[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] So welcome to the last, unbelievably, the last session of our fantasy summer school. And what we have this afternoon are two very different, but two, um, in their own ways, very interesting lectures. And they're both the full hour. So there's going to be, I think, a call for standing up and stretching a bit between the first and the second.
But first of all, we, um, delighted to introduce Minji Su, who has had such a long career that I can't begin to summarise it, but going backwards. She's now at the University of Oslo on the Marie Curie Fellowship, working on the figure of the. She will fit in. We will fellow those we will stories and the follow up to that.
Before that though, she was working on the reception of Old Norse myth and medievalism more generally in manga and anime, and this is the basis of what she's going to be talking about today. And that was when she was at Frankfurt, just before she went to Oslo. So here she is. Minji. Okay. Sorry. Can you hear me? Okay. Like this. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for the introduction. Um, I feel like you have half my my introduction, so, uh. Uh, but anyway, um, I'll just start. Has second.
Um, so in recent years, I increase a number of meteorologists have noticed a remarkable ubiquity of medieval art events in Japanese manga media, especially in the so-called heroic fantasy manga or the sword and sorcery genre. Naturally, one would ask, why? Why is the matter? Why you're just so persistent in Japanese pop culture, especially considering gods? First of all, Japan seems so remote from medieval Europe.
And second, neither the trend nor the skull is found in cultural products from other non-European or non-European related countries. I was one of these medievalist myself, and more personally, as someone who grew up reading manga and indeed was enticed into medieval studies because of fantasy manga. Um, a large part of my career, I mentioned in the past large part of my research in the past 2 or 3 years or so is to try to seek answers to these questions, or at least as best as I can.
Um, as a non-Japanese expert, uh, and also to incorporate Japanese fantasy manga into the greater discourse of medievalism, the discipline that examines post-medieval reimagining and the reception of the Middle Ages. So what I'm going to talk about today is essentially, um, all of that research. So in this talk, I will um, first, well, I will be going with a very brief overview of the debate over the origin of manga as analogue to the ideology core function of the Middle Ages.
Uh, and then I will move on to the introduction and the reception of the Middle Ages in the 18th century, Japan, as well as its impact on Japan's own reception of its own history. In the second half, we will turn to, uh, some lighter subjects as we will turn to the heroic fantasy genre itself. And the use. The manga series was arc by Kentaro Miura to showcase the ways in which medieval, and especially in this case, all Norse elements are broken down.
Uh, recombine on the recreated in this very early example of heroic fantasy manga. So, uh, the first question is what is manga? At first sight, this seems to be a very easy question, literally translated as random drawings or sketches. Manga as we know it today is basically a form of graphic narrative with all with its own conventions of ascetics and storytelling according to a set of fairly well defined the genres.
Although manga is considered as a subculture in Japan and sometimes still frowned upon, it is omnipresent both in Japanese society and overseas. As a result, even for someone who has never read a mango book or watched anime in their life, they probably when they encounter manga, they probably recognise the style and register it as something Japanese. But opinions differ as to from which point in Japanese history we can safely call an art form manga.
Um. One common practice is to trace manga to the caricature drawing from Japan's distant past, especially the Bishop of Tall girls chortle, giggle, or scrawls on frolicking animals, which is the middle picture with some rabbit and a frog. Um, yeah. So this is details to make 12 to 13 centuries. So, uh, depicting anthropomorphic animals interacting with each other, total giggle tends to be cited as a prototype of the manga form due to its kind of white ink drawing style and narrative nature.
This type of argument is further bolstered by the misbelief that, uh, Katsushika Hokusai, who is perhaps best known for the Great Wave of Kanagawa, coined the term manga by publishing a collection of Yuki or U prints titled Hokusai Manga and intended as you draw your manual for his students. So it's not really a narrative, but a collection of um, which is the other two image kicks off there.
So it's a collection of different, like people in different professions or different animals, different landscapes, basically. How to draw eraser. Um, yeah. So, um, translated as pictures of a floating world. Ukiyo you was in fact considered obsolete in the Meiji era due to the emperor's effort to westernised Japan.
But at the same time, the expedition that forced Japan to open and interpret with the Western in 1853 made the occupant popular in the West during the first wave of Japanese war and became recognised as representative of the Japanese way of seeing.
Therefore, although Hokusai only used the manga in its most basic form, uh, the medium that is a collection of random sketches traced in manga back to Hokusai nevertheless links it to older or even pure Japanese art forms that were developed and flourished before Western influences begun to pour in. In this sense, manga is very much like the Middle Ages in its capacity of being a point of identification as a counter argument. Rhona Stuart Shaw as far out in styles. Um um.
He thought our Rakuten. Um, he's magazine CC manga uh, which seized the first operation of manga. Two cartoons. Um comics. In particular, Rakuten does not see manga as having grown out of each Japanese tradition, which he found distasteful but especially foreign in adopting the foreign models that represents modernity and see Wong ization Rakuten effect him with these that he's manga from the idol period.
We are all culture and argue that on a national scale, by producing and consuming this type of manga, Japan could also become the Asean counterpart to the West. So to Rakuten, the pre Reformation Japan to which Hokusai in the UK or you Prince Bengal is to be left behind as outdated and undesired.
The past becomes figuratively medieval in its function as a space of the retracts, as opposed to the more enlightened and therefore better, our societies whose ranks Japan has not adorned in craven new forms on the meanings to an older appellation rocket and replace the future that would have growing out of the Japanese past, was one that came out of a traditions of another, which he believed is better.
Therefore, the history of manga is marked by what you out here that reflects and is rooted in the case of Japan's history and national identity, divided up by the Meiji Reformation. On the one hand, Japan was psychologically colonised and adopted the same orientalist mentality mentality.
But on the other, it's imagine yourself as being in a position of agent by assuming the Western discourse of colonisation, so it could rise about the inferior status of the other Asian countries, and on ranks with the United Nations, which ROC within Japan could achieve through the new type of manga.
As a result, Japan became its own only a unique argument of East and West, and as such, it is inevitable that Japan's past also needs to be recruited, that is, leading to the coexistence of two the two Middle Ages with their corresponding materialism. So the first, um, obviously is the European Middle Ages or the medieval proper, as part of Impro Major's initiative to how to catch up with the West.
The studies of the European made medieval past were introduced to Japan as a sort of successful story, success story of the great of nations. The result is a ring localisation of the European Middle Ages in Japan, as it involves Japan as a region outside Western Europe to imagine itself as natural inheritors of the medieval past. This sense that the Middle Ages also been lost to Japan, but to an early transmision translation and dissemination of medieval texts in the 19th century.
Amongst these, the first that were introduced were also written romances, notably the 15th century dress of Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, which was included um by the great Irish writer of cardigan in his lectures on Western literature. Employed at Tokyo Imperial University between 1896 and 1903.
Chose Malory, as he believed the tales of the Knights of the Round Table represent a strong Western moral one that his Japanese students might be especially susceptible susceptible to due to the similarities between the medieval concept of chivalry and old samurai ideal implied in this country.
Hence influence. Along with the growing exchange between Japan and the West, especially through Japanese intellectuals who studied in Germany, engendered a succession of Japanese academics who studied, wrote, hung on a translated author and texts, and from there their exper, their area of interest and expertise gradually expanded into Old English, medieval Irish, German, French, and essentially, um, Old Norse literature.
Um. Although largely confined to academia, these early studies on the translations contributed in turn to the dissemination of medieval imageries in other cultures fairs. In particular, they paved the way for the popularisation of the Assyrian framework, namely knights on their requests and how the impact on arts whom you saw. So could you, um, who is often considered the greatest, the modern Japanese writer.
Nowadays, Soseki is best known for his Japanese themed novels such as I am a Cat and The Vulture. But during his early literary career, he published two Oscar and fictions, Kyoko the Chango to Do and the title The Shield of Emotion, which remained the most conventional medieval list, a recreation of the Assyrian riano by an East Asian author. The former is a translation of Malory Marsh The ways Tennyson's The Lady of Struggled.
The latter is a chivalric romance entirely of its own creation, featuring a pair of star crossed lovers on the magical shield that once belonged to a Nordic giant. In both, we see a creative combination of various medieval and medieval and medievalist sources with a touch of sorcery own cultural background, in particular in title. They also ruin. The story is recontextualized and retold in Japanese historical terms.
For instance, castles are referred to as tinsel, which is the picture up there on the corner, uh, which are basically pre-modern timber framed multi-story fortification complexes. Therefore, it produces a mixture of imaginaries that already fall into the realm of the fantastic.
Eventually, as we will see in berserk, heroic fantasy manga, will follow a quite similar project tree indiscriminately on creating take taken inspiration from both medieval on medievalist sources, with a distinctive taste for the quest for structure, which works particularly well for the long term.
Serialisation. Once you incorporate. These elements are recontextualized and freely adopted so as to speak to their Japanese readership, to refer back to their collective experience, and to channel both their and the manga artists concerns. But before we go into Arkham and our works, uh, we will work out the Second Middle Ages, the Japanese Middle Ages. As the key attraction of the Middle Ages for the 19th century.
Medievalism lies in the conceptual local news and connotations of historical national particularity and exceptionalism that the period offers. It has only been a small step for Japan to move from merely localised in the European Middle Ages to muddy waters in its own past.
The establishment of the Javanese Middle Ages is um is built on a combination of Japan's adoption of what Japanese scholars described as European historical methods and the European historical apparatus, and the comparison between elements respecting way from medieval Europe and Japan. This, regarding the Chinese Taipei is the periodisation of history of the Chinese model. Japanese history is not divided into ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern periods.
Among them, the medieval period has been identified in one view as lasting from the end of the Highland period, which is in 85 to the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate of Adam Furude, which is 1603. You know the difference will the end of the era could be extended to 1868? That is the beginning of the major period. Either way, the point is that the Middle Ages has to be a period of upheaval and political unrest sandwiched between periods renowned for peace and stability.
It is marked by crisis on turning points, in which the national character of more than Japan's forge. So once framed as such, um, it is not difficult to find equivalences between the two Middle Ages and henceforth to reinterpret Japanese history through medieval Europe.
For instance, um, for quite some 19th century medieval Japanese, uh, medieval oldest, uh, the 13th century transformation in Japanese Buddhist thought can be understood through the Reformation, and the legal system in medieval Japan can be, um, discussed through that of the Franks and the rise of warrior power in Japan, uh, through the Norse invasions. And this we have already this kind of equivalences we have already seen in Han on this also keeps works.
But a more prominent example would be you, Toby in Knossos 18 that in our treaties butchered all the sort of the so of Japan written in English on the first published in the US. So it opens with a statement that, uh, chivalry is a flower. No man's indigenous to the soil for Japan dies is the cherry blossom.
And it goes on explaining to the English speaking readers about the word of samurais, similar to, uh, the English knight or the chieftains of the Gallic Italian tribe, or the to you, who, according to 32 was followed shamanic chiefs in his time. This result, your familiarity of the terminology which the inter angles their Japanese passed to be easily framed and received.
Yeah. Internationally recognisable medieval is the paradigm enabling modern Japan, a country so geographically and historically remote from India or Europe, to share with Europe and the United States the I you call power inciting culture trend. However, this doesn't mean dropout immediately began to produce My Dearest Fantasies, a fantasy manga which in fact owes to another wave of translations.
So basically, about 100 years after the Reformation, Japan in the 1970s saw the rise of the sword and sorcery of fantasy, with prompt translations of European and the North American authors. As can be expected, Tolkien and Wilson were among the most influential. The Lord of the rings was translated and published in six volumes between 1972 and 76, and became popular towards the end of the 80s. The first three books of the Earth. The series will translated in 1976.
On the 77th was the later ones across the next few decades, leading to the creation of the anime film The Tiles from the Earth in 2016 by Studio Ghibli. Two of them should also out Robert Howard, who created The Cold and Vivarium, and whose novel series, along with the spin offs, were translated between 1970 and 73.
Another decisive contributor, um, is the famous fantasy tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons, or the, under which you enter Japan in 1985, an immediate and massive popularity, with a sales record of 100,000 copies of the Japanese version of the Basic Rule, was out in just a year.
Together, they influenced a number of early Japanese playing games, such as Dragon Quest um, The Guardian of Zelda, both of which were first released in 1986, and the Final Fantasy series, which was first released in 1987 on the Literary Front. The introduction on the success of these works thought back to the creation of sword and sorcery fantasies by Japanese authors.
Two of the most famous, um examples are probably record of Lord of War and Gun Saga, so GLaDOS was initially serialised as the and the scripts under the title The um the Max Record of Models for reflect, and it was published in Gaming Magazine from 1986 to 89. Due to their immense appeal among the readers. The Dungeon Master decided to rewrite the scripts into a high fantasy novels, which were almost simultaneously made into video games and then into our anime series and manga in the early 90s.
Gonzaga, on the other hand, is an original novel series by Caro Korea model that runs from 1979 to Korea mortal stars in 2009 and is still being continued by other writers. So it's all up to Taiwan now. It's 130 volumes. Uh, which is, I think, the longest novel written by a single author.
Well, the story is mostly influenced by cold and the barbarian works by the British censor and fantasy author Michael Moorcock, and possibly Tolkien, but also a sports manga series called Tiger Mask, which gave us the protagonist of his dual power mask.
As a result, from the 1980s onward, the major features of heroic fantasy rapidly took shape and evolved into a substantial, recognisable genre in which the fragments or facts or factoids of the European Middle Ages are freely expanded, transformed, and mixed with other cultural and historical elements according to the artist's own imagination on the market. These works, on the one hand, further popularised and disseminated through the word and sorcery genre.
On the other hand, they facilitated, accelerated, and extended the spread of material imaginaries in Japanese pop culture, which were quickly acculturated as according to existing generic conventions.
The result is what Karen Post post-taliban the course immediately as the relationship between the Japanese public and the European cultures, Europe as an international reality coexists in the Japanese consciousness, with Europe as a space of imagination, a bucolic place where one finds stone castles and ancient landscapes. It is within this media that the manga series Berserk by Kentaro Miura was conceived and would carry on for the next 30 years, becoming the heroic fantasy manga before that.
Horror. I want to, uh, very briefly say that. So this is not to say fantasy literature or manga inspired by Japanese history and culture does not exist. Rather, um, many of these, um, come from existing literary and cinematic traditions, and as such could be more easily introduced on the promoted under existing categories such as the kaidan, which is collection of stories of ghosts and the supernatural from Japanese folklore.
Uh, and also there is martial art of sheer drama, most of which features, uh, samurai um for Japanese themed fantasy manga. Um, you know, we are sure that Rumiko Takahashi is one of the classic examples and also a personal favourite, even though it's a it's about a dog, but not against dog cat person. Um, yeah. So so this is serialised between 1986 and 2008.
Uh, so it is an early example of the so-called izakaya, which is Otherworld story, which in fact could be counted as a portal fantasy because it follows a middle school student from old in Japan who time travels through an ancient well to the single cold period and embarks on a series of adventures with a half dog demon, which is, uh, the one with years in the middle. Um, yeah.
So in its 2020 sequel, it was promoted as Ottogi Toshi of the single corporate, with Ottogi sorcery being a very broad term for literature from the rural Maki era, which is 1336 to 1573, uh, to which the single corporate belongs. So essentially, I think, you know, your show could also be called a sword and sorcery fantasy, or at least like manga and katana. And I found this type of fantasy a really interesting parable. Uh, the comparison, uh, to those of the Western models.
But so we are going on to visit. Um, so created by Kentaro Mura, but there is something or young adult manga that has enjoyed immense popularity both in Japan and overseas since its initial publication in 1989, still ongoing despite the bureau's unexpected death in 2021, the series just published its 43rd volume in August this year.
That's one of the best selling manga of all time, was Earth has been remediated a couple of times into anime and video games, but I wouldn't really recommend Army because it's not very good. Uh, yeah. And having influenced some of the most popular Japanese pop culture products of the 21st century, such as the manga series Bubblegum Saga on the Attack on Titan, and also the fantasy roleplaying game Dark Souls.
Um, filled with complex political interests, endless war and on, and a fantastic array of monsters. The story of Zarek follows the travails of Coutts, a highly skilled salesman, and his personal feud with grief is the curse. The leader of a classic chivalric order known as the Hawk. Initially acting as grey faced champion. Through a 100 Years War, so that Griffiths might fulfil his lifelong ambition of acquiring his own kingdom.
However, the two become immortal animals when Griffiths sacrifices nearly all the members of the band to obtain demonic power and bronze guards on his lower cost car, with a quasi runic symbol that marks them out as food for demons from the gods. Wander through the manga's world as an article bearing the burden of grey faced betrayal. Physical, where he is haunted by monsters every night because they want to devour him as the promised sacrifice by Griffiths.
Uh, mentally, he is oppressed by the traumatic memories from his past and his unresolved anger towards Griffiths. This eventually leads him away from the human world to embark on a long journey to a quasi Celtic otherworld filled with witches, elves and other fantastic creatures in order to find a cure for Casca, who has regressed into a child like madness because of the trauma.
Um. Although Muro was an avid fan of Gonzaga fantasy roleplaying games on what he calls old school foreign fantasy, he did not intend berserk to be a fantasy manga when he started. Rather, he considered creating an historical tarot, a decision that could be partially influenced by the European history theme. The young girls manga in the 70s, which were branded as educational and achieved financial success.
Um, but is quite interesting how he, uh, talked about European history because he saw that I looked into the era underside of actual European history, such as Count Dracula, and I had idea of what gods to, um, hunt, uh, monsters that could be, uh, framed within a factual, historical context. But, um, just how how factual and how medieval is Count Dracula is a matter of debate.
Um, yeah. So, so as as this era underside of, uh, actual European history, that mirror looked into already bordered on the writing of the fantastic. It was a very natural transition when he finally chose pure fantasy. It is intriguing that Tamura attributed one of the decisive factors to the appearance of fictitious countries, which he seems to, um, to believe to be a staple of the high fantasy genre. So once decided he was obliged to make thorough use of contents typical of fantasy elves.
Witch hunts, magic powerships in a word content representative of medieval Europe. Another reason why Amuro opts for fantasy is that he believed the genre would give free rein to his imagination and creativity. This is certainly a sin in God's design who hides a small cannon in his metal prosthetic arm. But even more in the setting of the world in which gas moves about, which consists of the human world and the fantastic world.
The human world in berserk is divided sort of into Europe, like a continent with countries that seem to have been inspired by English historical and place names. So we have 2 or 3 times on the mainland. All of these belong to the so-called Holy Sea territory, forming a sort of Christendom. As for the fictional historical background, the early chapters are set in a war between two that are on the ground. Both great based on the 100 Years War between England and France.
These angles us a glimpse into the sort of historical manga we might have gotten your start. As the map expands. Um. However, further, the wolf arrow scales up to what seems to be a reverse quartzite. Uh, when the now weakened Holly say territories are invaded by, um, a vast empire to the east, which is the quarter. Well, nominally inspired by the historical collusion in power in Central Asia, but their execution is presented as a hybrid of Hindu Persian Mongolia and the Chinese Imageries.
So in this series on both of the parts of the World Mirror, have me revise all museum catalogues, travel books, collections of pictures, and the photos of historical architecture, which is why sometimes readers can't identify the buildings or artefacts in the manga. For instance, the palace of the Kushan capital, there is obviously a copy at all from Hagia Sophia, um, and the fortress of um of Daldry, which is the coloured image here.
Um is thought by some readers to have been inspired by the castle of Koka, a 15th century castle in central Spain. The fantastic world, um, on the other hand, is designed within pretty much the entire Irish folkloric framework. It centres around the island of Skellig, ruled by an elf called Barnum, which is most likely a reference to the greater than the supernatural race in Celtic mythology. However, likes the human world.
Skydeck is also a hybrid, as it is also home to a group of mages and witches who are conventionally portrayed wearing pointy hats, pointy hats on the writing rooms, and seem to belong to the human race. The Dwarf and Smith's Hollow lives here are two whose name comes from almost part in the political and other directory of The Hobbit. While a deeper layer exists in the fantastical world that remains inaccessible and invisible to humans.
Skylark is present here as a in-between place, as Miro did not want his characters to interact. You saw that his company is cut off. There are four journeys with Scottish lands, becoming quite similar to the underground romance model, where now is Aaron's enthralling adventure space, where time may flow differently and the way in which they construct their identities. Requests on the supernatural encounters. But what about the North stuff when they ask?
After all, the title of the manga is berserk. So cat's identity is all yours. So you constitute areas around the legendary warrior in all our sources. With the appearance of Hana and the name elf, Han already hinted at it. It is soon revealed that Vikings do exist in the world. All but. We are told that a long time ago, the Vikings invaded Scotland, but were magically into goblins by the witches and elves. No stats. They are portrayed as wearing helmets, um, resembling the water all of a sudden.
Who helmets. Both currently in the British Museum, I think neither is really a Viking, but both are associated with Vikings in Japanese pulp imagination in particular, the, uh, the war torn helmet, which is the one in the middle, was like two straight horns. Um, is also worn by Ricky the Viking in the 1974 Japanese animated word and based on the novel Reykjavik and by the Swedish author and more recently worn by a giant in one piece. Apparel seemed extremely small in fantasy manga series.
Um, so fitting the Vikings into the past of scouting indicates murals historical knowledge of Norse man's activities in Ireland, and probably in other parts of Europe as well in the early uh Middle Ages. The timeline makes sense to us first. Europe like continent is filled with imageries from the high and late Middle Ages. Whereas the Vikings are perceived as belonging to a distant, nearly forgotten past.
But any historical facts they may imply is seamlessly woven into the fantastic framework of the manga through the creative reimagining of the Irish mythological world. In doing so, Mura also, perhaps quite unwittingly, created a parallel between gods world and ours. In both, history could fade into myths and legends, and the content of our imagination eventually returned to surprise us in new forms. The same can be said for the manga adaptation of the concept of berserk.
Judging by the earlier image of carts, which shows a scantily armoured angry man fighting with a huge sword uh, with no regard to his own life. Miura clearly had a good grasp of the popular image of Zerk, as can be gleaned from the 13th entry, including the saga. Namely, they are warriors who are compared to a wild ox or wolves, and fighting and frenzy without armour.
This is not surprising, as a number of sagas which feature preserves, including the saga included, were partially translated into Japanese during the 1970s, accompanied by introductory books on the on Norse mythology. But the meaning and imagery of berserk soon began to change, and the ignis is revealed to have a mental calls when the word puzzle is first introduced in the manga. I probably should say that with a single panel you'll need to read from.
Yeah, basically that side. The opposite side of. Yeah. So, um. Yeah. When the word berserk is first introduced in the manga, which is quite early, uh, in the first chapter of First Warrior, uh, it is defined as a collection of negative emotions which, uh, later reveal to have been caused by the, um, the traumatic events at face betrayal. So it's rage. Sadness on the fear. It's all mixed together, so dark. And there is something even deeper than that.
A few pages later that Samson is identified as berserk, accompanied by the single house of cards, creating a battlefield strong with dark bodies. Uh. This point Mira gave no explanation as to precisely what was okay, is indicating his expectation of, and reliance on the reader's prior knowledge to draw their own conclusions. For much of the story that follows, Gaz wanders from one battlefield to another with his unresolved anger and hatred towards grey face fermenting in his mind,
dragging him to the verge of madness. The madness is not necessarily a bad. As in the case of medieval chivalry, could do to ensure pure reason that madness can be read as a means of cleansing the soul. A spiritual purification that leads to chivalric or spiritual transcendence requires. This pure is also prepares gods for the construction of a new self, beginning with identifying what is undesirable in his psyche.
So in chapter 131 is really when the trauma he is suddenly inveigled by a giant wolf figure from behind who, in a whisper in size him to kill. When God turns around, however, there is only his own shadow on the wall. A few chapters later, he attacks Casca at a wolf's provocation. When the When the suffering grows, scream brings him back to himself, he realises it stops. The monster he felt before is not something to be invoked for beyond him, but always in his mind.
Although he still cannot see the wolf, he realises the urgency of separating it from his eagle. Otherwise, he risks losing his mind and becoming a threat to the people around him. This situation lasts until Garth opens a suit of armour known as the armour, crafted by none other than Hannah of Scarlet. Originally, the armour comes with a skull shaped helmet, which is pictured one there. Um. Also, as he suit, he realises an impulse.
Something inside me, something ferocious this season. This is revealed to be the wolf whom God sees for the first time. In the meantime, the visor of the armour stretches out until the skull shape transforms into the shape of a metallic wolf. Know. Appearance. The berserk armour seems to reflect God's berserk ness are greater on the former scale. His fighting skill is enhanced to the degree of nonhuman he no longer feels pain or exultation. Fire on the island do not seem to bother him anymore.
More importantly, the armour figuratively transforms gods into a wild beast demanding cuts to you. The wolf Inundates Gods month with casts on traumatic memories which are very present to us. Whirlpools of commands emanating from God Himself and engulfing him. As a result, he fires on all fours and as a beast, no longer distinguishing friend from folk. In essence, however, the armour functions as the exact opposite to begin with the image of a full body armour.
In direct contradiction to the proxy Yingling a saga who fight without armour. It is also revealed that the armour impenetrability is only a means by which to teach scouts to realise his vulnerability. Underneath the metal guards body is being thrown apart. He simply does not feel it anymore. This, as The Witcher Co explains, concrete. Basically concrete is the endanger the wearer. It is therefore important that for a goddess to recognise the limits of his body and learn to stop.
Contrary to his previous rock, reckless fighting style and armour also helps to draw a line between what is desirable in his ego and what is not. By taking on the shape of the wolf, guards fell down the fair road before the armour symbolically externalised is it? As a result, well guards on the outside is fighting like opposite toning. The armour in fact transports him onto a internalised psychological battlefield where he is a fighting look a.
In the distance. Gas also becomes more akin to the werewolf in 20th century horror films, where the human part is trapped within the wolf body and the fight to gain control. Except that class struggle is facilitated by Shaker, who would dive into a car's ego in spiritual form. Um, so every time gods dons the armour? Well, meanwhile, in the, uh, physical world, Shekhar would fall into a trance and her body needs to be guarded.
Should they be disturbed, she would be pulled back on the forced to wake up. At first glance, Shaka's practice resembles the schematic shapeshifter who can transform their consciousness into a beast, uh, temporarily gaining control of the animal's body and mind. But he or she herself does not transform or take on any animal form. Instead, she rides the wolf in command and tries to help cast out the wolf under control.
Her primary task is to raise the eagle, which is portrayed as a candle flame back fast in the depths of an ocean of darkness. Then she reminds gods that he, as a human, represents the opposite of the wolf. The gentle emotions, including the negative ones, that the wolf dismisses as criminal or in fact what defines gods, the sorrow and the regrets from his past, and his care and love for Casca and his friends whose lives depend on him.
The rage and hatred he feels towards grey face, though important, are only a small part of what constitutes him. That's a weakened card. Please show force for yanking off the wolf. Shave the razor. Although he may keep on fighting wearing the armour, he does so other ways. The ways are put back or always on the helmet at all, showing his face to reassure his companions on the readers.
As soon as the fighting is over, Gus takes off the armour and emerges calmer and more sociable than before, leading the young, leading to an improved relationship with Casca on the strength and the emotional bond between him and his friend. So Murugadoss reshaped the Old Norse bazaar into a kind of therapy sessions.
For this reason, the Japanese sociologist and the film critic Shinji Miyata, who is also among the few people who wrote academic work on berserk, thinks the fantastic world and the magical elements of berserk are actually the most practical. According to Miyata, the physical act of entering the magical world from the normal allows the individual to see themselves from a different perspective, so as to diagnose and treat any problem as a decentre subject.
The key lies in what he calls the gift of love, namely one's willingness to care about and fight for one's fellows in society. The quest of gods is therefore to understand this gift and eventually be able to share it, as opposed to Greivis who, uh, who is enticed to become demon by the promise of being, uh, being able to do whatever he desires without regard to consequence?
This clash between socio moral obligations on the free will, I found, is a rather distinctive and recurrent theme in Japanese manga. In addition to the work, many of the perfumer on the globally successful titles in the past ten years also such as being on Saga, Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer as well also use fiction as a sort of social experiment to demonstrate the potentially disastrous consequences of both extremes.
This seems to reflect the larger debate over collectivism and individualism in Japanese society and the culture in general, and is perhaps one of the reasons why Miura said during an interview that the berserker world is in terms of the way it feels. Essentially, Japan. While it may not look like it's on the outside, it reflects on the mental model.
Well, I am concluding on this note. I want to, uh, spend the last few minutes on some more recent trends in fantasy manga, as the heroic fantasy genre has been so thoroughly on the well incorporated within the, uh, the Japanese manga in the past few decades. It is only natural that it has also evolved within the media. According to the media, our children generate expectation as our norms and the market demand. The two examples that I want to bring up here are, um, delicious in dungeons.
Um, the other record of Ragnarok, Delicious in dungeons, is basically an alternative with the Andes crypt mashed with cooking manga, a multi genre category that gun the popularity in the 80s, and it normally focuses on, um, specific dishes on the recipes. Um, so entirely sort of within the Andes sort of gaming structure. Delicious in dungeon asks a very practical question what if we don't have money to buy provisions but got hungry in the dungeon?
Um, and obviously we need food to fight? Um, yeah. The simple solution is to use Dundrum authors, um, France as the ingredient and cook along the way, uh, with the ultimate goal being to kill and cook their dragon. Uh, the result is a hunger entertaining story that brings something new, therefore unpredictable, to two existing narrative formula.
Similarly, um, Record of Ragnarok adopts an essential Norse mythology called framework, but adapted into a fighting game setup which normally features one of the original fights in the near future, when all the goals as a collective roll to destroy humans. Brunhilde, uh, the crew initiates a game called Ragnarok for which the Valkyries saga 13 human representatives to fight against 13 Gauls in Valhalla are enough. If the human fighters manage to win seven, we guys will survive.
Um, so you might have noticed, uh, the Warriors, uh, being chosen come from warriors, culture, backgrounds and time periods. Um, so can we call this greater diversity?
I'm not sure, because the, uh, the more careful you portray, the ones are primarily drawn from European, um, Chinese slash Japanese history on the margins, namely, since the more fall into the two Middle Ages and are frequently featured in the two, uh, medievalist fantasies for the world record of Ragnarok that feel a bit bigger as it showcases our general trend of even more creative blending, inviting, um, encouraging us to compare very different traditions on equal footing.
I suppose shows, as well as many others are streamed on and promoted on that flex and other major online platforms, we can easily achieve a level of popularity and publicity far greater than any manga made or anime made 20 years ago. This, together with the overall, uh, global success of manga and anime.
I wonder what sort of impact manga would bring, or perhaps have already begun to bring to the fantasy genre as a whole, and more generally, in what direction would the genre of fantasy manga included trend in the future? Is it? Hi, that was a really interesting talk, and it was really interesting to see how Japanese fantasy manga stemmed from Western fantasy culture.
And I suppose I just wanted your thoughts on why Western adaptations, particularly those of TV and film, seem to often fall short of the source material and fail to appeal to fans. Do you mean like, why the western ones? Yeah. So, like, I know that was like a Death Note movie that everyone hated the old Dragon Ball Z movie that everyone just tries to forget exists. But then you have something like one piece that everyone seems to love and seem to draw in new fans.
Why do you think that? That seems to be the first one that's done. So, um, I think with the, um, the adaptations, especially the films, I guess first of all, mangas are these, um, to be a long term serialisation. So the kind of the story develops as it goes, and sometimes the author does not really have a long term plan. So they would add the new stuff as it comes. Uh, and you can't really do that with, uh, with a film.
And just based on my experience with the task, not with the movie and also the sunset movie, um, both of which are horrible. Um, I feel they try kind of very hard to fit the story into a Hollywood blockbuster sort of framework, which doesn't really work. And also, I think they try quite hard to appeal international audience or least English speaking audience. So they have to change the story a lot.
And normally they will have to have a, um, a European or American protagonist fit into the original manga story. Um, yeah. That's the that's the problem with, um, with censor, I think. Um, yeah. And I think, um, more practical side, it's much, much cheaper and easier to draw stuff. I mean, obviously there is a human cost because that means the manga artists on, on their team have to work really hard behind the scenes. But then it's it's fairly cheap and easy.
You can draw whatever you want and within um, because I think manga, I think the reason why it's a bit hard to talk about what is fantasy manga, what is not is that manga is already quite fantastic because it's not real at all. The style itself is not real. Um, so anything can happen in your manga, and that's okay, because once you, you know, when you when you see images like that, you don't expect that to be real or any like realistic or anything.
Um, so you can have this really rich imaginative sense going on, uh, you know, drawing, but then you can't really do that in. I think most of the time they don't really have the budget to do it, you know, you know, like, um, yeah, you know, adaptogen and so on especially they tend to in manga. They tend to have like a really exaggerated style, like different colours and stuff, which always come out as quite cheap and a fake, you know, adaptation. I think that's also a problem.
Um, obviously we have a very big fan base and it's, um, nobody's going to be happy with, um, yeah, whatever that comes out of it. Oh. Thank you. So thank you for the talk. Uh, very ignorant question. My knowledge of manga proper comes from my first born and, uh, kind of occasional glimpse of, um, what she's reading. So what I noticed, it's either the kind of regional stuff like this or, um, um, it's a kind of version of, um, European classics.
Like, she has got a whole bunch of, um, like Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet and Crime and Punishment and something by Dickens. And, um, it kind of made me want to do more recent Western works or fantasy get converted into manga, or I'm like, if not, why do you think it's the case? Is is because, like, it's the copyright thing or, you know, or it's just that sort of medium doesn't like more recent Western stuff.
Uh, I think there is certainly the copyrights and, um, obviously you have the, uh, studio. Okay. Please. Uh, Earth series. Um, and I guess you have to be, uh, you have to be already well-established to have an agent or a publisher to negotiate copyrights on that reason. It has to be, you know, that's the practical side of things. Uh, but for many artists that just started, they are nobody.
So it's very hard to, to kind of try to do that. And also, I wouldn't say they, they don't like it only more. Um, but I think at least my personal impression with, uh, uh, with Japanese. Academia in medievalism is that they are still very much interested in the classics. So, like Tolkien, a Narnia, and they are not interested in even Game of Thrones, uh, because all the authors too bloody and gory. Um, on the on the interest like this is white and fluffy and no, it's not.
But yeah, but somehow they, um. Yeah, but somehow if you do it, you know, sort of unrealistic to the form that's kind of toned down, although, I mean, there are many, many, many mangas that are extremely, uh, body. But then it's not really poetry that, you know, like that really stick with you just kind of. Okay. I mean, like, when I was a child, I watched a lot of sons, you know, arms frozen orphans now, which is probably not okay for a child, but but I didn't really think about it.
I just kind of accept that, you know? So I'll just read this, uh, as it is. Thank you for your presentation. Do you think the use of Western motifs in modern Japanese manga can be understood as a kind of cultural translation, where Japanese creators adopt foreign traditions to create a distinct identity for manga? I suppose that hybridity, one of the theoretical frameworks, could be applied to understand the characteristics of manga.
Um. Gosh, that's us versus, uh, yeah, I guess the short answer is yes. Uh, but I don't think they are using that sort of consciously to build identity for manga, because I feel for most artists, they just want to put whatever that is cool in a story. Um, yeah. I think I remember an interview about one of the final fantasies. Um, and I think somebody asked about, you know, it's not realistic to do this or not to jump that far or to do certain, uh, actions and stuff.
There were just like, we don't care. Just we just think it's really cool. Um, so I think, I think one of the kind of the bigger differences between, uh, fantasy manga and western fantasy stuff is that, um, there is um, I think manga artists in general, uh, care less about accuracy. So they can they can have a name from Old Norse mythology and footnotes. I would say just. Yeah, we were saying today, like I'd say that's near the excellent horse in, uh, Odin's horse in Norse mythology.
Um, and they may just like the sound of it. I think it's really cool, um, to use it on a space ship. Um. That helps. Kind of. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I guess, um, it depends on sometimes there is sort of a deeper connection. So maybe the spaceship is, like, really fast and can go across different rhymes and stuff. So in that sense, you have a very kind of essential connection to the original source. For the pure this is different, but sometimes they just yeah, they like the sound of it.
It's very cool. Uh, and I think the same applies to any other like nomadic war motives. So I guess the principle is, um, the their priority is to make songs that are very exciting and potentially financially successful. So hopefully something that no one has done before and they will just put whatever in that to achieve that goal.
I think it was really interesting to hear you mention Inuyasha specifically because as an izakaya, because obviously a lot of recent izakaya, um, media, especially like I think the ones in the recent years have relied a lot on like the Western European kind of generic fancy. I'm thinking of stuff, especially izakaya, where like the world building isn't a big part of it.
Stuff like, um, I, uh, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but like the, like, um, trend recent trends of villainous izakaya where the, I don't know, adequate. But they basically go into like games and stuff and that sort of thing.
You're often used as a Western European generic fantasy build, and I was just wondering if you had any like, thoughts on why so many izakaya now seem to rely on that sort of world, whereas the origins of izakaya seem to be in like more traditional Japanese, um, fantasy rather than generic European kind of a static, um. I did read, um, one argument on why they didn't kind of use too much materials from the so-called Japanese Middle Ages.
Um, I think the argument is that, um, because it's kind of harder to present that I guess this because that history is closer to most of the readers, and then it's harder to find a, I guess, children friends better way to portray all that horror, like of war and all those fightings. Whereas, um, European history is a bit more remote. So you can, you can kind of do things with it and also, uh, enjoy it with all really, I guess, without any personal feelings.
Um, but yeah, I didn't I haven't really been, uh, following on a used car genre because I'm not really a big fan of that. Uh, but I do notice, I think, on, uh, Crunchyroll, there are also of pretty much the gaming setup with really weird titles like my. It's like my daughter is reincarnated into a Civil War warrior. Well, censor that. Uh, so I, I kind of wonder if that is.
It's kind of easier to make fix because there is already this well established model, or is already kind of, I don't know if it was a very big mass produced in a way. So you have a, you have a, you have a temple. And I would just say in my reasoning that I'm just kind of go, yeah, but then I guess, uh, with Inuyasha in particular, uh, the author herself is quite, um, because she, she has done quite some Japanese themed manga.
So that would be, uh, I think that would be, uh, more kind of her personal choice to do this particular person. Um, uh, firstly, thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciated the depth that you went into. Um, so my question is, uh, with the surge of global interest in anime among mainstream audiences, the example you gave, for example, was, um, Demon Slayer. Um, what are your thoughts on Western studios like Netflix producing their own anime shows?
For example, Blue Eyed Samurai, which uses the figure of, uh, obviously samurai and is set in feudal Japan. Do you consider these Western produced anime to be authentic representations of the genre, or do you see them as more westernised versions of it? Oh, sorry, no, I don't really um, I don't think one can say what is more, uh, authentic or not, because the whole season is already a blending of very different sense.
Um, I do feel, um, I mean, I did watch several, uh, I mean, while I did enjoy else, but, um, I do feel like it's it's kind of one of these things, um, you do and then you say, you know, we are being, um, well, basically we are trying to have more diversity. Um, but then. Yeah, so we took the diversity box and then we're doing this great story about strong women and all that.
Uh, yeah. So but at the same time, it's, it's hard not to feel like, you know, they're just trying to basically to tick tick boxes on all that. Um, yeah. So it feels a bit weird because it doesn't feel very genuine, if that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think now we should all thank you once again to.