Comments on: Sic transit gloria mangae

By: nate

nate — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 13:07:16 +0000

I think all those girls had bathing suits on under their clothes.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:50:34 +0000

We can settle this by looking at their back issues. It really is all about the face, even last summer. I've always assumed that this is because of their girl-next-door thing. It can't be easy to get Horikita Maki's manager to sign off on a bathing-suit cover. Hypotheses: - Editorial policy was different when you were there - The covers you saw had been selected for display specifically because they were disproportionately bathing suit-focused and therefore appealing to the selectors Note: Not arguing with the general idea that it would be better if Magazine and its ilk had not become a branch of the mass-objectification idol industry. Just the specifics of which branch they did in fact become.

By: W. David MARX

W. David MARX — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:22:48 +0000

Young Jump and Young Magazine are of course worse, but yes, they are “men’s magazines.”

I worked in the offices of Shonen Magazine for a week, and they did have “girls in bathing suits” in the front of almost every issue. Maybe I unfairly exaggerate with “bikins.”

By: M-Bone

M-Bone — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:05:58 +0000

Yeah, Magazine is the guilty one. Jump, for example, usually has a snarling manga manchild with a sword.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:00:13 +0000

I read Magazine pretty regularly, for Kumeta Koji, and they usually have a girl on the cover but she isn’t often in a bikini. They’re more into the girl-next-door style of gravure, with a storyline about that time you went on a secret date with Ishihara Satomi, or Aibu Saki baked you a cake. (That said, subjects with less star power and therefore leverage do usually get put in a bikini as one of their costume changes.)

Young Animal always cracks me up because it’s got that banner, in a surging, powerful font — YOUNG ANIMAL! RRGH!!… and then the actual cover is full of blushing moe characters that look five years old. Plus the bikini idol, of course.

By: M-Bone

M-Bone — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:36:31 +0000

“staple of Shonen Magazine covers.”

Inside the cover maybe, but the four big ones – Sunday, Jump, Rival, and Magazine don’t do it on the cover very often (I think that three of them NEVER do it, actually, although they may have a small image of a model in the corner).

Are you sure that you aren’t thinking about “Young Magazine” or “Young Animal”? Those ones always have a hooter pic on the cover, but are really more for a 20+ audience.

By: W. David MARX

W. David MARX — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:04:44 +0000

I wasn’t thinking about the two-dimensional girls in bikinis, but the young idols in bikinis who are a staple of Shonen Magazine covers.

By: M-Bone

M-Bone — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:53:36 +0000

“Where are the women in bikinis???”

They were (mostly) still in Nagai Go’s head. A few years later, out they came, and off came the bikinis.

Of course, Japan’s most iconic manga bikini (think tiger stripes) was created by a woman…. and she was in on the joke.

By: W. David MARX

W. David MARX — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:46:43 +0000

Man, all those elementary school student-targeted manga were sure boring before they became interested in indoctrinating young boys about the objectification of women. Sports? Adventure? Where are the women in bikinis??? If a 9 year old can’t see underage girls in bikinis in their favorite manga… well, I don’t want to imagine a world like that.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:11:13 +0000

Well, yeah. But at least they were learning something with real-world applications.