Amorim's Topics (458)

Yeah ε=ε=(ノ≧∇≦)ノ

Hi there! Interesting post. No hate from me, just curious though, and maybe I'd like to offer some perspective? Based solely on your post (meaning I don't know about your individual circumstances or that of Sensei's, for that matter), I think you have a rather idealised view of the publishing business. I'm hardly an expert, but I am a bit familiar with how it works. This may ramble on, so bear with me and my opinions...

You mentioned that Sensei seems to like making money above all else. So a professional author and mangaka isn't supposed to be concerned about the commercial success of her work?

The manga business isn't just about an artist drawing and writing in her studio all day long. Storyboards, editors, sub-editors, publishing schedules, budget allocations, printing requirements, drafts, layout assistants, drawing assistants, colorists, marketing surveys, sales targets, annual evaluations... even a coffee boy and the part-time cleaner emptying the trash. Consider yourself a goddess if you have full artistic control, and IF the actual work gets even out in the market and IF your work gets serialized. It's an entire industry, oftentimes cutthroat, and that whole labyrinth is what authors need to solve regularly to put food on the table.

Oh and the electric bill is due tomorrow.

Maybe Sensei actually WANTS to have so many number of chapters because she has a great story to tell and got her publishers to agree. Or maybe she HAD to. Page requirements are a pain and publishing contracts tend to be frickin landmines. In some cases, artists/authors are contract-bound to produce work or they don't get paid or even lose the rights to their work. And her share for each book sold? Lucky if she even has royalties. And that little thing called a non-disclosure agreement may mean she gets her hind end hauled up in jail if she so much as complain to her houseplant about it.

Authors also may not even have any control WHERE the work gets published. In larger publishing houses it's the commercial directors and other dudes in suits that decide that. Smaller houses tend to get traded around like baseball cards so you don't know who you will end up working for tomorrow.

Sometimes an author just needs to bite the bullet and smile and nod just to get her work out there. If Sensei actually willingly and deliberately changed her work so that she can get published in a shoujo magazine, then I'd say she's a master strategist. She got around the system, maintained artistic control and hopefully got to pay her mortgage in one fell swoop. For me personally, I didn't care which genre I was reading as long as I liked what I was reading.

Maybe you love to write so much that you will do so till you're 99 regardless of anything, but maybe Sensei can't. Maybe she's just tired of all the b*llsh*t... never-ending deadlines, health problems, the non-profitability of print mangas, *cough*freebie sharing sites*cough*, snooty critics who think her work is no longer relevant... rabid fans who have never forgiven her for going shoujo... Maybe her family begging her to rest and spend time with them.

That Sensei retired/quit is actually a pity for us fans, but in the end, it's her choice and frankly, none of our business. Outside of the mangas she has produced, her life is her own. I would thank her for the wonderful stories and wish her well. And hold out hope that she will publish again.

All that being said, if you are/want to be a professional writer, I salute you for your principles.(๑•ㅂ•)و✧

I'll agree that if she had no choice in the matter, very well she's a slave to the company and has to do their bidding. However that's not a common occurrence to my knowledge. And if it is, why would anyone become and author when they a. Can't write what they want. B. Barely get paid enough to live and c. End up havin to quit because they're in such unfavorable conditions. That sounds truly god awful and I'm pretty sure despite non disclosures and whatever else, some people would come forward and say "hey. Don't be an author because it's literally hell on earth." To my knowledge she's a popular author with a fair and well known publishing company (doesn't mean they're not corrupt and may treat their authors like garbage but it lowers the chance) and as for doing what she wants with a story, I believe any work of art be it pastels or a book belongs to no one but the creator. However when you advertise a product as one thing, and have people invest their time and money in your creation only to realize you can get more money by changing your product, you wasted that money and time of the people who supported you fron the beginning and I find that to be a bit despicable within my own set of values. But people will always see things different ways. I just personally wish I'd stopped reading this story about halfway through and not wasted my time with hoping for more of a continuation of the first half when in reality, she ended up taking things in a different direction. If another "me" stumbles upon this comment before reading, maybe they'll now choose to do it differently and move onto something else but I totally get where you're coming from

Hello again! Thanks for replying! As with any artistic endeavor, compromise is key in order to be successful. No matter how demanding big business publishing can be, authors will still get into it because they're passionate about their craft and they "just" need to tame the big bad system to move forward. It's no different from a rock band or dancers or theatre performers who slug out the bit parts and crazy demands from the top brass, perhaps working with one company and another until they get their big break and finally get to work in the platform they want and earn a proper living from it. Once their name and reputation is established then they have the power to actually do what they want.

And no, it's not always the case that an artist retains the rights to her work. Whether due to ill advice or plain stupidity, some artists sign them off and it takes some clever maneuvering and a lot of patience to get them back. Licenses and distribution rights are even trickier, especially for multilevel publishing (different languages, different countries, or different media for example). Heck, some mangakas actually love scanlations as it gets their work to a wider audience, but the license that controls the actual published work is beyond their authority.

I also get where you're coming from about being "switched." It's not for me to say if she is really a shounen-ai artist who was forced into shoujo, or a shoujo artist who used the shounen-ai route. Either way, Sensei worked the system and she became successful for it.

As a fellow fan, I was also disappointed with the change in tone in Sensei's work. Who knows, maybe Sensei or her publisher didn't want to target a specific audience, or maybe THIS is the real story she wants for this piece. However, advertising and expectation are two different things. Other than that the BxB protagonists, there is really no set of boxes that an author needs to tick in order for a piece to be truly branded as shounen-ai. The expectation or what I WANT to see in the piece is only in my head and not from the author. Sensei gave me a story with two males in a relationship. I was the one expecting to see some action between them, simply because I've seen that with other authors.

And moreover, that I purchased an author's work doesn't give me the right to demand what she creates. As a consumer, what I do have is the right to continue supporting and buying her works or not. To think that an artist "owes" me anything just because I supposedly spend time and money on her is probably more despicable than what the corporate suits may have put her through. I did not invest on her, personally. I invested in my own entertainment.

But then again, as you said, people will have different views. With yours and mine, there are now... five. (●'◡'●)ﾉ

Please note that I'm only half way through this manga.
A thing I do for long mangas is read the first chapter and the last one before starting (it's fun (≧∀≦))

So please forgive my potential ignorance. But you mentioned its advertised as shounen ai but it becomes more shoujo. I haven't really seen any evidence of that (yet) but from the brief glance into the future that I saw it looked rather shounen ai to me. So I was curious as to how it plays out to be more shoujo?

(I'm also probably going to take a long break before I finish this manga, I can tell I'm getting to the (〜￣△￣)〜 DRAMA 〜(￣△￣〜) stage and I can only handle that crap in small doses)

So like, think about how they first started. There was interest and bromance and whatever but it wasnt really romantic. Then they start getting closer and closer right? We start seeing kisses, sleeping close, hugs, sentences with hidden meanings that arent really hidden at all. Well then by the second half of the book, it sort of reverts back to the beginning. We dont see a single kiss, barely any touching, it plays out more like two cops looking back on their partnership, and while theres intimacy in that, its not romantic and it just aggravates the hell out of me.

That makes sense. So I'm in the process of approaching a massive headache (╯°Д °)╯╧╧ Thanks for replying (๑•ㅂ•)و✧

While I can’t really categorize them as ‘nice’ and ‘taste like hell’ (as many people happen to enjoy the taste of alcohol), I agree that it is a very silly & not to mention impossible mistake to make, as the smell & taste are quite different!

sometimes when you drink too fast, the taste registers into your brain very late hahahaha that mustve been the case here, and im guessing theyre drinking soju, which looks very similar to water

There are some alcohol that did not have color and almost tastes like juice when you drink it. I love cocktails most especially because of the taste and colors but let me tell you, there are definitely ones you need to be careful of that doesn't hit you hard and are obvious like vodka and gin but slowly drags you into drunken state without you knowing, especially because of how tasty it is!

Yep,.

He's the strongest character of this manga. We'll still love him even if he changed cos as what you said, the bad things happened to him, any person can changed because of them.

U r wrong but I'm not going to fact check you by ruining ur moment and keep u from ur opinions. Btw it clear to me on what side u standing on. Hv grt day

Shit disregard this. This was meanthe for someone else shit, sorry for being a dick even though I didn't meant it.

'Cause Aki is a like a light in Asami's dark world. Asami wants a person that doesn't belong to the crime world.

It's not about him having spunk because this can be a learnt trait but it's all about the difference between takaba and the world that asami is familiar with. Takaba is asamis ray of sunshine, takaba has become asamis other side of world where he's able to make smart decisions, where he can escape his dark world this is the place that asami feels a little bit more free maybe just like he was before his dad forced him to be who he is today. He wants someone to care for him to love him whether you believe it or not underneath all the death glares, bloodshed asami is lowkey a sweet soul who needs some loving lol and takaba is his ideal love. I think sakazaki said it best (even though I hate the shit outta him) "there are people in the world who seek revitalization in people who make a living by crawling under sewers, even people from the elite world" now he's obviously talking about asami and his fixation on takaba and also the reason why asami loves him some takaba!

This is such a good question and it is one I often wonder over. I think it is about lust then love - when Asami first saw the pictures of Akihito you could almost see him drool (obv Aki is his type), he didn't need to be there to frighten Akihito away from taking photos - he wanted to be there! Then when Aki showed him just what he is capable of Asami's interest doubled then sex/rape happened which was all Asami needed to continue his interest in Akihito. As events happened Asami realised that Akihito meant more to him than anyone else had which then turned to Love:). Although Asami is probably trying to deny he loves Akihito - I think we all know that he does!

I am sorry I did not do your question justice but these are a few of my thoughts.

I think that Asami was attracted to his looks and his guts at first, but then discovered that he was a really strong guy that can bounce back from anything despite not actually being from the mafia world. I guess he gives him a sense of comfort that he can’t find anywhere else while keeping him on his toes with his impulsiveness and recklessness. It’s a good match for Asami.

In fact, Asami intentionally let Fei know that he had sex with Takaba to make him jealous. But what he didn't expect was that Feilong's jealous reaction was so drastic that it was beyond his expectations. It turns out Asami misinterpreted Feilong as seeking revenge. Fei: I'm really jealous. Two shots will do nothing to ease my anger. Asami simply can't treat Feilong the way it treats Aki unless Feilong herself is willing to do so. Asami had always respected Feilong's wishes, but the only thing he had been wrong was that he thought he had no place in Feilong's heart. Asami thought Feilong hated him for his father's death, but Feilong was just jealous. Ha ha ha, poor Asami got hit every time. Feilong Liu was the only crab to walk sideways in viewfinder, and Asami didn't want to beat him.

I think that Asami fell for Akihito because Akihito wasn't afraid of Asami and is ride or die. Akihito betrayed Asami to save his friends, then told Asami that he betrayed him, which most people would be too afraid, but Akihito would have accepted the consequences. Also, Akihito accepts Asami as he is - dark lord, sometimes a jackass (the way he mocks and teases Akihito), while being loving and caring as well. Akihito doesn't demand that Asami change for him. I think that Asami wasn't really loved by his parents, but a kind person like Akihito loves him and doesn't use Asami for money or power.

Sudo also asked the same question. Sakazaki, of all people, nailed the reason* (besides Akihito's physical looks)-- it's because Akihito is completely different from anyone Asami deals with or is involved with. Akihito refreshes and re-energizes Asami after dealing with the stress, treachery and violence of the underworld.

Akihito's differences that Asami values are:
1) he's not one of the elite
2) not part of the underworld
3) he doesn't fear Asamii and treats like an ordinary person
(Note that the people who are admitted to Asami's inner circle all fall under this last one)

I think Sensei once commented that Asami (from the dark world) is drawn to Akihito's light.

* http://www.mangago.zone/read-manga/you_re_my_loveprize_in_viewfinder/mh/v07/c038/25/