Come Again?: The State of America and My Graduate Manga Thesis

So. Let’s talk.

First of all, America just lost its head, and the only thing I can think to do is to just keep writing. Maybe this goes without saying considering the subject matter of most of my blog posts, but I want to say right now that that this blog is pro women, people of color, LGBTQ+, and everyone else who is truly scared for the social change that this coming farce of a presidency our resident toupeed cheeto wants to lead will bring. I am here, and I will continue to write, and I hope that every one of my words continues to bring you hope and feel that you are special and loved.

Secondly, I’d like to apologize for leaving you high and dry without a spooky themed blog post in October. The good news is I’ve got a killer outline for next year’s October, and all the time I should have spent writing that post went into writing my graduate thesis!

It’s long, so I won’t be posting it here, but it is here for your enjoyment if you would like to see! It’s the compilation of three years of research on the adaptation of Japanese manga for the American audience. I go over examples of editorial, design, and lettering choices that affect how the American audience interacts with manga, and then offer up my thoughts on the “best” way to do it. Spoilers: the best way to do it is pretty subjective!

And here is the recipe for the beef apple stew I made in preparation for those few weeks of not really having time to cook. Our apple trees are bursting, and I got inventive with them. It was a delicious stew, and I regret nothing. I didn’t use the carrots it suggests, though. I don’t like mushy carrots—and I don’t want to think about anything orange right now anyway. Maybe use purple carrots if you decide to use any. Carrots of color. Yeah. But I used more apples instead, and it was delicious too, so follow your dreams. This is definitely a dish that combines salty and sweet flavors. It feels like that might be relevant to our situation right now, huh?

But never give up, never surrender. The people who elected this puffy-eyed wart of a human being want us to be scared and defeated right now. Instead, do something that makes you happy. Do it again, and again, and again. Keep doing it. Because your happiness is worth it. Your smile is worth it. You are worth it. And these people will never be able to take away something that you can give yourself. Do something. Do anything. It doesn’t have to be great, it can be small. But do it. We only have each other right now, but that is by no means a small thing. I love you all. Stay strong.

And if you're having trouble with that, go play Undertale if you haven't already. If you have, remember this fight. Remember how even in the face of the impossible, all one must do is stay determined.

For those of you needing more immediate consolation, have a hugging Ruby and Sapphire and rejoice in the fact that we still have Rebecca Sugar making beautiful relationships between ungendered space rocks.

Valentine's Day and Chocolate

Ah, Valentine’s Day. Regardless of your relationship status, there’s one very good reason to be excited about February 14^th, aside from Deadpool being in theaters: chocolate.

Unfortunately, due to the commercial nature of this holiday, sometimes the chocolate is a little pricey (unless you wait for the discount stuff on February 15^th). Plus, what says “I care about you” better than chocolates you made yourself?

To make your own chocolate, you’ll need a few things:

A pot and metal bowl that fits on top of your pot and won’t fall in (If you have a double boiler, just use that instead)

3.5 tablespoons Cocoa Butter

3.5 tablespoons Cocoa Powder

½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1 tablespoon Honey or Sugar

Let me first begin with a warning: do NOT use a wooden spoon while working with this recipe. This recipe is ruined if any water gets into the mixture, and wooden spoons actually have moisture trapped inside of them! The best utensil to use is a rubber spatula that hasn’t been exposed to any strong foods like garlic or tomato sauce. If you use a utensil that has been exposed to such foods, your chocolate could come out tasting like chocolate and some really tasty spaghetti. On to the directions!

Fill the bottom of your double boiler (make-shift or legit) with water and bring that water to a boil. Even though we’re going to be boiling the water, be sure to keep the heat low—if you turn up the heat too high, you can scorch your chocolate and cause it to lose flavor.

Place the bowl or pan you’re using as the top of your double boiler on top of the bottom half and make sure that the bottom of the pan/bowl doesn’t touch the boiling water. If the water is touching the bottom of the pan you’ll be making your chocolate in, you could burn your chocolate.

Next, place your cocoa butter in the pan and melt it. Once your cocoa butter is melted, you can go ahead and add your vanilla and sweetener of choice. You can also adjust the level of honey/sugar to taste. Once the sweetener has been added, stir your cocoa powder into the bowl and mix well. Eliminate any clumps or grainy bits until your chocolate is has a smooth, glossy texture. Then, just take your chocolate and place it in your mold of choice. If you want to add things like nuts or dried fruit to your chocolate, you can add them now. Simply pour a bit of chocolate, place the nuts or fruit on top, and then fill up the rest of the mold. Give the mold a good shake to get rid of any air trapped in your chocolate, and then place in your refrigerator to chill and set for at least an hour. After the chocolate has set, pop it out of the molds and serve! Or, you can decorate them with frosting and chocolate drizzle.

If you’re looking for something a bit less dark, you can add milk to your chocolate to lighten it up. Powdered milk and liquid milk are both fine. Powdered milk can be added when stirring in your cocoa powder, but if you want to add liquid milk do it at beginning when melting your cocoa butter. Otherwise your chocolate will seize (become lumpy, grainy, and stiff) since it’s sensitive to moisture. 

There are some other ways to do this that replace the cocoa butter with milk and butter, allow you to make your cocoa powder from scratch with cocoa beans, or remove the need for a double boiler entirely. You can check out some of those other options here and here. 

For those of you that would rather skip the from-scratch way of doing things and just melt down some chocolate and set it in some cute molds, here are some tips for melting your chocolate. You can melt chocolate with everything from the double boiler to the oven to the microwave. Just be sure to grate or break up your chocolate into small chunks so it melts more easily, and keep the heat low. If you’re going to add milk, cream, or anything else to the chocolate you’re going to melt, be sure to add it to the chocolate BEFORE heating it. Otherwise, your chocolate will seize because of its sensitivity to moisture. Also check out that link if your chocolate seizes. Although your chocolate won’t be suitable for consumption on its own anymore, there are ways to recover it from seizing, and it can be used for things such as sauces, frostings, and batters.

Whew, there. No wonder nobody learns this in Home Ec. It’s complicated, and there are so many ways to screw it up! However, the making of chocolate for loved ones on Valentine’s Day is something I’ve been seeing in media since I was fourteen and started reading manga. 

In Japan, it’s common place for people to make chocolates for the special people in their lives on Valentine’s day. There’s a little more incentive to do this in Japan, however, because all of that hard work is traditionally rewarded on White Day, when the receiver of chocolates traditionally repays the giver of the Valentine’s chocolates with a gift.

This particular tradition is explored in CLAMP’s series XXXHolic. The X’s in this title are traditionally used in Japan as a place holder for a blank, so when the title is pronounced it is usually just ‘Holic. In this series, trans-dimensional witch Yuko grants wishes from her shop. One of the wishes she grants is the ability to travel to different worlds to the four main characters of CLAMP’s other series Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles, Kurogane, Fai, and alternate world versions of the characters Syaoran, and Sakura from CLAMP’s other series Cardcaptor Sakura—keeping track of the different versions of CLAMP’s previous series characters that make apperances in Tsubasa and Holic can be as complicated as making chocolate! Due to Yuko’s involvement in the story of Tsubasa, the two series often crossover during their separate stories. One of the more humorous crossovers is a Valentine’s Day crossover. Yuko, having asked Watanuki to make chocolate for Valentine’s Day as part of his workerly duties, has some chocolate left over.

Yuko sending Valentine’s chocolate for White Day gifts.

As you can see, this is a ploy to ensure that she receives White Day gifts from the Tsubasa gang. When they don’t come deliver, she flies into a rage.

Yuko in a rage.

There are two types of White Day gifts; those given by someone accepting the romantic feelings of someone who confessed their feelings while giving their chocolates on Valentine’s Day, and those that are given out of obligation to people like family members, co-workers, and friends. Essentially, if you receive chocolates on Valentine’s Day that don’t have a romantic attachment, or intend to accept the romantic implications of chocolates you did receive, you’re required to give a White Day gift. It’s considered a social faux pas to forget your White Day duties.

Yuko sharing her feelings on not giving White Day gifts.

Of course, Japan being the role based society that it is, it’s usually women who hand make their chocolates in order to confess their feelings to men. What I love best about this portrayal of the Japanese Valentine’s and White Day ritual is that Yuko challenges these values outright.

Yuko breaking down gender roles like a boss.

So, no matter who you’re making chocolates for this Valentine’s Day, whether they be for your family, your friends, a special someone, or yourself, please enjoy them to the fullest.

Noodles From Tomorrow

Food. There are a lot of things we silly humans have in common, but a need to feed oneself is one of the most unifying. Although, depending on culture and available materials, what one consumes can be very different from what one’s neighbor does--an observation I would like all of you, dear readers, to remember applies not just to the food we’ll discuss here, but also to culture and media.

But back to what we have in common: Ramen.

Of course we would start with ramen. You laughed at the title of this blog, or you wouldn’t still be reading. You’re expecting noodles, and we’re all acquainted with this particular food whether as gourmets or college students who couldn’t afford anything else for dinner. American, European, Japanese, or Chinese (where the soup actually originated from, btw) we have our own versions of this soup. For an irrefutable example of this, please refer to episode 2 of Space Dandy, entitled "The Search for the Phantom Space Ramen, Baby" or "Maboroshi no Uchū Rāmen o Sagasu Jan yo" (幻の宇宙ラーメンを探すじゃんよ).

In all seriousness, though, this soup is so popular that Shinichiro Watanabe’s portrayal of a galactic ramen culture—complete with ramen bowl themed space stations that serve everything from strange blue globs to Fullmetal Alchemist puns in a bowl—doesn’t come off as far-fetched. Perhaps because the soup can be easily customized to suit many different palates.

Often thought of as a Japanese soup, ramen actually hails from China. Much like their writing system, Japan took the concept of this Chinese soup and modified it to suit themselves. This is why you’ll almost never see “ramen” written in hiregana--katakana is used for “foreign” words, and the name of this soup comes from China, which is why every banner and advertisement for ramen reads ラーメン.

An already modified soup lends itself well to continued modification. Let’s break it down shall we? What is ramen made of? Noodles, water, seasonings... anything else?

At its core, no. That’s it. That’s the essence of ramen. Simplistic, yes, but a fantastic foundation to build off of.

Slices of pork, a soft boiled egg, and three leaves of Nori seaweed plus a miso based soup broth are the key components of this particular ramen. With only these few modifications an adequate foodstuff is turned into a satisfying meal. Most ramen shops offer customers ways to customize their ramen, both on the menu and off. Usually, a ramen shop will ask customers to choose their broth base (the standard choices are miso, pork bone, and salt/soy sauce) and sometimes even noodle type (if you’re getting really fancy). But even after the ramen is served there are choices to be made! Restaurants often set out jars of seasonings, ranging from chilies to seasoned vegetables to Japanese pickles, that can be added to one’s ramen to further modify the flavor. This kind of ramen is a common breed in Japan, but not something that’s impossible to find outside of the country. For those of you on the West Coast who live in the Portland area, there is a particular ramen shop that may be of interest to you.

This is the Kakuni Ramen from Yuzu. Yuzu is a cozy little restaurant just outside Beaverton and definitely worth the trip--it’s native approved as you’ll often over hear bits of Japanese conversations when you enter, and will definitely be greeted by the hostess’s call of “Irasshaimase!” Be sure to go with someone who’s been before or have very specific directions (and definitely a reservation or time to wait if you’re taking more than three) because not only does the restaurant not have its name posted anywhere, it’s usually packed. Although everything on the menu is great (and I encourage you to try anything that calls to you) the real selling point of the Kakuni Ramen is that it’s made with pork belly. But don’t be fooled: this isn’t Portland’s spin on ramen! It’s a Japanese recipe, but still decadent enough to rival your go-to comfort food, so throw those ideas about all Japanese food being healthy right back out the window.

In fact, there are several instances of ramen being used like comfort food in manga and anime--let’s not forget how much energy Dandy put into finding the perfect bowl of space-ramen, or the story about being moved and comforted by the taste of ramen he was told by the ramen-making alien once he found it. However, one of my favorite, more mundane examples of ramen as comfort food is the way ramen is used in the manga What Did You Eat Yesterday.

What Did You Eat Yesterday is the story of Shiro and Kenji and the daily challenges they face as a middle aged gay couple in Japan, such as what to have for dinner. In this particular chapter, Kenji is spending the New Year alone because Shiro’s parents have asked him to come visit for the New Year. Normally, in a relationship as committed as Shiro’s and Kenji’s (cohabitating in the way that Shiro and Kenji do is the societal equivalent of marriage in Japanese gay culture since Japan doesn’t recognize gay marriage) when Shiro is invited home the invitation would extend to his spouse—but since Shiro’s partner is a man, both Kenji and Shiro are unsure if the invitation includes both of them, and Shiro ends up going home alone. One would expect poor Kenji to be sad. Instead he makes ramen for his New Year’s meal.

In Japan there’s a tradition of eating long soba noodles on the New Year to bring long life and good fortune. Before Shiro leaves for his parents’ house he offers to prepare toppings for Kenji’s New Year’s soba, but Kenji turns him down.

Here we see Kenji customizing his ramen just the way he likes it, showing off the versatility of this particular dish once again. But we also see him using it as a way to deal with Shiro’s absence. Since he can’t eat Shiro’s cooking on the New Year, and prepared toppings would only remind Kenji that Shiro can’t be there with him, Kenji takes the opportunity to cook and indulge himself in a meal he could never get from Shiro. The reason this is one of my favorite examples of ramen as comfort food is because Kenji took a potentially sad situation and turned it into an opportunity to really be with himself for a while.

In this sense, the New Year’s meal of ramen instead of soba seems like it will bring Kenji more luck because it’s helped him to stay confident about his relationship in the coming year.

And that’s why we all know ramen. It’s quick, it’s customizable, it’s comforting, and above all damn is it delicious. Try investing in some quality ramen noodles from a specialty store and making your own variations on this dish. Who knows, you might just create your new favorite meal!