"
"Wow! Watta fun book! You read it right-to-left and it's got such cute art..."
"STOP! You fool! It's MANGA! It turns women into quivering fanatics who wear shockingly short, Japanese school-girl uniforms!"
"Nonsense! I'd never, uh...say! What colors do they come in?"
--John Lustig, "Last Kiss"
"Oh, god, Paul," Josie said wearily as she saw her boyfriend walk into the apartment with a bag in his hands. More specifically, another bag. More specifically, another bag with 'Rising Sun Comics' on the side, not two weeks after the last time. "I thought we discussed this. In fact, there's no 'I thought'. I know we discussed this."
Paul gave her a sheepish grin. "They had a sale, Josie. Thirty percent off all manga. I'm just lucky I got there when I did, the stuff was flying off the shelves."
"Oh, for--Paul!" Josie waved her hand around the cluttered apartment. Paul's addiction to manga and anime had been an endearing quirk when they'd first started dating, but two months of being gradually crowded out of their shared apartment by DVDs, comics, and junk had made it seem less endearing and more obsessive. "We already agreed on this! There's no room for this stuff anymore, not unless we get a bigger place, and we can't afford a bigger place if you spend all your money on this...stuff!"
"It's not stuff!" Paul said, his face betraying months of frustration. "It's...Josie, if you only gave it a chance. It's not just a guy thing. Lots of women like manga."
Josie sighed. "Paul, I did give it a chance. I watched that 'Akira' thing you wanted me to see, and that 'Pat Labor' thing too. I've given it all the chances I'm willing to give, and--" She put up her hands. "You know what? We're not having this argument again. Just go back to the store, return that stuff, and try to control your...anime habit, like you promised me you would. Because this is always something we're not going to have in common, you're just going to need to accept that, and I'm not going to take a backseat to--" --she pointed to a hanging wall scroll-- "--to pictures of schoolgirls flashing their panties." She saw the look on his face. "I'm not saying you have to give it all up, but...you have to balance your hobby with your girlfriend. Unless you don't want to have both."
Paul looked down for a long time. Finally, he reached into the bag. "I'll return it all," he said. "Except this." He pulled out a small, thick book. "I bought this one for you. It's called 'Magical Omnipotent Girl Akane', the store owner recommended it when I mentioned that you, um...that you weren't really into manga." Josie could tell from his awkward tone that he probably said a lot more than that, but she let it slide. "He said that it was a really good story to get non-manga fans interested, it's really cheap, and..." He handed her the book. "Just try reading it, while I'm at the store returning everything else. Please?"
Paul's thick glasses magnified his puppy-dog eyes, and Josie decided instantly to relent. She seemed to have won on the big issue, and if all it cost her was accepting a gift from her boyfriend and reading one book, she'd do it. It seemed like a fair compromise. She opened the book to see a picture of a schoolgirl with big, liquid eyes and a vacant expression on her face, standing in front of a man in some sort of armored suit and saying, "Yes, master..." A small caption at the bottom said, 'To be continued...'
Paul must have picked up the puzzled expression on her face, because he said, "It's manga, honey. They use the original Japanese artwork, and in Japan, they read right-to-left. You have to start at the back of the book and read towards the beginning." He gave a little grin. "Little spoiler-y if you're not used to it, I guess."
Josie rolled her eyes. As if everything about the story wasn't irritating enough, now she had to read backwards? "Fine. You go to the store, I'll sit here and try to relearn how to read the English language." She plopped down on the couch, as she heard the door close.
'Magical Omnipotent Girl Akane'? Ugh. She settled in with the book, her eyes automatically reading the wrong page first on each double-spread. 'Akane' seemed to be the schoolgirl--what was with the Japanese obsession with schoolgirls? She was going through a typical day at school, or at least what Josie assumed was a typical day at school for a Japanese girl, and...gun-toting terrorists attacked. OK, that wasn't insane or anything. They took the class hostage, uh-huh, and Akane's doofy guy friend, Jinya, tried to fight back, and...oh. That's why they call her 'Omnipotent Girl'. She got caught in the cross-fire, and the bullets just bounced off of her. The terrorists all run away, but Akane...
