In Defense of Laziness
I started
a thread
over on the Dark Horse manga boards to pimp
my
manga reviews and received a reply that got me thinking. In
response to my negative
Berserk review, a poster named Shinji Mimura
wrote:
How much of the story have you read? Just the first volume?
Because I
thought your review on Berserk sounded pretty ignorant. Berserk brings
up great philosophical ideas and is a great story in general. It
doesn't really pick up until the Golden Age arc, though.
I answered that I had only read the first book, admitting that I was
ignorant of what happens in later volumes. (25 volumes have been
published so far in Japan, with no end in sight. For more
information about the Japanese manga, see
this site.)
But the comment made me wonder if I should have done more research on
the manga to be fair. After all, I knew it was a reprint, and I
knew it was a popular series in Japan with multiple volumes. It
wasn't a brand new series where I had no information about forthcoming
storylines. I'm sure if I wanted to learn more about the
series--such as whether any depth to Guts' character is ever
revealed--I could have found that information online.
I think part of the reason I don't track down such information is
because I don't want to spoil the enjoyment of reading the work
itself. When I finally got around to reading
Akira
this year, I was hooked after the first book. I ordered the next
couple volumes online, which meant that I had to wait for the books to
arrive. And because I always choose the Super Saver shipping, it
was going to be awhile. Now since the series was completed long
ago, I could have looked online to find out what happened next.
But I didn't want to ruin the thrill of discovering the details as I
actually read the story. I would worry that knowing what was
going to happen in advance would lessen the impact of having it all
unfold before me. After all, look what happened when I got
impatient with the delay between the second and third volumes of the
Battle
Royale manga: I read the novel, so by the time the next
edition of the manga came out, the events were no longer as shocking or
surprising as they might have been otherwise.
I suppose in the case of
Berserk I could have looked up
the info before writing my review, since I'm not planning to read any
future volumes. But even there too much knowledge could have
colored my reaction to the work, and therefore altered my review.
I generally try to avoid reading others' takes on things I'm
planning to review for much the same reason: I don't want their perspectives to
influence my own opinion too strongly, especially if I don't "get"
something right away. I'd rather put out my reactions, expose my
ignorance, and have others fill me in on where I'm wrong. (Which
has been working rather well so far: Readers in the DHMB thread
have informed me of some of the deeper issues
Berserk
deals with. And in the comments thread of my original reviews,
Christopher Butcher has helpfully pointed out
a
couple
areas
where my analysis of
Buddha wasn't as close or careful as
it should have been. When something is contrary to my
expectations, I always forget to consider that the whole point may have
been to challenge my assumptions. Thanks to Christopher and
others for taking the time to help me refine my thoughts.)
This is probably a good point to remind readers that I'm not an expert
on manga. I've only started reading it recently, and I've only
read a handful of titles so far. As I said when I was reviewing
for
Anime News Network,
I'm new to this particular section of the sequential arts, so please
forgive me when I make errors and omissions that seem obvious to a
long-time otaku. And just like a typical, stubborn-headed male
begging for forgiveness, I'd also like to acknowledge that I'm not
likely to change any time soon--or at least not very quickly.
This will probably sound as though I'm wearing my ignorance like a
badge of honor, but I think my approach to reviewing manga will remain
largely untouched: I'll continue with the same "lifelong reader
of American comics gradually exploring manga" routine. (I should check
with
Bill Sherman to see
who used this schtick first.)
Why do I like this approach? Well, for one thing, I think it can
be useful, since there are probably other readers out there who find
themselves in a similar boat. I'm sure there are other places to go
if you want manga reviews from fans who know everything about the
entire Japanese run of a title. But as
Dave Lartigue
and others have indicated to me, there aren't many sites that review
manga from the perspective of someone generally familiar with comics
but still pretty green when it comes to manga. I know I can't be
all things to all people, but I'll at least try to be honest about who
I'm trying to be. (I'll also try to work in second opinions to
offer perspectives other than my own; I tried to do that in earlier
reviews but I forgot to do it in my negative reviews (aside from the
reference to Bill Sherman's
Ring review and the other
Buddha
reviews).)
And of course the other reason is that I'm lazy.
