An interview with Masami Akita by Chad Hensley
A note about
manga by Masami Akita
Mainstream Japanese culture also seems more accepting of bondage films and women having sex with an octopus. Why?
We have no deviant sex because we have no Christianity. That is, until the end of the Tokugawa era in the 1800s. We began to import Western scientific theory and our sexuality began to Westernize. We also imported Western sexuality without knowledge of Christianity. The reason for women having sex with an octopus is because of our censorship-- her genitalia is covered. We have censorship of the genitals and no censorship of any sexual image without genitals. In the Japanese tradition, we have lots of strange sex images such as women with octopi. I think our present sexuality is influenced subliminally from the times before Tokugawa sexuality. It's a kind of mental pleasure- a sense of humor in sexuality. Presently, Manga and Owarai entertainment is also the same reconstructed traditional culture. (my emphasis) In this culture, sex is not a matter of politics or science as is AIDS., the Gay movement, and sexual harassment in Western culture. Japanese sexual culture is a world of the imagination.
The Beauty of Noise: An interview with Masami Akita of Merzbow by Chad Hensley (Article published in EsoTerra #8, 1999)
Related Links:
harshnoise blogNoiseman433__________
filed under: Asia; East Asia; Japan; noise; sex
"To imbue comics with serious literary subtlety seems absurd to me"
Eiland in the Sky by
Guy LeshinskiEye Weekly THE PANELIST 07.14.05The avant-garde is no place for a squeamish cartoonist -- let alone two. They need unshakable faith in their medium, supreme confidence in their skill and it helps to be from Amsterdam, where razing the norm is a national pastime.
The Cultural Gutter July 28, 2005Back home they're known as Toob and Steef. "Over here," says Schalken by email, "comics are mainly an infantile business and I don't feel very comfortable in the scene." By way of rebuttal, he and van Dinther make a serial called Eiland, published by Belgian imprint Bries, that treats the comic form like a squash ball ricocheting between its artists' imaginations. Every issue has a cluster of stories that vary wildly in style and tone, from maundering musings to cold silence, from freehand swirls to suffocating realism. It's an alternating current of chaos and confusion... or so it looks at first. A careful reading reveals a quietly wrought order beneath the cacography and a set of firm, if grandiose, convictions — like the malleability of time and space — that the comics' recurring motifs and lateral presentation convey with baffling clarity.
Related LinksStefan van Dinther's websiteTobias Schalken's website__________
filed under: Europe; Belgium; Tobias Schalken; Stefan van Dinther; Guy Leshinski; avant garde
le blog de Lisa Mandel
le blog de Lisa Mandel"libre comme un pony sauvage"
Vous le lisez maintenant! Votre destin, non, le destin de la bande dessinée blogosphere dépend de lui.
Aussi, pour les infidèles:
Lakhorn Kou: Le Théatre Dessiné__________
filed under: Europe; France; Lisa Mandel; bande dessinée; blogs
Another flyer
Just "finished" this. I'll probably touch it up later tonight.
