Swan 8
Posted: April 13, 2007 Filed under: Swan 12 Comments »It’s hard to write about all these volumes in a row, because really, the thing I like most about them is the drama and dancing, and that doesn’t really change from volume to volume. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing different about this volume is that it’s got an ugly cover.
This one is different in that it covers the performance of Song of the Forest for the public by the National Ballet School of Japan. A bit of drama unfolds that only the rival mother spotted for some reason (and why wouldn’t any of the instructors or the professionals who graded Masumi’s performance the first time have seen?) and in true evil character style, she just lets it go. The younger girl has to take one of the supporting girl’s costumes and dance out on stage to tell Masumi about what the problem is in a moment of true drama.
Later, the girl who’s part she took reams Masumi one-on-one, saying that she’d never know what it was to struggle in a supporting role just for the chance to perform onstage. This is a good point to raise, because although Masumi tries and fails hard for the lead roles and competitions in the series, she’s never in a supporting role. It was a really great moment.
[...] out vol. 3 of Strawberry Marshmallow. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie reviews vols. 6, 7, and 8 of Swan, vol. 2 of Queens, vol. 14 of One Piece vol. 7 of Sgt. Frog, Walking Man, vol. 2 of [...]
The other day, I lent this volume to a ballet dancer friend (I had various reasons for starting with this volume rather than volume 1, including the fact that I did not want ‘Margaret’ Fonteyn to be part of his first impression). He flipped through the pages, and immediately asked me “Where can I buy this?” – I have never seen anyone fall in love with a manga so fast. And now that he’s actually read the volume, he’s even more in love with it.
That’s actually pretty awesome. I’m glad that even someone who doesn’t read manga can appreciate it. Swan is still one of the most visually amazing comics I can think of. Flipping back through, it probably is a tad melodramatic, but it just goes so well with the style and mood and everything.
I do remember some of the localization being rough in the early volumes, though nothing other than the instance you mentioned is coming to mind just now. Out of curiosity, what were some of the other reasons for starting with volume 8? I can’t remember specifically past the summary here, but is it heavy on dance scenes?
Well a) I do not like the paper used in the early volumes. I think this is okay for From Eroica With Love, but I feel it takes some of the beauty away from Swan b) Some of my other volumes were already out on loan.
I know a few things about the ballet world, and I do not consider Swan to be too melodramatic. Condensed, yes, too melodramatic, no. Swan even leaves out some of the really ugly stuff (drug addiction, for example), though I suppose that could still surface later in the story.
I think Swan is the perfect manga to reach the dance community, which otherwise does not read many comics. I actually originally started asking around my dancer friends because I was curious if Swan was well-known among them. None of them had heard of it. CMX’s marketing people have failed on this point. I plan to slowly change this situation, though I can only lend one volume to one person at a time.
It’s true, that paper and tight binding is bad on that first set of CMX books, my copies of Tenjho Tenge and maybe Gals suffer from that too. It gets fixed when the volumes are reprinted (they also change the covers to take away that graphical effects), but it looks like Swan hasn’t had the honor yet. The first volume of Eroica’s been fixed though, which is a good sign that people are picking that up. Or at least the first volume.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they did get into a little drug use sometime before the series ends. I could see it being dealt with as an issue like a post-injury addiction to painkillers or something. I can picture that in my mind perfectly, actually, especially since that one girl tried to commit suicide when she thought she wouldn’t be able to dance.
Actually, speaking of that, do you happen to know if hers was a fantasy recovery? It struck me as extremely unlikely that she would recover from a snapped achilles tendon, but I don’t really know that much about sports-type injuries. I’m sure the timeframe and 100% recovery was total fantasy, but is it something you can bounce back from?
There are some seriously unfortunate missed opportunities when it comes to marketing certain manga series, and any light novel that was ever released by any manga company. Swan is one of the better examples, because it almost certainly would appeal to professional dancers, who are likely younger and are probably going to be interested in an oddity like this, especially since it does take a lot of pains to get into the details of ballet. Even advertising in print publications seems like it might help a lot in that case. Viz has a few series that would benefit from non-standard advertising avenues. It does seem like they are pushing Oishinbo to a different audience (given the quotes and side information they gathered for the book itself), which is great. A few people have been mentioning Eagle lately, and I seem to remember they tried hard to push that outside of the standard manga audience, too. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure might do well if it was pushed harder onto the American comic crowd, because I think the same people who read Frank Miller and Conan comics would probably like it (though I’m not sure if those are the same people, exactly). And for any publisher, they should probably change the look and cover design of their light novels so that they don’t look like manga and get shelved in manga, where kids will toss them aside because they’re trying to read comic books. The new Viz sci-fi books seem to be going down that path, which is great, but Del Rey’s Faust was still shelved in manga, which is very unfortunate.
I am not an expert on sports-type injuries either, but after a quick search on the internet, it seems that ‘full’ recovery takes a year or less, especially if the patient is young and otherwise healthy. I say ‘full’ because once someone has had a sports injury in one place, the chances of a repeat increase greatly increase.
Oh, and they fixed the first volume of From Eroica With Love? That’s good. Actually, that’s very good. I hope Swan will receive that honor yet (and with some localization corrections while they are at it).
As for drug use … yes, I suppose it sometimes starts as painkillers, though often it’s a painkiller for the heart rather than the body. Imagine living all the time with the raw feeling the dancers in Swan live with, and add something like, oh, coming out of the closet with your conservative family, and it can be a little hard to handle (drugs, I must emphasize, generally make the situation worse in the long run). Weight-loss is another motivation to get into drugs. Anorexia in general is a problem. Some dance teachers are very conscious of this, and insist that their students receive proper nutrition. Some dance teachers are not so enlightened.
I forgot about anorexia. I’m kind of surprised that hasn’t come up in Swan, either. I’m more familiar with that after reading about it concerning gymnasts. There’s something far sadder about that to me than drug use. I feel less inclined to comment, again, because I’m not all that familiar with athletics, but the tragedy is that it seems common in these activities that have the most physically fit participants. In my mind, there are any number of reasons someone could turn to drugs (as you say, emotional pressure being the easiest for me to understand), but poor body image… I guess it might be easier to worry about if it is constantly on your mind, though.
Yes, well, the life of a professional dancer is a tough one. Remember the mom in Swan who made her daughters make up for her failed career? In real life, it often works the other way around – mothers who try to prevent their children from pursuing a dance career because they don’t want their children to suffer the way they did. Which is a reasonable thing to do, as long as they don’t cross certain lines (i.e. sabotage). If someone cannot put up with a little parental pressure, they don’t have what it takes to be a professional dancer anyway.
On the other hand, amateur dancers, like me, have much less pressure and a lot of fun :D
I think one of the simplest ways to sell more copies of Swan to the dance community would be to put some copies in the dance section of the bookstore. Except I don’t know of any non-used bookstore which carries Swan, only comic shops. Well, there’s Kinokuniya, but somehow I don’t think it’s completely appropriate to shelve Swan next to books about Butoh dance or Noh (on the other hand … why not? It wouldn’t hurt sales, and Swan is about Japanese dancing, in a way).
I also thought about how many of my serious ballet dancer friends have ever had some sort of drug problem, and I am depressed with how high the percentage is. Though some problems were relatively mild. I remember hearing one talk about how she knows how drugs have hurt her, yet she always feels sad that she will never, ever experience that high again, and she has never had an experience which could match it, not even dance. That really made me feel out of my depth because I realized I do not, and cannot, know her pain.
I can see what you mean about not knowing what to say about the former drug use. I’ve not known anyone in a situation like that, but I have to say I would also be at a total loss as to how to relate and help the person cope other than offering what I can of moral support. Thinking about it, it’s a stereotype that artists also tend to be substance abusers, but other than a few people who tried things every now and again, I don’t think I once spoke to someone who had or was currently addicted to any sort of heavy drug. More people than I would have thought indulged themselves in cutting when I was in art school, though.
I can only think of one professional dancer that I know, but he’s more of a theatre/performance background than strictly dancing. I grew up in sort of a remote rural area, and while they had a very active visual arts community (which I may have only been aware of because I took part in it), the performance community was much smaller and mostly consisted of musical performers, singing and instruments. I think anyone who was interested in dancing or theater moved when they graduated. The art and music people were pretty laid back, as far as I remember. There wasn’t much work for anyone, but for whatever reason there also wasn’t much competition for the opportunities that were available.
Oh, you might know somebody who has had serious drug abuse issues. People don’t generally introduce themselves as “Hi, I used to do heroin”. I knew her for more than a year before I heard about her former drug problem.
By the way, I don’t distinguish between legal and illegal drugs. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s legal if it ruins your life. I’m sure you know somebody who drinks, and maybe drinks more than what is healthy.
However, drugs and unhealthy weight loss are only some of the ugliest manifestations of the issues raised in Swan. Swan really hits the core of what makes a dancer’s life hard quite well – you have to pour everything you’ve got into dance in order to succeed. However, the chances of rejection are high, and having poured everything into it, that rejection really, really hurts. Yet if you hold back even a little out of fear, your chances of success are lowered. Basically, you’re constantly resisting basic survival instincts (avoiding threatening situations) because you know that if you don’t, you don’t have a chance.
For critiques on art projects, a lot of the person’s characteristics usually come into play when they try to explain and justify their work. I learned more than I ever cared to about random strangers by hearing them talk about their videos, books, paintings, drawings, etc. Child abuse, sexual fetishism, deadbeat parents, friends of theirs who abused substances, psychological disorders, and all sorts of awkward topics that made it hard to critique the work itself came into play. There was a lot of art (especially in my first year classes) based around casual marijuana use, but never anything on the heavier stuff unless it was about what happened to a friend. It’s true that I can’t imagine it going well for someone if they did something based around their heroin addiction, but I can easily imagine people being candid about crack use, hallucinogens, pain killers, and pretty much most anything else if it somehow impacted something that they did that they thought was a great piece of art. And for the most part, any deep problems they brought up about themselves began and ended with that critique. For whatever reason, it was impolite to care.
Alcohol use is sort of a separate issue for me, only because I find its casual ignorance of problems a bit disturbing. Nearly everyone my roommate works with seems to have what I would consider at least a mild drinking problem, but none of them seem all that concerned with the quantities they consume.
Anyway, Swan does do a good job at capturing what you describe. Some of my favorite scenes in the series are the ones where Masumi shuts down completely as far as her mental state goes and carried out everything in a competition on pure instinct, or is so overwrought that she temporarily loses her hearing. It’s so easy to get drawn up into those scenes, and it just fits so well with the mood of the series and Masumi’s character. It really conveys that sort of over-extension perfectly.