NYT Writer Slightly Misdescribes Origins of Certain Manga Series (Update)
Posted on October 6th, 2008 by calaggie in Commentary, MangaUPDATE 10/10: I received a response from someone at the Times to my comment but didn’t check the email until today. I have added the reply at the end of the post and I feel satisfied with the explanation they provided.
This afternoon I was reading a so-so article penned by the New York Times’ Motoko Rich about how publishers and libraries trying to use video games to spur youth reading. Rich has written numerous pieces in the past for the Times about the publishing industry so one would imagine she is able to properly describe origins of printed works. Unfortunately, she slipped up in the closing paragraphs of the piece that ran in today’s paper when mentioning two particular manga titles (emphasis added):
Noah Tropp, 14, who participated in Ms. Steinkuehler’s program [that explored whether the reading gamers do through guides and forums might serve as a 'gateway drug for literacy'] for several months this year, regularly reads sites like gamewinners.com and supercheat.com. While looking for hints online, he read about “Death Note,” a novel based on a Japanese video game. Over the summer, he read it.
Noah also wrote about the games and other pastimes on a group Internet forum. “I was so surprised because he does not like writing,” said William Tropp, Noah’s father. “I said, ‘Why aren’t you like this in school?’ ”
In one posting, Noah recommended “xxxHOLIC,” a graphic novel based on Japanese manga cartoons.
“You should check it out if you get the chance,” Noah concluded, “and it is a good book!”
Are we at the point where some professional journalists still feel that “Japanese manga cartoons” can suffice as an explanation of a format that has steadily grown in the United States over the past five years? In both series mentioned in the above excerpt, the manga (or graphic novel) versions were the ORIGINAL WORKS from which animated, novel and video game adaptations have been derived. There is no excuse for bungling one’s words in the back half of a feature article although she may be technically correct on her use of the word ‘cartoons’, as I will explain in a few paragraphs. Rich was specifically referring to the prequel novel Death Note Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, which was based on an event mentioned in the manga, not a video game.
While the Death Note franchise has had three games released so far in Japan, none have come across the Pacific so I find her connection between the manga and video games dubious. It would be more sensible to posit that the concealment and investigative aspects of DN parallel the suspense and adventure elements of detective-based crime games.
It has become common practice in the publishing world to classify and market domestic manga releases under the umbrella of graphic novels, as demonstrated by Bookscan including manga alongside traditional graphic novels on its monthly top 20 listing of graphic novel bestsellers. So why did Rich decide to describe xxxHolic as a graphic novel based on Japanese manga cartoons? The collection of serialized chapters into bound volumes keeps the same essential content just as a Garfield strip collection doesn’t change the humor that was once debuted in pulp. Also, the term ‘cartoons’ is usually mentioned in reference to animation, not static printed works – if comic books shouldn’t called ‘cartoons’, then manga, manwha, and even big, floppy, low page count children’s books should avoid that moniker as well. (I am aware that ‘cartoon’ can be defined as a ‘comic strip’ and therefore work fine under that older meaning, but I believe the common understanding among many modern Americans is that cartoons are animated works.)
*sigh* Perhaps I should not be making a mountain out of a molehill since I doubt some Times readers didn’t read to the end of the article (it is currently #8 on the top 10 emailed articles and has 82 comments so others must have!) but I felt the need to write about this on the principle of the matter. I was under the impression that the American manga publishing market had reached a point of maturity with regular presences on the BookScan charts (see above) and thus the form was no longer treated as a fanciful foreign concept. I am not accusing Rich of that but there may be such a feeling that lingers among the mainstream book-buying public. The market’s size has reached the point where the amount of shelf space in brick-and-mortars such as Borders and Barnes & Noble devoted to housing back volumes takes me by surprise on occasion and where a Pulitzer Prize winner calls Monster his guilty pleasure in a national magazine.
What disappoints me about the error is that, according to her wedding announcement published in the Times five years ago, Rich previously worked at the Wall Street Journal, graduated summa cum laude from Yale, and earned a master’s in English from Cambridge. Someone with those credentials should have done a little more research before submitting her article to her editors – and the Times editors should have caught this as well as part of their job as editors.
In closing, I sent Mrs. Rich a message through the paper’s website about this in kinder language so if I receive a response, I will publish as an addendum to this post. I am not guaranteed a personal reply due to the volume of mail the Times receives but a form response would be nice to show that they at least care.
Addendum:
Below is the response that I received via e-mail from “RICHM” on Oct. 7th:
Many thanks for your thoughtful note. While I agree that some of the phrasing is clunky, we often have trouble describing genres for general audiences that pass muster with true fans. Believe it or not, there are editors here who do not know what manga is so the best I could do is add the word “cartoons” because it’s a word they understand. As for the description of Death Note, the boy who read it knew of it as a video game and that’s why he was interested. Many thanks for reading and your interest.
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*facepalm*
She reminds me of my mother, only about 4 times stupider. Honestly, “a graphic novel based on manga cartoons”? Wow.