Our generation’s brains have more or less gone through a bit of a baptism by Japanese culture (manga). I started liking Japanese manga in my first year of middle school. Back then I was reading famous ones like <>, <> and so on. By the second half of the term I found that this kind of spiritual food really wasn’t enough to fill me up, so I moved on to <>, <>, <>, <> and the like. This kind could be said to be beyond what children could understand. Basically, if you were reading this kind of stuff, you had successfully made the transition into adolescence. During that period, the one that influenced me more deeply was <>. It describes the story of Feng and Xiao tribes destroying the feudal lords and unifying the realm. There was also one called <>. It tells the story of Mozi helping various states contend for hegemony during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Its military thinking is quite close to Sunzi’s. But basically this book centers on the idea that with Mohism one grows strong, and in driving Mohism away one declines. Looking at the larger trend of that era through it feels too one-sided. By about the third year of middle school, even this kind of manga had started to bore me, so I began dabbling in adult manga.
Japanese adult manga can actually be divided into two types. One centers on violence, the other on sex. Reading the latter was like raping your own eyes. And at that time, if the "misleading dwarf" discovered you reading that kind of book, it was no less than being sentenced to death. So when I read adult manga, it was mostly the former type. The ones that left the deepest impression on me were <>, <>, <>, <>, <>, <> and so on. <> is about a mafia boss. My impression of it was that it was hilarious. <> can absolutely be called a classic. It tells the story of a Japanese man named Yao who, after being brainwashed by the Chinese gang Longnian, works for Longnian and risks his life for them. <> is about young people dissatisfied with reality, using violence to fight the upper strata of society. <> is the classic among classics, and it was precisely because of this manga that I took notice of its author, Ryoichi Ikegami. After that I basically only read his manga works. This book is about two young Japanese men who escaped Cambodia under the rule of the Khmer Rouge and returned to Japan, where one enters politics and the other turns criminal. Together they confront and reform Japanese society. <>, <> were both by the same person; the one that left a deeper impression, Kongō Warrior, is about cloning Hitler.
In my youth I read a great many manga. I think Japanese manga has always been propagating two ideas.
1. The bushido spirit of killing to achieve benevolence
2. Male chauvinism that regards women as inferior and men as superior
And I have already been steeped in both of these ideas.
Japanese adult manga can actually be divided into two types. One centers on violence, the other on sex. Reading the latter was like raping your own eyes. And at that time, if the "misleading dwarf" discovered you reading that kind of book, it was no less than being sentenced to death. So when I read adult manga, it was mostly the former type. The ones that left the deepest impression on me were <>, <>, <>, <>, <>, <> and so on. <> is about a mafia boss. My impression of it was that it was hilarious. <> can absolutely be called a classic. It tells the story of a Japanese man named Yao who, after being brainwashed by the Chinese gang Longnian, works for Longnian and risks his life for them. <> is about young people dissatisfied with reality, using violence to fight the upper strata of society. <> is the classic among classics, and it was precisely because of this manga that I took notice of its author, Ryoichi Ikegami. After that I basically only read his manga works. This book is about two young Japanese men who escaped Cambodia under the rule of the Khmer Rouge and returned to Japan, where one enters politics and the other turns criminal. Together they confront and reform Japanese society. <>, <> were both by the same person; the one that left a deeper impression, Kongō Warrior, is about cloning Hitler.
In my youth I read a great many manga. I think Japanese manga has always been propagating two ideas.
1. The bushido spirit of killing to achieve benevolence
2. Male chauvinism that regards women as inferior and men as superior
And I have already been steeped in both of these ideas.
