Japanese Yet Othered
[00:00:00] Tom: In the last episode, I talked about how it felt to be a foreigner in Japan. But how does it feel to be Japanese and still be treated like a foreigner? The only country, culture, and sometimes even only language you've ever known, but you still are made to feel like you don't belong.
[00:00:15] That's what the two manga we're looking at today, " RuriDragon" and "Half Is More" are all about. So let's get into it.
[00:00:20]
[00:00:30] Tom: Hello, I'm Tom Scullin, a language teacher living in Japan, and welcome to "Like My Anime," the podcast where we use myths of homogeneity and microaggressions to talk about Japanese media, language learning, and life in Japan.
Meet RuriDragon
[00:00:43] Tom: And so yeah, first up is "RuriDragon," a 2024 manga by Masaoki Shindo and translated by Caleb D. Cook. Oh, what? Yeah. No, it's a 2022 series. So what happened was in 2022, the book came out, I think even in "Shonen Jump," the actual magazine, and basically the first volume, came out and it was a hit, but Shindo had put the book on hiatus for two years to deal with a health scare.
[00:01:13] So there's a two-year break between volume one and volume two. So it came back in 2024, and it's been mostly running every other Monday since, with a few breaks in between, here and there breaking up the book. So we're at five volumes in Japan, and I think the fourth volume is just about to come out in English. So there's a decent amount of the story that has been told, but obviously there's so much more to tell as well.
Dragon Powers At School
[00:01:44] Tom: And this one is about a average typical high school girl that wakes up one morning with dragon horns, and her mom tells her that she's half dragon.
[00:01:54] And from there, everything kinda spirals out of control. It's a little bit Kafkaesque, and she just wakes up with this transformation from day one and has to deal with going to school and navigating this whole new thing. And on top of that, she has these dragon powers that start manifesting. She can breathe fire, she can control the weather, she can create frost, and all of these things happen during the school day.
[00:02:23] In a weird way, it really reminded me of the "Baby Assassins" series of movies, in the same way that those movies take a fantastical premise of, this whole underground assassin economy just to take a really mundane look at modern working culture and working class lives in Japan.
Outcast Allegory Explained
[00:02:47] Tom: And in a, an interview Masaoki Shindo actually commented the, that the purpose of this story is for anybody that felt like the class outcast .
[00:03:00] " RuriDragon" uses its magical realism to explore what it's like to be the weird kid, and what makes kids weird is broad enough for the label to apply to mixed race kids, to immigrant kids socially inept creative kids like Shindo said he was, or any other social outcast.
[00:03:23] The allegory of waking up as half dragon can be obviously applied to mixed race kids or immigrants in Japan
[00:03:30] But yeah, Ruri is a dragon.
[00:03:33] Ruri is dangerous. She poses an actual threat to her classmates. So on some level, the students that don't like her, the students that are scared of her, the students that don't want anything to do with her are justified in a way that we don't see in the other book we're gonna talk about, "Half Is More."
[00:03:53] But this could be also the first time a junior high schooler or a high schooler is thinking about what it means to be different in society and what it means to not fit in for whatever reason. And then maybe, yeah, if they have a mixed race friend or, or a friend from another country, they could see that person in a, a whole new light and understand what they're struggling with in a way that maybe wasn't clear before reading this.
Belonging And Identity
[00:04:21] Tom: But yeah, throughout the first few volumes, Ruri refuses to go live with the dragons. She's not really interested in anything to do with her father. She doesn't know him.
[00:04:31] It's always just been her and her mom. So she doesn't really have any interest in, in being a dragon. And that really helps highlight that anyone born and raised in Japan is culturally Japanese, whatever their blood is.
[00:04:44] But yeah, this series is mostly just slice of life cute girls doing cute things, minus the dragon stuff. Making it kind of a perfect way to introduce people to mixed kids' lives and whatever difficulties that they might not understand.
[00:05:00] Shindo does a great job of capturing modern daily life with slang and naturalistic dialogue
[00:05:07] Also, Ruri's just got the best fashion sense. Like she could probably even give Momo Ayase from "Dandadan" a run for her money, but also looks like any teen girl you'd see around town.
[00:05:21] And for a couple chapter covers, it looks like Masaki Shindo took direct inspiration from the singer and TV personality Ano-chan.
[00:05:29] The, the whole series feels almost documentarian other than this one little thing, other than the dragon stuff, it is just a daily life story of a high school girl trying to manage being bad at school and social relationships and all these other things.
Social Friction And Bias
[00:05:47] Tom: In volume one and two Shindo starts to hint at the different ways Ruri is unsociable, and maybe pointing to the fact that sometimes with immigrants and mixed race people, it genuinely is racism, xenophobia, ignorance. But sometimes it's a personal hatred.
[00:06:07] And Ruri has an interaction with a classmate, Maeda, early on that kind of goes to show that she's-- yeah, people are scared of the dragon stuff, but also she's just bad at socializing with other people, and she's just really not great at, like, remembering people's names or put- doing the things that seem like you're putting in the effort on your end to socialize with other people
[00:06:32] Yeah, if, If I had to measure its, the strength of its allegory in terms of kids movies I would probably put it closer to "Elemental" rather than "Zootopia" or "Harry Potter," where with Zootopia, the issue is that the predators are fundamentally dangerous to the prey animals. And that gets into some, like, biological essentialism stuff. And, with "Harry Potter," it's the same sort of thing where bad people are, like, intrinsically bad. They are fundamentally genetically bad people, and everything happens on an individual level, and there are no structures or systems that make people bad or, or make good people less effective or anything sort of like that.
[00:07:15] It's just the good people are good, the bad people are bad, and that's the end of the story. Uh, whereas with "RuriDragon" and even "Elemental," it's more of a, a dr- human drama level interpersonal relationship driven story. These issues of, of not fitting in and not being able to socialize can be structural, but it can be interpersonal too
[00:07:38] Like the girl Ruri had trouble with, Maeda she admits that aside from the slit pupils, the dragon stuff doesn't bother her. In fact, she really likes dragons. But just R-Ruri's personality was what was causing her problems.
[00:07:54] Like, Maeda is kind of a prick, and Ruri has basically no self-esteem even before the dragon stuff. Ruri is just consumed by the idea that other people don't like her, stressing about how other people perceive her even before the dragon stuff happens. We, we don't... As readers, we don't see anything before, but it's alluded to that she was like this before, she just became a dragon one day.
Mixed Race Realities
[00:08:18] Tom: maybe this could be the more modern or contemporary experience for people who are mixed race in Japan or at least half white or half Asian where you don't really stick out, and even if you stick out, it's something people praise you for.
[00:08:35] Like I know with my kids people are always very quick to compliment how they're very cute or being half white is seen as, As a benefit, like an upgrade, whereas that definitely is not true for being, say, half Black in Japan. That is not something that people would aspire to or, or be, I guess in the, in the sense that how people are scared of Ruri, maybe that's closer to the s- the half Black experience.
[00:09:04] And I guess along the lines of is this allegory helpful or harmful, "get yourself out there so everyone sees you're not scary" is a recurring theme and does make sense probably to Japanese people or to the majority. But is probably the last thing a mixed race Japanese person or foreign-born resident wants to do here in Japan
[00:09:29] but yeah, ultimately I really like this series, and I planned on only reading the first volume for this episode, but binged all five over about three days and so yeah I think it's a great story.
[00:09:40] I think it's a great look at modern Japan And a great source of contemporary conversational Japanese that also could maybe give a little bit of an introduction to what it means to be foreign or half Japanese in Japan
Introducing Half Is More
[00:09:57] Tom: But the next book I wanna look at, "Half Is More" by Yoiko Fujimi and translated by David Evelyn, is 100% the half-Japanese experience in Japan. Fujimi herself is half Spanish and half Japanese, and the book was created by both her own personal experiences and interviewing many other half Japanese and foreign residents in Japan.
[00:10:25] And the story itself is an anthology following Kazumi Mandanda Yoneyama, who is half Japanese. Her mother is Japanese and her father is French. So she's half Japanese and half Black
Microaggressions In Fukuoka
[00:10:37] Tom: And the, the first chapter is from her perspective, meeting with her brother who is informing her that he's had his name changed. And because one of the panels in the manga, it was great. They show how their name doesn't fit on whatever, like, city hall document she was trying to fill in, and that's completely true.
[00:10:58] Anybody with a middle name or two last names or anything that is other than the first name, last name standard for Japan who's come to fill out anything at city hall knows the struggle. The struggle is real if you have a, a very long name. So I could understand why he wanted to take his father's last name out of his name.
[00:11:20] But obviously Kazumi is very mad about that.
[00:11:23] And from there it shows how she is accosted by just random people all the time asking where she's from, how her Japanese is so good, and they speak in a very thick dialect Hakata-ben, Hata- Hakata dialect from Kyushu, because Kazumi is from Fukuoka.
[00:11:44] And so that dialect is actually, especially with women, it's seen as very, very cutesy and a-adorable dialect. So one of her friends, when she's trying to confide in her Japanese friend she just gets the feeling that she doesn't really understand what Kazumi is going through because she can't.
[00:12:06] So the first chapter is pretty, pretty angry, and I can understand how this whole book could have been very, very angry. In my last episode about the changes to immigration and the changes in, just the vibe of Japan right now, towards foreigners. There was a couple of different drafts where it was a lot angrier, and I could understand how this book could have been very, very angry.
Friends Perspectives Expand
[00:12:31] Tom: But then the other friends are introduced, and her, Kazumi's friends are, one is half American, a white American, one is half Chinese, one is half Filipino.
[00:12:44] And they all commiserate together on their experiences in Japan. And each chapter from there takes the perspective of different, characters within the friend group, and even different characters within those friends' kind of orbit. Saeko, her mother is Chinese, and that, the chapter after hers is her client.
[00:13:05] She's a hairdresser, so her client, when, Saeko was dyeing her hair, made a thoughtless comment about Chinese people, as many Japanese are wont to do. And the kind of ramifications in her head of like spiraling out of control, "Oh God, I had no idea she was half Chinese. I can't believe I said such an inconsiderate thing."
[00:13:23] But yeah, we don't have time to get into a lot of the different racisms that are kind of on display here. So yeah, people genuinely do make offhanded comments about Chinese people, and with Kazumi we definitely do not have time to get into the colorism in Japan to start, but Asia as a whole.
[00:13:44] And yeah, the, the thing that stuck out to me, the just the level of detail to these microaggression-y interactions, that will-- that feel true to life, whether you're, you're mixed race Japanese or a foreigner living in Japan, it really hit home.
[00:13:59] I do kinda wanna stress that being a foreigner in Japan is a different experience to being mixed race in Japan. And Saeko's chapter goes into that, of how she feels growing up as half Japanese, half Chinese, and how if you look at her, she's no different from anybody else. Her mom's no different from anybody else.
[00:14:20] But they still are treated differently, and how she felt like she couldn't confide in either of her parents, her mom or her dad, because neither of them really understood what she was going through as, mixed race Japanese. And for me as, as a parent, I was reading it and dreading that one day my, my kids will feel the same way, that they can't talk to me about what's going on.
[00:14:44] They can't confide in me. They resent me for making them different. And, I'm sure that's gonna be a conversation we have one day. And, hopefully for reading this series, I'll be more prepared to talk it through and, and give them some words of wisdom from somebody else.
[00:15:01] And kind of to that point, I, I think this book does a very good job of not getting into, like oppression Olympics, 'cause looking at all the friends, obviously Kazumi has it the roughest and Saeko can kind of blend in. But it shows everybody's struggles, everybody's perspective. E- even people, even full Japanese people, their perspective and how people are dealing with even incidental, accidental racism and xenophobia
[00:15:33] Like, o-one of the most interesting chapters was that Client being unintentionally super racist to someone who was Chinese, and how she struggled and mulled it over and stressed about the situation.
Systems Schools And Disability
[00:15:47] Tom: She talked to one of her frie- her own friends about it, of, "What should I do?
[00:15:51] What should I do?" And that friend talked about how their sister has, a developmental disability and got into how Japan doesn't really deal with people with disabilities very well either. To the point that w- 10 years ago, there was a, a mass stabbing at a group home for people with developmental disabilities, and referenced that massacre and then, yeah, Lucia's chapter was all about how because she's her mom is Filipino, there's assumptions that the dad met her mom at a a Filipino pub or a snack bar, which are like... Japan has fuzzy laws around prostitution anyway, but the, these, these bars are one step above soaplands or, or these other things that aren't quite brothels.
[00:16:38] And then the final chapter in volume one is about Lucia's half-sister who goes to elementary school, and that was also a really cool look at... yeah, I mean, it, it's awful 'cause Japan doesn't have any sort of Japanese as a second language educational curriculum or teachers that are able to teach it.
[00:16:58] Like my, my whole teaching degree, my teaching credential, my teaching license, and my degree is teaching ESL, so, uh, as a second language, so teaching to immigrants that come to in my case, America. And there is no equivalent here in Japan, like at the elementary school I'm at this year they just stuck a bunch of the kids that can't speak Japanese to their grade level in special ed because that's all they got.
[00:17:23] Because there is no Japanese as a second language teacher, and seeing Alexandra is her name. Seeing Alexandra and another boy from Peru interact with their translator or inter-interact with their, their teacher that's meant to teach them Japanese was really cute. And, and seeing them both kind of struggle to interact with each other was very, very cute too.
[00:17:43] And it was just a cool look at kind of a, a terrible system that doesn't help the people it's meant to be helping.
Food Manga Joy
[00:17:50] Tom: But also, yeah, Yoiko Fujimi loves manga herself.
[00:17:53] She rightfully loves Hiromu Arakawa, the author of "Fullmetal Alchemist," "Silver Spoons," a bunch of others. And then she's a, a self-described foodie otaku, and the panels of describing the food that these women are eating, is amazing.
[00:18:11] The detail, it looks just straight out of "Solitary Gourmet," and it can give you a bunch of good recommendations for food and, and sake and a bunch of other things. So yeah, I do love this book. It is amazing. I'm looking forward to getting the next volume when it's ready.
Comparing Both Manga
[00:18:30] Tom: But yeah, let's, let's try to look at the two side by side.
[00:18:33] So I think it, it was a little bit of a cop-out to compare these two books. "Half Is More" is explicitly a mixed race experience in Japan, where "Ruri Dragon" could be, it could be allegorically trying to represent the same sort of thing, but maybe with less knowledge. Masaoki Shindo cares deeply.
[00:18:58] I can tell from the story he's writing in "Ruri Dragon," he cares deeply for the underdog, for people that don't quite fit in society. Whereas Yoiko Fujimi is someone who doesn't fit in society, and that kind of comes through in the tone of their stories, too. "Ruri Dragon" is more fun... it's a more enjoyable read, where " Half Is More" is a more cathartic read for anybody who's not quite fit in Japanese society.
[00:19:27] I'm not gonna really bother with the fake outrage that's happened around the release of the English translation for "Half Is More." There's an Isaiah D. Colbert article for Aftermath and he does a great rundown of the supposed controversy around this release, and I'll link that in the description.
[00:19:48] And suffice to say that " Half Is More" is a good title for this book.
Final Recommendations
[00:19:55] Tom: But yeah, I think both of these series, "RuriDragon" and "Half Is More" are worth a check out.
[00:20:01] I think "RuriDragon" is gonna be more fun and light and just daily life moe, cute girls. And "Half Is More" is a character drama and driven by this pain and hurt and, true life experiences that make it feel, feel more real. And, both of these actually won awards and are highly praised and very popular here in Japan, especially "Half Is More."
[00:20:28] This is a very popular book here in Japan. It's won awards. It was the Kono Manga ga Sugoi yearly guidebooks, winner for women's manga of the year last year. That's how I found out about it and started reading it. So yeah, these are, these are amazing books, and I think you should definitely check both of them out and go check out, see if your local library has a copy of each.
Closing Thanks
[00:20:50] Tom: But yeah, that's our show, and thank you for listening to "Like My Anime!" If you didn't catch my previous episode on what's been going on in Japan, there'll be a link in the description and links to everything we talked about today. But for now, thank you so much for exploring Japanese media with me, and I hope you have a great day
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