A "realistic" manga

angelx03 · Post by **angelx03** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 2:02 pm

This topic is leaning more to North Korea's issues.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... 0918082519

What do you think?

Moonlight Soldier · Post by **Moonlight Soldier** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 2:35 pm

Well I suppose it's an interesting spin on a history lesson. But in all seriousness:

And with good reason. The North Korean dictator is portrayed in its 340-odd pages as a violent, bloodthirsty despot who commits numerous murders and has a weakness for women and the high-life.

But the cartoon book also relates Kim's little-known childhood and relationship with his father, Kim Il-Sung, the founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and its ruler until 1994.

Intended to be educative, the book is as easy to read as any other manga, while also striving to serve as a work of reference, incorporating actual press cuttings and photographs.

That may explain it's "popularity"....because all of a sudden it has fit into different genres.

The manga should enable Japanese to "define more clearly Kim Jong-Il's personality so that Japan can work out the policy it should adopt," for dealing with North Korea, said Lee Young-Hwa.

The book has appeared at a time when relations between the two countries have deteriorated into acrimony over the kidnapping of Japanese nationals during the Cold War years and fears over North Korea's nuclear weapons.

"Young Japanese know next to nothing about Kim Jong-Il's personality," said Lee Young-Hwa, a third-generation Japanese Korean and professor of economics specialising in North Korea at Kansai University in Osaka, who insisted that "all incidents portrayed in the manga are true."

I hardly see how that will happen, though "true" (in the sense they are keeping facts straight) I see it being romanticized due to its nature. (I.E the "And with good reason. The North Korean dictator is portrayed in its 340-odd pages as a violent, bloodthirsty despot who commits numerous murders and has a weakness for women and the high-life. "

He said the Japanese media is to blame with its fixation on "missile issues, kidnappings and the 'yorokobigumi'," -- the beautiful cheerleaders who accompany North Korean sports teams on their trips abroad -- as well as Kim's alleged sexual depravity.

I don't see how making a manga account of this solves the problem...he's appealing to the media and pop culture of Japan.

In the current mood of growing hostility towards Japan's pro-Pyongyang Korean community in Japan, Lee Young-Hwa said he hoped young Japanese readers would "feel pity and compassion for the North Korean people."
"I hope that in reading this book, people will make the distinction between the long-suffering North Korean people and Kim Jong-Il," said Lee, who established an support group for North Korean refugees in 1993.

I hardly see how a manga could put such a point across....it would take all the seriousness out of it I believe....A documentary would be much more appropriate.

If they're trying to make this appealing for a younger audience to encourage understanding and comprehension, they may just have people seeking it out for entertainment purposes only. This doesn't strike me as a proper way to introduce such a topic. (Though in all honesty I don't really know what the North Korean etc etc is all about.)