"Chain Mail Addicted To You" by Hiroshi Ishizaki.
© TOKYOPOP
Pulp Pop Fiction
By: Nadia OxfordDate: Thursday, July 05, 2007
Manga fans have some pretty simple requirements for their hobby. They want a cool story and they want some awesome pictures to go with that story. There's no question manga delivers those exact specifications; it's a perfect merge of pictures and words. That's why it's fun to guess where Tokyopop plans to go with their new "Pop Fiction" line.
At its simplest definition, Pop Fiction is Tokyopop's attempt at converting some of their popular manga series into novel format. There are a few notable traits beyond that, however: Pop Fiction is still published in a compact "tankobun" format (the small "books" most Americans associate manga with. A great deal of Japan's manga begins as serialized magazine stories), whereas most novels have much larger dimensions. Also similar to its manga roots, One Pop Fiction novel can span several volumes. Illustrations are sprinkled throughout the piece, usually (but not always) in manga's traditional big-eyes small-mouth format. Tokyopop began the endevour in hopes of attracting readers who are shy about manga or feel it's "kid's stuff," but might still appreciate a good story. Is it working?
Interestingly, Pop Fiction is quite popular among manga collectors, but not necessarily the outside audience Tokyopop is trying to reach. Yet. Fans of the Trinity Blood manga, for example, were eager to see how well the story adapted as a novel. But your mom's probably not going to take it off your shelf and dive right into the adventures of Abel the vampire hunter. Why is that?
With a few exceptions (most notably the recently released Calling You), the English adaptations of these popular manga stories are a little juvenile and dry. People who are fussy about their writing will tell you one of the biggest rules of fiction is "Show, Don't Tell." In other words, it's one thing to say "Mister Peterson hated kids on his lawn." It's a lot more dramatic to describe him throwing open the window and blowing away the kids with an elephant gun.
Pop Fiction has a tendency to "tell" the reader about the characters. We're often subject to pages of description about what they wear and what they like to eat. The same applies to the characters' world and surroundings. It's a lot of fun to read a novel and piece together how the cast is supposed to react to their environment. It's not so much fun to sit through a boring explanation of the exact measurement of bat dung Wizard X needs to cast his spells.
A little "telling" is fine. It's considered acceptable in literature for teenagers. But do teenagers really need to be lured into manga to begin with? Most of them are pretty much there. Pop Fiction might be ideal for adults who are wondering what the heck all the "Japanimation" fuss is about. At this rate, however, a random encounter with a manga-inspired novel will just result in more confusion.
It might help Tokyopop to go a step further and sorted their new novel line according to content and/or age groups. As it stands, Pop Fiction is not marked with any distinguishing features aside from the brand label. Even standard age ratings aren't included. A newcomer might easily pick up an insufferably dumb title like Chibi Vampire, which is not good reading for anyone over the age of 15. On the other hand, Chain Mail: Addicted To You is a straight adaptation of a Japanese novel and therefore doesn't suffer the same writing problems as Pop Fiction converted from manga format. It's an intriguing story that stands a very good chance of being appreciated by readers outside the anime genre--if it can catch said audience's eye in the first place.
Another problem facing Pop Fiction is pricing. The aforementioned Calling You and Chain Mail are both one-shot stories in the eight dollar range. Each averages about two hundred pages. They're slick reads that go down easy and are perfect for the bus ride to work. There is a beginning, a middle and an end as anyone would expect from a regular novel … but other published Pop Fiction titles span several volumes.
That might not be an effective way to capture an outside audience. When someone spends $7.99 on a novel, they want some kind of conclusion to their tale, even if said tale happens to be part of a trilogy. Pop Fiction tends to drift from volume to volume, leaving an unsatisfactory feeling of emptiness after each one. Is a casual reader going to want to follow up a wishy-washy ending with another? …And another?
More From Mania
Pop Japan Travel Releases Mind Over Manga Dojinshi Printing Details
TOKYOPOP Launches Pop Fiction
(Monday, May 1, 2006)
TOKYOPOP Lanches Pop Fiction
(Monday, May 1, 2006)
See more related content
