Metal Guardian Faust is a manga I wish continued in the US. I was getting into it.
As American comics and other media continue to lose sales, fans of Japanese media are experiencing a rise in numbers due to one simple thing: most Japanese creators are simply making stories for their target audience. The goal isn’t to preach, or take what was made for one group and give it to the everything for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee crowd. They aren’t using false stereotype “representation” or altering the terminology to fit some personal commentary or message by the translator, and they aren’t bogged down in not-stalgia where something becomes unrecognizable from the original product.
Granted, there are exceptions, but around the Western creators that’s become the rule. Their adaptations are faithful because they care, with most adaptations being minor changes. Sometimes they’re in the wrong spots or ways, like the fallout from the Sexy Tanaka-San‘s adaptation driving the manga creator to suicide. Believe me, I’m not letting them off the hook. I’m talking more often than not you can at least recognize the material, which changes made for the adapted format change more often than “the studio had a ‘better idea'”, like in the Sexy Tanaka-San incident.
At least that’s an internal issue within Japanese media. However, all the comics, cartoons, and games are catching the attention of the “usual suspects”, the same people who scream about “cultural appropriation” but will still immediately tell Japan what they’re doing wrong and how to make it better, which usually means the same mistakes Western media is making. Since they refuse, their franchises are thriving while franchises in the US like DC, Marvel, Star Wars, Doctor Who–basically anything under modern Disney really, and Star Trek continue to slowly drain from pop culture as the fans who maintain the interest increasingly give up (and let’s not pretend that isn’t the snobs’ goal at least given their open opposition to sci-fi, fantasy, and other “geek media”, with the activists, shills, and everything for meeeeeeeeeeeeeee crowd having their heads too far up their backsides to notice they’re failing) as the corporate overlords have let the wrong people become stewards of the things they love.
I come with a duo of interviews by Japanese creators going over how their unwillingness to conform to Western standards, and why should they? They create for Japan. While Hollywood bends over backwards for China, Japan makes stuff for their country, their culture, and their perspective rather than a bunch of white old bitties who have never eaten and a Japanese restaurant. Again, they’ll scream “cultural appropriation” when some non-Japanese woman puts on a kimono and uses random Japanese words, but they’ll happily tell Japan what their culture and history should be.
