Week 10: manga and the japanese comics tradition

For this week I read Seiichi Hayashi's Red Colored Elegy. "Experienced" would be a better word, because I haven't read anything like this. At first I was terribly confused and unprepared for it. I'm still pretty sure I'm both from the wrong culture and wrong time period to fully grasp what this comic means. That being said, as I forged ahead I started to make sense of things. It was really difficult distinguishing the different characters and which was talking at what time. I felt like I was figuring out a puzzle. On one hand I thought it was really complicated that way. It was difficult to understand what the author was trying to tell me. Some sequences seem to start off and then abruptly end. I understood who to feel for. I understood some of what they did. On the other hand I thought that this comic realized what's possible within the medium. It utilized the feelings and moods images can evoke without being so attached to the literal facts of the plot. It was really poetic that way. The way the highly rendered sections of buildings or landscapes were peppered in throughout the comic lent to a very contemplative and subdued feeling. I really enjoyed the section of the book were the main character's hands are shown playing with a matchbox. It reminded me of the physiological tic that some people have during conversation where they keep their hands busy and how sometimes the hands say just as much as words do. I also found the sequence where King Kong and Godzilla barge in on the couple's conversation to be very interesting. I don't know whether it's a comment on the times or just a physical manifestation of the struggles within their relationship and their personal lives. The main feeling that I got during the reading was that these strange seemingly random events are significant in some way, but I don't know why or how. Some things like faces missing noses, intrusive lizards, and creaking swings seemed absolutely random to me. I wonder how much of this comic is intentionally ambiguous and not just so because of my own ignorance. If it is intentionally ambiguous in its message, I am glad to have read it, but I hope to read something that has an intended message and utilizes similar techniques as this comic did.