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Fred Schodt has lived in Japan, has worked with some of the masters
of the comics art in that nation and has a deep knowledge of how Japan
reacts to manga and anime. His special expertise was a welcome addition
to Otakon in 1999. Much of that expertise ranges around the issue of World
War II, and how Japan and the U.S. reacted to the Allied victory. Schodt
noted that much of the Gundam saga was created by artists who were children
during the war, which may explain its militaristic feeling. On the trivial
side, Schodt said that the word "honcho" (as in "head honcho") has Japanese
roots, picked up by Americans during the occupation who had to deal with
a Japanese section chief (called a "honcho'). |
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During that occupation, Americans banned the martial arts and samurai
comics in Japan, feeling they were too militaristic. But the U.S. didn't
ban manga in general, leading to the current flood of manga that seems
to all but cover Japan every week. What Americans see is just a fraction
of the manga and anime output from Japan, Schodt said, noting that only
series that seem destined to make money reach the U.S. Those series are
generally designed to appeal to young men, he said, and the wave of girls'
comics rarely gets to America. |
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Still, "Japanese and American pop culture have merged so much that
you can't separate them," said Schodt. "Most Japanese children don't see
McDonald's (restaurants) as American, and most Americans don't see 7-11
(convenience stores) as Japanese owned. Look at a movie such as "The Matrix"
and you see Japanese influences, he noted. |
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Schodt has had the fortune to translate manga such as the works of
Masamune Shirow, who he called "a very ordinary man, a very intelligent
man." But the manga that really got him talking at Otakon was "The Rose
of Versailles" by Ryoko Ikeda, the epic story based on the French Revolution.
When Schodt took the job of translating "Rose," he had to check the history
of that 17th-century revolution to make sure he had the names spelled right.
What impressed Schodt was that most of the characters used by Ikeda were
straight from the history pages and had existed in real life - with the
notable exception of Oscar, the female soldier who dresses as a man. |
