Just recently, I read two manga series one after another – both dealing with Christian themes, but vastly different from each other. The first was Little House with an Orange Roof (a.k.a. Orange Yane no Chiisana Ie), and the second was Let’s Bible. The contrast between the two serves to illustrate an important point.

There is a difference between using Christian themes as a variation of a medium’s standard tropes, and using the standard tropes of a medium to explain Christian themes. One applies the Form of Christianity, but leaves the underlying structure and content unchanged. The other leaves the forms of the medium unchanged, but applies Christianity to change the structure and content. In simpler terms, Let’s Bible just uses Christian names and symbolism as a thin layer for what is in all essence a shounen action-comedy series. On the other hand, Orange Roof starts with a typical seinen romantic comedy setting, but gradually introduces Christian themes and messages through the behaviour of its characters. You can easily tell the difference once you read them. The creator of Orange Roof is a practising Christian – he himself gives testimony in his author comments at the back of every chapter (chapter 10’s comments are translated, for an example). Let’s Bible, on the other hand, is drawn by a pair of Koreans artist, who seem like they absorbed the surface knowledge of what the Gospel means and the major characters of the New Testament (probably from cultural acquaintance), but are not actually practising Christians themselves. Or perhaps they are practising Christians, but have not found a way to integrate their faith into their works.

To really create a good Christian manga, you need to have a strong background in the techniques of the medium, an understanding of its tropes and how to use them to tell a good story. And then beyond that, you must really think about the message, and how to best encapsulate it in a way that FITS with both the properties of the message, and the properties of the medium you are using. Orange Roof did it well. Let’s Bible did it terribly, because it fit the medium, but didn’t fit the message. A third manga, created by Americans, called Serenity, also tried it… that one fit the message, but didn’t really fit the medium. It was okay, but because it was targeted at American teens, there were certain stylistic choices that moved it away from pure manga and into a different sort of comic. It fit THAT comic medium very well, and I think it thus was a success on that level (as also proven by sales), but the medium was no longer that of manga.

In order to really create good Christian media content, you need to find a common ground where both the medium and message can meet and synergise properly to create something unique. The themes of Christianity must go deeper than surface level – in fact, sometimes they can be buried under the guise of what seems to be typical fare for the medium, but become more explicit as you delve deeper or further into it.

This is the problem that I also see in the Christian games industry. The reason why so many Christian games are bad is because the creators either lack a deep enough understanding of the medium they are working with (Christian educators who are trying to make games because they think the people they want to reach out to would be interested in anything if it comes in a “game” package), or they do not have a deep understanding of the message they want to bring (gamers who want to enjoy the same sort of games they’ve always played, but slap “Christian” labels on it so that they can feel justified in front of their non-gamer Christian family).

AND IT’S NOT GOING TO WORK.

You can’t slap on a “Christian” label to a standard hardcore game and expect that it would be good. Likewise, you can’t just package a “game” around what is essentially a bunch of Sunday school material and expect that it would be appealing to the audience. What is needed is a fundamental approach to the problem of designing Christian games – you need a deep understanding of the properties of the medium and the properties of the message before you can truly design a good (and fun) Christian game. The current games out there enjoy some limited success because of the sheer hunger of people for such games. But it’s limited. I believe that when we can see the real thing, we’ll appreciate what the difference is between a slapdash approach and a fundamental design approach. Unfortunately, that time may be a long time in coming.

The Eyeshield 21 manga has come to an end.

Finally, after 333 chapters, this hilarious, exciting and all-around great manga has made its’ final touchdown, with a great ending to boot. Eyeshield 21 has been a blast to read from the beginning to the end, and is one of the only two sports mangas that I always looked forward to read every week. Riichiro Inagaki (writer) and Yusuke Murata (artist) have really done an excellent job, and I hope they will continue to collaborate and produce another good manga like this in the future.

The story follows a young freshman in high school, Kobayakawa Sena, who is small, weak and constanly being bullied by others. Because of that, however, he has developed an amazing footspeed, running errands as a gofer. When Hiruma Youichi, the quarterback and captain of the Deimon High Devilbats, spots Sena, he uses various tactics to forcibly recruit him into the American Football club, including blackmail and physical threats. To use his speed as a secret weapon, Hiruma devises a cover scheme – putting an eyeshield in Sena’s helment to hide his face, and proclaiming him as “Eyeshield 21″, a super running genius who came back to Japan from the University of Notre Dame to play for the Devilbats. With that, Sena begins a double life as a bullied weakling on one side, and the mysterious star runner back of the Deimon Devilbats football team. And throughout the course of the manga, they slowly gain more and more reliable teammates, each with their own specialties – and the Deimon Devilbats set off towards the Christmas Bowl, where the finals of the National High school tournament are held.

Eyeshield 21 is unique in my memory, because it manages to succesfully mix the extremities of the battle manga style of storytelling (where everyone has a special ability and they team up to fight against each other) with the solid grounding of real sports action. Who knew that the world of American Football could be full of such crazy people and wacky stunts? The funny thing is, it could really happen. Admittedly, the characterizations are all totally exaggerated, but nevertheless, there is a core of solid football knowledge and tactics behind the manga. I think it just happens to be one of those subjects that translates well into manga, because of American Football’s tendency to have a team of specialists in each dedicated position.

The Deimon Devilbats are a team of specialists, running towards the championship!

Plus, the character dynamics play off each other very well. Honestly, although Sena is touted as the eponymous star of the show, the real attraction of Eyeshield 21 comes from Hiruma Youichi, the demonic quarterback who would use any sort of tactic to win and get what he wants. He’s completely maniacal, using weaponry, intelligence, blackmail and spies, and psychological warfare of every kind to win. And yet, despite it all, you can sense that he’s a good person underneath – every team needs a reliable leader, and Hiruma does that very well for the Deimon Devilbats. He’s insane and terrifying, but you trust that his insanity is going to be unleashed on your enemies, when you follow him. He’s like the epitome of “Evil Genius Leader”. And that’s what makes him so entertaining to watch – while Sena and the rest of the team are mostly pure and straightforward, their leader is as devious and twisty as they come. Watching him keep them all in line, and out-violent the hoodlums who try to rebel against his authority, is sometimes more fun than watching the games themselves. Plus, there’s those little tender-maybe-romantic moments with Mamori (the female manager, who acts like Sena’s big sister) that come up every now and then. ^^

If he can’t frighten you with guns, he’ll use blackmail instead.

I recommend this manga to anyone who wants to read an interesting and funny sports manga. Read it now! (or watch the anime…) Viz has released up to Volume 27, and OneManga has all the scans online.

I just had an eye-opening experience.

I was reading a typical Korean shoujo manhwa (Korean comic  aimed at teenage girls – usually featuring one ordinary but pretty girl caught in a love triangle between two guys. Best-known example would probably be Goong/Gung/Princess Hours.) In this case, the manhwa My Girl was about a sports-loving girl who has a secret life as a teenage model, who loved her classmate, but got caught in a media scandal with a national tennis player. Pretty standard teenage girl love-triangle romance. I’ve read at least half a dozen other stories with the same or similar plotlines – these are like the comic equivalents of Harlequin novels for teenage girls.

However, there was a difference in my reading of this story and the rest. The difference was that I’ve been avidly following the Korean media and celebrity scene now for the last year or so, whereas previously I did not. As a result, my readings of the relative importance and significance of events portrayed in the story has dramatically changed. Case in point: the rumours of the scandal between the main character and the tennis player appearing on the Internet. It’s one of those big no-no’s for teenage celebrities in Korea – they mustn’t date anyone while they’re popular with the public. When I had encountered similar scenes before my exposure to the Korean media industry, I didn’t think too much about it. Maybe my thoughts went something like, “Okay, so she did a bad thing. What’s all the fuss about? Can’t they just go out anyway? Ignore the public.”

Then, I dived into the world of Korean idol worship on the Net. It’s scary. Korean culture really – and I mean really – glamourises the teenage celebrity idols they have. Fan groups go absolutely crazy over them. In fact, fan groups can even go to war with each other if their idols are perceived to clash or be disrespectful to each other. (Example: The 2008 Dream Concert) Similarly, I’ve seen death threats and other stuff when fans take a dislike to someone who’s rumoured to be dating their favourite celebrity idol. It may sound ridiculous and overblown to you and me, but they take it absolutely seriously. Remember, the root word of “fan” is “fanatic”.

Because of this, the Korean media industry, and Korean celebrities, take the Internet rumour and gossip mill very seriously. A hint of a scandal among these fan groups can spread like wildfire and mean life or death to a celebrity’s career and popularity. It’s a fairly unique phenomenon, only in Korea where hi-speed Internet broadband capability is integrated almost seamlessly into everyday life and used throughout the entertainment world. In other countries like the U.S., Internet rumours are taken with a pinch of salt, especially since fan culture doesn’t really go online. But in Korea, the Internet is where all the fans hang out and where you can get the latest news about your favourite celebrity idol.

Coming back to my main point: Now that I’ve been exposed to the way the Korean media industry interacts with its’ fans and internet culture, it completely changed my interpretation of the significance of the event. A teenage model getting into a rumoured Internet scandal with a national tennis player is a BIG THING in Korea. It could lead to stalkers, death threats, constant harassment, the death of her career, etc. What I had once dismissed as trivial (as it would be in any other country except Korea) becomes a very significant and dramatic moment. Mmy exposure to Korean Internet fan culture has radically altered my interpretation of a media artifact (the comic) produced by that culture.

In the bigger picture, what importance does this have?

What this has shown me is that exposure to different cultures and ways of thinking is actually a good idea after all. I tend to be reclusive, averse to travel and quite happy with my own world. Unlike many, I don’t really seek out new experiences by travelling or wanting to converse with strangers. But to genuinely understand how people think, and to perceive the reason for why they react in the way they do… that’s something worthwhile. It took me 1 year to understand Korean fan culture to the point where I can put myself in their shoes (even though I don’t really get involved in their activities). It took me an equally long time to understand MMORPG gamers, back in the Eternal Lands days, when I was playing online games heavily. And even until today, I have only gotten past the surface layer of anime/manga fandom.

Fan culture. What an interesting thing it is. Time to go read Prof. Henry Jenkins’ books on the subject again.

Of course, I wrote in to talk about Mitsuru Adachi, my favourite manga auth0r. You can read my email here, in the “Hey Answerfans!” section (scroll down to the middle).

Also, the Cross Game anime just keeps getting better and better. Normally, I don’t watch anime whose manga I’ve already read, but I’m still sticking with Cross Game, because it’s just so good. Plus, I like how the directors are rearranging the scenes slightly to add more poignancy and flow, yet still sticking very closely to the manga’s script and atmosphere. Brilliant work from the Synergy SP studios! Just finished Episode 5, and can’t wait for Episode 6 to come out…

Cross Game, a manga (Japanese comic) created by my favourite manga author, Mitsuru Adachi, has been turned into an anime and is airing this season! The first episode has just been aired and subbed, and it already outshines the other 30 or so series premiering this season. Cross Game is simply a masterpiece of slice-of-life romantic drama, with some sports action thrown in.

Summary: Cross Game follows the story of Koh Kitamura, only son of the Kitamura Sports equipment store, and his relationship with the four sisters of the Tsukishima family, who run the neighbourhood batting cage and Clover cafe. The second sister, Wakaba, was born on the same day at the same hospital as Koh, and they have been closely linked since their earliest days. This causes Koh to be the target of quite a bit of jealousy among his other male classmates, as well as from Wakaba’s younger sister Aoba. In the meantime, Koh’s friends and rivals all are interested in baseball, and try to drag him into their world. Since he’s been swinging a bat since young at the Tsukishima batting cages, Koh’s naturally a good batter, but his fielding skills are awful. However, just as he decides baseball is rather cool, a life-changing event occurs.

Thoughts: It’s always difficult to write a summary for Cross Game, because the story is separated into two parts – a prologue set in primary school, and the main story set in high school. Episode 1 covers the prologue. I watched it the moment it came onto the Net, even though there were no subtitles yet and it was just in Japanese. The animation studio did a wonderful job of adapting it and still keeping true to the manga’s original storyline. I was in tears by the end of the episode, even though I knew what was coming. For all anime lovers out there, you simply must watch it. Reviews across all major anime sites, blogs and forums have been excellent, with many people calling it the masterpiece of the season, and the manga also just won the Best Shounen series in the Shokugakukan awards last year.

You can watch Episode 1 with subtitles streamed on Veoh, or download the torrent here, or direct HTTP download here.

Anime/Manga: The new anime season is starting from this week. A bunch of interesting shows that I’m thinking about watching…  Cross Game (the latest story by my favourite mangaka, Adachi Mitsuru), K-on (another KyoAni product, in a similar vein to Lucky Star), Tears to Tiara (fantasy adventure), and Winter Sonata (yes, the classic Korean drama is being turned into an anime. Goodness knows what it’s going to be like). I’ll probably post more in-depth thoughts on these another day.

Books: I’m kind of oscillating between a couple of books at the moment – David Drake’s When the Tide Rises (the 6th book in the RCN series that I’ve been buying regularly from Webscriptions), and Rhys Bowen’s series of Constable Evans Mysteries, which are a bunch of mystery novels set in rural Wales around the early 1990s. Kinda light reading.

Christianity: The search for a Senior Pastor for our church (since the last one left to become a missonary a year ago) has finally borne some results – a Rev. George Butron was unanimously recommended by the committee to be the top candidate for Senior Pastor. He’s scheduled to preach for 3 Sundays before a vote will be taken by the congregation whether to accept him or not. So far, he seems like a nice guy and an engaging speaker, based on his sermon today. Lots of anecdotes and managed to share his own testimony while putting out an altar call. As a speaker and preacher, I think he might be okay, though there were a few careless errors here and there with regards to Scripture referencing. I haven’t had a chance to see how well he operates as a teacher or pastor yet, but there’s still two more Sundays (and Easter) to go.

Games: Playing Baldur’s Gate a lot this week. Actually, I’ve been playing a lot of games this week – Hourglass of Summer (the other visual novel that I went to great effort to get), Baldur’s Gate, and dabbling in a bunch of other games. But mostly Baldur’s Gate. I had bought the entire set (Baldur’s Gate, BG II, and both expansions) some time ago for a really bargain price, but never got around to playing them seriously until now. Now I’m planning to finish them before I lose interest again.

K-Pop: Nothing much. Watching a little bit of everything – following SNSD in variety shows, a little bit of Family Outing, a little bit of We Got Married, and a little bit of Coffee Prince.

Shows: Have decided not to go for Cats. Must save money. However, my cell and I are planning to watch a movie this Good Friday holiday. Finally, I can use that free movie ticket that I’ve been hoarding up for  nearly a year now. It expires this month, so I’d better use it fast. There’s supposedly a new Jackie Chan movie coming out…

Anime/Manga: Toradora anime has officially ended! (Well, the first season, at least…) And it was a good, well-executed ending, too. Being based on a light novel, the issues that were dealt with in the penultimate and final episodes were a lot more serious than I had expected out of a romantic comedy, and yet it pulled it off well. This ending sort of makes me want to read the light novels now. Also, it looks like the Natsu arc of the Skip Beat! manga has finally come to a successful close. Natsu-sama FTW… but man, she’s harsh. And yet another member joins the Love Me section! Interesting times ahead…

But the biggest highlight of this week has been the manga known as Liar Game. I just read it out of the blue when it was featured on one of the sites I visit often, but boy is it engaging! Essentially, a naive and honest girl gets sucked into a very weird game where participants are each given a lump sum of money and pitted against each other to con, trick or steal each other’s cash. Whoever loses ends up owing the company the amount they lost, and whoever wins gets to keep the extra prize money for themselves. So how’s a poor, innocent, totally-honest girl supposed to survive in this game? By hiring one of the best swindlers in town, of course! A very interesting psychological drama, full of mental battles, tricks and calculation of odds. Plus some philosophical issues raised about greed, fair play, and the natural inclinations of humanity towards either of these. The third round of the Liar Game just ended, and the stakes just keep getting higher and higher…

Books: The best times for reading are when I’m taking public transport on the way to and from work. I can usually get through a couple of chapters each trip. After finishing The Phoenix Guards last week, I’m now naturally going through all the books written by the same author, Steven Brust. His style really is a copy of Alexander Dumas. Except that he knows it. What I find really interesting is the narrator’s voice in his stories. Brust pretends to be a translator of a history academic, Paarfi of Roundwood, who himself is an author of historical romance, writing novelizations of the life major characters in the history of Paarfi’s world. Really interesting when Paarfi’s pompous and loquacious style is poked fun at by the “translator”, Steve Brust. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to write in a similar manner?

Christianity: Sometimes, I wonder what the role of a cell leader is supposed to be. How far should I go in caring for my cell members? I’m naturally introverted and reserved, so I don’t expect much contact with them outside of church activities. And yet, should I make efforts to meet up with them more often, and encourage them to do so as well? How far do we take the concept that the Church is a family? Should we be integrated into each other’s lives fully? How can I find the reserves to care for each one of my cell members, when I don’t have that much depth of feeling in me? I know that the world will recognise us by the love we have for each other, but I really wonder – can I love this way?

Games: I tried playing Piece of Wonder this week. It’s one of the English-translated Japanese visual novels that I went to so much trouble to get. Really like it, but for some reason it doesn’t work too well on my machine. The novel parts are fine, but the battle gameplay (which plays like a console turn-based tactical RPG) doesn’t seem to respond well to mouse controls. It got stuck on Windows XP, and is totally unplayable in Windows Vista. Eh… I should find a way out of this. I really want to know what happens next.

K-Pop: So, I’m moving to tracking another musical group now… it’s amazing how interconnected the Korean entertainment industry is. By just tracking music artistes to variety shows, and then investigating variety shows to find new music artistes, you can get to recognise quite a number of celebrities. This time, I followed YoonA from SNSD to Family Outing, then watched several episodes of Family Outing until I got interested in Big Bang, and now I’m tracking Big Bang. Big Bang is a 5-member boy band specializing in a fusion of hip hop, rap and pop music. What I really like about them is their music video choreography. Three of their biggest hits: Lies, Last Farewell, and Haru Haru (This Day) all have a surprise twist at the end which makes you reinterpret the meaning of the song and the scenes that occured during the MV. Really good. And the themes expressed in these songs are pretty good too. Plus they actually compose and produce their own songs, too, which speaks well of their passion and talent.

Shows: The Cats musical is coming to Singapore! I’m so tempted to get a ticket and go to watch it… How often will I get a chance to see a world-famous musical like this being performed without going overseas? But the cheapest tickets I can get are $70, whereas the good seats cost $140, double the price. Still… it’s Cats. It’s really worth it, especially with an international cast. *sigh* Still have 10 more days to decide before it opens…

Anime / Manga: Ako kissed Negi! Huh, can’t believe Akamatsu actually allowed it to happen. Naruto finally met his father! Cool. Also, Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game has returned to publication! Time for more youthful sports romance drama! Yay!

Books: Just finished reading Steven Brust’s “The Phoenix Guards”, a fantasy adventure novel written in the French Romantic style. Great technique, there. Lots of humour too. Haven’t encountered French Romance since reading The D’Artagnan Chronicles by Alexander Dumas back in secondary school. The Phoenix Guards really remind me of The Three Musketeers (as it was supposed to, I guess…)

Christianity: Did you know that the last parts of the Gospel of Mark are widely considered by Biblical scholars as not to have been written by the author of Mark’s Gospel? The oldest manuscripts end off at v. 8, which means the passage about the Great Commission, the post-Resurrection appearances and the accompanying of signs and wonders to the message being preached by the disciples were not included in the original Gospel. Some scholars theorise that this passage was added as a footnote by a scribe in the second century, based off the Acts of the Apostles. Lee Strobel’s “The Case for the Real Jesus” is very interesting.

Games: Just added Saboteur and Munchkin to my personal board game collection! Now if only I can interest enough people in getting together to play them… Also, next week is the Game Developer’s Conference, where the Independent Games Festival competition results will be announced. Hope CarneyVale: Showtime wins the Grand Prize.

Shows: You know, no matter how many times I watch them, I just find it really hard to believe Taeyeon and Hyungdon acting like a couple in We Got Married. Maybe I’m biased because I see SNSD a lot elsewhere, or maybe their behaviour on screen or the editing process really is trying to keep things light rather than developing, because they’re scared of all the anti-fans. But there’s absolutely no chemistry between this couple. It feels more like a big brother being run roughshod over by his little sister and her pack of friends. That one Kangin-Taeyeon moment in episode 47 had more sizzle and spice than the entire Taeyeon-Hyungdon relationship so far. *sigh* I miss the original couples of We Got Married. Especially Alex and Shin Ae.

Misc.: I really should start building this website up more and put up my portfolio as well as my fanfiction pieces… been kind of lazy to do it.

Akane-Iro ni Somaru Saka

Earl and Fairy

Hyakko

Kannagi

Kemeko Deluxe

Skip Beat!

To Aru Majutsu no Index

Toradora

Tytania

Yozakura Quartet

Well, I’ve finally gotten around to cataloguing the immense number of anime series I’m watching this fall season. It’s lucky that I’ve got holidays now, because the sheer number of good shows available this season boggles the mind. There are over 30 series premiering this season, and I’m following about 10 of them regularly.

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