The relationship of Background Lines/Thoughts and Comments with genre

Although their presentation within the text allows enough ambiguity in their status to prevent Background Lines/Thoughts and Comments from being wholly absorbed into the categories of Lines, Thoughts and Narration, one might still ask why they should not simply be treated as some variation of those types. Here, however, it is interesting to consider the fact that Background Lines/Thoughts and Comments actually show a very marked and distinct variation in distribution (Table 5; Graph 1). Although they appear infrequently compared with the other categories, both Background Lines/Thoughts and Comments appear at least occasionally in shoujo-manga, but minimally at best in shounen-manga. In shoujo-manga, Background Lines/Thoughts seem to appear on a regular basis, coming in at an average of 6.52% of all characters, and appearing a little less than once a page (0.87 entries/page), as opposed to shounen-manga, where they average 0.34%. While Comments are comparatively less common, they are still seen regularly irregularly in shoujo-manga (0.72% of all characters), but almost never in shounen-manga (0.06%).

These are also the only categories that one can say really show a consistent division along genre lines.

As I discussed earlier, while when looking at averages, shounen-manga seem to have considerable more Lines than shoujo-manga (78.59% vs. 66.22% of characters), the variation within series is actually very extreme, going from as low as 69.31% (Naruto) to as high as 88.41% (GinTama) in shounen-manga, and from as low as 57.87%

(Kimi ni Todoke) to as high as 72.20% (RabuKon) in manga. Thus while the range still places the shoujo-manga with the least amount of Lines below the same-ranking shounen-shoujo-manga—and vice-versa for the highest—

there is also much overlap in their ranges. Similar observations may be made for both Onomatopoeia and Thoughts. In the case of Background Lines/Thoughts and Comments, however, the only shounen-manga to use either text type with any frequency is Naruto (Background Lines/Thoughts: 1.41%, Comments: 0.28%); their use in Naruto is, however, extremely restricted, showing up almost exclusively to describe the contradictions in the burikko (feigned-cute) character Sakura’s outside demeanor and inner thoughts (Figure 26). All the other series showed no examples of Comments, and less than 0.40% for Background Lines/Thoughts.

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Figure 26: Example of comments and Background Lines/Thoughts in Naruto (1:111)

The explanatory text on the left Sakura’s forehead ("Uchi naru Sakura" "The inner Sakura") categorizes as Comments, whereas the handwritten text above her ("Kou yuu no kekkou suki nano youu!!" "I really like these kinda things!") categorize as Background Lines/Thoughts Graph 1: Distribution of text across series by text type, with details for Background Lines/Thoughts and Comments

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Interestingly, this is not the first time textual differences have been given for differences in genre. As Ôtsuka (1994) discusses, visually distinct text-types were found in the form of highly visual narrative/monologue-like texts characterizing the so-called psychological mid 1970s and early 1980s shoujo-manga, styles which eventually fell out of popularity and criticized as being difficult to read. Ôtsuka writes that

“. . . in shounen-manga, aside from handwritten-onomatopoeia, the majority of text is in speech bubbles . . ., but shoujo-manga has much text outside of speech bubbles. And, to put it simpler, this is most likely the only standard by which to differentiate between shoujo-manga and shounen-manga (1994, p. 61).” This text that he describes as appearing outside of speech bubbles generally corresponded to interior thoughts or monologues, which, according to his explanation, were developed by female manga-writers in the mid 1970s of the 24-gumi, a group of shoujo-manga writers born in the 24^th year of the Shouwa period (1949) with a distinctly new, literary-bent. Seeking to express characters’ psychological depth amongst the “discovery of the interior”, they developed new forms of text which lead to a new systemization of interiority in shoujo-manga.

However, Ôtsuka notes that with the emergence of (female) shoujo-manga readers who found it difficult to read such interior-oriented shoujo-manga, these types of text seemed to disappear or fall out of favor: The main difficulty for such readers—and male, non-readers of shoujo-manga, too—was to be found not in the drawings or narratives, but in their inability to get used to the “multi-layering” within which shoujo-manga finds its “essence”, and the inability of “their sense to follow the words written as the ‘interior words of consciousness’

that appear like poems (1994, p. 67)” in shoujo-manga. When such text outside of speech bubbles did get used, it was used in extremely restricted, patterned ways that differed from their original types: “. . . The characteristic use of words outside of speech-bubbles stopped at best at the level of ‘lines within their hearts’, and the form of expression found in shoujo-manga which objectified the self to infinity was abandoned (1994, p. 68).” In this way, Ôtsuka argues that there was a reversal in shoujo-manga trends characterized by a retreat backwards to the more traditional forms of shoujo-manga expressions.

In some ways, the shoujo-manga collected here seem to superficially support Ôtsuka’s description of such psychologically-driven shoujo-manga. As noted above, they use less Lines than shounen-manga, and they also seem to have a slight edge on the number of Thoughts (15.82% vs. 14.79% of entries); however, the number of Thoughts varies radically between series. In fact, the shounen-manga Naruto actually uses more Thoughts (18.07%) than all but two shoujo-manga series, Kimi Ni Todoke (19.80%) and Bokura ga Ita (19.11%). Thus, not only have shoujo-manga lost some psychological depth, as Ôtsuka asserted, but shounen-manga may also have gained some. (Note that since I do not distinguish between some of the many different types of Thoughts, it is possible that they may not all be of the same, out-of-speech-bubble types that Ôtsuka describes; one might find somewhat different results with re-categorization.) On the other hand, however, Background Lines/Thoughts

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and Comments seem in some ways similar to the patternization of Ôtsuka’s interior monologues which came after their decline in the late 1980s. While Background Lines/Thoughts and Comments actually have some visual similarities with Ôtsuka’s interior monologues, their roles differ greatly; Comments are clearly not associated with individual characters, and Background Lines/Thoughts also offer a sense of lightheartedness and humor where Ôtsuka’s monologues offer refection and depth. It is not hard to associate Background Lines/Thoughts with the “lighter” lines within their hearts that Ôtsuka says his interior monologues were reduced to, but he also describes a type of text very similar to Comments, writing that after the decline of the interior monologue, one began to see critical texts that appeared to be commenting from outside of the interior narrative. Finding these types in two popular series from the early 1990s, Sakura Momoko’s Chibi Maruko-chan (Little Maruko-chan) and Sasaki Noriko’s Doubutsu no Oisha-san (The Animal Doctor), Ôtsuka writes that

Both of these series do not use them [=text outside of speech bubbles] for “interior” expressions, but as a place to insert a kind of narration. But the distance between the narration and characters is very interesting . . . This narration looks at characters objectively, and adds accurate jabs in response to their actions and psychology. In the past words which corresponded to the “interior”

were put in their place, through which readers were unified with characters to an even excessive degree. However, Sakura and Sasaki invite readers to the outside of the characters and the stories by placing narration there; characters are thoroughly objectified by this narration (1994, p. 71).

While the text is not accompanied by examples, and he still makes no differentiation between type and handwritten text, Ôtsuka’s description here seems to correspond closely to the humor and critical stance which characterizes Comments; in fact, examining the first few volumes of both series, I found several examples of what would likely be classified as Comments, such as in Figure 27.

Figure 27: Comments-like text seen in Chibi Maruko-chan (1:17)

From Momoko Sakura’s Chibi Maruko-chan (1987, Tokyo, Japan: Shuueisha)

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