My first exposure to Japanese media was a tween magazine that my uncle brought back to the States. I remember thinking “It’s facing the wrong way!” I found its format rather unsatisfying and irksome.
Cross-cultural media education is one of the most valuable writing practices I learned in college. More art exists than the Western variety, and I took a little longer to learn this than I’m happy to admit. Reading translated literature for class was a start, but practicing cross-cultural media immersion on my own time made this practice personal.
This immersion began in my sophomore year of college when my roommate suggested we watch “Deathnote”. At the end of a long day filled with homework and more socializing than I could probably take, we would settle into our lofted double bunks and watch 22 minutes of cartoon intrigue. We laughed at its quirks such as the intense opening theme song and the bizarre way the character “L” sat in a chair. It would become my favorite anime.
3 years later, I finally took the time to read the source material: the Deathnote manga by Tsugumi Ohba. I got lost in it over Christmas break when the sky was always dark and the outdoor chill was pervasive. It wasn’t my first time reading right-to-left. That previous summer, I read the first volume of One Piece by Eiichiro Oda.
My Asian boyfriend couldn’t have been more ecstatic that I learned to enjoy something that brought joy during his childhood. He grew up on anime and manga while I was only just getting started. He was so excited by this notion that he bought me a brand-new manga series for Christmas. This endearing, slim volume was The Way of the Househusband by Kousuke Oono.
After reading these three manga volumes within a few months of each other, I saw meaningful comparisons and contrasts emerge. In order of the chronology I read them:
One Piece – Eiichiro Oda
Manga released 1997
Anime released 1999
Live action series released 2023
Premise: A young boy named Luffy sets out to become the Pirate King by obtaining the legendary One Piece treasure. How can a small boy go about this perilous task? By a humorous happenstance of eating The Devil Fruit, gifting him with a body made of stretchy rubber!
Deathnote – Tsugumi Ohba
First appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump Magazine 2003
Anime released 2007
Premise: In the realm of Shinigami death gods, one Shinigami drops a deathnote on planet earth. This notebook gifts the owner with the ability to write names down on its pages and kill people. When a high school academic genius obtains this notebook, how will he use it?
The Way of the Househusband – Kousuke Oono
Manga released 2018
Visual manga released on Netflix 2021
Premise: A retired Yakuza gangster chooses a domestic life. He keeps the house and involves himself in the community while his high-earning designer wife works during the day. His Yakuza past cannot escape him, however, as he encounters former rival gangsters in the grocery aisle and raises eyebrows when he chops vegetables with the intensity of a warrior.
The release dates of each adaptation present differences in theme and focus. “One Piece” reminds me of turn-your-brain-off goofy 90’s cartoons. “Deathnote” is reminiscent of the darkly serious and exciting crime dramas like NCIS and Criminal Minds of the early 2000’s. “The Way of the Househusband” represents a satirical spoof on gender roles and expectations that could only be understood by the rapidly changing context of societal gender roles in the 2010’s.
Cultural context is only one part of my appreciation for the contrasts in these three volumes. The pacing variations are something I paid close attention to. What can I say? My college literature professors burned the importance of pacing into my mind.
The One Piece manga moves quickly through frames, but slowly through plot points. The same can be said of the gratuitously silly animation in the anime. I’m not sure my opinion of its “gratuitousness” matters in the grand scheme of the entertainment industry, however. It’s popular enough to receive a live adaptation on Netflix.
The Deathnote manga is my personal favorite of the three volumes. It follows the anime frame-by-frame (or the anime follows it… right?). The smaller gaps between frames make for a larger page count, but a more digestible story for Western sensibilities. My mind doesn’t have to take significant jumps from action frame to action frame, as in One Piece. Everything is spelled out for me. This makes for a more passive manga reading experience than active. It is for this reason that I find it possibly more difficult and creatively stimulating to read manga than many of the novels I read. I am compelled to imagine the sounds and reactions between frames if they are not blatantly obvious.
The Way of the Househusband strikes a clean balance between One Piece and Deathnote because of its pacing. The imaginative space the reader must fill between frames is comparable to that of One Piece, but the plot moves faster than Deathnote. Genre informs this difference. The Way of the Househusband is a comedy, so each episode wraps up neatly and happily in few pages.
What unites these three volumes is the active brain-stretching sensation I experience when I read them. Reading from right-to-left and top-to-bottom is a challenge, but I find the experience of cross-cultural literature immersion worth much more than convenience. If you’re a writer looking to hone your craft, I highly recommend finding a piece of non-Western literature to learn how art looks different across the world.
It is a privilege to have manga translated into English for ease of use, and I recognize I’m not special for appreciating the medium. Manga and anime is extremely popular. I still believe that slowing down and appreciating these differences enriches my experience. I hope it can enrich yours too.
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