Censor arrested for not doing his job; Bite thy tongue, manga critic

Randall–>
I’m sure it’s not just the savaging from a critic or two, but a build-up of a lot of things, and that may have simply been the straw that broke the camel’s back. But you know, this is Japan, where kids have committed suicide over bullying in school. So the potential here is kind of unsettling…

Brigid–>
As a dirty, dirty purist ;), those two are exactly the kind of examples I would cite to argue against the mangling of meanings, if not to dissuade their usage outright.

Those words certainly are important when putting works into their cultural and historical context – publication origin can inform readers of why such and such story elements are present, why certain design choices were made, etc. (and even these qualities are fluid from magazine to magazine, editor to editor) – and they’re only useful if the meanings are properly understood from a Japanese point of view, which is what they are… it’s qualities the Japanese audiences find suitable, desirable, and associable with them. When Japanese tastes and standards morph, so do those meanings.

In the U.S., publishers and PR can use much more succinct language relevant to ourselves, as most already do. I think the negatives you ascribe to the purist perspective comes directly from the very confusion of genres with content appropriateness and reading apprehension level, and the ratings systems being employed here in the West.  Technically, words like seinen, josei, shoujo, etc. refer only to their magazine of origin.  They’re not thematic genres in and of themselves; they’re about as specific as “Childrens Books” or “Yougn Adults” genres.*

To put a little spin on the situation, if a shoujo book is, for whatever reason, more palatable for an adult women audience in the West, and the publisher wants to market it as an adult women’s book, I’m totally fine with that. But does that mean we (publishers, reviewers, etc.) should call that book josei, or suddenly change the meaning of the word shoujo to include comics for adult women, just because that one book appeals to a different segment here than in Japan? I don’t believe so… that seems to me like the tail wagging the dog.

*Edited this paragraph for poor wording which gave the opposite impression of what I intended.

Brigid–>
Sorry, I worded one of my earlier paragraphs completely backwards.

It’s important to make a distinction between shoujo, seinen, josei, jidou, etc., all of which merely describe the age level/audience demographic of the magazine they were serialized in, with words like ero, maho shoujo, yanki, guro, yaoi, yuri, bara, gag, yonkoma, lady’s, gekika et al, which do denote specific themes, form, and/or traditions. Of those, I can think of only a few exceptions where there are no Western equivalents or cannot be adequately described in English, particularly those that trade heavily on Japanese culture. But for everything else, outside of academia (or the hardcore readers), I think we don’t need to look beyond to a foreign language… manga sci-fi is sci-fi, manga action is action, and manga mystery is mystery.

Not that I’m against everyone picking up more vocabulary, mind you… but in most cases, it’s just completely unnecessary.  If everyone starts describing Slam Dunk as a “SUPOUTSU” genre manga, I may have to start getting physical.

Uh oh. You’re in trouble now. It’s pulling you back in. This is your own fault, man…

I like loan words. I’m totally for them, actually, as long as they’re not completely distorted beyond all reason. Especially with the aforementioned words, which are, ahem, specifically general (heh).

I feel quite the same way with the word “manga” itself. Some call this elitism, but I find it is the liberal usage of the word – the ascribing of style, storytelling techniques, or publishing format – that actually contrains it. Gag manga fits neither the stereotypical “big eyed, uncompressed paneling, speedlines everywhere” view of manga, nor a linear, beginning-to-end storytelling style. Most doujinshi do not follow the publication cycle of magazines-to-trades, but their content are manga nonetheless.

Returning once again to Brigid’s example, saying Yotsubato is not a shounen title because it doesn’t fit an inaccurate Western preconception of shounen caused by misuse of the word, not only discounts the wide range in interest of the modern Japanese young male reader, but also overlooks the willingness and ability of the Japanese publisher to cater to those evolving tastes.