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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.
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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. ;)
