Forum - View topicNEWS: Raijin on hiatus
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Schunoko
Posts: 15 Location: La Habra |
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I find that insulting! How dare you generalize me as shallow and vapid because I don't like watching big beefy guys beat each other up or a very blah romantic comedy whose premise reminds me too much of Ah! My Goddess? I'm one of the girls who Raijin didn't appeal to. Hopefully they'll retool something so that they have a title that will stand out more than "Oooh, prequel to Fist of the North Star" Nothing stood out as horribly original. Nothing made me want to read it. They just need to get something that will appeal to everyone. Not just visually stimulated guys (you really can be just as shallow and vapid as some of the girls you were insulting), not just bishonen obsessed girls, but to as many as possible. I'm happy they realized that they weren't reaching as wide an audience as they'd hoped, so hopefully that is what they're working on. |
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Raoh
 Posts: 357 Location: Florence, OR |
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As fan of Hokuto no Ken, I found that very insulting. 
But, I also have to agree with, the generalization he made was going too far. Thats why I never made such a generalization. Woman and girls vary too much from one to the next to catagorize them like that. The point is Raijin realized they where not reaching a wide enough demographic, so, they should try some good marketing, and maybe aquiring one or two UNIQUE Shoujo storys to try and get more female readers. Even doing that, its not a gurantee that their sales will increase. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15465 |
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Schunoko:
Ok, what manga series do appeal to you ?
In a market where every other comic has some blonde anorexic schoolgirl/schoolboy on the cover, or some tart with a short skirt, how exactly doesn't Blue Sky stand out?
If we were really into that stuff, Bomber Girl would be a big hit.
Well at least it's nice to know you're not doing it for the eye candy yourself. Anyway, I apologize. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15465 |
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Schunoko: You said you're not into series which are shallow and vapid, and which appeal to bishonen lovers, yet you still haven't told me what you are into. Please clarify.
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Hmm... so girls who don't like the shonen manga that Rajin had to offer are automatically "shallow and vapid"?
 Eheheh... isn't that a bit... out there? I am also a female who reads manga every single day across many genres, but Rajin also didn't appeal to me. I one of those who go with what Schunoko said; I don't know seeing those big muscled guys go at it, or reading romance that is crap compared to other manga written by female manga-ka who make a living off romance manga.
I, like most female manga readers, love to expand across genres. Gimme a little Hot Gimmick, Hana Kimi, and Paradise Kiss one day, give me Sorcerer Hunters, BLEACH, Onepiece, and Naruto the next. I like to read what I consider great stories, and also I like to read what I consider to have great art, or are just for the heck of it are something fun to read. If the manga I read meets one of those three requirements, and lack bishonen, I won't die. Raijin didn't meet any of those requirements for me. It doesn't mean all the manga in it suck, I just have different taste. I'm not blaming their "failure" on the genres of manga they released. *Course the fact that in america 60% of manga readers are female could of had a tiny bit to do with it* I think it was advertising. People just didn't know about it, and I never once remember seeing an issue outside of an convention. Oh yeah, it's also a bit hard now to come up with manga series that don't have bishonen in it. Girls today, just seem to slap the bishonen lable on pretty much any character they love these days. *points at the legion of scary teenaged fangirls claiming Yu Gi Oh is full of bishonen* ... *Tries to recall a shoujo manga she's read that focused on nothing but bishonen, and had very little story line* |
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GATSU
Posts: 15465 |
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littlegreenwolf:
See, the funny part about Raijin manga is the female characters are actually empowered, while the manga which is popular lacks strong women. (A great example is Yu Ling in Fist of the Blue Sky. Or Kaori and Saeko in City Hunter.) And even the girls in Getten and Bow Wow Wata don't automatically fall for the lead guy like most harem genres. Getten may be an Oh My Goddess knock-off on the surface, but at least she doesn't rely on another guy to make decisions for her like Belldandy. But I'll use your manga selections as examples: 1)Hot Gimmick Fragment of summary picked from Right Stuf for vol. 1: "...When Hatsumi has to buy a pregnancy test because her popular sister Akane thinks she's pregnant, Mrs. Tachibana's son, Ryoki, who used to bully Hatsumi as a kid, catches her and promises not to tell the world about Hatsumi's secret as long as she becomes his slave. "Suddenly Azusa, Hatsumi's protector in their youth, reappears to save her again! He's moving back into the neighborhood!..." Yeah, really uplifting for young women. Oh, and Britney Spears is a great role model too! (blatant sarcasm) Moving on... 2)Hana Kimi From what I got reading the Viz sample, it's essentially a Japanese rip-off of Felicity. But at least Kerri Russell's character cut her hair because she wanted to, not to impress any guys. 3) Paradise Kiss A girl who dresses like a model so guys will like her, because that's what matters more than her education. I guess the author was inspired by the Barbie doll which said, "Math is hard". 4) Sorcerer Hunters More scantily clad women for people who couldn't get enough of Deedlit. 5) BLEACH Yay for a guy stealing a chick's job. 6) Onepiece Don't even get me started on how much I hate this series. I'm told it gets better later, but it's pretty redundant right now. I'd rather watch a Max Fleischer cartoon instead. Anyway, I'm not exactly sure why I should root for someone who's as money-hungry and manipulative as Nami.
That I can agree with.
How about all of them? =p But all kidding aside, I have a soft spot for Mars, so I ain't gonna be stereotyping. It's just that that your description seems to fit the majority of what's popular. Either that or a cgi yawn-fest. And I can get that from Hollywood, so why would I wanna see it from Japan? |
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littlegreenwolf
Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Ok, first, I'm going to point out that using a summary to get the "gist" of a shoujo manga is a really, REALLY bad way to go around getting the idea. Shoujo manga have really complex storylines with twists and turns everywhere. That's the main reason why people claim shoujo manga have better stories then shonen manga.
And you really didn't have to go into trying to rip up my selections apart. I just did random things that came to mind. If you want a list to rip apart, I'll give you one... anyway...
>.> Hatsumi is far from Britney Spears. She's just a normal girl thrown into a very bad situation that involves some really evil twists and turns making it an addicting story. She's a role model in the sense that she's showing girls the situations of what NOT to get into. Stuff that real girls can actually relate to. It's also a story that grabs a person far more so then any of the Raijin titles, because heck, I'm not usually one who goes for the smooshy lovetriangle/evil revenge stuff, and it got me.
>.> The girl didn't cut off her hair because she wanted to impress any guys. She cut her hair off because she needed to to get into the school. She IS supposed to be disguised as a guy. But yeah, I guess it does sort of sound like Felicity, except in this case, the guys aren't supposed to know she's a girl... and well, it just has a heck of a lot better story. It's still going on in Japan, and it's over 21 volumes.
Oi. The girl is FAR from a Barbie. She's as independent and smart as most females can get in manga. She just felt the need for change in her bland life, found the freak-type people designing the clothes fun and intresting, and decided it was just what she needed. Here's the list of manga that have some of the top spots on my manga list that cover various genres for you to go ahead and rip apart for no aparent reason. I'll skip the non-fantasy shoujo with romance themes this time since normal girls seem to be horrible role models and boring things to read about. Other then Angel Sanctuary, Alichino, Count Cain, Blame, and Anne Freaks, they feature girls as the main characters. All but two of those manga I mentioned are shoujo: Angel Sanctuary Alichino Count Cain Skyhigh Blame Doll Confidential Confessions Shadow Star Anne Freaks Jisatsu Circle |
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Legato 2057
 Posts: 437 Location: Soon to be Japan |
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This sucks, I was really looking forward to finishing the Fist of the North Start: Master Editions.
The coloring that they did for each issue was amazing.
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GATSU
Posts: 15465 |
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littlegreenwolf:
It sounds like she's still dependant on a guy to bail her out though. Of course you have a point about summaries, so I'll take your word for it for now.
And she needed to get into the school to impress the guy.
It's just that she lets other guys dictate the kinds of changes she wants, instead of making those changes on her own that rubbed me the wrong way.
Since I only know a few on your list, that would be quite a challenge. ^^. But I'll try. Angel Sanctuary= X with incest. Confidential Confessions sounds like a female-oriented Kids. (And I don't mean that in a good way.) Doll sounds like an edgier version of Chobits. Anyway, I'm into edgy material too. But I generally stick with that kind of media if it's well-written, not because it relies on edgy content to sell itself. (Although I occasionally debase myself by seeing the latter, which is why my mind is still scarred after a session of Meet the Feebles.) [/code] |
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Raoh
Posts: 357 Location: Florence, OR |
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I know what ya mean. The colorization is awesome, the new artwork for some of the covers, provided by Hara-san, is nothing short of excellence.
Wow, I'v only seen the OVA (But do wanna read the manga), and I feel that pretty much sums it up right there, too. By the way, X is an awesome story (except the movie, that was....well....the lack of plot development in such a short movie for the length of the actual manga made it suck, plain and simple. The TV series was alot better in this sense, because the characters could really interact better and it could use alot more of the plot of the manga). |
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littlegreenwolf
Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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My personal favorite in summing it up is "Ah! My Goddess meets X." It's very screwy on the mind in some places... of course now that I think about it, most of the manga I just listed are pretty messed up. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15465 |
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littlegreenwolf:
If it's any consolation, I'm a fan of Berserk. |
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cyrax777
 Posts: 1825 Location: the desert |
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my 5 thoughts on it:
1: Price (early one it was what 300 bucks for a year) I know they fixed it but still sticker shocked alot of people early on 2: Hard to find (I've never seen the magazine in any of the bookstores I've gone to (Borders and Barnes and Noble (Southern Az) 3: Lack of known in the US titles The majority of non fans would have known any of the titles except maybe City hunter and fist of the North star. 4: Little to no Advertising (barely any advertising I can count on one hand the number of ads for raijin I've seen) 5: Atleast the Graphic Novels were easy to find and hopefullu they will continue to release them. |
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michelle
 Posts: 29 Location: Canada |
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Trying to argue the merits of seinen vs. shoujo/josei manga based on which has "stronger" female characters is hilarious because Japanese culture is sexist to begin with - we can't expect to find Western-style "empowered" women in manga! We can't even find worthy female rolemodels in American [superhero] comics. If the girls in shoujo manga appear weaker than what you'd like, just realize that these stories reflect Japanese culture from the woman's point of view - not an idealized male fantasy version of an ass-kicking woman who would likely never exist in contemporary Japan (we have those too - they frequently appear in sci-fi TV shows). These girls have in their future careers as office ladies, housewives, and TV newscasters, usually involving serving tea to their male coworkers at some point =P Bucking the oppressive Japanese exam system in pursuit of a more meaningful life (Paradise Kiss) or running off to another country to join a boy's school and play sports with the guys because you want to get close to a sports star you saw on TV (HanaKimi) actually is a quest requiring guts. (And a plot premise very similar to Slam Dunk's). One that is just as worthy as being the greatest underground wrestler with the most prominent eyelashes (Baki).
Anyway, one of Raijin's problems that no one has mentioned is the dated art in some of the stories. The promo issue I picked up had nothing of interest in it for me, but I gave it to my boyfriend to try because hey, I fall prone to stereotypes sometimes and he doesn't much care for my shoujo books. Newer to manga than I am, he took an instant dislike to the dated artwork, graphic fight scenes, and obviously derivative Guardian Angel Getten. If Raijin can't succeed in selling to the young male adult audience it's obviously designed for, throwing in some shoujo (which can't be read by underage girls anyway - the magazine is for mature readers), isn't going to help any. Ironically, Raijin has failed at attracting the very type of readership that was once the most identifiable consumer of anime and manga in North America. This should have been an easy hit. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15465 |
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It's great that a social faux pas against Victorian values is considered "progressive" for Japanese girls, but even Miyazaki has his female leads doing a little more than trying on new clothes or dating new guys. And his generation should be the most conformist of the bunch. But even he said he hated the manga that was available for girls, which is why he made Spirited Away. (Which while it didn't fail to be that much different, at least didn't have the lead dressed like a fashion model.) As for American comics, Batman seems to get its female role models right, but the rest vary. Haven't read the comic, but the female lead in Hellboy seems ok.
And DBZ and Yu Yu Hakusho should be considered "dated" too, but they still do alright. And Raijin wasn't meant for young males, it was meant for older males. Nonetheless, I met a kid who fit that desired demographic who seemed to be into Raijin, so I think that is a stereotype about its appeal. Just like a stereotype is that girls can't get into it. Again, girls who like flowery hippy art can't get into Raijin. Girls who don't judge a book by its cover can get into it fine. If there are female viewers who are willing to go to midnight screenings of Master of the Flying Guillotine, Story of Ricky, and 70's porn in my area, there are female viewers for Raijin. In fact, one of the girls on the Raijin MB said she couldn't even get into manga until she read Raijin. The problem is making girls and boys better aware of the titles. |
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