Photographs from a small group of islands
“The Japanese people can be racist when it comes to Koreans living here. But racist against blacks? We have no experience in dealing with black people. Where would we get it from?â€
Psychologist Kazuo Mori saying that most Japanese were surprised to learn that “Little Black Sambo” — back on the best-seller list after being withdrawn in 1988 — had racist overtones.
Hmm…
Whether the unusual nature of this publication is in relation to its literary worth hasn’t been disclosed, but Sanseido Books is selling a summary of the Architectural Body by Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins on toilet paper.
For any bathroom tissue aficionados out there, each roll is 30-metres long, and thankfully double-layered. However cost wise this toilet tract doesn’t come cheap, as each roll retails at 350 yen (almost 2 pound). But for the combination of reading matter, and the, erm, ability to remove matter, it’s arguably not a bad price.
An apartment floor in Tokyo collapsed on Sunday. But it wasn’t because of an earthquake, or indeed shoddy construction. No, the tenant it turns out had amassed so many magazines in the 24 years he’d been living there, that the floor eventually gave way under the weight.
Fortunately the person living below the magazine mound escaped, as he heard the floor squeaking in the wooden building, and fearing the worst went and alerted the police. A wise move indeed, as upon his return the floor had collapsed, depositing the 56-year-old man from upstairs and his hoard of literature into the room below.
Both the man and his magazines were rescued, and spread out in 50 cm piles his collection covered over 30 metres. Now whilst I may be speaking out of turn here and doing the gentleman a disservice, that’s an awful lot of pornography.
It’s not uncommon to see people standing in line outside a shop or restaurant that is having a sale of some kind. And that’s fair enough I guess, as there is nothing wrong with seeking out the odd bargain. But isn’t going through all the trouble of photographing a book or magazine taking being careful with one’s money to new and previously uncharted depths?
The violent and sexually explicit world of manga, and the romantic idyll of Mills & Boon would appear strange bedfellows. But despite their different backgrounds, they’ve decided to get it on. As under the banner of their Canadian parent company Harlequin, Mills & Boon novels have been published in a manga format.
As well as sci-fi, gangster, and pornographic genres, manga has an extensive romantic collection. And it’s here where Mills & Boon is trying to make inroads. The company has had to accept that the younger generation is less willing to read novels, and manga is the obvious answer.
But changes had to be made. Not only in the stories, but in the looks of the relevant characters too. The decidedly different covers for Lucy Gordon’s (apparently) very popular The Sheikh’s Reward shows two distinct approaches.
But subtle story changes and big-eyed characters may not be enough to sway many Japanese readers. If Mills & boon is to really crack the Japanese manga market, it might have to significantly ratchet up the raunch factor. Japanese women it seems like their romantic manga to contain explicit sex scenes, and perhaps more worrying for the publishers, love stories between men. So could the Sheikh’s reward turn out to be something very different from what he expected?
Now if Mills and Boon do make such story concessions to please the Japanese market, and it proves to be popular, would the company consider publishing the re-written novels in Britain (or indeed anywhere else in the world)? It would certainly be interesting to see the reaction of all those little old ladies who systematically plough their way through the extensive Mills and Boon catalogue.