c/o Viz Comics P.O. Box 77010 San Francisco, CA 94107
viz@j-pop.com
Father of mine/Tell me, how do you sleep?
—Everclear
Dear Carl,
My reason for writing to you is very straightforward. It's a simple letter of appreciation from a huge fan of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and an enormous fan of manga altogether.
Like so many others, I too have an obsession with Japanese art like Sadamoto's, but out of all of the manga and anime "stuff" out there, I have found that his towers above them all. The Neon Genesis Evangelion series is my particular favorite one of all. In my opinion, Japanese manga and anime are far superior to anything we can possibly come up with. I enjoy their storylines and art. I love how they write about the future, showing how mankind progresses and evolves, and you can always bet that technology will have a huge role in the story.
I am also a fan of Satoshi Urushihara, Rumiko Takahashi, and Masamune Shirow's Ghost In The Shell. They are all great writers and artists but Evangelion is a series that has no equal.
There are so many things that I would like to say about manga and anime art, like how their originality sets them apart from what we usually see and read, but if I kept on writing I would just be repeating myself. Also, knowing that Japanese art is becoming more popular here in North America makes me glad that everyone is catching on to how great it really is.
Sincerely,
Cristopher Bush
Estevan, Saskatchewan
CANADA
There is certainly a great deal to admire about manga and anime. From a creative standpoint, though, I feel it is a mistake to assume that artists in the English-speaking world are incapable. Certainly in Western animation, I see no Oshii, no Yamaga, Takahata or Miyazaki right now; but who's to say whether the younger generation of artists won't rise to the challenge of using animation for adult drama? (I submit that from Looney Tunes to King of the Hill, we have nothing to be ashamed of in the comedy department, at least). And when it comes to comics, we already have creators such as Will Eisner and Daniel Clowes who must certainly rank with the best manga has to offer. The real achievement of manga, I believe, lies not in any inherent superiority of the work (although some of it is very good, indeed) but in the intelligent way it has been promoted and developed as an entertainment business over the past several decades. For example, you can buy the latest comics on every subway platform in Tokyo. There are great comics being done in the English language, comics as good as any manga, but it's a lot harder for the average person here to get their hands on their own culture's comics. Put another way, the manga business does everything it can to come to the customer, but, on this side of the world, generally speaking, you have to make the effort to come to comics. Now, many people reading this are likely to be, like myself, hardcore fans, and may think at first there's nothing unusual about having to make a special connection to get comics—mail order, or going to a specialty store if you're lucky enough to have a good one near you. But these are not the signs of an industry which seriously wishes to reach the average person—as movies, radio and TV do in America, and as comics do in Japan. If you like Masamune Shirow's Ghost In The Shell, Don't neglect his fantastic fantasy-comedy Orion, and most especially Appleseed, which is more than probably both the best-written and best-drawn science fiction manga ever published in English.
John "Shinji" Parr wants an Eva pen-pal: 1004 Buckingham, Yardley, PA 19067, and would also like to see a pen-pal section here, as they have in the Italian version of Eva. As a matter of fact, I'm certainly prepared to print anyone's address who wants contacts, and I have done so here in the past. He also wants to know what the so-called "Evangelion Bible" is. Mr. Parr might be referring to any number of books done in Japan which claim to reveal the "secrets" of Eva through research of its symbols, references, productions and promotion history. As a matter of fact, these books became a sort of mini-genre in Japan during the height of Eva's popularity in 1997. There's also the film program for The End of Evangelion, sometimes called the "Red Cross Book," Search the Web for that term together with " Evangelion;" I believe the truth, or at least, a fan translation, is out there. As for those Eva t-shirts, as far as I know, there is still no licensed American example here. your best bet is to buy imported Japanese Eva shirts from an anime goods store or at an anime convention—find out where's your nearest from that Swiss Army Knife of anime sites, www.anipike.com.
Travis Street (great name) of Sewell, NJ, wants to make sure that Viz will "never stop making" Eva. We have no plans to stop printing the English version, but of course, that's all we do; it's Mr. Sadamoto who must make it first. He also asks how good I am at Japanese? Not very good at all, I'm afraid. Imagine someone who's learned all their English from what they picked up by watching The Simpsons, and you'll get the idea. George "Toji" Nguyen postmarks from Santa Ana, CA: "Yes, it's George writing yet again, but I can't help myself." He offers the intriguing idea that Eva really represents the human race, not the Angels, as the antagonists of the story, attempting to make a God in our own image and without the compassion displayed in the end by the "enemy."
Dear Evangelionists,
I had a whole bunch of questions lined up to ask you, but then I thought that maybe I should go back and read the previous letter pages. Now I don't have so many questions to ask. However, in doing so, I've discovered that I am in a unique position. Every letter in these pages was from a fan who had seen the anime series and was familiar with the overall story. I haven't a clue!! I'm a complete virgin! uh... so to speak.
I picked up NGE because I wanted to start on the ground floor of a new manga comic book instead of jumping on board midway through a series and hopelessly trying to track down back issues. Shinji's character appealed to me. I felt I could relate to his sadness and self-doubt at times. Sounds gloomy, but any well-written character can reveal a facet of yourself or someone you know. Other elements sold me too. The mysteries of Shinji's father, the detached personality of Rei Ayanami, the secret of the terrible "Evas" and the fact that Shinji's personality is atypical of any other lead character I've been exposed to, have combined to establish this title as one on the top of my preferred reading pile.
But I do have a few questions left to ask about the industry because I know so little about it. I've noticed that manga creators are one-man/woman teams. Are there any tandem teams in Japanese comics? I'm sure this next one has been asked to death, but I've never seen an answer published anywhere. Why are most manga series published in "Books" and "Parts" as opposed to straight sequential numbering? I collect Ranma 1/2 and have had occasion to see the original Japanese books in some comic stores. I compared the stories grouped in those books to the stories grouped in the North American "Part" stories and found that they don't match at all. So, what's the deal? Since I'm collecting the comic, I've been resisting the temptation to rent the NGE anime and ruin the story for myself. But I would like to see them at some point. I was wondering if you could tell me how many videos I can watch before I exceed what's been published in book form?
Since I'm a music fan, I might as well lose some dignity and throw in my two cents worth about suggestions for an alt-rock soundtrack. First off, I don't see Shinji blaring the loud Nirvana songs in his room. rather, pieces like "Something In The Way," "Polly," and "Dumb;" or Smashing Pumpkins' "Stumbline," and "To Forgive" would fit his character better. If dark mood music is the call for this imaginary soundtrack then it could not be complete without a selection from the Tea Party. Songs like "Save Me," "Fire In The Head," "Release" and "Psycopomp" are perfect, though I doubt anyone outside of Canada and Australia knows of them...
Rob Heinbecker
Kitchener, Ontario
CANADA
I'm pretty sure "Psychopomp" has gotten at least a little play here in the SF Bay Area. When you mentioned those Nirvana tracks, I nearly had to put in "Unplugged in New York," because I imagine you'd be suggesting the acoustic versions. Unfortunately, I also immediately went to my copy of Adam Warren's Gen13 Magical Drama Queen Roxy #3 (Image Comics), only to read the line, "'sigh'... Great White Princess, Your 'Prince Edmund of Grunge' takes his oligarchic honorific from a long-defunct and years-out-of-fashion musical style...)"
The other day, I went to Slim's with my best friend from college, Don Thornburgh, and saw Fuel, Local H (an irresistible band name for the anime fan), and the Mayfield Four. They were all good live; the latter sounds a little like the early Pearl Jam, even doing the kind of "W.M.A." turn with a cool cover of Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues." But I noticed that there didn't seem to be many people in their teens there, and I wondered if it's mainly those in their 20s (I'm one year younger than Misato, and now I can't hear "Where Did You Sleep Last Night)" without thinking of how she and Kaji—numm numm—ended up) who witnessed Seattle, as it were, who still go to rock shows. Then I saw a Shinji-sized kid head-surfing. The House Of Pain-lookin' bouncer glared, but I'm willing to bet he was secretly pleased.
Actually, the reason why Viz's Ranma 1/2 graphic novels do not start and end where the Japanese Ranma 1/2 graphic novels do is that Viz prefers to collect the stories together so as not to break off in the middle of a story, if possible. Ranma 1/2 appeared in weekly installments in Japan; as I recall, most of the Japanese GNs are 11 weeks' worth. They sometimes end in the middle of a fast-developing story which the Japanese reader could keep up with by buying a magazine, Shonen Sunday, available anywhere in Japan (see my response to Mr. Bush, above). On the other hand, Viz hopes to—and does—reach readers who didn't get to discover Ranma 1/2 through "installments," through the graphic novels, which can increasingly be found in book and record stores. So organizing them so that the chunk o' Ranma has a good beginning and an end is important. As you yourself said, it's hard enough for the reader jumping in midway. There is similar reasoning behind organizing things into discrete "books" and "parts."
By contrast, Eva appears in Shonen Ace, a Japanese monthly, not weekly. Its story development is slower; moreover, it is also patterned, more or less, along the same lines as the simultaneously-developed anime. Sadamoto does do things his own way, as you've all noticed (the events of episode #7 are never portrayed at all in the manga, those of #8 are considerably changed and seen mostly 'off camera' and, as you asked—the manga as published in English is currently at the story point of episode #9) but his narrative breaks down well for the GNs, which is one reason why, unlike with Ranma 1/2, the Japanese and English collections contain the same material (it's also very likely, by the way, that there will soon be larger "wide editions" of the Ranma manga published in Japan, as there was for Takahashi's earlier—and my personal favorite Urusei Yatsura).
Certainly there are tandem teams in manga, too. I think of the most famous, the longtime partners (but now gone their separate ways) Fujio-Fujiko, who created Doraemon. Ryoichi Ikegami is known for working with writers such as Kazuo Koike (on Crying Freeman) and Sho "Buronson" Fumimura (on Sanctuary—one of the top ten manga ever published here, I believe, as well as on Strain). Otomo and Nagayasu on The Legend of Mother Sarah. The great anime director, Mamoru Oshii, has written a number of manga, including one drawn by Kamui Fujiwara with designs by Yutaka Izubuchi, published by Dark Horse under the title Hellhounds: Panzer Cops. And let's not forget that no manga creator is an island—many have assistants, and their name is legion, for they are many (Mr. Sadamoto used three on Book Four of Eva).
This month's fan art is from a.) George Nguyen and b.) Viz editor Jason Thompson, who is also a comics publisher in his own right. Check out his fantastic adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath at his site, http://www.sonic.net/~jason.
Carl Gustav Horn