Comic Books of Japanese Boys

張貼日期：Mar 26, 2010 11:26:6 AM

By Janet Chen

If you ask me, “What is your unforgettable memory in your childhood?” I will answer you that it is all about comic books, especially Japanese ones. Because I was the only girl in my family, what I modeled was all from my two brothers and at that time both of them were insane about those Japanese comic books which were suitable for boys to read. Therefore, under such a circumstance, I immersed myself in that environment gradually. I divided the comic books I read then into several types—Combat, Adventure, Adaptation, Detective as well as Sport.

Combat—it is not only the type that I first contact but my favorite one as well. Combat does not mean people just use their fists to fight each other. Instead, it contains a variety of difficult and dangerous skills such as Chinese Kung Fu, wrestling, etc. And most of the combats are cruel as well as fatal, so some bloody scenes are unavoidable in these comic books. For instance, Baki (刃牙) and Dragon Ball (七龍珠) are classics in Combat comics.

Adventure—it is totally out of reality but gives fantasy and ambitions to every human being. As reading Adventure, I can feel a sense of excitation flowing in my blood and can not wait to see what will happen in the next page or chapter. Actually, the author is really good at making the impossibility into possibility in order to fulfill readers’ dream. There is no doubt that One Piece (海賊王) is a good representative of Adventure.

Adaptation—it usually derives from the other classics or well-known works, and most of them are about history; however, the author will not follow the originals faithfully; instead, he will change the story content or even characters and it does give some entertainment effects to readers. Although we call the type Adaptation, it is still creation and the author needs to make more efforts to get rid of the traditional rules. In my opinion, it is the most difficult thing to do. For example, Saiyuki (最遊記) is one among this type, and it is based on the Chinese literature—Monkey (西遊記).

Detective—in this typical type, there is always a smart guy who can deal with every strange and hard case like murder, suicide, and so on. Thus, readers need to follow the smart guy’s steps as well as those clues revealed in the plot to ponder who the killer is. And if you are afraid of seeing horrible pictures, I sincerely suggest you not to read Detective! By the way, the classics are Detective Conan (名偵探柯南) and金田一少年の事件簿.

Sport—the readers can receive some motivational lessons from this type of comics. And most of this type is about basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, running, etc. Those are the sports we may do in our daily lives, so readers feel close to Sport easily. Usually the main character doesn’t know how to play the sport until an accidental situation happens. Take Slam Dunk (灌籃高手) for example. The main character, Sakuragi Hanamichi (櫻木花道) hadn’t known how to play basketball but at last he and his buddies attended many competitions.

Each of the above types is different from the others. Due to their uniqueness, they add more interest and fun to the genre, so I enjoy reading comic books of Japanese boys greatly.