For this week, I read two manga: My Lesbian Experience and Ghost in the Shell. I had not seen or read anything about Ghost in the Shell, but I recognized the name and had seen the advertisements for when the live action movie came out, so I was interested in reading it. I felt that it was difficult to read at first for several reasons. The art style, at times, felt noisy to me. This, and the large amount of text on certain pages, made some of the pages a struggle to get through. Additionally, I felt that the story through me right into what was happening without explaining anything, which made it difficult to follow along with the plot. I found myself going back to reread certain part just to remind myself how the character related to the protagonist. This is both a good and bad thing to me. It makes reveals more exciting and it does not bother treating you like you are any different from the expansive world that it has created. It gives you the opportunity to learn as you read. However, some more preliminary information would have been helpful to the efficiency of reading with clarity. That being said, I found this manga to be extremely interesting and eye-catching. The characters have unique designs and have a nice amount of depth to them. I appreciate how different this manga feels as compared to many of the trope-y manga that I have read. It feels confident in what it is and wanted to be.
I read American Born Chinese about two years ago for the Asian and Asian American Diaspora LMST Class, but I did not quite remember everything that happened, so I decided to read it again. While there are seemingly three story lines, they all merge into one at the end, which caught me off guard again the second time reading it. I definitely think this fits into the category of literary comics. Not only does it have great writing, it tells a compelling story that really makes the reader stop to think. While I cannot say that I relate to this story in the same way, I can see how this story could be relatable. I feel like this is an important novel that everyone should take a second and read. I also really enjoyed the pacing of this novel, both in the sense of the three stories coming together as one and in the panel by panel framing of the scenes. The writer understands well how to use blank panels and pages.
Comments
Post a Comment