Year: 2009

Ongoing Project: Detective Series List

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It is not always at the forefront but this is a detective themed anime/manga blog. In that spirit we have decided to create a small database of detective series. Every title on the list is a anime or manga that has a detective as the star of the story. Sometimes the detectives are professional, some times they are amateur detectives, and some are reluctant detectives who find themselves embroiled in a mystery. The only real requirement is that the mystery or mysteries they are trying to solve be a major part of the plot. Titles that have a one shot mystery like episode 30 of Hayate the Combat Butler are not listed for they are not true detective series.

Please feel free to send suggestions of titles to add to or remove from the list. In fact, we implore you, we need help! This is a work in progress.

*We have not watched/read everything on this list* 

Mechademia #2, Return of the Anime Literati!

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We continue our scholarly pursuits by reading book two of the Mechademia series entitled Networks of Desire. I am personally glad to see that the University of Minnesota Press is still able to put of these books with a 4th coming soon. It’s gratifying to see a healthy forum for academic anime publications. This volume was printed a year after the first Mechademia so we are examining not only the essays within book but what changes and improvements have been made since their freshman effort.

We are always trying to broaden our horizons here on Reverse Thieves. One of the quickest ways is to really sit down and read a bunch of essays that you only half understand! Okay, so Mechademia isn’t that impossible to understand, but it certainly makes you take a closer examination of series or parts of fandom that you might not have before. There is a wealth of knowledge in this new volume!

The Shojo section is papers based around female-targeted manga and female otaku related issues. None of the essays had too high a level of prerequisite amount of knowledge needed to understand any of the articles. My favorite essay in the section was the article of the Rose of Versailles and it’s impact on shojo manga. As a huge fan of Rose of Versailles I enjoyed learning of it’s historical impact, back story, and behinds the scenes information on the manga. There is also a fascinating piece in the section about Mori Mari one of the founders of yaoi. The article looks at how yaoi works relate to both it’s primary female audience and the gay community in Japan. I am always interested in the gay community’s reaction to yaoi in any country. There was a solid article on Ranma 1/2 fan-fiction but I felt it was out of place in the section. While I admit the common perception is that most fan-fiction authors are girls this is hardly a hard and fast rule. Still the article was a interesting look at how fan-fiction has grown out of and changed anime fandom and fandom in general.

I was happy to see a paper about the influence of Rose of Versailles for multiple reasons beyond my fervent love for the series. The essay balances what was new and impactful about the story while weaving in the historical aspects of the famous manga. I learned a bit myself and the essay gives access for people to learn and understand a genre that, while not invented by her, was certainly taken by the reins and changed significantly by Riyoko Ikeda. The Doll Beauties essay was not about anime or manga, heck it wasn’t even about cosplay of characters from anime or manga, it was about the gothic lolita trends making it seem out of place while being well thought out. And while I thought the Mori Mari essay was a smart analysis, it was really more about the author and her relation to her father rather than being tied to yaoi’s rise and popularity. I’ll agree that this area of of the anthology is the most accessible, it’s all uphill from here.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #063

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And so ends Kim Dong Hwa’s Color series with the Color of Heaven. The series proves itself to be a classic Shakespearean Comedy despite the fact that it is not an Elizabethan play. That means that it ends on a positive note with a wedding of a couple that has been separated. We begin with Duksam having to leave the village after the events in the last book. Now Ehwa must, like her mother, wait patiently for the man she loves to return to her. It is also her mother’s turn to support her daughter. But all is well that ends well. Ehwa resolves any lingering feelings she has for past loves before her wedding and we end with a consummation scene that is mostly symbolic but does not shy away from being tastefully graphic. Overall the series has been consistently solid. The Color trilogy has maintained its highbrow feel while still having a graceful humanity. With its relatively short but substantial length and its more mature narrative the Color series is a manhwa to show to people who might not necessarily give your standard manga a chance.

The beginning of The Color of Heaven starts very somberly as Ehwa is separated from Duksam and knows not when he will return. The first two book build up to this point of falling truly in love, so the third has a lot of quiet moments of introspection and realization. Also about half of the book involves waiting and waiting. However, that isn’t to say it is boring, much to the credit of the author, the growth between mother and daughter is subtle and beautiful. Ehwa’s mother is a woman who knows through maturity the power of longing and waiting and she imparts many important lessons on Ehwa in this final volume. In fact, much of this concluding story seems to be as much about her mother as it is about Ehwa. But perhaps even more telling is Ehwa’s ability to understand these lessons while still maintaining a hint of her naivete when it comes to the relationships between man and woman unlike her moments in the first two book. What becomes increasingly obvious through various conversations with her friend and mother is Ehwa’s ability to emotionally understand herself and her love but not to physically understand the relationships between the sexes. The finally moments of the book play out between Ehwa and Duksam while being interspersed with her mother and the picture man and also a set of neighbors. And you feel her education while not complete has finally gotten to a new plateau. The Color series has been both artistically unique and calmly enthralling and as such is a series that needs to be read and experienced.

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