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Manga cheesecake: The Women of Kosuke Fujishima
Who do I love? Kosuke Fujishima. Why? Because of the way that he draws and writes women. All sorts of women - young women, adult women, older women, short women, tall women, and everyone from fashion models to muscular athletes to genius inventors to katana-wielding do-gooders to... Well, a trio of Norn Goddesses hanging around in rural Japan.
And you know what I really like about Kosuke Fujishima? Over his 20+ year-long career, he's gotten better at drawing and writing. Just look at Ah! My Goddess: in the beginning it was an incredibly stupid, sexist manga, with insipid characters and a plot that smacked of fanboy-wetdream. But it got better. It got a lot better. It started getting better when Fujishima started developing Keiichi and Belldandy's characters. And in several chapters Fujishima even made it a point to directly address the inherent sexism in the premise of the series.
But also, you know, he writes clever jokes about divine computer systems, he draws pretty people, and he writes about relationships in a refreshing and believable way. In short, Fujishima's manga is fun. And it has pretty pictures. Did I mention the pretty pictures?
A while back there was a thread on the Girl-wonder.org forums comparing vintage pinup girls to modern comic book cover art. (I cannot for the life of me find that thread again - and hell, did I search! - but trust me, it was there!) A couple of the points brought up were that the vintage pin-up girls tended to be smiling, flirtatious, inviting, playful, and tended to have healthy body weights. Whereas the comic book girls tended to be frowning, pouting, growling, or look as though they had caught you peeking at them in the middle of something private, hence increasing the sense of voyeurism. A lot of the comic book girls seemed oblivious to the viewer, whereas the vintage pinup girls were looking directly at the viewer and inviting him/her to come and play. Again with the voyeurism versus lack thereof. And that doesn't even touch the, er, "anatomy" of the comic book girls.
So I was thinking about all of that while reading my Ah! My Goddess manga, and thinking about how Fujishima's women had more in common with those vintage pinup girls than they do with their American comic book counterparts. I'd invite you to look over the following images and judge for yourself. Some of them have a sense of voyeurism, some don't. Some feature women being sexy in skimpy clothing, others... don't. If you ignore the bulbous heads, Fujishima's women tend to have far more realistic anatomy than most comic book women. Idealized, of course, and stylized according to manga conventions, but at least they're not missing internal organs.
So this is a cheesecake post, because, hell, I feel posting a bunch of pictures and babbling about them. The majority of the following images consist of chapter and tankouban covers from the last couple years of the Ah! My Goddess manga. In short, this is what passes for "pinup" artwork in the manga world. Enjoy!
Belldandy (Verthandi)
Norn of the Present. Champion enchanted broomstick racer, talented cook, and works at a motorcycle shop. The star of the series. Usually portrayed as stereotypically virginal and pure.
 circa 2006 |  2006 |  2006 |  2006 |  2006 |  2005 |
 2004 |  2003 |  2004 |  1999 |  2003 |  1994 |
This is my favorite image of Bell in a swimsuit. See what I meant about the comparitive anatomy? Yes this is an idealized supermodel body, but it's not an impossible or unhealthy ideal. She has smallish breasts that are actually stretched when she holds her arms up, instead of sitting on her chest like independent watermelons. She has flesh on her arms and legs, and does not appear to be missing any ribs. Plus, I love the pose and her facial expression. It all seems very "vintage pinup" to me. Yes, she's doing a girly private thing - caught in the middle of putting up her hair - but she's also looking directly at the viewer and smiling. Her back is arched, but that's understandable as she's actually doing something that would arch her back. (I know that I arch my back when I'm messing with my hair. It just kind of happens.) Her legs and feet are not disproportionate to her body, which is a rarity in manga artwork.
Now here are some far more exploitative pics of Bell in a swimsuit.
And Belldandy in her demon form, which, of course, is hyper-sexualized, to contrast with her pure and virginal goddess self. But that outfit does look great in an action sequence!Urd
Norn of the Past. Belldandy's bombastic, sexy older half-sister. Half-demon, half-goddess. Potions genius and pathological liar. Vain about her looks, with a tendency to dress in sexy, daring clothing. However, despite fanboy opinions to the contrary, Urd is not promiscuous: Canonically, she's only ever had one relationship. That's right, a woman can flaunt her sexiness without being a "slut".
 circa 1995 |  1995 |  1994 |  2000 |  2000 |  2000 |
 2000 |  2004 |  2004 |
Skuld
Norn of the Future. Belldandy's adolescent little sister. Mechanical genius and slightly nutty inventor. Initially spoiled and selfish, Skuld is the one character who develops and changes the most over the course of the manga. She's a little girl taking the first tenous steps growing into a woman.
 circa 2006 |  2006 |  1994 |  1999 |  2005 |  2002 |
 1996 |  2006 |
Peorth
The classical seductress. Not much to say or post here, as she is not one of my favorite characters. But there is that one OH MY GOD painting that Fujishima did of her in her swimsuit. Oh yes, here it is (scanned from a Spanish translation of the manga):
circa 2003
That piece really shows of Fujishima's trademark tendency towards strange perspective in a drawing. And it reminds me very strongly of the second Urd picture posted above. You do have a pretty good view of Peorth's butt, but really the visual emphasis in the image is on her legs and feet. Which is somewhat unusual, I think. Not showing off legs, that is, but showing them off in that pose - that's just strange. But I kind of like it.
Rind
The Valkyrie. Probably my favorite of Fujishima's character designs: a strong, muscular woman wearing an actually practical costume. Among the following images, the final two are actually in-story images of Rind (as opposed to pin-up/cover artwork), which I'm including here to show how kick-ass she is, and how awesome her costume looks in action. Also, I'm not including dates in this section because Rind has so far only appeared in the Ah! My Goddess manga during 2002 and 2003. Despite her enormous fan popularity, she hasn't been brought back to the main manga storyline since 2003. I think it's only a matter of time, however; after all, Peorth has returned to the manga twice after long absences.
 |  |  |  |
This image probably requires a bit of explanation. It's Rind, half-naked; coming out of her back are her two parasitic twin angels. This is probably the single most erotic image of Rind that Fujishima has ever drawn, and... you can't see hardly any of her, except for a bit of her bare back. 
And here's another picture of her with her twin angels. She looks so kick-ass! (*fangirls*) Other human characters
I'm going to group them all together here, just because. Takano, Megumi, Sora, and Chihiro are all unique characters who have multifaceted, well-fleshed-out personalities independent of their relationships (working or familial) with the male lead in the manga, which is... Well, hella unusual, for a bishoujo manga. They don't deserve to be all lumped together like this. But they're going to be because I'm running out of space, and this post is getting too long in the first place.
 Takano |  Takano |  Takano |  Takano |  Megumi |  Sora |
 Sora |  Sora |  Chihiro |  Chihiro |  Chihiro |
In conclusion, this is cheesecake that I can get behind. It's classy and respectful. It's sexy and fun. The girls are smiling, and in control, and aware of the viewer. Within the stylization of Fujishima's manga world, it does not depict unhealthy or bizarre bodies. (Note that the "within the boundaries of the stylization of the manga" part is important.) Most importantly, the images shown above actually reflect the characters of these ladies, rather than just interchangeable porn stars.
This concludes your dose of Fujishima cheesecake for the day. Next up: Why the ladies of Sakura Taisen are awesome. Even if Hidenori Matsubara, and not Kosuke Fujishima, is the one who created the best batch of characters in the franchise to date. ;)
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(Also, yay Chihiro pics!)
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But, as for Fujishima's drawing/writing style, I'd say he was on a peak of his abilities in 1999-2004. There were masterpieces, such as Queen Sayoko and The Devil in Miss Urd, before, but nothing really good after. His recent art style is clean and nice, but the character look soulless, imho. Hope Fujishima will pay more attention to their eyes in future.
By the way, did you "forget" about the evil ladies on purpose? The Queen, the Demon and the Queen of demons are also far away from stereotypes. :)
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I agree about the recent artwork. The alien eyes are kind of creepy. "Soulless" is a good way of putting it. Fujishima's eyes used to be so expressive! What I do like about the most recent artwork, however, is that he's putting more and more flesh and muscle on the characters.
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When he is not engaging in tons of loli-Hild innuendo, which kind of bothers me And inspires all the wrong people.
Also, I would like to third the whole "current art makes eyes look soulless and zombie-like" thing. It is especially sad since he used to draw awesomely beautiful and expressive eyes before. I kind of hope that it won't last because Bell and Urd really get the short end of the stick with this art style change.
Anyway, thanks for an awesome review/write-up/picture post. It was beautiful and well-expressed, even though I was slightly amused your section on Peorth, by the way. It's really quite hard to fit a woman who casually walks around in a black swimsuit all the time into the "Fujishima is liberating women" framework. :)
As for Urd, it's really quite amazing just how much she has changed since her first appearance, since, arguably, in the beginning she was actually intended to be seen as pretty much as slut. And now I'm struggling to imagine why would anyone even think that of her. *starts fangirling. shuts up*
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Oh, definitely. There's a reason why I didn't include the cover of Volume 30 in this post. (The volume 30 cover is like... my god, her butt is on top of her head!!!) But I didn't want to claim that all of Fujishima's art is liberating or enlightened or anything. The point is that some of it is, some of it isn't.
It's really quite hard to fit a woman who casually walks around in a black swimsuit all the time into the "Fujishima is liberating women" framework.
Well again, I didn't want to go so far as to claim that Fujishima's art was liberating women. ^^;; But Peorth... Honestly, I'm not no much bothered by her revealing outfit and sexualized character. The reason is that she's one of a cast of diverse characters. Again this goes back to a discussion that we keep having at the g-w.org forums. There's nothing wrong with a sexy female character if it's part of her personality to be sexy. What's stupid is when all female characters are sexy and there's no other option but for a female character to be default hyper-sexualized. In Ah! My Goddess there's a diverse cast of female characters, so I don't mind when Peorth steps into the "sexy" shoes, because other women in the cast demonstrate that there is more than one pair of shoes that they can wear.
But I still find her character boring and annoying for other reasons, so I didn't feel like posting any pictures of her. ;)
Urd
is awesome. YES.
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It's sad, but this actually makes me want to see what the hell there was on the cover of Vol30.
But I didn't want to claim that all of Fujishima's art is liberating or enlightened or anything. The point is that some of it is, some of it isn't.
...Plus, stuff about Peorth.
I was being silly. Don't mind me. I fully agree with your case, as far as you wanted to argue it. It was mostly me just being slightly snarky about Fujishima because while being awesome in how he treats female characters most of the time, he still invites a lot of stunningly sexist interpretations and stuff.
Again, he doesn't come close to what is seen is some of the comics, in which are just laughably oversexualised. *goes away to read g-w*
Oh, and would this be a good time to tell you that I think that none of your Takano links seem to work?
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Oh, and would this be a good time to tell you that I think that none of your Takano links seem to work?
Yes, it would be. ^^;; Er, that would be because I mistyped all of the links as "takakno." 'Tis been fixed. Thanks for the heads-up.
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However it's not as bad as some manga panels. Like this, for example. I believe the side view wouldn't look so horrible. Well, at least they're wearing trousers...
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And isn't it interesting that the Belldandy cheesecake is more, well, exploitative than the Urd drawings?
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Thank you! I also love the denim-and-motorcycle-boots look too. And the You're Under Arrest ladies are awesome, I wish that I could have included them in this post.
And isn't it interesting that the Belldandy cheesecake is more, well, exploitative than the Urd drawings?
I dunno about "more"... Maybe equally so. I didn't include any pics of Urd in her bathing suits because it's all boobs and butt... And there's that one color flap illustration of her in a bathing suit, literally crawling toward the viewer. The pose is in-character and consistent for Urd, but it's still hella exploitative.
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I've only read the first ten volumes or so of AMG (and loved them) but it always seemed like a manga with a HUGE whore/madonna complex, since it's Belldandy that Keiichi loves.
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Aha, I understand. I agree with the innocent part, but I would argue the "vulnerable" bit. Belldandy always seems to be as in control of her appearance and sexuality as Urd is, in my opinion. She chooses to be modest, but this isn't the same as her being vulnerable. If there's anything that her encounter with Aoshima demonstrates, it's that she's far from vulnerable, and is completely in charge of her own body. And what visual vulnerability is there in pictures of Belldandy is quite tame compared to the standard "vulnerable" manga character (who would be blushing, crying, and/or trying to cover herself with a towel or run away to escape the gaze of the viewer).
a HUGE whore/madonna complex
I can totally see that. ;)~ It's even worse in the anime TV series, because Ghoda projected a whole lot of personality traits on Belldandy (helplessness, clinginess, crying-at-the-drop-of-a-hat-ness, terminal wimpiness, and a desperate need to be nurtured) that are exactly the opposite of her character in the manga. And it just kept getting worse and worse until the final episode of the second season, where I felt like I was watching one of the crybaby sickly needy girls from Kanon in a Belldandy costume rather than, you know, Belldandy herself. It was a quite disturbing process to watch - seeing a female character who already fulfills the typical Japanese romantic fantasy being stripped of her strength and power to make her even more vulnerable and more needy so that she can... Er, I dunno, MORE fulfill the Japanese romantic fantasy, or something.
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I totally agree with you about how AMG has changed for the better from what it originally was. It sucks that more recently, it is primarily filler and fanservice.