fanfiction and the only type of romance novel I’ve ever read is M/M or Yaoi.

I don’t know, maybe I’m a bit jaded and I’m going to get a bit personal here. After two failed attempts at marriage and four miscarriages I just see this fairy tale as being a complete farce in today’s society. Now that I’m settled with my two boys, one adopted from Russia, and NOT tied down in a marriage anymore, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. And I know I’m not alone here. My therapist (think I haven’t had therapy with what I went through? LOL) said the average number of marriages today are three.

So this sort of thing doesn’t seem real to me and I don’t see it being real to the majority of younger readers – I’m talking Generation X or Y or whatever the heck anyone under the age of 40 or so is being called these days.

Now back to Harlequin, the book mecca of all things neat and orderly and in their place (love before sex, marriage before sex, marriage before baby, all babies and husbands are perfect, a woman can’t be happy without a husband and gay people don’t exist – oh, I could just scream). So I hear they have a manga line. I hear they’ve even hired mangakas to do the artwork for their manga line. And they even showed them off at Yaoi Con in San Francisco. BUT THEY STILL HAVE THE REDICULOUS STORIES ABOUT LITTLE BO PEEP FINDING HER PRINCE CHARMING IN THE LATE 1880’S.  *falls over with a seizure*

Okay, I’m better now.What retarded impulse led them to think women who like to see two beautiful, androgynous guys engage in ass-play would want to read that garbage? That sort of thing is like the anti-christ for a Yaoi fan! I mean, being in the industry, I’ve heard all sorts of things about not having any women at all on the book covers of M/M books (not even really tiny and in the background) or the girl-cooties will make it unsellable to M/M readers. AND THEY BRING THESE THINGS TO YAOI CON??? *falls over again*

Okay, I’m back. I think I’ve had too much coffee, LOL. I was thinking I should post an image here to prove my point of how stupid these things are, but I can’t stand the thought even having one of the book covers on my blog. So you’ll have to go look for yourself: http://manga.about.com/b/2009/12/14/8-harlequin-romance-comics-debut-on-emanga-com.htm

And yes, I know that by posting this I’m giving them publicity and even negative publicity is good publicity, but I just can’t help myself. If you find you like that sort of thing, have at it. I won’t judge you (okay, maybe a bit 😉 )

So what do you all think about this? Should Harlequin finally break out of their tiny little mold and face reality and make some real Yaoi titles? How about opening the door to the M/M genre? Just to combat all this hetero romance stuff, I need a Yoai pic (I love this pic, BTW):

Who’s Your Favorite Yaoi Pairing?

Most of us who love Yaoi love fanfiction. Am I right? I know I found out about Yaoi through such websites as Fanfiction.net, Adult Fanfiction.net and Deviant Art. The first time I read a fanfic, I think it was about Inuyasha and Koga and I was…intrigued. I thought to myself, am I not the only woman on the face of the Earth who found Brokeback Mountain to be about the hottest movie I ever saw (besides Interview with the Vampire)?
And low and behold, I am not! I’ve even found some of my friends who thought they’d never like this sort of thing actually loved it when they read some of my work (not to toot my own horn here).
So the question for today is: Who’s your favorite Yaoi pairing? Personally, my first was Roy Mustang and Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist. I’ve written countless fanfictions about these two, some of which are really bad because, well, I was just getting started and had no idea how to write fiction (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!). If you really care to read these, you can find them here: Animegeik on Fanfiction.net
I have to say, RoyxEd is still my favorite. There’s just something about the dynamic of these two that’s just plain hot – is it the older/younger thing or the calm/hot-headed thing? Or how about the master/servant thing (*.*)?

But then I started watching Gundam Wing, Gundam Seed, Gundam Seed Destiny and Gundam 00. All those hot dudes, lots of angst and always a pair of friends on either side of the war. Perfect for getting the Yaoi fanfiction juices flowing, so to speak. Out of those series, I think my favorites are: DuoxHiro, KiraxAthrun, and LockonxAllelujah. Too bad I can’t seem to find too much of the latter:(

Of course, Death Note is infamously popular with the LxLight(Kira) pair. Again, something about the two heros being on opposing sides makes it that much more hot. I wonder, did the makers of Death Note know that fangirls and boys would forever swoon and write fics about L and Light being handcuffed together? I bet they did and I bet they wrote the story that way for that very fact!

So the question remains: who is your favorite Yaoi pairing?

Regards,

Christie

What’s up with American Animation?

Here’s one of my biggest pet peeves – American animation. It sucks, for the most part.
I mean really, the Japanese get Final Fantasy with its plethora of hot guys and cool motorcycles and long, thick…swords…
And we in America get what? Shrek 🙁
Don’t get me wrong, I do like Shrek. I have all three movies on DVD. I thought it was quite funny.
But I mean, come on people – these are characters you can draw, characters you make up, characters that can be as hot or not as you like, so why not make them hot? Why not give us some eye candy for crying out loud?
Why be happy with this:
When you can have this?:
 And what about the art? Most American animation has only one level of color (for lack of a technical way to describe it) while the Japanese use three. I’m talking about a main color, a shadow and a highlight. The details in the backgrounds on Japanese animation is incredible as well.
Think Family Guy or The Simpson’s versus, well, anything Japanese, Full Metal Alchemist, Death Note and holy cow, Ergo Proxy or Howl’s Moving Castle or Gankutsuou (yep, I’m an AlbertxFranz fan).

Is it just that most American animation is meant to be comical and therefore we just accept crappy cartoons? Many anime are funny as well – how about Fruit’s Basket and what about how many hot guys were in that show?

Bottom line here is, although I do adore The Simpson’s, Family Guy, and all those lovely Pixar movies for their comedic value, I really really really wish the forces that be in America would wake up and give us what the Japanese have gotten all along – truely artistic animation, intriguing storylines (hey, I didn’t even touch on that subject…) and lot and lots of eye candy.

Regards,

Christie