Bonus Podcast: 2022 January - Manga Medley (Patreon)

And we're back, with our second patron-exclusive bonus podcast (with transcript)! As requested, episodes going forward will be uploaded directly to Patreon and available via RSS feed so you can also listen to them on supported podcatchers.

This month, managing editors Vrai, Dee, and Caitlin chat about some of the manga they've been reading recently, including titles both super-niche and, uh... maybe not so much.

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Episode Transcript:

VRAI: Hello, patrons, and welcome to another episode of our bonus podcast that we don’t have a name for yet.

CAITLIN: Whoo!

DEE: I’m currently voting on Patronizing AF. Let us know what you think in the comments, folks. Patronizing AF, the Anime Feminist bonus podcast for patrons!

VRAI: [crosstalk] The answer is no.

[Laughter]

VRAI: This is month two, but we haven’t heard your feedback yet because we are recording this at the same time as our December bonus. But rest assured we do value your thoughts on how these are going and what you’d like to see in future, what you liked and didn’t like, so on and so forth.

To ring in 2022, we are talking about 2021, as is traditional, specifically what we’ve been reading over the past year, manga-wise. For a 30-minute episode, we’re only probably going to have time to touch on one or two series apiece. But we thought it would be a good chance to talk about things that we’re, A, reading but maybe isn’t finished or that we maybe don’t like enough to think it’s a good rec for the site, or that is easier to talk about in a loose way rather than the very structured themed formats of the Manga Variety Hours, which I know that a lot of you folks have been asking for more of. So this is kind of a more casual version of that.

DEE: I don’t know. These titles could show up again on our Manga Variety Hours if they’re ongoing. But yeah, it’s casual, it’s chill. That’s how we do on Patronizing AF!

[Chuckling]

VRAI: You wanted us to talk about manga, so we’re doing the thing.

DEE: [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: And we’re gonna do it in a really patronizing way apparently.

DEE: For our patrons!

VRAI: [Laughs] Okay, all right, Caitlin, you go first. What have you been reading?

CAITLIN: Fuck! Ah! I don’t know! I forgot— No.

DEE: You sprung it on her.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: So I jotted down a few series. One that I want to talk about, that there’s not really any particular space to talk about on the site, is Heterogenia Linguistico, which is a series that is laser-targeted at me and probably about a dozen other people out in the world, which is about a young man going into the underworld, which is where all the monsters are, like werewolves and harpies and minotaurs, et cetera, et cetera, going out there and then doing linguistic field studies of their languages.

VRAI: That sounds delightful.

DEE: It actually is pretty good. I read the first volume. Keep going, Caitlin. Sorry.

CAITLIN: It’s really good. Sometimes his field notes feel a little bit more anthropological, but all of the technical linguistic stuff is right. It’s really, really cool seeing how different species with different vocal cords and different conceptions of the world find ways to communicate and what their own languages are. If you cannot produce speech, what are the gesture languages? And if you cannot produce those gestures, how are you going to communicate with someone who does? It’s super interesting.

I think some people might find it a little dry. It’s not super character-based. The characters are there and they’re very endearing, but they’re not super well-developed.

But yeah, no, I just find it absolutely delightful to read it and be like, “I know what this obscure term they’re using means. Ha-ha! I’m smart!” [Chuckles] And I love linguistics, and you don’t see it represented a lot accurately in fiction. A lot of times it’s like, “I’m a linguist, so I speak ten languages!” And I speak like one and a half, and I studied linguistics.

DEE: Yeah, it’s a broad range. Linguistics is a broad… Like you were saying, there’s some anthropology stuff in there but anthropological linguistics is also a field. Then there’s the more… I don’t know, “mathematical” is not exactly the word for it, but the more…

CAITLIN: More science-y, like phonetics…

DEE: Hard science as opposed to soft science. Is that the distinction?

CAITLIN: I guess. Phonetics is all based on how you pronounce sounds, how the mouth moves.

DEE: [crosstalk] Right, phonetic linguistics. That was the word I was looking for.

CAITLIN: Stuff like that. And then you get stuff that’s more philosophical, like semantics or pragmatics—which, pragmatics is the linguistics of conversation. You get stuff that’s interdisciplinary, like psycholinguistics or… my personal favorite is sociolinguistics. So yeah, it’s a very, very broad field. So yeah, it’s really cool to see it in a medium that I love and written in fiction by someone who actually seems to know what they’re talking about.

DEE: I love that about manga. I love how many niche hyper-specific interest-type titles there are and how different series explore them. How many volumes into it are you, Caitlin?

CAITLIN: I have the third one. I don’t think I’ve read it yet.

DEE: Okay, I’ve read the first one. It’s weirdly more expensive than other Yen Press titles, which is probably why I haven’t picked up the others yet.

CAITLIN: It’s a nice release.

DEE: It’s a very nice release, but I think because they did a nicer-quality cover and paper and there’s some color pages in there, I think that bumped up the price a smidge. I liked it. My question is… Like you said, there’s not a ton of character development, but between the two leads, they’re just kind of continuing to explore stuff. It’s one I definitely want to keep reading. I’m just hesitant on if I want to commit to buying it. So it’s like, can my public library pick it up? That would be swell.

CAITLIN: Yeah, I think that’s fair.

DEE: Yeah. But I enjoyed it a lot, too.

CAITLIN: I just remembered, I actually looked at the name of the translator, who… Let me see if I can reach. [Roars with effort] There we go.

DEE: [Laughs] We’re keeping that in, obviously!

CAITLIN: Amanda Haley, who is, as far as I can tell, not on social media. So I actually sent an email to Yen Press being like, "Hey, she’s doing a fucking incredible job with all this linguistics terminology that can’t be easy to translate."

DEE: Yeah, I’m sure. That’s awesome. I’m glad you’re enjoying that one.

VRAI: Nice. Well, I will put my money where my mouth is and go next. A lot this past year, I have been dedicated to the question of “Is Beastars good?” But because I already have a thread dedicated to that ongoing pursuit on Twitter, I actually want to talk about another series I’ve been reading instead, which is Blood on the Tracks by Oshimi.

DEE: Also because nobody knows if Beastars is good. Absolutely nobody.

VRAI: No one will ever know.

DEE: No one will ever know. It’s complete. I am sure we will turn the final page and still be debating whether or not Beastars is good for the next decade.

[Chuckling]

VRAI: [crosstalk] There is no answer.

DEE: There is no answer. It’s one of the great mysteries of the decade.

[Laughter]

DEE: Nay, the century! [Chuckles] Sorry, continue. Blood on the Tracks. Continue.

VRAI: So this is actually my first extended brush with Oshimi. I missed the entire Flowers of Evil thing, which is probably his most famous work. You know, it’s had the most adaptations.

DEE: Oh yeah.

CAITLIN: No, isn’t he…? No, he’s not Tokyo Ghoul, is he? Never mind.

VRAI: No. Oshimi’s thing is extremely realistic art and people being terrible in normal settings.

DEE: So, not for me, but I am curious to hear about this title.

VRAI: Extremely not for you, yeah. So, I missed Flowers of Evil. I kind of dipped my toe into Happiness, because that’s nominally him doing vampires. Mm, come back to that another day maybe. I’m extremely gritting my teeth about the very premise of Welcome Back, Alice. But I quite like (question mark?) Blood on the Tracks, I think.

DEE: [Laughs] That’s so many qualifiers! I love it.

CAITLIN: I am just hearing a lot of dot-dot-dot and question mark, question mark, question mark.

VRAI: Well…

DEE: What’s it about? Let’s start there.

VRAI: Let’s start there. Okay, so the basic premise of the manga is it’s a psychological thriller where there is this… I think he’s middle… Yeah, he’s a middle school student, Seiichi. And he’s kind of a mama’s boy. He’s really close to his mom, Seiko, and he’s an only child, and he gets picked on for that a little bit. And then one day he is on a picnic with his aunt and uncle and cousin. And his cousin wanders away from the group. He chases after him. His mom comes after them, and Seiichi sees his mom push his cousin off of a cliff after he makes fun of his mom for being overprotective.

DEE: [taken aback] Okay!

VRAI: Uh-huh! And so then it becomes a story about him essentially keeping the secret and feeling bound to his mom and increasingly coming under her thumb and being gaslit by her. So it’s a pretty effective story of parental abuse horror, in a way that is both a little bit grandiose and melodramatic because it’s wrapped around this not-a-murder plot—because the cousin doesn’t die; he’s in a coma, so there’s this question of “Is he going to wake up? Is this going to be uncovered?”—but also that’s very grounded in places.

I have a pretty good relationship with my parents. But I think if you have close family members who even have ever dealt with depression or suicidal urges, that kind of thing, this is a triggering-as-shit story!

DEE: Yeah, I was gonna say this sounds very heavy. Not necessarily bad, but “heavy, so proceed with caution” kind of thing.

VRAI: Yeah, no. I am somebody who deals with extreme content pretty well. I read horror as pretty much my main genre of choice. I had to take some time reading this story.

CAITLIN: Ooh.

DEE: Oof.

VRAI: It sent me on some pretty bad spirals. And I think that’s the thing about Oshimi, as near as I can grasp from having read his work, is that he really loves rolling around in that grottiness of human nature. And I think I’m not always convinced that he has a grasp on the why of it, the why we’re doing all of this. But in this particular case… And the series is ongoing, which this fucking got me with Killing Stalking, so I’m watching with one eye open.

DEE: [Chuckles]

VRAI: But it’s an ongoing series in Japanese and there are 7 volumes of 12 out in English right now. And I’ve just been really hooked by the way that it conveys space and claustrophobia in a way that I think a lot of horror manga and anime don’t usually nail if your name isn’t Junji Ito. It’s quite impressive at dealing with adolescent sexuality without feeling particularly lurid or exploitative of young bodies.

I don’t know. It’s one of those series that I catch myself thinking about when I’m not reading it. And I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t really have a conclusion to this. I just think about it a lot.

DEE: It’s very affecting, yeah.

VRAI: Yeah.

DEE: Sounds like. Well, keep us posted, I guess.

VRAI: [Chuckles] Yeah, it’s a happier story than… The next time I feel like I talk about Oshimi, it’ll be because Welcome Back, Alice has come out in English, his manga about a trans girl who comes back after transitioning and decides to sexually manipulate the main character.

DEE: Ooh, boy.

CAITLIN: Ooh! Mm! Mm!

DEE: Not great.

VRAI: Yeah! So…

CAITLIN: Ew.

DEE: So, this one, would you recommend it, and to who, I guess would be my questions. It definitely sounds like one that has hit you very hard. But I’m not clear on if you’re recommending it or not, so I’m curious.

VRAI: I don’t— I think maybe— [trills lips]

DEE: [Chuckles]

VRAI: I think if you’re okay with the fact that it might not stick the landing, if you are somebody for whom the process of horror as an ongoing art form and individual moments hitting is compelling, if that’s something that’s worthwhile to you, I think this is one of the best horror experiences I’ve had reading manga, if that makes sense. Where just moment to moment reading it, I have felt it hit me in more an emotionally rather than in an intellectually appreciative way.

And I think as a portrayal of child abuse, it can be extremely compelling, which I think… God, what is his name? Asano? It’s similar to the feeling I get from Asano, who I also bounce off of a lot of his series. But there is this feeling that you’re trying to scratch at some kind of psychic wound on that topic. So I think it’s maybe too soon to tell people to go out and read because it might turn real, real bad. But it is, I think, a series that I might end up coming around to and telling people to read. I don’t know.

DEE: Cool. Interesting.

VRAI: [Chuckles] So I’ve led you around for nothing.

DEE: Not for me, but no, no, no, it’s good to work out those feelings and talk about complicated series, so I think that’s good.

VRAI: Oh, one more thing, I guess, for our listeners that might be interesting. The first volume I actually found kind of off-putting because the way it frames his mother is very… The way it frames her body is weird and off-putting to me, that it almost felt a little bit fetishy, but it’s interesting how much that dropped away in terms of examining this woman as a terrifying figure. And I still can’t decide if what he’s doing is misogyny or not. I’m not sure.

DEE: We’ll see.

VRAI: We’ll see! We’ll see in five years!

DEE: So many question marks.

VRAI: Dee, what are you reading?

DEE: That’s Oshimi. [Smugly] Oh, what am I reading? I’m reading this niche little title you’ve probably not heard of called Spy X Family.

CAITLIN: [Chuckles]

VRAI: Heck yes!

DEE: So, folks, I’m on this call because Mercedez couldn’t make it because there was a scheduling conflict. I warned y’all in advance that I’ve mostly been reading more popular, mainstream stuff recently or just keeping up with things, like I’m caught up on Yona of the Dawn—which, 34, 33 volumes in, continues to be fucking fantastic!

CAITLIN: It’s so good!

VRAI: Hooray.

DEE: It just keeps being good! Usually by the mid-20s I start to be like, “Okay, this needs to wrap up. I’m getting bored here.” But boy she just keeps finding new, exciting directions to take the tale and I love it and I can’t wait to see how it wraps up. I continue to just—

CAITLIN: You know what? It’s because the world feels real. It’s because the world feels real and the political—

DEE: [crosstalk] The world feels very lived in, the characters are… I feel like we have a really good grasp on who they are and where they’re going.

CAITLIN: And there’s no easy answers to all the political issues.

DEE: No, it’s a constant build on the sociopolitical landscape in a way that’s very grounded in the individual characters. But because it’s such a complex tangle and now we’re getting into backstory and history and Yona’s starting to learn more about her dad and her uncle… And I have no idea how it’s going to end, but I’m very here for it.

CAITLIN: Ah, so good!

DEE: Continuously, every single volume.

CAITLIN: It’s now officially the longest series I own in full.

DEE: Yeah, that’s true for me, too, because typically if a series is over 25, I kind of peace out on it. And Oresama Teacher is going to wrap at 29, so yeah, Yona’s the longest series I will have owned.

CAITLIN: Anyway, but we were talking about Spy X Family.

DEE: I guess we were. I don’t know. Also read Yona, I guess, is where that was going.

Yeah, no, my friend has been throwing… She collects more shounen-type titles. And we finally saw each other again earlier this year, so she dropped off like a year-and-a-half’s worth of manga for me, so I’ve been chipping through those. And Hanako-kun, which is… I enjoyed the manga quite a bit.

But Spy X Family was one of the titles she gave me, so… I’m five volumes in and everybody was right: it’s great. [Chuckles] Sometimes you’re like, “This is gonna be overhyped. There’s no way.” I felt that way about Promised Neverland, too. I was like, “I don’t know. Everybody’s been telling me how good it is. I bet it’s… We’ll see. We’ll see.” And this one I was like, “No, yeah. No, they were right. Spy X Family is terrif.” Have you both read it?

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] I think the X is silent, though.

DEE: It’s silent—

VRAI: I’ve only read the first two volumes, but I very enjoy it.

CAITLIN: I think it’s like Hunter × Hunter [pronounced “Hunter Hunter”].

DEE: Well, here’s the thing, Caitlin: I know it’s silent. But if I’m explaining it to an audience via an audio medium, I feel like I have to say it at least a couple times so they know that when they’re googling it to type in an X. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Fair. That’s fair.

DEE: But yeah, Spy Family. Spy Times Family. It’s the same question that we had with Hunter × Hunter. Who knows if you’re supposed to pronounce that X?

CAITLIN: Spy Cross Family.

VRAI: [Chuckles]

DEE: Anyway. So yeah, Vrai, you’ve read a little bit of it. Caitlin, you’ve read it too, yes?

CAITLIN: Yes. Yes. I am not completely up on it. But yeah, I’ve been reading it.

DEE: Yeah, I don’t have the Jump app, so I just have the volumes my friend threw at me. And yeah, five volumes in, it continues to be an absolute delight. 

I really like the way it handles… I mean, this is an Anime Feminist podcast. I like the way it handles Yor, in terms of she is not skilled at traditionally maternal or feminine activities like cooking and cleaning and domestic, taking-care-of-the-house stuff. And it kind of bothers her, but nobody else really cares. So when she does start to try to teach herself how to cook, it’s more like, “Well, I just want to do this for you guys sometimes because I care about you,” rather than… So she feels those pressures, but I really like that the people around her don’t necessarily put those pressures on her, and her eventually coming into it a little bit is more her perspective of just wanting to do it for somebody she cares about.

And she continues to be an absolutely terrible cook. Will probably murder you with her food. But she will also murder the kidnappers who keep trying to mess with her family. Any time she slides into a frame and just body-slams or kicks somebody into a wall, I’m just so here for it.

It’s a good cast. Anya is terrific as this little, very goober six-year-old who can also read minds.

CAITLIN: [Chuckles] She makes the best faces.

DEE: She makes the best faces. Despite some of the violence… because it is about these spies conducting a secret underground battle for control between the east and west of this country… Despite some pretty violent scenes and some pretty intense stuff with bombs and stuff, it does a really good job of grounding itself in the warmth of its characters and the family they’re creating for themselves.

I could do without Yor’s brother. He’s a bit much.

VRAI: Yeah. He’s kind of like the brother complex girl in Yamada’s First Time, where this is an annoying trope I dislike but everything else is so charming, that… fine.

DEE: Yeah. And the series thankfully… it keeps it just on the edge of "overprotective younger brother" that I can…

VRAI: Lie to yourself?

DEE: I can lie to myself about how creepy it may or may not actually be.

[Chuckling]

DEE: I try to, because it makes the story easier for me to swallow. But yeah, that’s my biggest critique, is Yor’s brother is, yeah, kind of on the edge of a siscon situation. But at the end it seems like he doesn’t really trust her and he’s also secret police, so there’s a lot of problems with Yor’s brother.

It’s definitely one of those series that is so far removed from reality that I can enjoy it without necessarily thinking about some of the sociopolitical questions it may or may not be raising about spies and underground police organizations. Not that it’s saying those underground organizations are cool. I mean, spies are cool, but the secret police aren’t.

Yeah, I don’t know. I am enjoying it. It is a good time. I think I laugh out loud at least once a volume. It has a very good sense of humor. And it doesn’t do all the creepy gender bullshit that Shonen Jump series usually do that eventually pulls—pushes me away from them. So yeah, Spy × Family is delightful.

CAITLIN: I’m excited for the anime.

VRAI: [crosstalk] Me too!

DEE: Me too! That’s coming this coming year, right?

VRAI: Mm-hm.

CAITLIN: Yes. And also being attracted to Loid and Yor is bisexual culture.

VRAI: [Chuckles]

DEE: Oh, I feel that, yeah. Yeah, no, they’re both attractively drawn characters, absolutely. And they’re badasses, so, bonus.

VRAI: Everybody wins.

CAITLIN: It’s a lot of fun.

DEE: Yeah.

VRAI: Yeah, no, I have nothing to add. It’s just a very nice series. I keep waiting for it to betray me because it’s published in Shonen Jump, but…

CAITLIN: [Chuckles]

VRAI: So far it’s really good.

DEE: Hey, Promised Neverland was good through its run. Not perfect. Not perfect, but good.

VRAI: Astra didn’t really betray me either. That was a good series.

DEE: Yeah, Astra Lost in Space was pretty solid, too. Yeah, you know, they have some. Typically the ones that have a better idea of where they want to end. That’s my thing with Spy × Family. It feels like one that could go on forever, so…

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] Um, Jump+.

DEE: Is it a Jump+ title officially?

CAITLIN: Yeah, Jump+, I think tends to be…

DEE: It’s a monthly, too, I think. It comes out once a month. Yeah.

CAITLIN: I think Jump+ series tend to be… not challenging, but adhere less strictly to the Shonen Jump formula.

DEE: That, if you’re not into that formula, will push you away from a lot of the series. Yeah, I think that’s…

CAITLIN: Yeah.

DEE: Yeah, that’s fair.

CAITLIN: Yeah. And I mean, they’re not all good because World’s End Harem is also a Jump+ series. But yeah, I think you’re gonna find a better concentration of quality in Jump+ than in just the mainline Jump.

DEE: Yeah, and Spy × Family is on the Shonen Jump app. So, folks, if you haven’t heard of this niche little title—as I keep joking about it—it’s the Jump app, what’s like three bucks a month. You can basically read the whole thing. I don’t have the app because, again, my friend has the volumes, so I’ve just been reading them that way. But it’s a good app and I’m glad it exists. And if you already have it, then I would say definitely check out Spy × Family. It is a very good time.

VRAI: I thought we’d have time to talk about more than one title each, but we don’t. [Chuckles] That’s my fault.

DEE: Curse our verbosity!

VRAI: I had a whole… Well, yeah, no, let’s see. Do I have anything I can sum up in about two minutes? Not really.

My Summer of You, I read recently. It’s a very cute little BL one-shot about two film nerds who have this summer where they get really intense and close but they don’t quite realize that it’s feelings, and then one of them moves away, and, oh no, drama, but it has a happy ending. It’s very quiet. I wouldn’t call it exceptionally remarkable, but it is a very nice read if you enjoy quiet slice-of-life reading.

Same with Restart After Moving Back Home [sic], which is about an adult man moving back to his hometown and helping with the family business and meeting a guy who was adopted and who is the only person he didn’t know growing up there. And I had a really good time reading that. Apparently, it has a live action film that came out recently, but, you know, live action doesn’t tend to get licensed over here, so, can’t tell you about how it is as an adaptation.

DEE: Is Summer of You… Is it completed, two volumes?

VRAI: It might have been two volumes. It’s released as a single omnibus in English.

DEE: Oh, interesting. I’m looking at it on digital and it’s two volumes, so, possibly…

VRAI: [crosstalk] Is it?

DEE: They may have released the paperback as an omnibus and then the… Sometimes that happens; the digital version will be set up differently. That’s cool and exciting. That actually sounds really good. I like stories about film and I like quiet romances.

VRAI: I think you’d like it. It’s very good.

DEE: Yeah. Aaand adding to my wish list. Thank you. I like lightning round recommendations. That’s terrific.

CAITLIN: [Chuckles] Can I toss in one more?

DEE: Yeah.

CAITLIN: I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss (or something like that; it’s got a long title) is a series that just started coming out. I read the first volume. And I really, really fell in love with the main character really quickly. It’s a very interesting approach to villainess series, because she doesn’t suddenly wake up and have her memories and she’s the same person as who she was before she was reincarnated. She just kind of always had these memories, but they didn’t really inform who she was, and then she realizes that she’s in the otome game. But she doesn’t change as a person. Just, she’s gone from “This is my life” to “I need to avoid these things happening in my life so that I don’t get killed.”

And so, with the personality that she’s always had, that’s how she sets about it, which is an approach I really like because it always kind of creeps me out how they just rewrite the personalities of who they were before. You know what I mean?

DEE: Yeah.

CAITLIN: And I really enjoy the main character. She’s not a bad person, but you can see why her personality got people to think of her as a villainess. She’s kind of calculating. She’s a super high achiever. The art is gorgeous. And yeah, no, I really enjoyed the first volume. I’m looking forward to reading more. And that’s my lightning round recommendation.

DEE: Cool. I guess Yona was technically my lightning round recommendation, so…

VRAI: Totally counts.

DEE: I mean, and it’s such a small commitment at 33 volumes and counting. [Chuckles]

VRAI: This is why I’ll never read Yona even though it sounds like a great series and I believe you all that it’s fantastic.

DEE: Just everybody yell at your library until they start picking it up. You won’t regret it. It’s very, very, very good.

CAITLIN: Yeah, it is hard to recommend at this point, because if you’re not already all in, 33 volumes…

VRAI: And there’s only one season of anime.

DEE: You could also watch the anime to get a sense of if you want to keep reading it, because the anime covers the first six volumes or something like that—six or seven. So that would also be a good litmus test, so you don’t have to immediately start committing to money or tracking down library volumes or what-have-you. But it’s so good! [Laughs] So yeah, that’s my lightning round rec. Go, team.

VRAI: Yay.

CAITLIN: Yay.

VRAI: So I guess, folks, let us know if this is a format you’re into, if you would rather us keep manga talk to a more structured thing or if you like these kind of quick updates, or whatever your thoughts may be. These are kind of fun to do, but it’s definitely still a learning experience.

So, thank you once again for being a patron. We really appreciate you. We couldn’t do this without you to help us pay our contributors and our writers and our editors who all work very hard—and our transcribers. Hi, CJ.

So yeah, let’s continue this grand experiment and see how it goes. Till next time, take care of yourselves, AniFam.