wDec 16, 2008


After School Nightmare, volume 6

So, there are spoilers behind the cut but I thought I'd toss out that the post is still interesting in terms of gender identity and ableism.


I loved Suo's subversion of expectations in this volume. Of course, Mashiro has been trying to play the hero in every dream sequence, and because she is disabled, he assumes she needs his help most of all. In the nightmare, she takes the form of a masked mermaid (in real life, she is a former model, now disfigured and disabled by an accident). Mashiro finds her in the nightmare, picks up her, and rushes her to the roof. Her verbal tirade was great.

Why did you carry me all the way up here? I said nothing, and still you decided I needed saving. I was waiting for the water to fill the basement. I was too weak to move until then.

Did you notice the tail, darling? I'm made for water. You never thought that I might have been okay. You were too filled with the idea of being a hero.

That's who you really are. You saw me struggling and thought, 'Oh, the poor girl.' Are you that in love with the idea of being a prince? I....hate you." She stabs him, and he wakes up.

AND THEN KUREHA CALLS HIM ON HIS SHIT, TOO.

K:Mashiro-kun. The other day you said I was "special." But what does that even mean?
M: ...Huh?
K: "Especially pathetic"? Isn't that what you meant?
M: Kureha....?
K: You're sweet to me because....because of what happened to me. [She was raped.] And because you think I need it.
M: Kureha! It's not like I can just ignore the trauma you went through!
K: Mashiro-kun. I understand what the mermaid was saying. It makes you feel strong and important to protect a girl like me. You want to hold on to that feeling, right?
M: Kureha. Stop it.
K: You need a girl like me to compare yourself to....so you can continue to feel like a man.

Some of my friends are turned off by this manga because of its negative treatment of gender identity, but I'm hoping against hope that in the end, it won't be like that. I think Mashiro starts off with clear expectations of what it means to be a man, and what it means to be a woman. In the nightmare world, everyone else's bodily form is a vastly corrupted form of their real-life body. For Mashiro, his nightmare form is his own body. His complex identity is horrifying to him. The goal of the nightmare world is for each character to confront their nightmares and defeat them, and "graduate." We still don't know what happens to characters when they graduate. But I think that the entire series is meant to be an exploration of what gender identity means to Mashiro, and how he might finally be able to accept himself in the end. I like that he has a relationship with Sou, a boy, as well as Kureha, a girl. Of course the seeming man/man relationship is secret and forbidden, but will Mashiro remain a menstruating male? Does he even have to choose one half of the gender binary, or will he simply accept himself in the end? I don't know, but I'm loving this stuff and have confidence in the manga-ka that it'll turn out okay (and by "okay," I mean complex and interesting, not happy.).

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scribbled mystickeeper at 3:39 PM
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wAug 16, 2008


After School Nightmare, volume 1

I never know how to mark spoilers for the first volume of a manga series. Because, obviously it spoils the first volume, but it's impossible to talk about the series at all without "giving away" the premise of the series! I choose to un-cut because I think a lot of people on my friendslist will find this interesting, even those who don't normally read manga.

Ichijo Mashiro is a popular boy who plays on his school's kendo team. But the very first pages of this manga show him standing in the shower, staring at the blood from his first period on the ground. "No way," he breathes, but as we read on, we learn that it is way: Ichijo is a boy from the waist up, and a girl from the waist down. He has spent his life behaving as a boy, and kept this secret from everyone he knows.

Until now, anyway. Ichijo is forced by a mysterious teacher to stay after school for a class needed to graduate. In this class, a handful of students interact in a dream world where each of them struggles against their biggest fear, and competes for a key. The students appear to each other as manifestations of their fear. One student has two giant holes in her body: one in her face, and one in her chest; one student has turned into a long, sentient hand. Another walks around in a suit of armor, challenging his classmates for the key. Ichijo appears as he normally would....except that he is wearing a skirt. To his horror, he realizes that this dream world is not just a dream....everyone remembers everything afterward, and because his classmates can see his face, they all now know his secret.

Manga will often use ambiguous gender as a trope, but this is one of the few I've seen that actually shows the protagonist grappling with with different gender identities, and what they mean to him (or her; Ichijo is certainly a "he" in volume 1, but it remains to be seen where his heart will take him). It is clear that right now, Ichijo's view of gender is very warped.

Ichijo says, Guys are stronger. Guys are sturdier. Guys have more freedom. Guys have fewer weaknesses. That's why I want to be a guy. I focused on being like a guy so I would become one. But....when I lost to Sou...I knew it was because I'm a girl. Even though I trained so hard to become strong....I lost to a slacker...because of my body. It's really amazing how distorted everyone can get. ... This body I walk around in is the most distorted thing of all. That's why I didn't turn into anything else in that dream. Because this body is uglier than anything I know.

Of course, this is Ichijo's view of men. In the dream world, he learns that his classmate Kureha was raped on her way home from school at the age of 5. Why is it that men do nothing but hurt? she asks. If only they'd all just die....

Still, despite watching Kureha's nightmare, Ichijo still longs to be a man: I want to become a man with a steady heart. Beautiful and unwavering...I want to be a dignified man.

It will be interesting to see how Ichijo develops throughout the series. To defeat his nightmare, I'm assuming that he will choose one gender over the other. In the first volume, he seeks an open heterosexual relationship with Kureha, but it's clear (from their passionate kiss) that he and Sou have homosexual feelings for one another....or, at least, the feelings will be homosexual if Ichijo remains male.

I enjoyed this volume thoroughly, but unfortunately, it's wildly popular. I think I had this on hold at the library for a month before I got a hold of it. Oh well; future volumes will be something to look forward to.

Look, an online preview!

Questions I have right now: What does it mean to "graduate"? Will Ichijo become accepting of his body, and of what it means to be a strong woman, or will his view of gender remain warped? How come he thinks he has to be a woman to be with Sou, or a man to be with Kureha (who ironically hates men, and considers Ichijo the "only man she can be with," because he's not really a man)?

My all-time anime favorite Revolutionary Girl Utena makes me feel a lot safer. She would have a lot to say to Ichijo's "I wish I could be dignified and strong like a man." Women can be like that, too!

I try to keep track of what manga I consider "safe for kids" because I get a lot of people asking me "What series are okay for my 7-year-old daughter?" It's probably not something I would hand to my 9-year-old niece.

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scribbled mystickeeper at 11:58 AM
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