You may have noticed that I’ve added a profile to this blog. I never really wanted to do that because I’m not particularly photogenic, and I thought that certain things would be obvious…

1) I am a woman. I thought that that was always fairly obvious, as my name – Erica – ends with a final “a”, which usually denotes a female version of a male name. I.e., Patricia, to Patrick, Edwina to Edwin…Erica to Eric. For some reason, my obviously female name does not indicate *enough* that I am not a man. Nor do my comments in this blog that mention that I am a lesbian. Therefore, to make it easy, let me be blunt. I am a woman and a lesbian. Not a guy. No matter HOW many action/porn/shounen things I review, I am still not a guy.

2) I have NOT, in any way shape or form, mastered Japanese. I am not fluent. I am not incorruptibly, unequivocally correct in my translations. I’m barely limping along, ekeing meaning out of this wonderful language with hours of effort a day. I am always glad to be told when I got something wrong by someone who is fluent.

3) I have taught myself Japanese. I have not taken any classes (unless you count the year I did my wife’s Japanese class homework along with her, because I thought it would be fun. And I sucked as badly as anyone else in the class. LOL But it was fun.) I am still teaching myself Japanese, which is probably a bad idea, but all I have time for. As a result my reading skills are fair, my listening skills are uneven and erratic, my writing skills are poor and my speaking skills are appalling.

So, frankly, when people write me and whine that they cannot read Japanese, I don’t really think that’s a valid complaint, because it takes no more than desire and time to learn. It’s not a particularly difficult language, especially as compared with English. It IS difficult to master, like any language. If you want to learn – shut up and learn. There is no Matrix chip. Just time and effort. I’ve given myself a timeline of about 20 years before I expect to be reasonably fluent, at least in reading. Get back to me in 15 years and I’ll let you know how it’s going. (Think about it – when you are born, you’re practicing you language skills EVERY WAKING MINUTE. And it still takes you 7 years to be able to speak with any skill – 14 to write with any and 20 for you to have anything interesting to say. So get a real timeline – not two classes. Not two years. 20 years.)

4) I do not take any of my opinions seriously. If I offend you, it’s you. (Read my rules of life in my profile for clarification.)

5) I buy my manga and anime in a variety of places. I am asked often where I get things. Here’s the list of places I use to get anime and manga:

Anime: Amazon (clicking through the Yuricon Shop, if it’s not listed)

Manga: Amazon; Amazon JP, Sanseido Bookstore; more rarely Kinokuniya or Asahiya for Japanese-language.

I am VERY lucky to have a Sanseido not 40 minutes from my house, and a Kinokuniya and Asahiya in NYC which is just over an hour away. But if I’m in a rush, or it’s not a generally popular title – or is a novel, like all the new Marimite novels, I get them from Amazon JP.

6) I am old and curmudgeonly. I get alot of puppies emailing me, using “u r” for “you are” and it irritates me. If you’d like to email me with a question, I would be much less rude if you used common, casual language. I just want you to be coherent, avoid stage directions like “tilts head” and “bounces up and down” or stuttering in text, “so, like, uh, yeah,”. I’m not asking you to be over formal, either. Just be normal, please. If you are not a native English-speaker, you absolved from having to write normally, but frankly, most of the non-native English speakers who write me have excellent grammar comparitively. I am not 20ish – it was a long time ago that I was. If you are asking me how old I am, I am old enough to be your mother – in many cases your grandmother. How do I know this? Because only people under 20 or so ever ask my age. So write to me as if you are addressing an elder. Which you are. ^_^

7) Last but not least – I am not Japanese.  Friedman is a German word that means “Free man” and was taken by many serfs and slaves when they were able to purchase their freedom. I am not German, but for some reason, my family has a German name. I imagine there was some German influence waaaaaaay back. My first name is Old Norse and means “leader” if you care. I am not Norwegian either. Neither am I Japanese. For the record.

Actually, this is the last thing – remember, you can be mean back to me, but you have to be FUNNY too. If you’re already a friend of mine, I know you are mean and funny. The rest of you can feel to practice in the comments section. Being mean and unfunny is just dull and stupid-sounding. Don’t try to be clever when you reply to this entry…you’ll sound like you’re trying too hard and we’ll all be embarrassed. ^_^

This is an adaptation of an article I wrote on July 31, 2000 for a website that no longer exists. I was a site administrator at the time, and one of the conditions of my position was to write…publish or perish, in fact. I was cranking out quite a few anime and manga reviews…and no one had a clue what I was writing about. So I received many questions about this “anime” stuff. :-) I thought it was funny to see how little my opinions have changed in 5 years…and I wanted to share with you all. :-)

Here’s my response to the most common question I received, in essay form:

Of course, as I rant and rave about all the anime and manga I consume, I’m eventually asked, “what *is* it about this stuff that you like so much?”

I love that question. :-)

For one thing, if there is a single quality that exists in anime that nearly completely lacks in Western animation, it has to be character development. How many times can we see the gang in Scooby-Doo find that the bad guys wears a mask and was really the old caretaker, before we start to crave something more?

Over the course of a 26-episode series, or a 10-volume comic, the one thing I can practically count on is the emotional growth and complexity of all the characters – not just the hero/ine, but also the bad guy/girl, all the secondary characters and frequently tertiary characters as well.

But that’s not what this article is about. ;-) This article is about all the *other* things I love so much in anime and manga – the qualities that make it so popular, and why it was inevitable that anime and manga be created specifically in a culture where there is a tremendous social pressure to conform.

1) Anime/manga heroes are usually “different.”

It is an axiom here in the west that we are all unique. Not so in Japan, where those who stand out are frequently pressured to conform by schoolmates, coworkers and family. “Pounding in the nail” is the phrase that is used to express the collective desire to keep everyone at the same level. Very often the hero/ine of an anime or manga series is different – too tall, too short, bad at schoolwork, a complete brain. It doesn’t matter much – as long as the character stands out. Conversely, (and somewhat perversely) the character is occasionally average, but the circumstances of the series make them unusual – these series usually are filled with gags as the unwitting hero/ine attempts to seem “normal” as things around them fall apart. And, of course, many series portray a perfectly average hero/ine surrounded by many people of extraordinary looks and/or powers…frequently of the opposite sex.

2) Taboos are not.

Many people assume that anime/manga series are all pornographic. That is not at all the case. While Americans are obsessed with violence, but complete hypocrites when it comes to sex, the opposite is the rule in Japan – they tend to be more sqeuamish about violence than sex. Many of those things that we consider taboo are dealt with in a less Victorian manner in anime/manga.

Up until recent social pressures began to affect the laws of Japan, teenagers in Japan were assumed to be (or about to be) sexually active, and thus series’ directed at them often deal with sex and love in a reasonably direct way. Mind you – this doesn’t mean it’s realistic! From what I’ve seen it pretty much ends up doing what western series do, portraying it as all violins, flowers floating by and hazy lighting, OR nasty dirty demonic sex. There rarely seems to be a happy medium.

Anime and manga often have gender-bending characters. Cross-dressers, gays or lesbians – some of the coolest characters in anime and manga are the bent ones. This does not mean that Japan is more accepting of these qualities in real life – just that it’s less threatening in *theory.* Plus, let’s face it – women look good in ties. ;-) Also, strong emotional, even sexual relationships are considered normal for Japanese kids – relationships that are left behind as part of their childhood when they get older and get married. It goes back to the sex thing – it just isn’t a scary concept.

3) Magic and the occult are everywhere.

Another sticking point for many Westeners – Japan is not a Christian country. Their religion is primarily a shamanic one, centered around fertility and harvest festivals. Does this mean that the average Japanese salaryman believes in magic? No. No more than the average American office worker. But they like to see it in their anime! And so do I.

***

To sum up, from my years watching anime and reading manga, I’ve noticed that many of the themes dealt with in these media are *not* what the average Japanese person wants to cope with. The pressures of remaining in conformation with societal norms are rather enormous. I believe that many of the things that make anime and manga so popular are those very things that make life difficult in Japan. In effect, anime and manga are a giant cultural “acting out” of things that can’t be dealt with easily in real life.

For me, these qualities are some of the most attractive things about this
particular form of entertainment.

***

And there you have it – I’m pretty much *still* watching and reading anime and manga for exactly the above reasons. :-)

And I promise – more reviews coming soon!

This is my list of go-to translation tools:

NJStar Communicator which allows me to type in kana or kanji from my keyboard

Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC Server, Translate Words Page, which allows me to type (or cut and paste) kanji directly into the box and get definitions. (Beware, though – this ONLY translates kanji well. It is seriously less good at hiragana and doesn’t account for most alternate forms of words.)

and

Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC Server, Multiradical Kanji Lookup. Since I don’t have a kanji dictionary at work, this page is invaluable. It allows me to find kanji I don’t already know, just by clicking on the radicals that make up the character.

And while I’m on the subject, I also frequently use Jeffrey’s Japanese-English Dictionary Server. This is a romaji translator, i.e., you put in the romaji spelling of a Japanese word (or an English one) and get the equivalent in the other language. My recommendation is to set the Japanese text image color to “black” and don’t use the in-line function. If you play around with this site, you’ll see what I mean.

When I’m at home, I use the NTC’s New Japanese-English Character Dictionary for kanji lookup. It’s pretty nifty, once you get used to it, I think.

and

Sanseido’s Concise Japanese-English Dictionary. This book is worth its weight in gold, I swear. Not only does it include common usage of any word, but frequently has idioms and slang, as well. I strongly recommend this book, especially if you’re reading manga that has unusual, or technical, terminology.

Anyway – there’s my “secrets” to translation, in case you ever wondered. ^_^