International Boundaries Can't Deter My Enjoyment

So I read this post, and it got me thinking about manga. I do enjoy a few manga titles, and thinking about the "whys" of that got me thinking about what my favorite mangas have in common with the American comics I enjoy. For the record, I have no beef with people who don't like manga. Everybody has types of "entertainment" that do not, in fact, entertain them. It's all cool though, the differences are what make us cool, dig? *in the background, a beatnik taps on a bongo* So let's move on.

So I just wanted to look at some of the parallels between Japanese and American comics that I enjoy, beyond the fighting, and struggling with internal conflicts related to past actions.

Rurouni Kenshin is about a man, who during a civil war, worked as a highly successful assassin, until he accidentally killed someone he cared about deeply. When the series begins, he's spent the last decade wandering Japan, using a sword that is designed not to kill (the blade is set reversed in the hilt, so the leading edge is not sharp), and helping defend those who need help. Kind of like the A-Team, but without the getting paid part, or Mr. T. But, Kenshin is constantly forced to confront his past, in the form of people who wish to challenge one known as the greatest of all, or by people who hate him for what they feel he represents (the side that won, which he greatly aided) had some nasty skeletons in their closet. Kenshin has to deal with how far he's willing to go to stop them, and resist slipping back into his old, killing ways. Plus he runs into to people who lost loved ones to his blade, and want revenge, and how is he supposed to respond to that?

It reminds me of both Batgirl and recent developments in Cable/Deadpool, as each character has been trying to change their lives, and atone for past deeds. In some ways, both those titles could be considered like seeing Kenshin's early years as a wandering swordsman. Cassandra Cain seems to be constantly dealing with the fact she was raised to be a perfect killer, and trying to make up for it, and trying to move past it, find a better way. It's harder for Deadpool, because he's been even more deeply ingrained in killing for whatever reason for years, but now he's trying to change after Cable sacrificed his life (as far as he knows), to make sure Wade was OK. Wade's trying to change, trying to do better, but he's got to deal with the skepticism of all the established heroes who know him primarily as a violent, amoral goof, and so he's got to keep working to show he's not like that anymore.

Additionally, all those titles have a theme of characters trying to find a place to belong, although when Cassandra found a place where she seemed to be doing well (Bludhaven), DC proceeded to blow it up. Well, no one ever said finding a place to belong was easy. But Kenshin had been wandering for ten years before meeting Kaoru and helping her stop the person killing people in the name of her family's school, and Deadpool has just recently found a place at Agency X, where he can work with actual friends.

The other manga title I'm a big fan of is Hellsing, which I've decided reminds me of the current Punisher MAX series. Both characters kill lots and lots of people, and do so with no real hesitation, but each character has things about them that make them more than just killing machines. Ennis has gone to great lengths to demonstrate how it was more than just three tours in the 'Nam that made Frank Castle the Punisher, it's a culmination of his childhood neighborhood, his tours of duty, the loss of his parents, the kind of kid he was, just so many things that make him a truly unique being In the last few volumes of Hellsing, Kohta Hirano's started giving us glimpses of who Alucard was before he became a vampire that kills other vampires for the Hellsing Organization, and well, he's still not a sympathetic figure, but there is a sadness about him, that for all the power he's gained, all the destruction he can bring, he's lost some very important things, and he knows he won't ever get those back. Not unlike Frank Castle.

Some time, I need to sit down and see how similar some of these series are, and how much differences in Japanese and American culture contribute to differences between them. Are they paced differently, do they present different kinds of challenges to the protagonists, things like that. Uh, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for those posts, if I were you, seeing as how I never have started the "Spider-Man: Giant Slayer" posts.