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Sunday, June 03, 2007
Manga Shakespeare!
OK. The latest in my (no one is more surprised than me) ongoing series: illustrated Shakespeare! Manga Shakespeare!
link via Stratford to QC
You can see a pair of covers under the fold, but click the link to see more. (I dunno. Not really my style.)
Comments
Over here I found this:
http://www.osmond-riba.org/lis/journal/2007_05_13_j_archive.htm#6276707023251645451 TARGET=asfd
I flipped through these in the bookstore, and they struck me as having the worst of both worlds, so to speak. On the one hand, they use Shakespeare’s language, but without explanatory notes, which may make it seem more accessible at first, but actually makes it less accessible. On the other hand, the speeches are drastically abridged, so most of Shakespeare’s poetry is lost. Moreover, considered purely as manga they’re pretty lousy. I can’t see these either attracting new readers to Shakespeare or pleasing those who already know Shakespeare. About the only value I can see for them is as aids to memorizing the plots.
You might also be interested in the anime “adaptation” of Romeo and Juliet, retitled Romeo x Juliet. It’s a rather free adaptation, as can be gathered from the fact that when Romeo meets Juliet he’s riding a flying horse and she’s in disguise as a Zorro-like champion of justice called the Red Whirlwind. It hasn’t been released in the U.S., but I watched the first two episodes and found it fun in a guilty-pleasure sort of way.
Ghost in the Shell was all “to be or not to be,” anyway, plus it had a Romeo and Juliet plot. Kind of. Don’t see why they had to try mangabowdlerizing the Bard when allusions work just fine in sending people to the real thing.
There are quite a few Japanese comic book adaptations of many Shakespeare plays. A Japanese scholar and I have catalogued them in my edited book, Shakespeares After Shakespeare: An Encyclopedia of the Bard in Mass Media and Popular Culture 2 vol. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006).
The latest example of Japanese manga adaptation of Shakespeare is Morishita Yumi’s “Osaka Hamlet” .Hamlet is changed into a present-day Osaka bad boy.
I found these - http://www.classicalcomics.com/ and they have three versions of each.Including one version with full original text. Set in the correct period AND in full colour throughout. Smart AND fun.
Macbeth next, cool.