12.13: Wahon and manga

[starlady]

lnhammer asked about my favorite Japanese book or poem.

I think the answer is still the Tale of Genji. I read the Tyler translation (which, now that I've read it in the original Japanese, I know is totally inadequate, but I still think it's the best single version available in English) in my freshman year of college; it took me four months. Genji is a world in itself, and when I started reading Proust several years later I realized that it is entirely true to compare the two writers--Murasaki and Proust both write a degree of psychological realism, and complexity, that few others have ever achieved. And I love how it's all about the women (Sidenote: Milan Kundera, you and your sexist, Eurocentric ideas about the world's first novel being Don Quixote can go fuck yourselves.) I also really enjoyed The Pillow Book when I read it three years ago. Sei was totally awesome, too.

meganbmoore asked about my five favorite shoujo.

# Revolutionary Girl Utena - my first anime, and still one of my favorite. Girls with swords! What more can you want? And speaking of girls with swords…
# Rose of Versailles - Girls with swords, in the French Revolution no less! 
# Princess Tutu - This is an amazing anime. A duck becomes a ballerina who becomes a magical girl who saves the world.
# Puella Magica Mahou Shoujo Madoka - This anime was an instant classic, and rightfully so.
# I think five is a tie between Sailor Moon and Nana. I really like Paradise Kiss, too, though that is really pushing the boundaries of 'shoujo'--if it were a book, it would be squarely in the emerging "New Adult" category.