I just heard that Marx's DAS CAPITAL in Manga form is flying off the shelves

[laststeamtrain]

in Japan. Rachel Maddow said it.

Does that mean our stupid kids will be getting it soon?

God, I hope so.

The 2nd volume is sooo dense. Or I am.

This is hard to believe.

I'm ready to be amazed.

[originalpckelly]

1. "Does that mean our stupid kids will be getting it soon?"

No it means that there are going to be a lot of pimply faced horny revolutionaries joining the Revolutionary Communist Party...

[Puregonzo1188]

5. Magna communiqués from Chairman Bob? (n/t)

[GReedDiamond]

13. Ah yes, the RCP...

...whatever happened to Bob Avakian?

[Puregonzo1188]

2. My friend had told me about the popularity among the Communist Party among

Japanese youth and communist magna in particular (he mentioned the Manifesto) awhile back. We were discussing it again today. I don't really know much about anime or manga other than it could and you twenty years in prison if the characters lack pubic hair, but he is a minor anime/magna fan and mentioned its a big deal in Japan right now. I would love to see Magna Marx. Maybe the trend will spread. :P

[madeline_con]

3. Manga = Anime comic books?

What's the BFD? :shrug:

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Usually they are erotic, and some people around here have their panties in a bunch over the

art form.

[madeline_con]

9. In the art world, there's no accounting for panty bunching .

:P

[hootinholler]

10. Indeed. My daughter's art is all about bunching panties.

Lousy out of focus photo, pencil drawing of a toddler, gauged ear rings, tongue piercing, eyebrow piercing, tear tat.

-Hoot

[madeline_con]

12. I like that.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Manga are SOMETIMES erotic, not always

I've seen manga about

baseball
golf
mahjongg
Japanese history
cooking
office politics
regular politics
detectives
anthropologists
Buddhism
samurai
cats


In other words, manga can be about anything and for anybody.

One of my favorite series of all time ran from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. It was called Ningen Kousaten "Human Intersection," and it was a collection of 27 volumes of short stories about ordinary people, drawn with almost photographic realism.

The erotic manga are the most conspicuous, but they're far from the entire genre.

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. Yes, I think conspicuous is a good word for it. They do seem to get most of the limelight

[ContinentalOp]

17. No, they are not "usually" erotic. Children and the elderly and everyone in between read manga...

in Japan.

[GreenPartyVoter]

24. You are right. I should have said "usually what I have seen" is, since it seems to be the hente

stuff that has come to my attention in the past. (I think hente is the word I am thinking of, anyway.)

[anigbrowl]

19. There's a lot of erotic manga, but it's probably only 5-10% of the total

Japanese just really like comics, for anything.

[GreenPartyVoter]

25. To hear the complaints about it here in the USA, you would think the

numbers were flipped or something. :)

[ContinentalOp]

16. Uh, no. Anime = animated manga. -nt-

[ColbertWatcher]

4. Manga Marxism? Wow. Gotta love the Japanese!

I found this link to a Japanese game show on fark http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLmSgjPLJPs

[Grayscalz]

7. It's to be expected

Marxism always goes down well with us young folk, the company that are publishing the book have got a good head on them and tapped into an almost obvious Market.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. graphic novel 'Das Kapital for Beginners' published in USA in 1982

http://www.americanaexchange.com/NewAE/ibi/itemdetail.asp?bookid=36454972

[hootinholler]

11. Obviously.

It reads right to left.

:rimshot:

-Hoot

[Marr]

18. I'm going to have to pick this up, if only to see how they

manage to squeeze a schoolgirl with a sword into the narrative.

[McCamy Taylor]

20. Manga is written in every genre that fiction is in the U.S. Graphic fiction has been done in Japan

for a very long time. Consider that their written language is not highly nuanced, the way that English is. I do not know how anyone reads a Japanese novel. They do not conjugate verbs. They use the same pronoun for he and she (which forms the basis for many impossible to translate jokes and humorous misunderstandings in anime and manga). You understand speech through inflection.

Manga with its visual images adds to the meaning of the text, the way that mixed media artists can use objects to add meaning to their oil, pastel or pencil work. The facial expressions can convey more than the Japanese text---and the Japanese are much more skilled than most American comic artists at facial expressions.

There is plenty of adult, non hentai manga. Within that category, science fiction is very popular, but you can also find mystery, slice of life, sports, romance, historical, fantasy, horror. Read the works as you would a novel or short story. My favorite ongoing series right now is "Pluto" by Naoki Urasawa which I just happen to have reviewed this month online here:

http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/features/2008/12/UrasawaNaoki.html

[anigbrowl]

21. Not highly nuanced, you say. Hmmm.

You insult Japanese language: now, you die.

[ContinentalOp]

22. You don't know how anyone reads Japanese novels?

Interesting. Personally I've enjoyed Murakami, Mishima, Kobo Abe, and pulp stuff like Battle Royale, and the Crimson Labyrinth. The text of some of the best Manga like Osamu Tezuka is pretty damn great too. But then I can't stand "nuanced" language if it means the overly flowery description that sometimes plagues "serious" English novels. So that may explain why I'm attracted to the directness and clarity of some Japanese novels.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. McCamy, I'm a Japanese-English translator, and the Japanese express themselves just fine

Their ways of expression are DIFFERENT, not less nuanced. They express DIFFERENT nuances than English does. One tour de force short story I read was written entirely in dialogue, with the speakers being an old man, his much younger wife, and the chauffeur who was his wife's lover. There were no tag lines telling you who was speaking, but from the WAY they spoke who was who. You understand speech not only through inflection but also through the verb endings that tell how each speaker ranks in relation to the others.

They do have separate pronouns for "he" and "she," but they rarely use them except for emphasis.

Also, their written language can express things in ways that English can't. For example, if using an unfamiliar foreign word, the author might spell it out in the Katakana phonetic syllabary alongside the Chinese characters that have the same meaning.

Here's a link to a Japan-based publishing company founded by expatriate English-speakers that specializes in translating Japanese genre fiction into English.

http://www.kurodahan.com/mt/e/catalog/

You're right, though, about the facial expressions.