Questions

For Bleach (due 5/7)

1) Use Wikipedia and Google to get some basic background information on Manga. Create a short list of 5 ways in which Manga differs from the traditional literature we've read this term. Be sure to explore style and content.

2) As you read Bleach, notice that the importance of the words and the images varies from page to page. Choose a page that consists almost entirely of images and discuss how image use affects your understanding of the story. What can images do that words cannot?

3) Research and define two religious or mythical concepts from Bleach that relate to a) Christianity, and b) Japanese mysticism

4) What do you think is Bleach's main lesson? Provide page references for your peers to verify your argument.

Princess AI (due 5/12):

1) Do some research on Courtney Love--based on your findings, how "biographical" is this manga?

2) How are women portrayed in this text relative to women we encountered in other readings this semester?

3) Costume and body shape plays an important role in manga - provide a brief list of the cultural impressions you receive when looking at these elements in this text. Provide page references to support your argument.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Princess AI

1.

Well after reading both the Book and the Biography there are some similarities but its no exact copy. At the beginning of the book you see the main character wake up in the Garbage place, in my opinion, that’s how Courtney Love described her early childhood (Love's biological family broke apart rapidly while she was still very young). Then in the Manga we find out that the character has huge talent at singing and she peruses it by joining a night club at which she sings. Love is a singer too, so there is another biographical connection. Character is strong as well, with all the man out there trying to get her she strongly fights back and does not follow their rules and creates her own. Love is strong as well because surviving through her childhood and coming up as a singer, is an achievement only strong can do. There are other things that are similar so it’s partly biographical in my opinion.


2.

IN the book most of the women portrayed in the worst way possible. It can be easily understood as the events take place in the big City of Tokyo. Women seen as stripers, whores, hookers and this are main environmental adversary our main character has to face. But our main character even though looks weak and vulnerable in first couple of pages of the book, later on we can see that she is completely opposite and that she is a strong character indeed. IN other reading we did women are seen as strong beings that stand for themselves still retaining their feminine fashion.


3.

I think all Mangas are tied very much to Japanese culture. We can see that the costumes that characters as well as main and secondary always have specific style, that is either directed only to them or has similarities between each other. We can see that young characters or characters with specific professions will always have tight, wildly open and cleavage clothing or high mini skirts or exotic clothing for women and formal or bulky look for men (Pages 2,3,6). And in my opinion, such outfits are really popular in Japanese metropolises such as Tokyo because many young women wear clothing close to what we see in the comics or in cartoons created in Japan. As well as Clothing body of the character can say many things in Mangas body can say all the things. It can describe what the person is like or give us an idea what other characters in the book may think of the character with a good body, but in my opinion its for the reader because a reader rather look at a pretty girl then a 65 year old man as a main character. When you combine both the body and the costume you can figure out the side that the character is. At most of the time if the character is in bright or shredded in a certain way clothing he/she might be on a good side but if we see a character with dark evil looking clothing with spikes and demon wings on them you can easily see it will be a evil person.

1 comment:

Lidiya Zasepsky said...

Princess Ai likes to be different. The costumes are more related to the modern style. Young girl needs to express herself. This is one of the many ways. I agree with you that Princess Ai has a strong character. It helped her solve many problems she faced during he life.