Welcome to the Cross Game Manga Moveable Feast here at Manga Widget -for your reading pleasure, I have an entire week of writing waiting for all of you. I love Cross Game, and I hope that our reviews, views, and opinions of the series will convince you to read and enjoy it. I know I have.
EDIT: Just to clear up some minor confusion, I am not hosting the Cross Game MMF – that lovely responsibility rests squarely on Derik Badman of The Panelists. Please check out the Panelists website for the archive page as well as content throughout this week.
—
One of the sites I use from time to time is Manga Updates, which, for better or worse, is an archive of manga and what scanlation groups are currently working on. The site itself is a treasure trove of information, but it also can quickly lead people to scans of manga series, which is something I don’t endorse. I am not going to get into the scanlation debate here, because I think I have said everything I want to, but the reason I bring up Manga Updates is because of its Cross Game entry, and in particular, the use of the word “tsundere” to describe the characters (or at least one character) in Cross Game.
For the non-initiated, tsundere (ツンデレ) is a character trope that comes from two root-phrases: Tsun-tsun (ツンツン) which means to turn away in disgust, and dere-dere (デレデレ) which means to be overly affectionate. Together, they describe a female character who is inititally cold, harsh, or uncaring, generally towards the main male character, who over time becomes warmer or shows her inner niceness to others. It is a cliché that anime and the moe boom have embraced; otaku in Japan can now be catered to at a Tsundere café in Akihabara. It is a fetishized cliché, and using the term tsundere to describe Mitsuru Adachi’s female characters is not only incorrect, but also a grave insult to his work as an author.
Why would I say something drastic like that? Because I believe that the modern tsundere and moe movements represent some of the worst, otaku pandering content that is being produced in Japan today.
First, and foremost; tsundere as a trope is an oversimplification of Adachi’s female leads to the gravest extent. In Cross Game Aoba is a girl and young woman who tries her best to deal with her sister’s death as well as her own feelings for Ko Kitamura. She is an intelligent and passionate woman, a skilled baseball player, and a character who Ko emulates in order become the best pitcher he can possibly be. Over time she comes to realize his strength of character and ability on the baseball field, much as he respects and understands her strengths, even as she begins to overcome the obstacles she has put in front of herself as the result of Wakaba’s death. While it may be Ko’s story that drives the action of Cross Game, it is Aoba’s challenges and her emotions regarding the tragedy in the first volume that make the story such wonderful reading. As Aoba develops as a character, we see her fight with her loss and the realization that life can continue after the death of a loved one. We see her help Ko realize his own talent. We see her mature from a young girl in the opening pages to a young woman.
It is true that Aoba plays the foil to Ko’s placidness. She is often rude to him, and does not believe in his skill as a player. And as we see her develop, it may very well be that she will become less harsh as a character in regards to her relationship with Ko. To label this change in tone tsundere misses the essence of the relationship that Aoba and Ko have with Wakaba and each other.
Secondly (and thirdly, I guess), to call Aoba tsundere robs her of that essential depth of character and development, and makes her only an object of desire for the main character. This is a problem I have with the modern moe and tsundere market, because these shows and comics pander to otaku in a sexual way. They exist for this reason. Superimposing this sexual desire onto Cross Game voids the critical voice of the work, and by labeling a character as a tsundere girl, she becomes fetishized in the eyes of these consumers. This fetishization devalues her, and she is no longer a character written with to have both complex emotional interactions with the other lead characters as well as complex development. Instead of being a strong female character, she is now only a sex symbol and mark of attainment for the main character, and through him as a proxy, the otaku who fetishize the tsundere trope.
My bottom line – using the term tsundere to describe Aoba is a mistake a best and an insult at worst. The strength of Cross Game as a piece of fiction relies heavily on Aoba and her development as a character – to label her in this way also dismantles Cross Game as a work of fiction and converts it into a perverted fantasy. Adachi’s female characters are some of the best written in shonen manga, and to rob them of their strength and complexity in order to service a fantasy is, in my mind, abhorrent.
Pingback: Manga sings the blues—and goes to the Eisners « MangaBlog
Sounds to me like you just don’t want your Favourite Manga to be associated with anything even slightly related to moe.
Tsundere is the character hiding a softer, warmer, shyer side of their personality beneath a harsher exterior. How this comes about is irrelevant, whether it be because she’s unwilling to display warmness to someone who her sister also liked, or whether it’s because the writer is crap and can’t come up with a decent reason why they act that way. Being labled as such doesn’t devalue the characterisation that led to her becoming one.
Most good characters have different sides to their personality. Tsundere just happens to be a popular type that is also rather endearing
My argument, Scamp, is that the label tsundere is inherently sexually-charged. It is a trope used to fetishize characters and make them objects of sexual desire for people who use moe and tsundere as a fetish.
I think that such a labeling robs characters of their inherent strengths and devalues the writing. So you are definitely right, I don’t want people thinking about Cross Game like that!
I would agree with you that simplly labeling a charcter as a Tsundere(and notehing elsemakeing them simplly a grab bag of tropes.) Does lead to lazy charcterization. But I guees the thing that bothers me with this type of discusion.
Is it seems like some would agrue that Moe is inherintlly fetishistc that’s the thing that bothers me becuese I dont expernce it as a fetish and it just strikes me as franklly dismisive and insulting.
Aaron,
I do believe that moe is inherently fetishistic. Not all people agree, and while some people like moe and do not view it in a sexual way, I do not think that those people are in the majority.
Regardless, labeling Aoba or any other Adachi female lead as tsundere is wrong, because as you put it, making a character who is tsundere just because is lazy characterization, and that is assuredly NOT what Adachi has written.
Pingback: MMF: Day One Round-Up | The Panelists
On the other hand, labeling Aoba a tsundere, even if this may be somewhat inaccurate apart from all fetishistic connotations (in this case because for at least the first one and a quarter of the translated omnibus volumes, she appears to simply hate Ko’s guts, with no softer feelings involved), does let readers know to expect that she will be treating the male protagonist like dirt, often for little or no reason. This can be useful to know if, as in my case, this kind of character drives you up the wall.
Aoba’s pseudo-tsundere verbal abusiveness toward Ko began to bother me less in the second translated volume. This was partly because she engaged in it less. But mostly it was because after the way the unscrupulous new coach treated Aoba at the end of volume one, it was easier to rationalize her attitude toward Ko as resentment of Ko’s failing to be as serious as he should about the potential big-time baseball opportunities open to him that she, as a girl, would never have, even though at this point in the story she seemed to be a better, or at least more consistent, player.
I’m not sure if Mitsuru Adachi intended Aoba’s attitude to be interpreted this way, or for this motivation for her behavior to be perceived as being as significant as it seemed to me. But at least this theory struck me as making more sense than her apparently hating Ko for no particular reason in the first omnibus volume long before Wakaba’s death.
In retrospect, I suppose you could argue that she hated Ko because she resented the fact that her beloved older sister Wakaba paid so much attention to him that Aoba wished had been focused on her instead (which I suppose makes a certain amount of sense, although Wakaba certainly didn’t strike me as neglecting Aoba or her other sisters to obsess over Ko). Or because deep down Aoba had romantic feelings for Ko herself, and was furious that everyone, including the mangaka, seemed to tacitly assume that Ko and Wakaba would officially become a couple and get married as soon as they got old enough. Personally, I find the latter explanation pretty implausible, unless it’s conveyed by some subtlety in the original Japanese version of the story that got lost in translation.
Saying that a character is tsundere to explain how that character acts also implies a sexual aspect to that character, so I don’t think that it is a useful term at all to describe Cross Game. For other manga, this may be useful, but here, it distracts from the core tenants of the story and the strength of Adachi’s writing.
One of the stated reasons for Aoba’s disdain of Ko is that he took her favorite sister away from her. In reality, Aoba’s hatred of Ko is her way of coping with or dealing with the loss of her sister. Adachi is a fan of the slow burn – he brings together plot points when it’s necessary, but never rushes it. By the end of the third omnibus, it is distinctly clear why Aoba feels the way she does about Ko.
Pingback: Manga Moveable Feast May 2011: Cross Game | The Panelists
I agree with you that Aoba is definitely not a tsundere character – she doesn’t fit the mold of one created to fit into that type, nor does she exhibit the characteristics of a tsundere. I’m glad you commented on how much depth her character has – it’s not so simple as a transformation from one end of the spectrum to the other, nor does that ever really occur. Aoba’s personality is quite blunt – that’s not something to likely ever change – but her feelings and actions toward Ko change over time, not as a result of her heart melting toward the hero, but because of her maturing and her working through the grieving and mourning process.
Thanks for the great post!