Ranma 1/2

Ranma 1/2 has been very very popular in China—almost every Chinese has read or at least heard about it in elementary school. Although it wasn’t the type of comics that I liked before (the ones I liked were Doraemon, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Crayon Shin-chan), I learned to appreciate more about the comics now I read it.

I think the story sets an interesting character —Ranma, who turned into a girl when he was drenched with cold water, and back to a boy when drenched with hot water. And a significant thread that re-appears throughout the comics was the kettle, and there was an iconic scene which Akane is always handling a kettle of hot water to rinse Ranma when he turned into a girl. The comic has its own characteristics and are easily recognizable. 

However, the first chapter of the story which introduced the character focuses a lot on the fighting itself. Kuno always appears and fought with Ranma for the same reason, and sometimes it makes it boring. 

On the other hand, I found that gender transformation is a re-occurring theme, especially in the Japanese comics or animation. I remember there was another popular movie that centers on the same theme— Your Name, and was also very popular. 

Papyrus The Anger of the Great Sphinx

It’s a story about the prince who took an adventure to look for the princess who sleepwalked out of their palace. The comics greatly reflects the Egyptian arts and culture, and the social context at that time in that culture.

I especially appreciate the art of it. It brings the traditional Egyptian architectures and characters into the story. 

The theme of the story itself —human against nature, also reflects the perspectives of ancient culture, because of their dependency on the environment itself. 

Furthermore, the story incorporates a lot of mythological symbols such as the dragon, the "human storm," the gods who speak, the spirit. All of them show the belief of Egyptian at that time. Unlike the modern comics, the story also teaches people a moral about the consequence of betrayal by showing the bad results of the dragon and the "human storm." 

In general, it is an interesting comic, and I learned a lot about the Egyptian culture, which is very similar to the ancient cultures from other countries. 

March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

The comics March introduced a memoir about a congressman's grown up as a black child and his involvement in the Civil Right Movement afterward. The comics used narration interspersed with flashbacks, sharing short stories such as his experience when he raised chicken in the farm, his first time taking an elevator in a mall, and going to school as a black kid, etc. The short stories in between the conversations made the comics more interesting. It won’t be the same if the narrator talked about his story from the beginning to the end, which might be boring, but the inserted narrative only catches the highlights and made it more to the point and interesting. 

I also like the silhouette effect throughout the story especially when he was recalling his memories. In this image, the angle and use of big black space present a sneaky feeling, which made the audiences felt like something bad is going to happen. It also constructed a depressing atmosphere. Surprisingly, the black and white silhouette doesn’t only tell what the story is about, it also conveys the mood through shadows. 

It is also very interesting to see the second story when the narrator talked about his experience going to the city and seeing the elevators opened his eyes. It is a common experience that many people could relate to as a child; the portray of the mall and the elevator looks exactly the same from my childhood memory. Moreover, the word and image work together very well. There isn’t one driving another— they each tell different information that my eyes need to go from pictures to texts. For example, when he was talking about his first experience riding an elevator, the word described what had happened while the image showed his facial expression of surprise and curiosity.

In general, this memoir was interesting  and it broke my impreesion of memoirs in general, especially ones relate to politics. The story feels more personal and emotionally connected to people.