Antonia Levi’s sadness, environmentalism, and technoterror – in manga

When I selected Antonia Levi’s 2013 article “The Sweet Smell of Japan. Anime, Manga, and Japan in North America” (Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 23.1, 3–18) as one of the readings for my manga course, I did so because I wanted to use it as a succinct introduction to, and discussion of, the concept of ‘cultural odourlessness’ (originally coined by Koichi Iwabuchi). But as I re-read the article, I found something perhaps even more interesting in there:

Another factor that explains why North Americans find anime and manga so appealing lies in the themes that dominate many of the offerings: sadness, environmentalism, and technoterror.

This trinity of thematic categories is reminiscent of Susan Napier’s three modes of anime, apocalyptic, festival, and elegiac. Only one of those three terms overlaps, however: both sadness and elegiac refer to the mono no aware aesthetic. Another difference is that Levi not only talks about anime but also explicitly includes manga.

In fact, Levi’s sentence can be broken down into two separate statements: (1) North Americans like (media that deal with) sadness, environmentalism, and technoterror, and (2) those three themes dominate “many” manga. It is the second statement that I’d like to take a closer look at. Levi only discusses very few examples in her article, so is this thematic dominance actually there in manga? Or at least in manga up to 2013, when Levi’s article was published, in case some major thematic shift occurred afterwards. (Ideally, one would also need to consider which manga were available to North Americans at that time… but let’s not make things overly complicated here.)

As a not-quite-but-almost random sample, let’s simply take all the manga (published before 2013) I have reviewed or otherwise discussed on this weblog so far. While certainly pretty much biased, this has the undeniable advantage that I am already familiar with their thematic configuration. This trip down memory lane through more than eleven (!) years of The 650-Cent Plague is going to be fun! For each manga, we can either identify any combination of Levi’s three themes, or the absence of all of them.

1. Boyfriend by Daisy Yamada: as I argue in my review, this could have been a sad manga, had the issue of bullying been treated more in-depth. Instead, none of the three themes is present.
2. Paris aishiteruze by J. P. Nishi: despite the crying protagonist depicted in my blogpost, this manga is rather lighthearted than sad. None of the three themes present.
3. .hack//Legend of the Twilight by Rei Izumi and Tatsuya Hamazaki: a story about the dangers of being drawn into the virtual world of an immersive video game, which one might characterise as technoterror, although it’s not overly critical of technology.
4. Shidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei: not every science-fiction manga needs to be a technoterror story, but that theme is definitely there, at least in the sub-plot concerning experiments on humans by ruthless scientists.
5. Kozure ōkami by Kazuo Koike and Gōseki Kojima: one of many action manga in which the protagonist is haunted by a very sad backstory.
6. Manga nihon keizai nyūmon by Shōtarō Ishinomori: the antagonist is a somewhat sad character, but by and large, none of the three themes is present.
7. Hadashi no Gen by Keiji Nakazawa: definitely a sad story. While a manga about nuclear bombing could also feature environmentalism and technoterror, they are not dominant themes here.
8. Haine by Kyōta Kita and Keiko Ogata: Heinrich Heine’s life had ups and downs, and while this manga biography is very dramatic and emotional, one can’t say that sadness dominates. None of the three themes present.
9. Mai by Kazuya Kudō and Ryōichi Ikegami: some sinister science experiments here, but not enough to make technoterror a dominant theme. None of the three themes present.
10. Asagao to Kase-san by Hiromi Takashima: sometimes sad, sometimes not. None of the three themes dominate.
11. Pocha Pocha suieibu by Ema Tōyama: none of the three themes present in this comedy manga.
12. Crayon Days by Kozue Chiba: fairly standard romance manga with none of the three themes dominating.
13. Kimi ni todoke by Karuho Shiina: quite a sad story about a lonely high-school girl, at least in the beginning of the series.
14. Namida usagi by Ai Minase: actually not as sad as the title suggests. None of the three themes present.
15. Tempest by Yuiji Aniya: a sad sci-fi parable about gender dysphoria.
16. Azumanga Daiō by Kiyohiko Azuma: another comedy manga with none of the three themes present.
17. Akira by Katsuhiro Ōtomo: a lot going on in this manga, but at least some parts are clearly dominated by technoterror.
18. Kirihito by Osamu Tezuka: quite a few sad things happen to the protagonist, but one can’t say sadness is the dominant theme in this medical thriller. Environmental pollution is only hinted at. None of the three themes present.
19. Limit by Keiko Suenobu: sometimes quite sad, particularly the bullying backstory.
20. Kiseijū by Hitoshi Iwaaki: some thoughtful environmental issues raised here.
21. Tantei gishiki by Ryūsui Seiryōin, Eiji Ōtsuka, and Chizu Hashii: a weird mystery manga. None of the three themes present.
22. Shiki by Fuyumi Ono and Ryū Fujisaki: there is some bleak countryside ennui, but sadness is not the dominant theme here. None of the three themes present.
23. Orange by Ichigo Takano: what could be more sad than the protagonist’s futile attempts to save her classmate’s life?
24. Akatsuki no Yona by Mizuho Kusanagi: another adventure manga that starts, like Kozure ōkami, with the sad events of the protagonist’s family being murdered and the protagonist forced into exile.
25. Jikenya kagyō by Natsuo Sekikawa and Jirō Taniguchi: while one could call the protagonist a ‘sad’ figure, sadness doesn’t dominate this manga. None of the three themes present.
26. Chichi no koyomi by Jirō Taniguchi: a sad story because, unlike in Harukana machi e, the protagonist revisits but can’t change the past.
27. Furi Kuri by Studio Gainax and Hajime Ueda: hard to say what this manga is actually about, but there is the technoterror element of seemingly harmless machines turning into giant fighting robots.
28. Ōkami kodomo no Ame to Yuki by Mamoru Hosoda, Yū, and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto: the tragic love story between a human and a werewolf, and the story of their children who are torn between two worlds, maybe has some environmental elements, but ultimately sadness dominates.
29. Shinseiki Evangelion by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and Studio Gainax: definitely a sad manga, and in the ambiguous depiction of the destructive power of giant robots there’s also a prominent element of technoterror.
30. Narutaru by Mohiro Kitō: a dark, disturbing, and sad manga.
31. Doubt by Yoshiki Tonogai: there is some technoterror potential in this story about a lethal mobile game, but its danger is, quite untechnologically, that the game is enacted in real life. Thus none of the three themes dominate.
32. Zekkyō gakkyū by Emi Ishikawa: some of the episodes deal with the horrors of technological devices such as mobile phones and video games, but most of them don’t. None of the three themes present.
33. Chikyū hyōkai jiki by Jirō Taniguchi: in vol. 1 of this science-fiction manga it isn’t clear whether the current ice age or the subsequent climate change are man-made. However, there are other elements of both environmentalism and technoterror: the technology that allows the mining company to operate in the Arctic also causes deadly accidents, and the technologically advanced miners are contrasted against the natives who live in harmony with nature, wear furs and ride camels.
34. Ore monogatari by Kazune Kawahara and Aruko: in this charming rom-com, none of the three themes is present.
35. Uzumaki by Junji Itō: dark and twisted, but not really sad, so none of the three themes dominate here.
36. I Am a Hero by Kengo Hanazawa: at least in this first volume, there is a lot of sadness surrounding the protagonist.
37. Ajin by Tsuina Miura and Gamon Sakurai: there are some hints of human experiments in vol. 1, but not enough to speak of technoterror. None of the three themes present.
38. Icaro by Mœbius, Jean Annestay, and Jirō Taniguchi, on the other hand, very much revolves around the human subject of scientific experiments, thus making this manga an example of technoterror.
39. Black Magic by Masamune Shirow: there are traces of environmentalism (e.g. terraforming), but the dominant theme is technoterror: tyrannic supercomputers, cyborgs gone rogue, etc.
40. Ōkami shōjo to kuro ōji by Ayuko Hatta: another romantic comedy with none of the three themes present.
41. Dororo by Osamu Tezuka: sadness surrounds the protagonist Hyakkimaru, whom his parents sacrifice to demons, and his sidekick Dororo.
42. Appleseed by Masamune Shirow: this manga is interesting in terms of environmentalism, as a post-apocalyptic wasteland is contrasted against the lush city of Olympus. However, the dominant theme is once more technoterror: again there are cyborgs and a sinister computer-enhanced government.
43. Jisatsu saakuru by Usamaru Furuya: a manga about clinically depressed teenagers is bound to be dominated by sadness.
44. Devilman by Gō Nagai: there is something tragic about the protagonist’s transformation into a demon, but perhaps not actually sad. None of the three themes present.
45. Furari by Jirō Taniguchi: not much of the sadness of some of Taniguchi’s other manga can be found here. None of the three themes dominate.
46. Bonnōji by Aki Eda: another rom-com manga in which none of the three themes dominate.
47. Sarah by Katsuhiro Ōtomo Takumi Nagayasu: as in quite a few other science-fiction stories, environmentalism and technoterror are linked here, as a nuclear war has eradicated all life on Earth, and now scientists try to fix that by tilting the Earth’s axis with another bomb.
48. Berserk by Kentarō Miura: the protagonist’s backstory is probably sad, but not much about it is revealed in vol. 1. Thus none of the three themes is present.
49. Tomoji by Jirō Taniguchi: the true story of the eponymous protagonist’s life is full of sad events.
50. K by Shirō Tōzaki and Jirō Taniguchi: another adventure/action manga in which the sadness surrounding the mysterious protagonist remains vague. Nowadays, a story about Himalayan mountaineering would have to deal with environmental issues, but that was not the case in 1988. None of the three themes dominate.

Adding up the numbers, there are only 25 manga (50%) of which we can say that they are dominated by any of the three themes in question. That’s a far cry from “many of the offerings”. It’s also noteworthy that environmentalism and technoterror apply to only 3 (6%) and 9 titles (18%), respectively, i.e. the distribution of the three themes is markedly skewed in favour of sadness (15 titles / 30%). Incidentally, we obtained similar numbers in my manga course when applying Levi’s themes to the manga discussed in class.

Does that mean Levi is wrong? Are environmentalism, technoterror, and, to a lesser degree, sadness, irrelevant to manga and their (North American) reception? Not necessarily. Perhaps her statement is just a bit imprecisely phrased. I suspect that if we take a closer look at the most popular manga in the US in the late 1990s and early 2000s (which is perhaps the kind of manga that her article is actually about), rather than a more or less random sample, we might find that environmental and technological issues play indeed a large role – or at least a larger role than in contemporary American media.

Index to all ‘theory’ posts on this weblog