Blog Assignment #3 By: Duke Wojcik
Book #1
Characters: This series has dual protagonists: the titular high school girl, Shoko Komi, and a high school boy she meets named Hitohito Tadano. There's a large and colorful cast of other characters throughout the series, but for this assignment, I'll only be focusing on the aforementioned two, and more notable and important characters found within this opening volume.
Shoko Komi: The eponymous teen girl herself. As the title implies, she has what the series itself defines as a communication disorder. It's never specified exactly what, but it's easy to assume social anxiety. Some have even speculated autism, but I feel like that's kind of a stretch. Anyway, Komi is a character who's simultaneously absurd, yet relatable. Her being so comically misunderstood by her classmates as stoic while being colored by her own beauty is a great way to represent social miscommunication through light-hearted absurdity. It's easy to view her as a textbook damsel in distress, but even so, she's not helpless, as she's able to communicate with others through her notebook, and finds the energy to try and save herself from her anxiety- she just needs the guidance of her new friends to do so. Her eventual romance with Tadano is easy to foresee as he opened up to her and formed a special connection.
Hitohito Tadano: The deuteragonist, and the other half of this Romance. His name is a Japanese play-on-words of 'ordinary person', a trait that Tadano champions himself on, making a self-aware parody of anime/manga male protagonists who get thrown into ridiculous situations, such as helping a socially anxious beauty queen overcome her obstacle. What separates Tadano from other male MC's is that he's not hopelessly dense to how people feel about him, he's not trying to act with excess machismo, and he organically tries to understand others, like Komi, and can earn respect, when he's not being bullied by the plot for being average. Tadano is revered as an MC for those reasons, as he's a boy who does struggle as a protagonist should, but it doesn't feel manufactured for the sake of poor-taste comedy; he's genuine and organic. His initial desire to be a wallflower is shaken when he, by his own good nature, befriends Komi to help her overcome her anxiety, leading to a very watchable chemistry form between them.
Osana Najimi: Najimi is a queer character, specifically either trans, non-binary, or maybe genderfluid- I'm honestly not too sure as the story never makes it clear. Anyway, Najimi is the polar opposite of Komi, in that they're sociable with anyone and everyone, and thus have a hyperbolic amount of friends. This makes them a good foil and mentor for Komi. That said, I can't decide if they're good queer representation or not. Japan is a morbidly conservative country, and are one of the least LGBTQ+-friendly places in the world, so it's easy to assume Najimi is meant to be a stereotype, or even a demonization. It doesn't show quite as bad in this first volume, but they're shown later in the series to be quite conniving, bordering on criminal, easily using their high sociability to manipulate others. Sometimes it's for personal gain, other times it's to help a friend that ends up backfiring. On the other hand, I interpret their gender ambiguity to be a symbol of their sociability; they have a flexible identity that literally anyone can get along with, even Komi, despite them not being able to befriend her in childhood. At the very best, Najimi's conniving coupled with their hyperbolic friendliness gives them a sense of humanity.
Plot: The eponymous Shoko Komi is a socially anxious high school girl whose sheer beauty combined with what's misinterpreted as outward stoicism makes her worshipped like a goddess by her classmates, and pretty much anyone who so much as glances at her. In reality, Komi has crippling social anxiety, and thinks everyone around her is laughing at her. In fact, she never even verbally communicates- only through writing on a notepad or chalkboard. These absurd circumstances leave her unable to make any friends. On the flip side, wallflower high school boy Tadano is starting his years in a place that champions itself on being a place for gifted or extraordinary teens... which makes me question how a boy who prides himself on being ordinary even made the cut... Anyway, an awkward first meeting between the two happens, and then Tadano manages to get Komi to open up to him, as he, unlike literally everyone else around them, is not so blinded by her beauty that he's unable to read her, and see that she suffers from a communication disorder.
Afterward, Tadano enlists the help of Najimi, whom he'd known since middle school, to help treat Komi. An obstacle that Tadano himself begins to face in the volatile envy of his classmates, whom view him as an affront to their pure, divine image of Komi, especially from a girl named Yamai, whom is shown to have an obsessive lesbian crush on Komi, but she doesn't become prevalent until later volumes.
From then on, it's Tadano and Najimi trying to train Komi's social skills, subsequently ensuing what can only be described as anime shenanigans. Apart from Tadano and Najimi, Komi is able to make a first friend out of another socially awkward girl named Agari, by way of her two mentor-friends humanizing her in front of Agari. The volume itself concludes with Komi accidently calling Tadano over cellphone, where she actually verbally speaks, if briefly; but Tadano is smitten by her voice, showing that he's able to see her as human while being attracted to her.
Content: The plot and characters are all ridiculous bordering on satirical, but you'll find that that's often the anime/manga experience. Be that as it may, there are a good number of subversions of tropes associated with the medium. As I explained, Tadano is a somewhat parodized stand-in for every male MC in the medium, in that he still is one, but humanized to the point that he more or less comments on the trope; it's for this notion alone that Tadano is practically worshipped as a character by fans, apart from just being a likable guy. Komi is a subversion of a pretty high school girl, in that her admiration by everyone around despite her anxiety is something of a cautionary tale to readers who aren't like her to not reduce someone down to their looks. But for readers who do relate to Komi, it's a familiar situation that's given a light-hearted tone as if to say, 'you'll be okay. Just take it slow'.
Reference:
Oda, T. (2016). Komi Can't Communicate (Vol. 1). VIZ Media, LLC.
Book #2
Content: The narrator of this book uses a lot of cheeky humor to explain animal behavior while comparing it to human behavior, especially when it's able to take homophobic themes and subvert them into something that can be used to laugh at homophobes. An example being that one of the chapters is jokingly called, "The Immorality of Penguins", an obvious reference to the famous queer-themed children's book, And Tango Makes Three, which is about gay penguins. It even goes into the history of Christianity twisting science and history to exclude and erase queerness in Nature. Comical animal characters contained within their chapters are also featured in illustrations that either draw from Sunday comics, or simply just annotations; and they supplement the cheeky humor, as well as the informative topic of the chapter by presenting their own queer phenomenon in Nature. It's a well-crafted blend of humorous satire and exploration of a scientific topic.
Language: As I explained, the explanative narration of this book is chock full of cheeky humor. At the risk of sounding homophobic myself, I would describe it as reading the transcript of a comedy routine done by a flamboyant gay man. An example in the chapter, "Albatross: Does Sexuality Require Sex?" when describing symbiosis surrounding some birds looking after the others' eggs, they say, "Every time I ask swans or herons whether their egg swapping to benefit male-male nesting pairs should be considered parasitism or adoption, they refuse to tell me the answer. Rude!" This is obvious satire on homophobes trying to apply human moral values to animals. This rhetoric also exists in the comic illustrations, and it makes the digestion of the information presented more fun.
Illustrations: Speaking of the illustrations, they're a delight. They're goofy and unapologetic with their queer humor. As mentioned earlier, their style evokes that of a Sunday morning newspaper comic, which are known for societal commentary. Fitting given that the book aims to inform on a set of social issues.
Reference:
Schrefer, E. (May 24, 2022). Queer Ducks (and Other Animals): The Natural World of Animal Sexuality (J. Zuckerberg, Illus.). Katherine Tegen Books.
Book #3
By: Kayvion Lewis
Category: This my Suspense/Thriller book, and in audiobook format.
Target Audience: Middle and high schoolers.
Summary: The daughter of a long line of master thieves must partake in an international thieving competition in order to save her mother's life.
Why I Chose This Book: When considering what I could enter as my audiobook selection, I perused the genres available, and thought that a suspense/thriller story might be a more interesting experience than the others being narrated. Plus, as a diehard fan of Sly Cooper, I have a big soft spot thief characters.
Evaluation: I'll be evaluating this book based on: Genre, Language, and Voice Narration.
Genre: Espionage thrillers are cherished for their ability to create suspenseful scenarios out of the most mundane settings, and this book is no exception. The use of 1st-person POV to create tensions based on observations and speculations of their surroundings, such as the tight spaces of a vent within a grandiose museum is how a good suspense author gets the readers' blood pumping. Being that this is a story about thieves, the mind-poker between the competitors of the thieving competition is a great way to create psychological tension, but I felt that the protagonist having an old rival as a fellow competitor made some of the little twists between them a bit predictable, though one could argue that it was an easy way to distract the reader from speculating on the less obvious twists. Either way, this book creates chaos in orderly environments, which every great crime thriller ought to do.
Language: Being that the characters are career criminals, it follows that their dialogue would be dripping with sharp-tongued sarcasm balanced with blunt language. Of course, that's dropped in favor of fear masked by anger in tense situations, which is how these characters are humanized. Being that trust between some of the characters is often called into question, the language used in these situations is given an inquisitive tone.
Voice Narration: I can only speak for this particular audio recording of the book, if there are any. Jade Wheeler does a great job maintaining a calm and collected tone of voice one would expect from a character made to be an experienced thief, occasionally injecting some teenage angst to remind us of the protagonist's age. When speaking as other characters, she does a good job conjuring individual accents for them, especially the count, who an artificial fluctuating accent. That said, I felt the narration from her in this thriller story could've sounded more... well thrilling when it was appropriate. The cocky calmness was nailed from start to finish for less tense moments, but I feel like the more thrilling parts were undercooked with a narration that flirted with being more intense but just wasn't. I suspect she might've been concerned about overdoing it, which is fair, but it was disappointing hearing about a character being shot at feel more monotoned than I would've expected.
Reference:
Lewis, K. (September 25, 2023). Thieves' Gambit (J. Wheeler, Narrator.). Penguin Random House. Audio Player - Thieves' Gambit
Book #4
Lies My Teacher Told Me: A Graphic Adaptation
By: James W. Loewen. Illustrated by Nate Powell.
Category: This is my Informational book.
Target Audience: Middle and high schoolers.
Summary: This a graphic novel adaptation of the successful and eye-opening 1990's publication of the same title, which detail gross misconceptions we have about our own history, and also criticizes how history is taught in educative curriculum. It's contents have been adapted in graphic novel format so that's far more engaging, especially for it's younger target demographic.
Why I Chose This Book: US is history, as we know, is grossly skewed in such a way that the dark underbelly of our nation's origins is almost completely hidden, sugarcoated for younger students. This has been seen to create a false sense of patriotism that has led to societal issues that would otherwise be petty, but have become exaggerated to the point that it's a real threat. That this book would be adapted in such a way that it can tailored better towards younger readers does nothing but good to help wash away these misconceptions. Plus, it tells kids who find history classes boring that they're feelings are valid.
Evaluation: I'll be evaluating this book based on: Cover, Illustrations, and Content.
Cover: The cover art for this book is brilliantly conceived. It features a bunch of various important figures from US History gathered at the table for the first Thanksgiving feast, but their facial expressions make the mood very awkward, even uncomfortable or tense. This is excellent thematically, as the book for which it's the face goes into unapologetic detail about the horrible truths about our nation's history that textbooks tend to dance around and even omit. It's also a subtle nod to the notion that we shouldn't talk about religion or politics during Thanksgiving dinner.
Illustrations: The black and white illustrations are well-drawn. Depending on the context of what's explained, the tone of the illustrations can either be gloomy or foreboding, or comedic. One picture, you'll see a man holding up a crucifix as he watches native land burn; another, you'll see Squanto shrugging his shoulders as he complains about European settlers not bathing, followed by an 'smdh'. The juxtaposition between the foreboding images and the comic relief makes the heavy subject matter easier to digest, but also helps engage the young reader.
Content: The book is structured like a narrative that follows US history in chronological order, but with the corrections of what really happened at keys points talked about in history classes, such as the true intentions and hidden actions of certain figures like Woodrow Wilson being dangerously racist, and Helen Keller being a radical socialist, so we can be assured that this book doesn't take political sides- just states facts. Some of the corrections stated aren't even revelatory facts about people we thought we knew, but just shocking trivia in general. For example, then President Warren J. Harding apparently won in the biggest landslide is US election history despite the fact that he never even campaigned! WHAT!? (Loewen, 2024).
Reference: Loewen, J. W. (April 16, 2024). Lies My Teacher Told Me (N. Powell, Illus.). The New Press.
Book #5
Bad Medicine
By: Christopher Twin
Category: This is my Graphic Novel entry.
Target Audience: Teens and young adults.
Summary: This is short anthology of campfire ghost stories told by First Nation characters within the context of their culture, namely of young adult age.
Why I Chose This Book: Most of my other entries are in graphic format anyway, so what makes this one so special? Well, this is the author's debut graphic novel, so I thought it'd give it attention. Plus, the idea of culture-based horror piqued my interest.
Evaluation: I'll be evaluating this book based on: Cover, Illustrations, Content.
Cover: The image of a campfire pluming smoke that has monstrous eyes looking out from it has a similar style to horror anthology style shows such as Are you Afraid of the Dark?, but with a grittier atmosphere that lets the reader know that it's content won't hold back.
Illustrations: Being that this is a horror book, it's only fitting that the images presented be drawn with shading and colors that evokes a gloomy and gritty atmosphere. Shapes are sharply drawn and well-colored, and panels that have no dialogue and rely on imagery for narration are positioned as though they're part of an established sequence.
Content: This anthology has was can loosely be described as a setting, in that they're all stories being told in real time by characters over a campfire. The stories they tell relate to the struggles had by America's indigenous tribes, and the campfire characters take time to discuss the story's moral implications after each are told, adding a layer of humanity as to how they can be read. This especially important for young readers who are indigenous themselves. The fourth and final story directly relates to one of the real time characters, and it's far more visceral and unfiltered in it's imagery and implications, which closes the anthology as a whole out well.
Reference: Twin, C. (October 24, 2023). Bad Medicine. Emanata.
Comments
Post a Comment