Project: Read Or Die - Chapter Four A Correspondence Course In Literacy

Today I have been, believe or not, actually mostly working and not really playing Guild Wars at all. Apart from a bit, but that doesn't count. However in amongst all that actual work and whatnot I somehow found the time to finish reading Gloom Party.

Or, as it is somewhat curiously billed "How To Read Manga: Gloom Party By Yoshio Kawashima". I admit that when I first stumbled across this tome online that somewhat patronising title did rather put me off. I mean, I KNOW how to read manga. It's pretty simple:

10 Buy some Manga

20 Read it

30 GOTO 10

Simple, right?

However I was won over by both the title, the cute character on the front and the promises of dark humor.

So, what do we actually get here?

Well, it's (mostly) 4 koma comics, presented in the original Japanese and accompanied by translations and notes, perhaps not that far off the translation notes you often find in the back of manga these days. The point here is that this particular series of comics, whilst alternately obscure, risque and odd, are often highly culturally specific. The purpose of the volume is to then give you a bit of grounding in these aspects and explain the context. Though this noble goal is somewhat hampered by the translators reticence in explaining any of the more overtly sexual humour. When the whole point of the book is to explain the jokes this does seem like a bit of an oversight.

The strips themselves, whilst a little variable in places, do have some genuinely funny pieces on offer. Particularly the many involving Sacchan, the cute little preschool girl in the cat outfit on the cover. Who's also a wife and trying to be a mother. She is ADORABLE. Indeed, I suspect it may have been possible (perhaps even advisable) to collect these strips along with some of the other more straightforward material and publish it as a straight up translation. The main drawback I see here is in the educational focus of the book. Not that what it's doing is particularly bad, but the presentation is all wrong. This is, as the parental advisory note on the front indicates, not exactly a book for kids. But you thrust this toward your average adult manga fan and they're attitude is quiet liable to be, as mine was, "I KNOW how to read manga thanks" and pass by. Which would be a shame as there's some good material available here. If only you can get past that suspiciously reminiscent of comics fucking sans how to "read" bit on the cover.

Really, it's the putting the "read" in quotation marks that really sets my teeth on edge.

Anyway if you like slightly obscure humor and lots of jokes featuring girls panties (and let's be honest who doesn't) this may be worth checking out. Especially since it seems you can pick it up quite cheap online of you look for it.