Plenty of Nothing

Madarame Poll

There's a poll going on at the Manga Fox forum area about which other Genshiken character Madarame should pair off with. You'll have to register to vote, if you have an opinion in the matter. Considering that the story is grounded pretty firmly in the real world I think he'll likely wind up with some office lady we haven't even met, though it could be volume 13 before we find out for sure. I think the existence of the what-if story Spotted Flower is an indication that Mada x Saki is not going to happen in Genshiken. But I trust the storyteller enough to believe that whatever resolution he has in store will feel right.

President Sue

Genshiken chapter 71 is out, and as part of the marketing of the simultaneously released tankōbon 11 there are several colour pages in the magazine, one of which includes this portrait of Sue Hopkins as Ritsuko Kubel Kettenkrad, the student council president in Kujibiki Unbalance. Most of the interest in the chapter revolves around Ogiue's writer's block or else the ongoing Hato x Mada storyline, but this picture was the thing that popped out for me.

Kuji-Un is the manga within a manga, read and discussed at great length by the club members in the earlier part of Genshiken's run, but by the fifth year it's a bit archaic, to the extent that when Hato cosplays Kaoruko Yamada at Comicfest he wonders if anyone will get it. Yet the Genshiken clubroom is plastered with Kuji-Un art, in particular an image of President Kettenkrad in the window directly behind the club president's chair. A picture of President Kettenkrad on the outside of the clubroom door is the focus of the last page of the original run of Genshiken. It is as if Kio Shimoku is saying: this is the eternal spirit of this group.

The character most famously associated with The President is Saki Kasukabe, who is manoeurved into cosplaying her in chapter 19. Despite not knowing or caring about Kettenkrad's character, Saki manages to embody her by confronting and thwarting an illicit videographer. The presidency of the Genshiken passes from the First President to Madarame to Sasahara to Ohno to Ogiue, but for most of the series the de facto presidency belongs to Kasukabe. It's Kasukabe who defeats Kitagawa when the latter attempts to dissolve the club, Kasukabe who dictates that the clubroom be cleaned up (though with disastrous results), and Kasukabe who knocks heads together when it looks like the deadline for the Comicfest doujinshi won't be met. If ever the First President needs to influence the course of events he goes to Kasukabe. It's Kasukabe who talks Ohno into taking the presidency, and you have to think that the craftiness that Ohno develops in that role comes from thinking, "What would Kasukabe do?"

On the surface Saki and Sue are as far apart as could be. Saki is a fashionable, social, normal person with little interest or comprehension of otaku culture, who at first just wants to get her boyfriend out of the club. Sue is at the opposite extreme, a foreigner whose knowledge of Japan is almost entirely taken from otaku culture (though she does know her Buddhist chants). She communicates by quoting manga, and cosplays possibly more than Ohno. She seems to be in her own otaku subculture, puzzling even the other club members. But often it's Sue's imput that sets the direction of the club. She came up with the solution to Hato's change-room dilemma, and she also had some romantic advice for Madarame which he may or may not ultimately follow. In the newest chapter, when the school festival magazine seems on the brink of implosion, it's Sue who mandates a new partnership between Ogiue and Hato.

It's very likely that Sue will never be Genshiken president. I think Ogiue's concern for the survival of the club will lead her to a safer choice, either Yajima or Yoshitaki. But I expect to see more of the eternal spirit of The President from Sue in coming chapters.

Sketches By Shimoku

This post started out as a search for a photograph of Kio Shimoku (木尾 士目), author of Genshiken. It was not successful, because either Google Image isn't as encyclopedic as I thought, or because Shimoku-sensei is camera-shy (I don't know -- he does describe himself as timid in this interview) or maybe just because I don't know enough to pick him out. If you're trying to find out what someone looks like it helps to know beforehand what they look like.

But this is a good portrait of the artist's hands. You can tell it's Shimoku from the signature and drawing both. The artwork is an alternate version of the cover of Genshiken, Volume 6. Instead of cosplaying Renko in school uniform, Ogiue is modeling her swimsuit.

The photo is also a fine portrait because it includes quite a bit of the artist's workspace and pens and stuff. The source is this blog entry, dated February 2007. The sweater dates from the 1990s.

The search for Shimoku turned up two other drawings, both of them sketches from an event on November 27, 2010.

Madarame, from here. And Ogiue, from here.

If I were at a show where Kio Shimoku was selling sketches, which character would I ask for? I have the same birthday and blood-type as Ogiue, but a voice in my head is saying Kugayama. We don't see enough of Kugapii. D

[Update: more shots of Shimoku's hands at this Digopuri signing in Taiwan in 2010.]

[Here's a twist. According to his Japanese language Wikipedia article 'Kio Shimoku' is a pen name.]

Biidama

I haven't had a new favourite song for a while but "Biidama" by Saori Atsumi is quietly slipping into that position. It's performed in Japanese so there's no way I would have ever heard it if it were not over the closing credits of season one of the Genshiken anime. So it's not new -- 2004. I think the thing that makes it work is that, with its nostalgia for perhaps unhappy times, and its waltz time, it's actually a French chanson. You can listen to it here three times if you need an earworm. These are the lyrics in Japanese and English. Here is a list of other songs of hers that have been used in anime. I would very much like to hear it sung in French. D

Genshiken Bench

Kio Shimoku's Genshiken takes place at the fictional Shiioh University, but relies so heavily on the Tama campus of Tokyo's Chuo University for visual reference that you might as well just come out and say it's set there. Like Shiioh, Chuo is up in the hills to the west the city, on a monorail line, near a zoo. As Kasukabe observes in chapter 2, "The school is only 20 minutes from Shinjuku but it totally feels like it's in the middle of nowhere."

Building 4 on the map is the Club and Circle Building. It's four storeys high, with a central courtyard having U-shaped ends.

From chapter 23 (remembering to read from right to left):

The Genshiken room (304) is across from the second floor Manga Club room, from which Ogiue hurls herself (above), and also the fourth floor Children's Literature Club room, where the elder Gensiken members gather to stage their newbie ambushes.

Shimoku's reliance on actual Chuo topography extends to furniture. The bench in the top photo appears in many volumes, often as a refuge for club members unwilling to enter the club room. The most recent chapter (67) shows Kuchiki steeling himself there for the chapter's punchline.

Other club members to retreat there: Kasukabe (chapter 13):

Sasahara (chapter 52):

A full set of Club and Circle Building photos, dated 2005, can be seen here.

Comiket 80

Seems I can't get enough of juxtaposing the fictional Comifes, which comes up periodically in Genshiken, most recently in chapters 63 to 66, with the actual Comiket, which was held last weekend. I think there's something of the bossy Yabusaki in the look the woman in black is giving the camera. D

Watch Your Fingers

In Genshiken chapter 65 Bostonian Angela causes a stir by putting the moves on Madarame, who's thrown into disarray because he doesn't speak English, is still carrying a torch for Kasukabe, and generally doesn't know what to do with women of the third dimension. Angela likes his glasses, and especially likes his hands, which makes this panel such a nice payoff, silently commenting with the safety advisory in the door window.

The Tale of Genshiken

A stab at fan art. The pairings in this are utterly random. How they got Keiko to cosplay I do not know.

University of Manga

Genshiken volume 10 is out in Japan, containing chapters 56 to probably 61. Shoppers in Akihabara can score limited edition postcards, though to get all of them you have to go to ten different stores or, as Madarame would do, organize your friends. The display at Melon Books:

You can see all ten cards here and here. I'm going to go against popular opinion and say that the one with Sue as a shrine maiden is my favourite.

I'm always pleasantly surprised to see the extent to which signage made in-store with markers and bristol board continues in Japanese bookstores. The last place I saw that mechandising strategy used here was at Sam the Record Man.

Kyoto Seika University has a Faculty of Manga! You can also study art, architectural design and traditional Japanese crafts at Kyoto Seika. On the chart of all possible universities this one is in my ideal corner. You can view year after year of the university's graduate exhibitions here. The Kyoto International Manga Museum, housed in the former elementary school, is an offshoot of the university. D

[University of Dundee also has a comics program. Dundee is the home of Oor Wullie.]

Hato's Emanation

If Genshiken gets any deeper psychologically, I'm going to have to start studying Jung. Chapter 61 is out and introduces a new character, Hato's floating naked, female, BL-loving emanation. What is she? She's not even sure herself, except that she is Hato, in a way. I wonder if we'll ever see her when Hato is cross-dressed, or only when he's in male costume?

Jung: "She is his anima, for heaven's sake. It's spelled out more clearly in the anime."

The anime is available?

"In the collective unconscious, yes."

D