Writing Again

Skimmed a Fullmetal Alchemist story I wrote a year and a half ago in order to write a sequel. First thought: man, I could write this better today. Which is... good, I guess, that I'm improving enough that my old work looks bad to my current eyes.

I picked up some bits of information I threw in with vague plans of a sequel. Now to do what I consider a motivation map. Which is pretty much -- 'I write down the characters and what they want out of life, and try to piece together the plot from what happens when they collide'. This is kind of my major way of writing anything longer than a short story -- most of those are powered by a simple premise/idea, rather than a vague idea about motivations and running things together until I get to a resolution.

Random Thought While Reading Library Wars...

So, I was reading Library War. For those of you who don't know the series, it's a manga where the Japanese government gives an organization wide powers to censor books... while local governments give libraries the power to protect their collections and freely distribute material. This ends with libraries and the Media Betterment Committee having para-military goons engaged in espionage, theft and sometime shooting matches. (Why hasn't the police or JSDF stepped in? Manga logic. Probably the same reason the Internet isn't playing a Wikileaks-style role and letting folks pirate everything they want. I guess I just pretend it exists in some Retro vision of the future.)

The manga adaption of Library War* is technically a shoujo (targeted to girls) series, based on where it's published. Since the plot threads are a mix of main character Iku Kasahara job as the first female member of the Library Defense Force (and duties regarding protecting books) and her own personal relationships with her roommate, the people on her team, and the Mysterious LDF Soldier who inspired her as a kid.

Actually, IIRC, Vision of Escaflowne also had the two manga adaptions pitched for different audiences, which has the same mix of action and relationship drama, though one could argue whether Hitomi or Van was the lead (or shift who got the protagonist hat based on your target audience).

Which got me thinking about how different series might look if you shifted their audience. A lot of it would just be shifting the focus on the cast -- I mean, take that classic anime of Fushigi Yuugi. Most of the cast is male, with half of the female cast being Miaka and Yui, who are non-combatants. Focus more on the aspect of protecting the priestess so she can summon Suzaku and more on Tamahome's relationships than Miaka's**, and it probably wouldn't read much different from a series in Shounen Jump. (The art would be different, too, I guess.)

You could probably do the same thing in reverse -- Bleach from Rukia or Orihime's perspective. It's not the fighting that distinguishes a shounen and a shoujo series, though there are plenty of shoujo series that are mundane relationship dramas or slice of life. (But, heck, the 'harem anime' is essentially this and pitched towards men/boys.)

I guess part of it is that it seems like non-BL shoujo and josei series are a bit marginalized by fans. Or maybe just that the shounen series get the Big Attention and Merchandise.

* At least, the one that's translated in English. Wikipedia tells me that Library War: Love and War is published in the shoujo magazine Lala, while Library War: Spitfire is published in the shounen magazine Dengeki Daioh.

** Seriously, look at the focus on friendship and camaraderie in the average shounen manga.