I can’t say I like Urasawa’s manga series much. The art always pulls me in to start it (Monster, Pluto, 20th Century Boys), but I quit reading after a few chapters because he’ll usually just create a premise, casually play it out, and not commit to the hard work of driving plot and character development in a way that engages the reader.
But I really love his documentary series on manga artists.
I had this conversation with many a friend. It seems that a lot of people fail to see the distinction in how Urasawa decides to construct the (sometimes excessively) over-complicated structure of his work. The fact is that the man is, at heart, a postmodernist: he cares less about traditional tropes such as character development and is rather much more interested in exploring various point of views of a single event, relating the events of his fiction to the real world and inciting the reader to form his own opinion on a subject, a story or a person. I personally love it, being the rive-gauche comp lit post-grad that I am; but I see how it might not be for everyone. ESPECIALLY because the man takes his sweet time in developing plot points. I’d say Monster is by far his most “standardized” work, as in that it’s quite understandable to see the evolution of the MC while keeping the eyes on the plot. But things like Billy Bat or 20th Century Boys, imho, pushed the manga medium to a whole another level that we’re starting to see as vibrantly influent and foretolding just now with some of the more high-brow stuff made by people like Inio Asano, who are more interested in atypical structures and influences external to the classical manga world.
Yea, Inio Asano is my favorite manga artist. To the extent you view Urasawa as a predecessor to the type of atypical and non-linear storytelling that Inio Asano engages in, that’s a strong recommendation to me to give Urasawa another shot.
I’ll try Monster again, and enjoy hearing about him from someone who is a passionate fan.
I want to meet you IRL for some purpose. Can I have your address, name, age, parents name, dimension of your body, did you ever learned any type of martial art? Do you own any sort of weapon? Do you know about posion? Do you workout?
Haha, ok! I’m definitely fallible, but each time I start one I tell myself, “Everyone likes this guy, he’s clearly a great artist, you must just be missing the point. Try again.” And each time my eyes glaze over by chapter 6 and I just can’t continue.
But in the interest of avoiding the trouble of armed (or poisoned) conflict, what’s your favorite? Maybe I’ll give it another try.
I can’t say I like Urasawa’s manga series much. The art always pulls me in to start it (Monster, Pluto, 20th Century Boys), but I quit reading after a few chapters because he’ll usually just create a premise, casually play it out, and not commit to the hard work of driving plot and character development in a way that engages the reader.
But I really love his documentary series on manga artists.
Here’s the one on Junji Ito, the rest are not hard to find online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0ZtMuCDlck
I had this conversation with many a friend. It seems that a lot of people fail to see the distinction in how Urasawa decides to construct the (sometimes excessively) over-complicated structure of his work. The fact is that the man is, at heart, a postmodernist: he cares less about traditional tropes such as character development and is rather much more interested in exploring various point of views of a single event, relating the events of his fiction to the real world and inciting the reader to form his own opinion on a subject, a story or a person. I personally love it, being the rive-gauche comp lit post-grad that I am; but I see how it might not be for everyone. ESPECIALLY because the man takes his sweet time in developing plot points. I’d say Monster is by far his most “standardized” work, as in that it’s quite understandable to see the evolution of the MC while keeping the eyes on the plot. But things like Billy Bat or 20th Century Boys, imho, pushed the manga medium to a whole another level that we’re starting to see as vibrantly influent and foretolding just now with some of the more high-brow stuff made by people like Inio Asano, who are more interested in atypical structures and influences external to the classical manga world.
Yea, Inio Asano is my favorite manga artist. To the extent you view Urasawa as a predecessor to the type of atypical and non-linear storytelling that Inio Asano engages in, that’s a strong recommendation to me to give Urasawa another shot.
I’ll try Monster again, and enjoy hearing about him from someone who is a passionate fan.
I want to meet you IRL for some purpose. Can I have your address, name, age, parents name, dimension of your body, did you ever learned any type of martial art? Do you own any sort of weapon? Do you know about posion? Do you workout?
Thanks. I will be hoping for a reply.
Regards
Hmmm
Haha, ok! I’m definitely fallible, but each time I start one I tell myself, “Everyone likes this guy, he’s clearly a great artist, you must just be missing the point. Try again.” And each time my eyes glaze over by chapter 6 and I just can’t continue.
But in the interest of avoiding the trouble of armed (or poisoned) conflict, what’s your favorite? Maybe I’ll give it another try.
Read or Watch Pluto. It’s absolute cinema.
Gotcha, thanks. Maybe I’ll try watching - usually I prefer the manga but maybe it will help fill in whatever’s missing for me.