Otoyomegatari

[starlady]

Mori Kaoru. Otoyomegatari | A Bride's Story. 3 vols. Tokyo: Enterbrain, 2009-11.

Reconstructive analysis via the internet hive mind indicates that I heard of this manga via rushthatspeaks' review of Shannon Hale's Book of a Thousand Nights and One Night, who recommended the manga as an example of how to write other cultures well. I know Mori better as the mangaka behind the enormously popular Victorian Maid Emma; I suspect the manga are similar in their levels of attention to detail and the sheer gorgeousness of the art.

Otoyomegatari takes place somewhere in central Asia in the mid-19th century; the protagonist is Amira, who's just begun living with the tribe of her husband Karluk. Amira and Karluk have an approximately eight-year age gap (she's older), and one of the pleasures of the manga is the genuinely affectionate, respectful relationships that develop between Amira and all of her new family members. Another pleasure is watching her hunt, ride, and shoot; the other is, as rush noted, just watching the various aspects of daily life among the nomads go by.

It's something of a slow start, admittedly, but there are hints of a plot in the machinations of Amira's oldest brother in her birth family, and in the presence of a British anthropologist who is completely unexplained thus far and entertainingly clueless ("Why did you change those hangings for these hangings?" "They look better." "Ah, they look better, okay." *scribbles*)--he may or may not be a player in the Great Game. I'll definitely be reading the rest of it.

It's been licensed in English in North America by Yen Press, too, and I'm told it's a nice edition. Yay.
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Comments

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

"Clueless" is not only a common state for ethnographic fieldworkers; in some ways, it's desirable. The alternative, after all, is to believe you already understand -- which you may or may not, and that preconception can get in the way of you actually seeing what's in front of you.

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

Well, that's certainly true. My disciplinary biases, let me show you them. :P

But, was it the ideal in the 1850s?

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I'd overlooked the date. In the 1850s, there was no ideal, because there was basically no anthropology as such. Morgan didn't publish Ancient Society until 1877, and Tylor put out Anthropology in 1881. In the 1850s you did have some amount of semi-fieldworkish stuff going on, but it was more along the lines of kinship studies (how does a society group cousins, etc? that was a hot topic for scholars at the time), or else vague, rambling monographs written by a guy who had read the accounts of missionaries and merchants without ever leaving his armchair.

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

I think this might actually be 1870s or 1880s (the Great Game didn't really get into high gear until the 1870s), so I still think you're right. But otoh, as far as this volume goes, the anthropologist dude has about ten lines total; I only know he's an anthropologist because of what people have told me.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

It's not a big deal either way; I just smiled at the "clueless" comment, because that actually is how it goes. :-)

[larryhammer]

My guess at the setting is 1860s or 70s, based on the approximate border of Russian influence and control. For highly fuzzy values of "approximate," given exactly how far east (and south) of the Caspian the town is hasn't been established clearly.

---L.

[nokiirat.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfENoePp36o Watch Kaoru Mori draw Amira...droool.

[larryhammer]

I was thinking of looking those videos up again, because of this discussion -- even more stunning than I remembered. And -- oo! -- I hadn't watched the applying tones segment before. Thanks!

---L.