Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Manhwa: Conversations I Want To Have

Instead I want you to think about who decides what to translate and why, how they market the translation, and what all that says both about the audience receiving the translation and the people making the decision. I think it's pretty obvious that publishers decided to license manhwa because they thought it would help expand their manga market, but why did they choose to mostly acquire sunjeong and BL titles and why did they not acquire more actual bestseller titles?

Take a look at a rebuttal on manhwa's inferiority to manga (a pov since changed by the original poster) but which touches on Conversations I Want To Have

English language readers in America, over and over again, seem not to think about who chooses, and promotes the media they consume that is inspired by or merely a translation of, media elsewhere (particularly non-white media).

My examples?

1. Quentin Tarantino Presents: Hero

2. But anime characters are white.